‘His mum talks glowingly of him. But she’s in shock, plus you and I both know mothers don’t always see the whole picture.’
Was that a veiled barb? Lottie parked the thought. ‘Tell me what she had to say, and then we can see if friends and neighbours can corroborate it.’
‘Hard-working boy,’ Lynch said. ‘Good at school, though his summer exams saw his grades slip somewhat. But it was his last year in primary and Jen says he was still adjusting to the idea of moving on to secondary school. Active in sports and on his PlayStation. Gaming and football seemed to be his interests.’
‘That’s normal for an eleven-year-old,’ Lottie said. ‘I should know.’ And in a moment of whimsy, she wished she could go back to the time before Sean was eleven. When her family was secure and complete. When Adam was alive.
Lynch said, ‘Thought it was hurling your boy’s into?’
Lottie shook herself out of her memories. ‘You know what I mean.’ She heard Boyd snigger, and folded her arms. ‘Mikey Driscoll is our concern. Anything stand out in recent weeks? Any trouble or fights at home?’
‘All hunky-dory, according to Jen. She last saw Mikey on Sunday afternoon, before he headed out to meet up with his teammates for his match. She went to bingo and says she won twenty euros. Came home, shared a bottle of Merlot with Dolores, her neighbour. She believed Mikey was at Toby’s house like he’d told her, and went to work the next morning. She’s an instructor at Sweat-It-Out gym. Says she didn’t normally contact Mikey when he was at a friend’s house. He needed his space away from her every so often. That’s what she said.’
‘He was only eleven,’ Boyd said.
‘Welcome to the new world,’ Lottie told him. ‘Any bullying?’
‘Jen doesn’t think so. Just said that he was adjusting to the idea of leaving primary school. Might be something between the lines there. I’ll dig a little deeper today.’
‘Do that,’ Lottie said. ‘I’ll have another word with Toby Collins. We need every member of the football team questioned, plus the spectators who were at the match and anyone associated with the team. How are those inquiries coming along?’
‘Nothing to report so far,’ Boyd said.
Kirby coughed. ‘I’ve been wondering about something.’
‘Sounds dangerous,’ Boyd said.
‘Go on,’ Lottie said, ignoring him.
Kirby shuffled his bulk up to the incident board, running a hand through his bushy hair. He studied the photograph of the boy’s body by the clubhouse wall. Then he pointed to another photo of the body, this one taken from a few steps back.
‘There are three industrial-sized bins here,’ he said. ‘Two for rubbish and one for recycling. Why not just put the body in a bin? There’d be less chance of discovery if he had been pushed down beneath the refuse sacks.’
Lottie walked up and down in front of the boards. ‘The killer wanted the boy found. I think he’s sending a message. If so, what is it?’
Her words echoed off the walls as the room descended into thoughtful silence.
Lynch broke it. ‘You’re assuming the killer is a man. I think we need to take a long, hard look at Mikey’s mother.’
‘We’ll be looking at everyone associated with Mikey,’ Lottie said, her voice steely. ‘Lynch, make sure the father, Derek Driscoll, really is in Dubai. We need to trace Mikey’s steps from when he left his home on Sunday afternoon. Kirby, go over the official statements from the teenagers who found the body.’ She thought for a moment. ‘When were those bins last used?’
Kirby said, ‘The clubhouse was open on Sunday night. Apparently, there was a twenty-first birthday party held there a few hours after the boys’ match. Empties from the bar and rubbish were put in the bins. The next event is this coming Saturday night and the clubhouse is closed until then. No matches or training scheduled for this week, therefore the only people using the grounds are youngsters like Fonzie and company.’
‘Once the post-mortem on Mikey is finished, we’ll have a clearer timeline to work with.’ Lottie paused. ‘But we need to interview everyone who was at that party Sunday night. We know Mikey was still alive around nine p.m., because he was seen in McDonald’s. Check the clubhouse security footage and see if the cameras captured anything suspicious. Surely one of them picked up the body being dumped. Can you drive a car up to the clubhouse?’
‘Yes.’ Kirby consulted his notes. ‘The refuse truck has to get in there to empty the bins.’
‘Check in with SOCOs and see if they’ve found anything. And grab the footage from McDonald’s and anything else you can get from the businesses along the street.’
‘Will do,’ Kirby said.
‘I’m heading to Tullamore for the post-mortem.’
‘Will I go with you?’ Boyd said.
‘You need to see if there’s any progress on the search for Hope Cotter and—’
Her words were cut off by the shrill ringing of one of the incident room phones. She waited while Boyd answered it.
Not liking the look on his face as he hung up, she said, ‘What is it?’
‘We have another body.’
Twenty-Nine
Ladystown Lake was about seven kilometres from Ragmullin. A fisherman had found the body there at 7.45 a.m. There’d been no attempt to hide it. The boy had been left lying on a flat stone by the lake shore, in a private mooring area that was only accessible if you had a code to the gate.
Lottie made her way through a group of uniformed gardaí as Kirby and Lynch started interviewing the fishermen. Suited up in her protective gear, she felt perspiration bubble between her breasts, the underwired bra eating into her flesh. The sun was hardly awake yet, and already the temperature was nudging towards twenty degrees. A flock of birds in the trees above her head competed in a cacophony of song with the hum of voices beneath them.
A couple of SOCOs arrived, but there was no sign of their team leader, Jim McGlynn. Lottie hadn’t the patience to hang around while they got the equipment sorted to erect a tent, so she breached the crime-scene tape and approached the body. Boyd walked in tandem with her.
‘McGlynn would expect you to wait for him,’ he said.
‘What are you now, my mother?’
‘I’ll keep my mouth shut, so.’
‘That’d be nice for a change.’ She paused two feet from the stone slab and scrutinised the body. ‘Jesus, Boyd. It’s similar to the boy yesterday.’
I’m not sure I can handle much more of this, she thought as her heart lurched in her chest. One, two, three, she counted. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. When she felt the palpitations simmer down, she made her way forward.
The boy was lying on his back, and she could see he was young. Maybe eleven or twelve. Naked except for a pair of football shorts. His tightly cropped ginger hair glinted like sharp spikes under the rising sunshine. Wild flowers circled his head. Similar to the flowers where Mikey Driscoll had been found.
She shivered as if a shard of ice had pierced her heart. This boy reminded her of her brother. Eddie had been that age when she’d last seen him, over forty years ago. An imp. Cheeky and carefree. That was until their father had taken his own life. Or had he been murdered too? She had yet to get to the truth of that story. If her father hadn’t died, how would Eddie have turned out? What would his life have been like if he hadn’t been consigned to that institution of horror and murdered at the hands of a paedophile priest? She knew the blame did not all rest with her father’s suicide. One day she would discover the full truth.
‘Are you okay?’ Boyd said.
She quickly shrugged off the shadow of the past, which was closing over her like an advancing avalanche, and concentrated on the boy in front of her.
‘His neck is broken,’ Boyd said, circling the stone.
‘Thanks, Sherlock.’ She moved anticlockwise and met him at the boy’s head. ‘He’s so clean … almost as if he’s been washed. I doubt we’ll find any DNA worth talking about.’ She pointed. ‘Look there. Bruising on his
upper arms.’
She heard a commotion behind her.
‘Get out of my crime scene.’
Jim McGlynn appeared, panting and suited up, mask in place, sharp green eyes dancing with fire.
‘Just having a cursory look,’ Lottie said. ‘The boy’s mouth is hanging slack. Check inside for any foreign fluids.’
‘I know my job without you having to tell me how to do it.’ McGlynn opened his forensic case. ‘Out of my way.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Lottie said. ‘What’s that in his hand?’ She edged closer to the body.
‘Don’t touch it,’ McGlynn said.
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘You could be walking on footprints, destroying evidence. Move away.’
‘The ground is rock hard.’ But she relented and took a step back. ‘Can you open up his fist?’
With a sigh, McGlynn lifted the boy’s arm with his gloved hand and prised open the fingers. With a pair of tweezers, he extracted a trio of buttercups, petals crushed and veined. He dropped them into an evidence bag and made a note on the outside.
‘What’s that about?’ Lottie turned to Boyd.
‘Maybe he grabbed them while he was lying on the ground?’
Lottie glanced around at the hard, gritted lake shore. ‘Not from here. And those flowers around his head aren’t from here either. Any idea how long he’s been dead?’ She waited as McGlynn shifted the boy onto his side and inserted a thermometer. ‘And I don’t need any technical mumbo-jumbo.’
After half a minute, McGlynn said, ‘Five hours give or take, but the state pathologist will provide a more accurate timeline when she carries out the post-mortem. I can tell you that he was moved to this stone after death. No knowing where he was before that, is there?’
Lottie shook her head. ‘Thanks. I’ll call in Jane.’
McGlynn continued. ‘I suspect a hyoid bone fracture, but the pathologist can confirm that when she opens him up.’ He traced a gloved finger in the air over the neck area. ‘Evidence of fingernail scratches. Could be the lad’s own as he struggled, or if you’re lucky, the assailant’s.’
‘Knowing my luck …’ Lottie began.
‘Knowing your luck …’ Boyd said.
‘I’ll put bags on his hands,’ McGlynn said.
The protective suit was sticking to her like glue. She needed to get out of it quickly. ‘Anything else of note before we leave?’
‘I can’t see any other external injuries except for the bruising. The soles of his feet are scratched, though. Maybe someone walked him to his death over that hard ground you mentioned.’
Lottie opened her mouth to speak.
McGlynn got in first. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll bag them.’
‘Thanks,’ Lottie said.
She couldn’t help a feeling of motherliness as she took a last look at the dead youngster. She had an insane urge to fetch a soft blanket and wrap it round him. She walked away before she could contaminate the scene further.
Toby Collins woke to the sound of a scream. He sat up straight in his bed and looked all around. Had the sound come from his own mouth? Maybe he’d had a nightmare. He shook his head. If he had been dreaming, he couldn’t remember it.
A thin line of light shone through the slit between the hard cotton curtains and sliced the room in two. He sidled up against the wall, trying to get as far away from his brother’s bed as he could manage.
Only a bedside cabinet and a strip of threadbare carpet separated the two single beds. Max was lying on his back, fully clothed and snoring. As Toby watched, he shifted onto his side and his loud breaths eased to a quiet wheeze. Loose change lay on the bed, and Toby could see a roll of notes sticking out of his brother’s back pocket. He squinted. The outer one looked like a fifty. He could buy the latest version of Call of Duty or FIFA with that. His fingers tingled. Reached out. But he snatched his hand back. Max would kill him.
He wanted to pee, but he was afraid of waking his brother if he opened the door. When he’d heard Mikey was dead, he had thought he might never sleep again. But he had slept all night.
He got up on his knees and put his head under the curtain. Leaning on the sanded windowsill that his dad had never got around to varnishing, he stared out at the calm morning. Was it his fault Mikey was dead?
The pain in his groin increased. He’d have to go. He slid off the bed and went to the door. Max let out another snore. Toby opened the door, clenching his teeth as it creaked, and eased out onto the narrow carpeted landing. His parents’ bedroom door was closed, as was the door to his little sisters’ room. The toilet door was open. He rushed in and relieved himself, then sat on the stained linoleum and cried for Mikey.
Who was he going to play with now?
Thirty
Sitting behind the reception desk, Garda Gilly O’Donoghue scratched the side of her face, careful not to nick the spot that had sprouted during the night. She really needed to watch her diet. Kirby was a devil for late-night takeaways. Her constant moaning about his eating habits had little effect. She didn’t think he would change a lifetime’s habits for her or anyone else. Kirby would always be just … Kirby. And she loved him just the way he was.
But now she felt the morning going from bad to worse as a woman rushed through the door clutching a crumpled photograph.
‘You have to find him. This is his photo. Take it. I know it’s not great. I printed it off from my phone. It’s black and white – we don’t have a colour printer – but he’s a colourful lad. Always laughing and joking. Most of the time. Please, do something …’ Her voice rose with each word.
‘Wait a minute,’ Gilly said in a soft tone, hoping to calm the hysterical woman as a man came up and put his arm around the woman’s shoulders.
‘Our son is missing,’ he said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Victor Shanley. This is my wife, Sheila. Kevin never came home last night.’
‘Right.’ Gilly picked up her pen and put her hand out for the photograph. The ink came away on her fingertips. ‘What’s your son’s full name?’
‘Kevin Joseph Shanley,’ Sheila said. ‘He’s only eleven. He went out yesterday afternoon to play football with his friends but he never came home. I assumed he was at a friend’s house and we spent all night ringing around, but no one remembers seeing him and he didn’t stay with any of his friends and … oh God, I don’t know what to think.’
‘Did you ring in earlier? To report him missing?’ Even with the glass partition, Gilly could smell stale alcohol. She wasn’t sure if it was from both of them or from Sheila Shanley alone.
‘Yes, around three this morning. A squad car with two guards arrived and said they’d drive around looking for him. Said he was probably at a cider party down by the canal.’ Sheila collapsed against her husband. ‘Kev’s not that kind of boy. He’s only eleven.’
‘Did they report back in about it?’ Victor said. ‘We need to find him.’
‘Give me a second.’ Gilly keyed the boy’s name into the computer. It was there all right. Entered at 3.15 a.m. But there was no action noted. Shit. ‘Have a seat in the waiting room. I’ll get someone to take over reception and then I’ll come and talk to you.’
‘You’d do better to get out there and look for my boy,’ Victor said.
‘He’s a good boy. Never causes us any trouble,’ Sheila was saying as Gilly opened the waiting-room door for them. ‘Music. He loves music. Always streaming it on his computer. When he’s not out playing football …’
‘Take a seat and I’ll be back with you in two minutes. Do you want some tea?’
‘I want my son.’
Gilly closed over the door. She hoped the lad would turn up alive and well, but then she thought of the body that had sent half the force scurrying out to the lake earlier. Shit.
As Lottie made her way back through the cordoned-off area to the car, she spotted the fisherman who had found the body standing with Kirby and a group of uniforms.
‘
Daryl Cross?’
‘That’s me.’ He twisted a canvas hat in his hands.
He was aged about forty, clean-shaven, and kitted out in all the regalia required for fishing. He reminded Lottie of her Adam.
‘Those boats out on the lake.’ She pointed. ‘Were they there when you arrived this morning?’
‘I was here at seven thirty. Took me ten minutes to unload the car and make my way to the mooring. I have the key to this particular dock. I locked it up at eleven last night. I can’t say for sure there were boats already out, but I’d bet there were.’
‘So why didn’t one of those men find the body?’ She was wondering if any of them had been on the lake during the night, and if they might have seen something.
Cross creased his brow and gave her a look.
‘This isn’t the only dock, you know. There are others all around the lake shore. There must be twenty miles of shoreline jutting in and out all over the place. Those boats could have set off from anywhere. This time of year, boats are out on the water all the time.’
Lottie scanned the area with steely eyes. ‘All the time?’
‘Most of the time. From early until late.’
She turned to Kirby. ‘We need to speak to everyone who’s out on the lake and try to find out who was fishing last night.’
‘How the hell are we going to do that? Look around you. There are nooks and crannies everywhere.’
Cross said, ‘You need a map with all the mooring areas marked out.’
Kirby’s answer was to put a cigar into his mouth. Beads of perspiration were travelling at speed down his red face. ‘And I suppose you have such a thing?’
Bending down to his fishing bag, Cross unzipped the front pocket and extracted a folded, tattered map. ‘You could probably find it on Google, but I think this is clearer.’ He handed it over.
‘Get uniforms to each mooring dock and we’ll organise it more comprehensively back at the station,’ Lottie ordered.
Cross was scratching his head.
Tell Nobody: Absolutely gripping crime fiction with unputdownable mystery and suspense Page 10