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

by Patricia Gibney

  ‘That should happen later today. I’ll check with the pathologist.’ Lottie wondered if Jane had had any success in matching the DNA found on the shorts. She’d have to follow that up on her return to the office. Now, though, she needed to find Paul Duffy.

  ‘Do you know where Dr Duffy is? Or Julia or Barry?’

  ‘There was no one here when I arrived. That was about half an hour ago. Paul may be at work. Did you try his surgery?’

  ‘Next on my list. And his wife and son? Any sign of them?’

  ‘I told you, there was no one here.’

  ‘Okay. You can go back to your work.’

  Lottie went in search of Boyd. She found him on the far side of the house, peering through a bay window. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No sign of life at all. What do we do now?’

  ‘Did you look for their cars?’

  ‘None in the garage. There are two registered to them. The one that showed up on the CCTV and another registered to Julia. Neither is here.’

  ‘We already have an alert on Paul Duffy’s vehicle, so organise one on the second car, and we need to process a warrant to have the house searched.’

  ‘I don’t think we have enough for a warrant,’ Boyd said. ‘Paul Duffy had a logical reason to be driving his car on Sunday night. We know he was with the team at McDonald’s, so he had to get home somehow.’

  ‘Why are you so negative all of a sudden?’ Lottie stomped back to the car. ‘Two boys are dead. I think we have enough for a warrant.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Now get driving.’

  Seventy-Three

  Gilly was glad when Kirby let her sit in on the interview with Max Collins. She had a feeling Max was into something other than stealing money from a bus driver.

  ‘Max, the charges against you have been explained to you,’ Kirby said. ‘Have you anything to add?’

  ‘You’re wasting your time with me. You should be searching for Toby. He’s in danger. I need to look for him. Let me out of here.’

  ‘Do you deny you took cash from Wesley Finnegan?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe a word out of his mouth. But he might have Toby. Did you check out his kip of a place?’

  ‘Why would you think Mr Finnegan might have taken your brother?’

  ‘To get back at me? I don’t fucking know.’ Max slouched down in the chair.

  Gilly watched every tic and flinch, every breath the teenager was taking. He seemed genuinely worried for the safety of his brother. She scribbled a note and passed it to Kirby.

  Kirby raised an eyebrow but read it. Good, Gilly thought.

  ‘Max, why do you think Toby is in danger? Does he know who killed Mikey and Kevin?’

  Max shook his head in silence.

  ‘Why else would he be in danger?’ Kirby asked.

  ‘Someone killed his two best friends. It’s logical to think that the same person might want to kill Toby.’ His voice caught in his throat as he said the words.

  Gilly could see the scar on Max’s face pulsing. He was hiding something.

  ‘Did you know those two boys were in danger?’ Kirby asked.

  ‘No. How would I have known?’

  ‘We found a substantial amount of cash in the office at the tyre depot. Care to comment on that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s being examined by Forensics. I’m sure your fingerprints are all over it.’

  ‘That money’s mine, you bastard. I earned it. I didn’t steal it.’

  ‘So you admit you had access to the unit. Were you there yesterday?’

  Max looked confused. ‘Yesterday? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think so? Think a little harder, son,’ Kirby said.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘A simple answer to my questions would help.’ Kirby flicked through a folder.

  Gilly was enjoying the exchange. She wanted to butt in and ask questions, but Kirby was managing the teenager skilfully. She could see Max thinking things over as he digested the questions. She believed he had a genuine concern for his brother, but he knew something. What was it?

  ‘Hope Cotter.’ Kirby threw the name into the mix. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘She lives on the estate. Seen her around with her little girl.’ Max looked relieved that the conversation had shifted slightly.

  ‘Did you see her yesterday?’

  ‘I don’t know when I saw her last.’

  ‘How about yesterday?’ Kirby repeated.

  ‘I told you, I didn’t see her.’

  ‘You arrived at the unit. Took Hope. Left her little girl there all by herself. Why did you do that, Max?’

  Max straightened his back. ‘What are you talking about? I never saw Hope or her daughter yesterday. What’s happened to her?’ Gilly noticed genuine fear creeping into the teenager’s eyes.

  Kirby said, ‘I thought you could tell us that. Seeing as you use that place to kip down, to store your drugs and cash. I thought you could tell us what you did to Hope when she came snooping around.’

  Max kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Had she been there before? Is that why she went there? Looking for somewhere to hide out while the guards were searching for her?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘We need to speak with her urgently. In connection with the death of a baby.’

  Max jumped up. ‘You’re sick. You know that? A toxic bastard. Hope wouldn’t hurt anyone. She’s not like that. You don’t know her.’

  ‘Oh, and you do?’ Kirby smiled.

  ‘It’s not funny.’ Max slid back into the chair.

  ‘You’re right. I don’t know her. But I think you do. Would Hope kill her own baby?’

  Max shook his head. Gilly felt sorry for him. He was trembling and biting his lip, blood coming from a cut.

  ‘No, she could never do something like that,’ he said.

  ‘If she didn’t kill her baby, someone else did. Any idea who?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions,’ Kirby said, slapping the table. ‘Look at me, Max. Do you know where Hope is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know where Toby is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you take Wes Finnegan’s cash?’

  Two dark eyes looked up from beneath long lashes.

  ‘Yes. I took his fucking filthy money.’

  Jane phoned Lottie as she and Boyd were on their way back to base.

  ‘Lottie, the lab has run the DNA from the waistband of the football shorts against samples taken from the people of interest in the case. Namely, Rory Butler, Paul Duffy, Bertie Harris, Wes Finnegan and Victor Shanley.’

  ‘And?’ Lottie held her breath, looked at Boyd as he drove, gaze fixed on the traffic.

  ‘No match,’ Jane said.

  ‘What? It has to be one of them.’

  ‘No match with any of those people. But there is a match with someone who is a witness in another case.’

  ‘What other case? Who?’ Lottie couldn’t dampen the frantic beating of her heart.

  ‘We took samples from the two boys who found the baby by the canal. The DNA profile of one of those boys matches the sample on the shorts.’

  Lottie held her breath. Her Sean was one of those boys. Dear God, what was going on? She crossed her fingers. ‘Who is it, Jane?’

  ‘Barry Duffy.’

  She blew out a gasp of relief. ‘Thanks, Jane. We’ve got his father’s car on CCTV near the scene where we believe Mikey Driscoll was abducted. Maybe Barry was driving, though he is only fifteen.’ She took a long deep breath. She had no idea what this meant. ‘Can you email the results across? I need them to get a warrant to search the Duffy property.’

  ‘Will do. And another thing—’

  But Lottie had already hung up.

  * * *

  Lottie gathered everyone in the incident
room for an impromptu meeting and outlined what she’d just learned.

  ‘Strange as it may seem, fifteen-year-old Barry Duffy is now our lead suspect in the murders of Mikey Driscoll and Kevin Shanley.’

  ‘He could be their abuser too,’ Boyd said.

  ‘Along with the CCTV footage of his father’s vehicle in the vicinity of where we believe Mikey Duffy was abducted from,’ Lottie continued, ‘Barry’s DNA has been found on the new football shorts worn by the two victims. I’ve instigated a district-wide alert. Boyd and I were at the Duffy house earlier and the family were not there. We’ve put out an all-points bulletin for their cars.’

  ‘They could be anywhere,’ Lynch said.

  Kirby said, ‘I don’t know what this can add, but Lynch and I went to Bertie Harris’s apartment earlier.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’ Lottie said.

  ‘I discovered that there was ten minutes missing from the clubhouse security footage he supplied me with for Sunday night.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Harris’s apartment is full of boys’ soccer kit. New stuff. Including football shorts.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Boyd said. ‘Are we dealing with a group involvement?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But Harris told me that one of the boys who buys the kit to sell on at a profit is Barry Duffy.’

  ‘For feck’s sake,’ Lottie said. ‘What is the little shite up to? He’s only fifteen!’

  ‘And,’ Kirby went on, ‘Toby Collins turned up at the club grounds last night.’

  Lottie stood with her mouth open. Too much information hitting her at once. She sat down and nodded for Kirby to continue.

  ‘Toby had been running. Wouldn’t say from whom, but his ankle was twisted after he fell over a wall. Harris called a doctor for him. Paul Duffy.’

  ‘What? Did Duffy take Toby? Are Barry and his father in this together?’

  ‘I don’t know, but apparently Dr Duffy said he’d take him to A&E.’

  ‘Toby is at the hospital?’

  ‘No. I’ve checked Ragmullin and Tullamore hospitals. No record of Toby having been brought in.’

  ‘Where the hell did he take him?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Did Harris say how Toby reacted to Duffy?’

  ‘He said that when he mentioned calling the doctor, the boy appeared terrified. But once Duffy arrived, he seemed okay. Though that’s to be taken with a grain of salt. I wouldn’t believe a word out of Harris’s mouth.’ Kirby curled his lip in disgust.

  Lottie studied the incident board. ‘This is a mess. What is going on? Where did Paul take Toby?’

  ‘Maybe he was able to fix up the damaged ankle himself.’

  ‘That’s the most likely scenario, but in that case, why isn’t Toby at home in Munbally now? We need to find Paul and Barry Duffy immediately.’

  Boyd stood up and looked at the photographs on the board. ‘Mikey and Kevin had been sexually assaulted. Not at the time of their murders, but previously. We know Paul Duffy was the team doctor and had contact with the boys, so we now need to check with the victims’ families whether the boys were his patients too. Sheila said she brought Kevin to the doctor. Was it Duffy? And had Mikey been in contact with him also? Is Paul Duffy the murderer?’

  Lottie moved beside Boyd. ‘Or Barry? He knew the boys through the club too. That scenario makes sense when you take into account what Harris said about who buys the kit from him, and the DNA found on the waistband of the shorts. It’s entirely possible that Barry Duffy was the abuser. Maybe the boys were going to tell on him and he murdered them to shut them up. Toby could be an abuse victim too. And now he’s missing.’

  ‘Paul Duffy picked up Toby yesterday. Where did he bring the boy?’ Boyd said.

  ‘Maybe to his own house?’

  ‘But there was no one there earlier. Just Victor Shanley.’

  ‘Julia could be in danger too.’ Lottie felt like her body was full of lead, and she had no idea which direction to take.

  Boyd nodded. ‘Another scenario is that the Duffy parents know about Barry and are trying to protect him.’

  Lottie said, ‘All I know is that we need to find them all, before it’s too late for Toby.’

  * * *

  The room emptied, and as Lottie followed them out, she wasn’t quick enough to escape.

  ‘Have you caught up with the little murderer yet?’ McMahon pushed himself away from the wall in the corridor outside the office.

  ‘Who are you referring to?’ She felt drained of all energy, her bag as heavy as a cement block on her shoulder. She’d been trying to come to terms with Kirby’s revelations when Boyd had taken her aside and told her what Lynch had said about her.

  ‘The Cotter girl,’ McMahon prompted.

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘And the missing boy, Toby Collins. Have you managed to find him?’

  ‘Not yet.’ She let her bag fall to her feet.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘A DNA match in the boys’ murder investigation. Barry Duffy, aged fifteen, son of Dr Paul Duffy. It’s a tenuous link, seeing as he had access to the kit, but I’m getting a warrant processed. We need to search the Duffy home. It’s possible that Toby was brought there yesterday. The Duffys were not in earlier this morning when I called with Boyd. And Dr Duffy is not at his office. It’s imperative that we find them as soon as possible.’

  ‘What are you standing here for then? Get to it. I’ll prepare a press briefing. Keep me up to date.’

  He walked off full of his own importance. Lottie picked up her bag from the floor and went to her office.

  Her phone rang. Mother flashed on the caller ID. She was about to reject the call when she decided to answer it. Might give her time to get her head in gear.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Sean hasn’t come home yet. Have you been in contact with him?’

  ‘No, I haven’t had a minute all morning.’ And then Lottie remembered where he was supposed to have been last night. ‘Leave it with me.’

  She hung up and rushed into the main office.

  ‘Boyd? Kirby? Where is everyone?’

  She ran back to the incident room. Neither Boyd nor Kirby was there. Shit, she had sent them looking for the Duffys.

  Now, to add to the growing list of people she was unable to contact, her own son was missing. She put the back of her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. Think, Lottie, think. Where could she turn next?

  Seventy-Four

  He heard the mower’s engine shut down. Heard them talking. Voices. In the distance. But still close. He tried to move, to speak, but his throat was filled with blood.

  It was no use anyway. No one would hear him. He was concealed by shrubs and bushes. He could feel thorns crushed beneath his body, pressing into his torso.

  The pain. Oh God, the pain. His smashed legs. And his face, throbbing from ear to ear and from his forehead to his chin. The knife had been sharp. He’d fought hard, but in the end, he had succumbed, hoping that if he appeared dead, he would be left alone.

  The surprise. That had been his downfall. Shock at the vehemence of the anger directed at him.

  He knew he had to tell someone what he knew. Before it was too late. Before someone else died. Before he died.

  ‘Help …’

  The drone of the lawnmower’s engine started up again.

  And he knew he had no hope of being heard. No hope at all.

  Victor Shanley couldn’t get the image of his son out of his head. He had tried his best. Tried for Sheila and their relatives and neighbours. Tried to be strong. The mower turned at the end of the garden, but he couldn’t see through his tears. The trees rustled around his head, drowning out his sobs. He switched off the ignition and got off the machine to empty the grass. As he moved towards the trees where the compost heap was, he thought he heard something. A sound like a whimper. He stopped. Stood still. Listened. Nothing.

  He upended the box of grass, and had tu
rned to pick up the garden fork when he caught sight of a flash of colour beneath a clump of bushes.

  The sun blinded him. He took a step backwards. Probably a badger or a fox, he told himself, thinking of the fields of green beyond Duffy’s garden.

  There it was again. The whimper.

  Fuck this, he thought, and crouched down, pushing the bushes away with the fork. A magpie shot out and up and settled in a tree above his head.

  ‘Damn birds,’ Victor said, and poked again, careful not to damage the animal he was sure was lying injured just beyond his reach.

  But it was no animal. He yelled in horror and reached his hands into the bush.

  ‘You’re okay now. I’ve got you.’

  He pulled the body towards him carefully. There was a lot of blood. He dug around in the pocket of his jeans for his phone and hit 999.

  He turned the figure over, and when he saw who it was, he gasped.

  Lottie was pacing the corridor, trying to figure out who to call, when Gilly ran up to her and started going on about Max Collins and Wes Finnegan’s stolen cash. She wanted to tell the young garda to shut up and help search for her son, but she couldn’t.

  ‘Does Max know anything about where his brother might be?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘Says he was searching all night. Thought he might have been hiding out in the tyre depot; that’s where we picked him up.’

  ‘Did he know why Toby would be hiding?’

  ‘Something to do with a message he got.’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Gilly said. She paused and looked warily at Lottie. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s Sean. I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘He didn’t come home last night and I believe he may have been at Barry Duffy’s house. I’m heading back there. Warrant or no warrant. You see if you can find out anything further about Toby from Max.’

  Lottie’s phone rang and she paled.