Chapter 60

SIXTY

There were no lights on in the house up ahead as Boyd turned off the main road and made his way up the unlit avenue.

‘It’s as dark and forbidding as the first time we were here.’

‘That was a year ago, Boyd.’

‘I know, but some things imprint themselves on your brain and you can never erase them.’

‘I’m not listening to that shite.’ Lottie jumped out of the car almost before he had the brake on.

He followed her with two torches he’d taken from the boot. ‘Are you going to ring the bell?’

‘I’ve a key. Somewhere.’ She twiddled her key ring around in her hand, trying to find the right one.

‘How come you have that?’

‘It’s my biological grandmother’s home. The solicitor gave me the key and asked me to keep an eye on it while probate is being conducted.’

‘You never told me that.’

‘Jesus Christ, Boyd. I don’t tell you everything.’ She found the correct key, and after a couple of nervous tries, it slid it into the new lock that had been fitted after Kitty Belfield had died.

‘Have you been out here at all since … you know?’

‘No. Shush.’

Stepping onto the cold stone floor, Lottie listened to the door creak open and felt Boyd’s soft breath on her neck. In different circumstances she would have welcomed his closeness, the safety of having him by her side. But her daughters’ lives were at stake, and all she could think about was that they might be here. With Leo and Bernie. Whether Leo was in cahoots with Bernie was something she would soon find out.

‘This way. I see a faint light,’ she whispered.

‘What’s down there?’

‘The kitchen.’

She edged along the wall towards the room at the end, where a thin shaft of light seeped from beneath the door. She wondered what awaited her.

With one hand on the handle, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

‘Sweet Mother of Jesus,’ Boyd exclaimed.

‘Holy shit,’ Lottie said once she could form the words.

The ambulance rushed with sirens and flashing lights down the avenue while Lottie and Boyd waited for SOCOs. Bernie Kelly was no longer on the run. No longer in the wind. No longer a threat to Lottie’s family. She lay curled on the floor, hardened froth on her lips and her eyes hysterically open in death.

Leo had knife wounds to his upper chest, but he was conscious, his phone in his hand. There was no sign of Katie or Chloe, and no evidence that they had been in the house.

Lottie’s phone rang.

‘What’s up, McKeown?’

‘I can’t locate Kirby anywhere. He’s not answering his phone.’

‘Did you try the pubs?’ Boyd said into Lottie’s ear, for McKeown’s benefit.

‘We’re on our way back into town,’ Lottie said. ‘Be there in five minutes.’

She hung up and walked quickly out of the house to the car.

‘Give me the keys,’ she said to Boyd. ‘I need to concentrate on something before I go out of my mind trying to figure out what Bernie was doing.’

‘I think it’s obvious. She wanted to wipe out all of her siblings.’

‘Okay, but I’m still alive, and so is Leo.’ She started the car as Boyd hauled his long legs into the passenger footwell.

‘But she might have thought Leo was dead. And you …’

‘She’s done something to Chloe and Katie. That’s how she wants me to suffer.’

She gunned the engine, and with gravel flying into the damp night air, she left Farranstown House with the body of her half-sister lying dead on a cold stone floor.

The office was abuzz with noise, heat and anxiety. No one had any idea where Kirby had got to. Lottie sat at his desk and flicked though the open documents on his computer, trying to find an answer.

‘What did the pharmacy staff say?’ she asked.

McKeown said, ‘Just that he called in looking to speak to Megan Price, and when he was told she was on her break, he left.’

‘Where does she go for her break?’

‘Sometimes she eats in town, other times she goes home.’

‘Did you get her number?’

‘Yes. Goes straight to voice message.’

‘Why haven’t you brought her in? Where does she live? Did you call to her home?’

McKeown sighed. ‘I haven’t called out there yet. This was on Kirby’s desk.’

Lottie took the photocopied page. It was from Penny Brogan’s appointment book. One name was highlighted in a yellow circle. Megan Price.

‘When I was in the pharmacy,’ McKeown said, ‘I had a look around too. I asked if Amy had a locker. An assistant, Trisha I think her name was, said Detective Kirby had asked about it early in the week, but he hadn’t looked in it.’

‘And you did?’ Lottie balled her hands into fists. She hoped Kirby hadn’t fucked up.

McKeown dropped an evidence bag of clothing on the desk. And then another, with a pink-covered notebook.

‘What’s that?’ Lottie pulled protective gloves from a drawer and dragged them over her sweaty hands. She took out the notebook and opened it to a page that had a corner turned down. ‘This is about the night Louise and Amy saw Conor Dowling. Amy says they came out of the teenage disco in Jomo’s and were waiting to be picked up when someone ran by them wearing a baseball cap. Louise said she recognised it as belonging to Conor Dowling, who worked as an apprentice for her father.’

‘Bill Thompson’s house is only a stone’s throw away from the nightclub, if you take the railway underpass by the canal,’ Boyd said.

‘But why was Dowling coming that way?’ That had always bothered Lottie. ‘If he had committed the crime, wouldn’t he have been running a million miles from town?’

‘I suppose so,’ Boyd agreed. ‘But in the heat of the moment, maybe he became disorientated and ran towards town instead of away.’

‘I don’t think the girls made a mistake that night. I think they did see Conor Dowling.’

‘That was agreed at trial.’

‘Yes. But what if he had committed a different crime, and that’s why he never gave an alibi for the Thompson assault and robbery?’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘I think Dowling had something to do with the body in the tunnel. That’s where he was running from. Not from Thompson’s. He came up through a tunnel. Either the one we were at earlier, or one nearby.’

‘So did he kill our victims or not?’

‘Whoever killed Amy and Penny had knowledge of the tunnels. From McKeown’s work on the CCTV, we can deduce that the murderer used a tunnel to either hide, make a getaway or stash the murder weapon.’

‘So who would know about it?’

‘Tony Keegan. He’s worked for Gill for twenty years. He had to know. He’s friends with Dowling, who may have told him.’

‘So you think Keegan beat up and robbed his future wife’s stepfather?’ McKeown said.

Lottie threw down the notebook and wrenched the heels of her hands into her eyes. None of this was bringing her any closer to her daughters’ whereabouts, but she was convinced the original Thompson case held the key. She just had to find it.

‘First things first. Give me Megan Price’s address. I’m going to see if Kirby is there. Then we’ll bring Dowling and Keegan back in. Boyd, you’re with me.’