Chapter 57

FIFTY-SEVEN

Lottie sat at her desk and checked in with Rose again. Still no news. Sean and Louis were fine. She knew she had to keep busy, while all the time her heart was shredding itself into tiny fragments.

She tried to assess everything she had learned from the two interviews. Both men would have to be released. She had no hard evidence of any wrongdoing on their part. They couldn’t be held on her instinct alone. Was it possible that Dowling had made the coins? How could she obtain a search warrant for his shed? Not a shred of evidence placed him at any of the murder scenes, and gut feeling wouldn’t convince a judge. Unless she returned to soft-soap Vera Dowling. Boyd was good at that kind of thing.

‘Boyd!’

He limped in.

‘You need to come with me to Dowling’s house. I want you to talk nice to Vera. Make her tea or whatever while I have a snoop in the garden shed.’

‘Are you crazy?’ He leaned wearily against the door jamb. ‘I think you took a harder bang to the head than I did.’

‘You’ll have to work your charm and get her to give us permission.’

‘Lottie, you’re not thinking straight. We have so much other stuff to be doing.’

She stood. ‘Are you coming with me, or are you just going to stand there feeling sorry for yourself?’

Harsh words, because he really did look awful.

‘I’ve no choice, I suppose.’

Kirby popped in to Whyte’s Pharmacy. The assistant, Trisha, said Megan had left to get something to eat before the late shift.

‘When will she be back?’

‘We’re open until nine, so she should be back soon.’ She checked the clock hanging above the door. ‘Maybe fifteen minutes. Do you want to wait?’

‘No, I’m busy.’ He thought quickly. ‘Don’t tell her I called.’

‘Sure.’

At the door he said, ‘Do you think she went home for her break?’

Trisha shrugged her shoulders.

He had to talk to Megan. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said.

Outside, he felt the dark of the afternoon sitting heavily on his shoulders. He missed Gilly at times like this. Her comforting words or silly remarks. He wondered how his boss was able to function not knowing where her daughters were. God, he didn’t want to think the worst. They’d be fine. But in his heart, he felt they were not.

‘Damn it,’ he said. Jumping into the car he’d parked on double yellow lines, he headed for Megan’s house.

This time Mrs Dowling was more accommodating. Boyd turned on his magic smile and made tea. He arranged a blanket around her knees. She told him he could call her Vera.

Once he’d succeeded in getting the television sound turned down, he said, ‘Vera, is it okay for my inspector to take a look around?’

‘I don’t like her,’ Vera whispered conspiratorially. ‘But I’ve nothing to hide.’ She looked up at Lottie. ‘You’re not to take anything.’

‘I won’t.’

Lottie grabbed a shiny new key from a hook in the kitchen. Opening the lock on the shed door, she entered the cold, damp space. Finding a string for the light, she pulled it and surveyed the equipment in front of her. With gloved hands she lifted a square of sheet metal. It was similar in weight and colour to the coins they’d found with the bodies, including the body in the tunnel.

Scanning the workbench, she noticed woodturning equipment but nothing that resembled what she thought might be used to pound medals or coins out of the sheet metal. As she looked around, her eyes were drawn to a gap on the bench. A hole had been bored into the wood, and as she ran her hand carefully around the bottom of it, tiny shards of metal came away on her fingertips. She held them up to the light, where they glinted.

Where was the machine that had fitted in here? She’d have to call SOCOs to take samples to compare with the coins found at the crime scenes. There was nothing further of interest, so she made her way through the wet grass and went back inside.

She smiled at Boyd’s strained face. Torture, she thought. He didn’t deserve that. Time to rescue him. ‘Mrs Dowling, does anyone else have access to Conor’s shed?’

‘His workshop, you mean. That lad was always hammering or cutting something out there. All hours of the night. He had dreams of becoming an architect once upon a time. Before you lot framed him.’ Her eyes slid into slits.

Lottie was undeterred. ‘An architect?’

‘He worked part-time as an apprentice for that Cyril Gill before he ended up in prison.’

Now that Vera said it, Lottie vaguely remembered it from the Thompson case.

‘There seems to be a piece of equipment missing. Do you know who might have taken it?’ If Conor hadn’t dumped it himself, she thought.

‘He was giving out loads when he came home from prison. Saying I’d let someone into the shed. He never said anything was missing, though.’

‘So who did have access to it?’

‘I never let anyone take nothing. Are you saying I did? Are you accusing me?’

‘No, I’m not.’ Lottie dug her fingers into the palms of her hands. ‘Who comes in and out of your house?’

‘The Meals on Wheels crowd. The community nurse, though she hasn’t called in ages.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘Conor’s friend Tony. He helped me out a bit. With shopping and the like. That nice wife of his called once. Lovely girl.’

‘Megan Price?’

‘Oh, is she not called Keegan? They were married, you know.’

‘I think they’re separated, or else she never changed her name,’ Lottie said. Maybe she needed to check that out, but she had more pressing matters at the moment. ‘Were they ever here together? Megan and Tony.’

‘Not that I can think of straight off.’

‘When was the last time either of them called?’

‘I can’t remember that.’

This was going nowhere. ‘Did Conor ever say something was missing from his workshop?’

‘All that lad does is moan since he came home.’ Vera slapped her walking stick on the floor.

‘Mrs Dowling,’ Lottie said, ‘I have to get someone from our forensic team to examine the workshop. There may be evidence there linked to a crime.’

‘I knew it. You!’ Vera pointed the stick at Boyd. ‘With your smiles and your tea, chatting me up so I’d let that woman snoop around my house. Trying to catch me off guard. Do you know what? I may have let you look once, but if you want men in white suits to come in here, they better have a warrant. Now leave, both of you. And don’t come back. Stitching my boy up again. Corrupt. That’s what you are. You guards are all the same.’

Lottie and Boyd escaped before Vera Dowling could slam her stick into either or both of them.

‘For a woman with chronic arthritis,’ Boyd said, ‘she sure has strength.’