Tell Nobody: Absolutely gripping crime fiction with unputdownable mystery and suspense

by Patricia Gibney

‘Of course. Give me a moment to change and I’ll go with you.’

  When he had disappeared into the house, Boyd said, ‘Charming young man.’

  ‘Jesus, Boyd, you’re as transparent as the glass on that table. Why don’t you like him?’

  ‘He’s full of bullshit. Triple glazing? Where does he work? Where does his income come from? I’d like to know that.’

  Lottie wasn’t quick enough to warn him that Butler had returned.

  ‘I’ve managed my own online insurance business since I was twenty-one. Quite successful. I’m sure you can read all about me on Wikipedia.’ He was now wearing a crisp white shirt. He picked up his cup and drained it. ‘Follow me.’

  * * *

  ‘This is a lovely time of the evening,’ Butler said.

  Lottie had to agree with him there. The water was like a mirror, its sheen reflecting the blue of the sky. A slight haze lingered over the centre of the lake, and she saw a few boats circling for fish. Two swans dipped their heads at the water’s edge, flipped their black legs and glided away through the bank of reeds to her right.

  She walked down to the rocky shore and gazed over to the left. Less than five hundred metres away she could see the area where they had found Kevin’s body. It was still cordoned off, with a uniformed officer standing beside the tent. The air was eerily silent.

  ‘So where is the mooring area for the boats that use this access to the lake?’

  ‘Over there.’ Butler pointed behind him, to the right. She followed the direction of his finger to where two boats were sheltered under a Perspex awning. There was space for two more.

  ‘Are they yours?’

  ‘They were my grandfather’s. I haven’t taken them out. The motors need to be serviced.’

  ‘And those two spaces. Who uses them?’

  ‘No one. I suppose most people keep their boats at home and tow them here for the day.’

  ‘I don’t see any cars here, so does that mean there’s no one on the lake today who used this mooring?’

  ‘Come with me.’ Butler took off between two hedgerows.

  Boyd fell into step before Lottie. ‘He’s a bit stuck-up, isn’t he?’ he whispered.

  ‘Shut up, Boyd.’

  ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ Butler asked.

  ‘Very cut up. The ground, I mean,’ Lottie said, noticing the furrowed grass underfoot. ‘We’ve had a week of mainly dry weather, so that’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t forget the three weeks of rain prior to that. And a couple of showers over the weekend.’

  A clearing opened up in front of them. Three jeeps were parked end to end along the edge of a narrow roadway with grass growing up the centre.

  ‘Do you know who these belong to?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought this was a private area.’

  ‘I have no way to stop people using it. They can drive right down to the shore, unhook their boat, then come back up here to park and head out fishing.’

  Lottie looked around. The area was shaded with overhanging trees, but she could see that the shingle ground had numerous tyre tracks criss-crossing it. She photographed the registration numbers with her phone.

  ‘Can you get us that map now?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s up at the house.’

  She tried to keep her eyes off his long, tanned legs as he walked ahead.

  * * *

  Lottie stood in awe. Boyd’s jaw had dropped, so she clamped her own mouth shut. The inside of Rory Butler’s house blinded her with brightness. The contemporary fittings were like something she had only seen in magazines. White, sterile and new.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said.

  ‘The usual exclamation is “wow”,’ Butler laughed.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘It’s so different from the outside. You’d never expect it to look like this.’

  ‘An IKEA catalogue,’ Boyd said, and Lottie glared at him.

  ‘This is far from IKEA,’ Rory said. ‘Clean lines, pure white and very expensive.’

  ‘And you did it all?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I just paid for it.’

  He pressed a button on a remote control and a drawer slid outwards from what Lottie had thought was a wall. Everything was integrated. Butler nimbly feathered through the documents inside.

  She gazed at the painting above the unit. Pale and abstract, it was framed in thick white timber with non-reflective glass. It was unsigned. Where had she seen something similar recently? She turned to ask him about it just as he stood up holding a map aloft.

  ‘This is it. All marked out by my grandfather. Be careful with it. It’s quite old. It details every point along the shore. I’m sure there are locations on it that you won’t find online.’

  Boyd took it. ‘I’ll make a copy at the station and get it back to you. You’re sure there’s no one to verify your whereabouts last night?’

  Lottie saw Butler’s eyes shift slowly from Boyd to her. A furrow deepened between his eyebrows.

  ‘No. Why?’ The worry was replaced by a crooked smile.

  ‘You have access to the lake shore. We need to establish where you were last night and this morning.’

  The smile left his face as quickly as if someone had slapped him.

  ‘I was here, alone. Helen came in at nine. Do I need an alibi?’

  ‘You knew both dead boys, Mikey Driscoll and Kevin Shanley. We need to ascertain where you were on Sunday night too.’ Lottie folded her arms and leaned against one of the white units.

  ‘If I’d known I’d need an alibi, I’d have ensured I had someone here with me.’ His voice was guarded.

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ she said. ‘You do understand that?’

  ‘Look, I live by myself. I can’t offer any alibi. Sorry.’ He walked towards the door. ‘Will you please send that map back in one piece. It is a family heirloom.’

  ‘I’ll bring it back,’ Boyd said, ‘personally.’

  ‘When might you come in to the station to make a formal statement?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘Is tomorrow morning okay with you?’

  ‘I’ll see you at nine, then.’

  They stepped outside. ‘The roses are lovely,’ Lottie said. ‘Did you plant them all yourself?’

  ‘Now you really are asking inane questions. Good day.’

  Back at the car, she said, ‘Why did you have to antagonise him?’

  ‘Me? That arrogant son of a bitch is so far up his own hole, he—’

  ‘That’s enough. It’s been a long day. I need to get home.’

  Boyd drove in silence. Lottie drummed her fingers against the seat.

  ‘Why spend all that money on renovating an old house out in the middle of nowhere?’ she asked.

  ‘I was thinking that,’ Boyd said. ‘He must have ploughed millions into it.’

  ‘Could his business have been that profitable?’

  ‘I’ll run a check on him.’

  ‘I think we have enough to be doing without concerning ourselves with Mr Butler’s motives for redecorating his house.’ Lottie gazed out at the waning sun. ‘We have to find a murderer.’

  ‘And Hope Cotter.’

  Rory Butler watched from the window as the detectives drove away. Then, shoving his hands into his pockets, he sighed and went to his well-stocked bar. He poured a double measure of vodka and drank it neat before refilling the glass. The evening light cast a V of illumination, and dust rose like fireflies as he replaced the bottle on the shelf.

  ‘Are you going to stand there like an idiot for the rest of the evening?’

  He heard the voice behind him. He didn’t turn around. He couldn’t face anyone. Not with his eyes bulging with tears. Not now.

  ‘Jesus, Rory. Don’t be such a jerk.’

  ‘Go away. Leave me alone. I can’t deal with anything just now,’ Rory said.

  He heard the glass splintering before he realised he had flung it at the wall.

  Forty

 
Garda Gilly O’Donoghue yawned. She’d been stuck back on the desk, but her shift was almost over.

  ‘You believe the money was taken from your bus?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it was.’ His reply was more like a grunt than speech.

  With her pen poised, Gilly eyed Mr Wesley Finnegan. Even though she was sitting behind the counter, she found herself looking at the top of his head. Five foot nothing, give or take an inch, she thought. His head was bald, sunburned and freckled. Stubble riddled his chin, and the collar of his checked shirt lay flat on the shoulders of his padded gilet. Bubbles of perspiration dotted his upper lip and he appeared nervous. She had seen or heard his name somewhere during the day. Was it in relation to the murder of the two boys? She needed to be sharper if she wanted to make detective.

  ‘Why did you leave cash in your bus?’ she said, trying to instil a modicum of enthusiasm into her jaded voice.

  ‘That’s where I always leave it.’ Each word was accompanied by a breathless puff. A lifetime smoker, Gilly concluded.

  ‘Not very clever.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ His eyes scrunched together in indignation. ‘I’m not stupid. It was in a cash box under my seat.’

  ‘And you have regular customers. Any one of them would know where you keep your money. Did you think of that?’

  ‘The bingo ladies?’ He laughed. ‘They’re more concerned with their Sharpie markers and clipboards.’

  ‘Right.’ Gilly wrote on the incident report.

  ‘You needn’t be writing the bingo ladies down there. I know who took it.’ This time Finnegan broke into a fit of coughing.

  ‘You do?’ Sighing, Gilly put down her pen, leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

  ‘Sure I do.’

  ‘If you know who it is, why don’t you ask for the money back yourself?’ It really had been one of those days.

  ‘I want you to arrest him. That way I’ll get my money back and he’ll get a fright.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me who this mysterious thief is?’

  She watched as Finnegan ran a tobacco-stained finger under his nose, wiping away a non-existent drip. He chewed gum vigorously on one side of his mouth, glancing over his shoulder before leaning into the glass partition. Gilly instinctively recoiled.

  ‘Max Collins. Goes by the name of Birdy sometimes.’

  ‘And where does this Mr Collins live?’ She blew out her cheeks and picked up her pen again.

  ‘You’ll have to find him yourselves, because I don’t know. He’s scum and probably has no fixed abode, as you call it.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Forty-six.’

  ‘And what does he look like?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Finnegan said. ‘Thought you were asking for my age. Birdy’s around eighteen. Scar through his eyebrow and another on his cheek.’ He drew his finger along his own jaw. ‘Tall and stringy, but always clean, however he manages that.’

  Gilly had had enough of this verbal sparring.

  ‘I’ll check him out.’ She pushed the form out under the glass. This was just hearsay, with no evidence, but she wanted to get rid of Finnegan, finish her shift and go home to a nice cool shower. ‘Sign your name there and fill in your phone number and address. I’ll let you know if we find out anything.’

  ‘I need that money. Motor tax is due on the bus. Don’t want you lot fining me.’ His laugh was short and stiff.

  ‘We’ll be in contact. And if you happen to bump into Mr Collins before we do, let us know.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Wesley Finnegan turned and headed for the door, and Gilly couldn’t help feeling as if a slug had trekked slowly down her arm, leaving a trail of slime in its wake. She shivered. One of those days.

  The incident room was winding down for the day. As she waited for the skeleton night shift, Lottie was taking school books out of Kevin Shanley’s rucksack, flicking through the pages, searching for one little clue. But her mind was racing, reeling around like a roller coaster.

  ‘I want a background check run on Rory Butler,’ she said as she took another book out and opened it. ‘I want to know who he is, where he’s been and how he made his money.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Boyd said eagerly.

  ‘Victor Shanley worked with Jen Driscoll at the gym. That angle needs to be investigated. See if anything turns up in their private lives that would warrant the murder of their sons.’ She turned to Kirby. ‘Do you have anything for me?’

  ‘I’ve gone through the clubhouse CCTV. Nothing. But there’s a blip on the DVD. Every hour or so, it loses around ten minutes. Might be something. Might be nothing. I’m itemising the times and will go back to Bertie Harris.’

  ‘Lynch. You met with the teacher?’

  ‘Got the list of students and teachers. I’ve spoken with most of the staff. Some are abroad on holiday, so that rules them out for the murders.’

  ‘Follow them up in any case. What about the boy’s classmates and their parents?’

  ‘I’ve organised a team of uniforms to do the interviews. A good few cross over with the soccer team and have already been spoken to.’

  ‘Reduces your workload a little.’ Lottie studied her pregnant detective. ‘Are you feeling okay? You don’t look the best.’

  ‘Tired, that’s all.’

  ‘Maybe we’ve done enough for today. That work will still be here in the morning.’

  ‘And we’ll still have two dead boys and a dead baby,’ Lynch said.

  ‘Speaking of which, any sign of Hope Cotter or her uncle?’

  Kirby spoke up. ‘Robbie used to have a girlfriend. Lives in Athlone.’

  ‘You need to go there and check.’

  ‘But I still have the McDonald’s CCTV to look at.’

  ‘Priorities, Kirby,’ Lottie said and picked up another book from the stack of Kevin’s school things.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Lynch said, her face animated.

  Kirby stood up. ‘Is it the baby?’

  ‘No, no. Bugger off, Kirby.’ She held up a page. ‘Boss, look at this. The list of staff at the school. Look who was a part-time cleaner.’

  Lottie focused on the line that Lynch was pointing out.

  ‘Hope Cotter. What the hell? This gives her another link to the boys.’

  ‘What’s the first one?’ Kirby asked, shuffling an unlit cigar between his thick fingers.

  ‘She lives in Munbally Grove.’

  ‘But the Shanleys live in Greenway,’ Boyd said.

  ‘Yeah, but they can’t have been there longer than a year. Before that, they lived in Munbally.’

  ‘When did you find that out?’

  She held up the school book. ‘Kevin scribbled out his old address.’ She showed them the inside cover. ‘Munbally Grove.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he dropped away from the football team. Moved to the other end of town. Didn’t want to associate with them any more,’ Boyd suggested.

  ‘Or his parents were trying to get away from something. An affair, maybe?’ Lottie said, thinking of her conversation with Victor Shanley and her suspicion that he had more than a working relationship with Jen Driscoll.

  ‘You lot are going around in circles here.’ McMahon was standing at the door. ‘I thought Hope Cotter was your prime suspect?’

  ‘Maybe, for the baby,’ Lottie said.

  Boyd said, ‘I’m thinking more along the lines of Rory Butler, the football coach, for the boys’ murders.’

  ‘We’re still in the process of gathering evidence,’ Lottie said quickly.

  ‘Gathering fucking moss, as far as I can see. Get the ball moving. I don’t want to come in tomorrow morning to hear of another young lad lying dead somewhere. I have the media baying at me. You hear that? Baying. They want answers and I want a suspect in the cells. Those granite cells – which, I may add, cost a fortune – are bare. Budget’s through the roof in this place. Through the fucking roof.’ He caught his breath. ‘I want a suspect and I want them charged and sh
ining that granite with their arse.’

  He glared at the incident board, which held photos of the dead but had yet to be adorned with images of any suspects, then strode out. He didn’t even bang the door behind him.

  ‘Well, you heard the man,’ Lottie said. ‘Before I finish for the day, I want to have a chat with Mikey’s friend Toby Collins. Let’s see if he knows anything about Kevin.’

  As Julia Duffy waited for Paul to come home, she thought about how her life was shrivelling into a mouse-hole existence.

  A dog was barking somewhere. Had been for the last hour. Children were bouncing on a trampoline at a house down the road. She fetched her noise-reduction headphones and slapped them on her head. That was better.

  Dinner was prepared and on a low heat in the oven. She hoped Barry was in his room. On his computer playing some game, his fishing expeditions on hold for the foreseeable future. She didn’t mind that he had been fishing, because it was better than roaming the streets. Wasn’t it? No good would come of that carry-on. But it was just as well he was somewhere she could keep her eyes firmly on him. And she would hear if he left the house.

  That thought prompted her to take off the headphones. She went up the stairs. Opened his door. Empty.

  Where had he got to? She flew back downstairs, picked up her phone from the breakfast bar and called. No answer. He’d better be home before his father got here.

  Paul would be back soon. She had to shower and make herself presentable.

  She had to keep him happy.

  Otherwise things might return to the way they were before.

  Forty-One

  Lottie pulled at her hair and ran a finger over her teeth. She was tired and frustrated with everything. Boyd parked the car and they went to the door.

  A crowd of noisy kids were kicking a plastic Coke bottle around on the footpath. Others were screeching and screaming as they chased each other across the green. She would have smiled at their carefree abandon if she hadn’t been weighted down with guilt over the lack of progress on her investigations.

  But the kids were not alone. Most doorsteps held anxious mothers. Hunched, watchful, some with infants in their arms or rocking buggies with their feet. Eyes full of suspicion.