Chapter 86

86

The team gathered in the incident room when Garda Lei and Lottie returned from the McGovern house. She knew she should report them to child services, but she had enough on her plate as it was. Hopefully they'd learned their lesson. She'd get Lei to keep an eye on them.

She outlined her visit before barking out orders.

‘Garda Lei and Detective Kirby, contact every taxi firm in town. I want to know which firms were working on Thursday night, plus the names of their drivers. I also want their clock-in and out times.'

Boyd said, ‘Maybe it was a cab customer, not a driver, that the boy saw carrying the body.'

‘Didn't think of that. That could be problematic, but see if we can get details of taxis that took that route on Thursday night.'

McKeown entered the fray with his tuppence worth. ‘Do we even know for sure it was a taxi that the boy saw?'

Lottie thought about that for a moment. ‘He seemed to be certain it was, because a girl, Maggie something, gets dropped to school in one every day.'

‘Some kids have the life of Riley,' Kirby said.

Boyd checked his phone. ‘Time's getting on and I should go pick up Sergio.'

‘Give Amy a call,' Kirby said. ‘She'll be able to keep him a bit longer.'

Lottie turned her attention back to McKeown. ‘You scrutinised the CCTV in that area. Why didn't this taxi or car or whatever the boy saw show up?'

‘I found the kid, didn't I?' he said petulantly.

‘I'm not criticising. I'm only asking.' Why was she even apologising? She was his boss, for God's sake.

McKeown looked at Lei's photocopied notes, yet to be typed up. ‘The kid says it was parked under a tree. We need to find that tree and search the area. There was a power outage at the soccer club, so that's why the car wasn't picked up on their CCTV.'

‘Take Garda Brennan with you and carry out a search of the area.'

‘It's getting late,' Martina said, immediately displaying unhappiness with her pairing.

‘Take a quick look for now. If you find anywhere that appears suspicious, cordon it off until morning.'

‘Sure,' the young garda said sulkily, snapping shut her notebook.

Lottie scanned her own hurried notes. ‘The lab report on the clay? Anyone got any bright ideas on that?'

‘Lab technicians are doing further tests,' Boyd said.

‘Keep on to them,' she said. ‘Also, will you do a background check on the McGovern family, please? They mentioned complaints they've made against Gordon Collins. I want to be sure that's true. I don't like coincidences.'

‘Will do.'

Garda Lei put up his hand. ‘Can I make a suggestion?'

‘By all means,' Lottie said, and flopped onto a chair by the incident boards.

‘This has to do with John Morgan, and I know we haven't mentioned him but I… ehm… just…'

‘Everything is on the table, Lei. Go ahead.'

‘Right. Okay. Well, Benny McGovern said he knew we had been at his house earlier because of the camera doorbell. We got some footage from the Pine Grove residents. I think we should check it, especially the devices from those who live close to the show home. We might catch something of John Morgan or his killer.'

Lottie stood. ‘Have we not done that already?'

McKeown said, ‘With Laura's murder there was a lot to go through and I haven't got to it yet.'

‘Morgan's murder was a few days ago,' Boyd said, ‘but how can a doorbell camera help us?'

‘Most are linked to the customer's phone,' McKeown said, ‘and the images get backed up to the cloud. Depending on the camera's zoom range, we might catch something.'

‘As soon as you can, I want you to check it. Now, has anyone anything else to add?'

A group mumble and chairs being pushed back told her it was time to finish up.

‘Shannon is still missing,' Kirby said.

‘I'll go talk with her brother.'