‘Get out!’
‘It’s okay, Julia. Look, we have no weapons,’ Lottie lied, holding her arms away from her sides. Her ears were thrumming from the noise of the door splintering, and adrenaline fuelled her movements. She edged forward slowly.
‘Not another step!’ the woman screamed. She was dressed in a bloodied neck-to-floor cotton gown.
Desperately Lottie tried to quash her anger. The boy was bound to the table. She had no idea if he was still alive. Was she too late?
‘We have Paul. Your husband. He’s safe. Would you like to see him?’
Julia’s lip curled upwards in a snarl. ‘I couldn’t care less about him now. I’m saving this boy’s soul. Can’t you understand that?’
‘You don’t have to do this. Toby has done you no wrong. Let him go.’
Julia laughed. ‘He and his two friends tempted my husband into sin, into the way of the devil. I am now sending this boy back to God so that I will be able to live in freedom.’
‘And Rory Butler? Did you kill him too?’ Lottie was convinced Julia hadn’t killed Rory, but she was saying the first thing that came into her head, anything to keep the woman’s focus off Toby.
‘Is he dead?’ She appeared momentarily disconcerted. ‘If he is, he deserves it. My own cousin, taking everything I was entitled to. Yes, I was the one who cared for our grandfather in his old age, and what did he leave me? Nothing. I talked Rory into allowing me access to this place for myself, while he retained the main house. I might be a lot of things, but I’m not greedy.’
‘Rory was your cousin?’
‘Yes.’
How had they not known this? But Lottie knew she just had to keep Julia talking. ‘What about Hope Cotter? Why did Rory take her and tie her up?’
‘How would I know? I only went over to the house because I heard the car.’
‘You killed my colleague.’
‘I can’t say I’m sorry about that, but I am sorry it wasn’t the pregnant one. How could she have shown my boy that awful photograph of the dead baby? How could she have done that? Bad enough that he’d seen the body of his bastard brother first-hand.’ She paused as if musing over a thought. ‘How is my boy?’
‘He’s fine.’ What the hell was the woman talking about? Bastard brother? Was the dead baby Barry’s brother? How?
‘Ah, I knew he would be.’ She moved as if floating, closer to Toby. ‘I’m proud of Barry. He helped me take the baby from her and carry it to the water, where I laid it down to rest. But he never told me why he went back there. Why he caused the baby to be found.’
‘Julia, put the knife down. Think of your son.’
The woman lowered her hand slightly. A furrow appeared in her brow and her eyes knitted closer together. ‘Barry? My flesh and blood. Nothing can harm him.’
‘But you harmed Barry’s baby brother, you just said.’ Lottie was still confused.
‘It was no flesh of mine. Paul planted his seed in her. That Hope girl. Her spawn was tainted and had to be put to sleep. I let it float in the waters, freeing its soul.’
‘After you choked his life from him.’ Lottie felt the rage bulging in her chest. She wanted to slap the woman, but she needed her talking before the madness struck her dumb.
‘Where is my Barry?’
‘He’s under arrest for abduction.’ Which might be elevated to murder once forensics was completed on Rory Butler. ‘He’s asking for you. Come with me now and you can see him.’ Lottie eased closer, Boyd’s breath in her ear. She had no idea where Kirby had got to.
‘Barry only did what I asked. It’s all his father’s fault. If that bastard hadn’t succumbed to the flesh of young boys and girls, none of this would have been necessary.’
‘But why kill them? Why did you kill Mikey and Kevin?’
‘I knew they could not remain silent forever. If they had talked, I could have lost everything. My husband would be in jail, his job gone. I might have lost our home. Our lives would be shattered. What would everyone think of us? Our Christian faith would be mocked. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I had to set them free of their secret and save their souls.’
As Julia turned swiftly towards Toby, a loud crash rang through the cramped space as a window shattered and Kirby appeared in an avalanche of glass and splinters.
The easel shuddered and fell, paint splashing across the floor, trickling towards Julia’s bare feet. The woman whirled round, unsure of what had happened. Lottie took her chance, diving forward and knocking the woman flying. She hauled herself to her feet as Kirby dragged Julia upright and drew back his arm. Boyd was quicker.
He grabbed Kirby’s hand. ‘No, bud. We have her. She’ll pay.’
Kirby’s rage crumbled in a flood of tears. Boyd clicked handcuffs on Julia’s wrists, while Lottie turned to the immobile boy and hurriedly released him.
‘Toby?’ she said. ‘Toby? Can you hear me?’
She held her fingers to his throat, feeling for a pulse. Boyd joined her as he called for paramedics, shouting out instructions.
‘Easy, Lottie.’
‘He can’t be dead!’ She lowered her head to Toby’s face. ‘There’s a faint breath. I can feel it. Jesus Christ, Boyd, help me here. We can’t let him die.’
Gently Boyd shoved her out of the way, and she stood watching helplessly as he began CPR on the lifeless boy.
From the corner of her eye she saw a bundle of neatly folded boys’ clothes on a shelf. Beside them, a medal on a green ribbon, and a vase of wild flowers.
Eighty-Five
The clouds eventually burst and the rain fell in torrents. The path they’d taken to Julia’s studio flowed with mud and debris. The paramedics found a more direct route and drove an ambulance through without trouble.
Lottie was sitting on a bench with her arm around Kirby. Julia was en route to the station, with McMahon waiting to accept her into custody.
‘Come on,’ Boyd said. ‘We need to get out of here and let SOCOs do their work.’
Lottie let him lead her and Kirby out into the rain. She looked upwards and welcomed the freshness against her skin.
‘What went on in there?’ she said.
‘You were there, you saw it,’ Boyd said.
‘I know, but before that. It must be where Julia lured the boys. Why did they go with her? Was Paul involved too?’
‘I imagine they trusted her despite her husband’s abuse, and got into the car with her without realising they were getting in with the devil incarnate. She then drugged them and murdered them.’ Boyd put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Anyway, Lottie, I think those are questions for later. Now we need to look after Kirby and see if Lynch is okay. Look out for our own.’
‘And Toby, will he recover?’
‘He’s alive, and that’s all we can hope for at this stage.’
She stopped walking, rainwater rolling down her face. ‘You go on ahead with Kirby. I just need a moment to myself.’
Her two detectives left, Boyd leading a hunched Kirby, who was like a man in a trance. She pitied him the pain that was yet to come. The reality.
With her legs feeling like lead, she sank to her knees in the mud, ran her hands through the saturated earth and tightened her fingers around a clump of drenched grass.
* * *
She didn’t even go home to change. Wet and mucky, she went straight to the hospital.
Lynch was lying in a cubicle wearing a gown, a conglomeration of wires and tubes snaking from her body to a bank of machines. Ben sat on a chair beside her.
Lottie stood awkwardly on the other side of the bed.
‘I’m grand,’ Lynch said. ‘Looks worse than it is.’
‘And the baby?’
‘Little bugger is stronger than me. Not a bother on him.’
‘It’s a boy? Thought you didn’t want to know.’
‘They did a scan and I asked.’
‘Thanks,’ Ben said, ‘for saving her life.’
‘She didn’t save my life,’ Lynch
said sharply. ‘Gilly O’Donoghue did that. She was a hero. I need to talk to Kirby. He’ll want to know what Gilly was saying before she … before …’
‘There’ll be time for that,’ Lottie said. ‘You sure you’re going to be okay?’
‘Yes.’ Lynch put out a hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
Lynch’s eyes darted to Ben, then back to Lottie. ‘I jumped to conclusions. Ben has set me straight.’
Lottie nodded her acceptance of the apology and went to the next cubicle.
Hope was sitting up in bed, Lexie on her knee. Robbie was on a chair beside them. He looked like he’d aged years. The weight of looking after his young niece and her daughter appeared to be too much.
‘I’m going out for a smoke,’ he said.
‘How are you, Hope?’ Lottie asked once he’d gone.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘We got the DNA results on the baby that was found in the canal.’ She wasn’t sure this was a conversation to be held in front of Lexie. But tiredness was eating her bones, so she went for it. ‘The baby was yours and Paul Duffy’s.’
The girl nodded.
‘Were you in a relationship with him?’
‘He got me a job cleaning at the school. We ended up together. It was a one-night stand really. He was so attentive and attractive, I fell for his charms. And he was quite persuasive. But once he’d had me, he didn’t want to know me.’
‘Did he know that that one night resulted in your pregnancy?’
‘I went to his house one evening and told him that I needed money to raise the child, but he said he already had one kid corrupted by his mother, so he didn’t want to know this one and it was best that I stayed away from him. As I turned to leave, Julia was standing down the hall behind him. I’m sure she heard everything.’
‘You could’ve had an abortion,’ Lottie said.
‘I had no money for the air fare to Liverpool, let alone the cost of the actual procedure. I had no choice but to keep it.’
‘Why did Rory take you to his house and tie you up?’
‘He said Mikey’s mum told him she thought Max might have had something to do with the boys’ deaths. He came to the old tyre depot looking for Max because he knew he hung out there, but he found me instead. He quizzed me all night, but there was nothing I could tell him about the boys.’ Hope hugged Lexie to her chest.
Lottie knew she was hiding something. ‘You knew, didn’t you? About the abuse. You told Rory.’
Hope feathered Lexie’s head with a kiss, then looked up, eyes brimming with tears. ‘It was something Paul said, the night he had sex with me … He mocked me and laughed at my body and said it was nothing like what he could have. And he mentioned Mikey, Kevin and Toby. When he was finished with me, I turned over and vomited in the back of his car.’
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘No, because I knew no one would believe me, an unmarried teenage mother from Munbally, over a respected doctor.’
‘You could have spoken to the boys’ mothers.’
‘Same story. They’d have thought I wanted money for telling them. Maybe I should have tried, and then Kevin and Mikey would be still alive. Oh God!’
‘You did nothing with the information then?’ Lottie tried to keep her voice soft and soothing, but it was increasingly difficult.
‘I tried to talk to Mikey, but he kept running away from me, avoiding me. I vowed to myself that I’d watch out for him. I would take Robbie’s car every night and patrol the streets, looking for Paul. I thought I could stop him hurting those boys. But I was wrong.’
‘And you told Rory all this?’
‘I did, and he went mad altogether.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He said if I hadn’t killed my baby, maybe Paul did it. And then he started putting two and two together and said that Paul must have killed Mikey and Kevin too. Did Paul kill my baby?’
Lottie was sure that the amnesia that had gripped Hope when she’d delivered her baby had not lifted yet. Maybe when the girl was back home without the stress of thinking she had to go on the run, she would remember.
‘Can you still not recall what happened?’ Lottie said, trying to be kind.
‘No.’
‘When you came into the station that day, you said, “I think I killed him.”’
‘I remember waking up by the canal, my jeans beside me, my legs covered in blood. I couldn’t see my baby anywhere. I thought … I thought I must have killed him.’
‘You didn’t, Hope. You didn’t kill your baby.’
‘Who did, then?’
She knew she shouldn’t tell the girl, but maybe it would give her some relief to know she hadn’t done it herself. ‘I believe it was Julia Duffy.’
Hope clutched her daughter to her chest and cried into her hair. ‘Oh my God.’
With weariness dragging her down, Lottie turned to leave. She wanted to see her own children. To wrap them up in her arms and hug them until the end of time.
‘Did you find Toby?’ Hope said when Lottie had one foot outside the cubicle.
‘We did.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘I have to talk to the doctors, but yes, he is alive.’
Just about, she thought, as she left.
Eighty-Six
Lottie ran the gauntlet of the crowd of journalists on the station steps and went to find Boyd.
After they had interviewed Paul Duffy and charged him with the sexual abuse of minors and the murder of Rory Butler, she said, ‘Next on the list, Barry Duffy. Let’s see what story he has to tell.’
When the teenager was seated, Lottie thought how innocent he looked. But she knew that the evidence would prove he was anything but innocent. Barry Duffy’s heart had been coated with evil by his mother.
‘Tell me about the baby, Barry.’
‘What baby?’
‘The one you killed.’
‘I did not kill him. She did it.’
‘Who did?’
‘My mother. She had me keep an eye on Hope because she was pregnant with Dad’s baby. I used to follow her on my bike. I saw her that night, stumbling around in the dark up by the canal. I rang Mum. We both followed her. It wasn’t just me.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I saw Hope in pain, lying on the ground. She was in labour. Mum hit her on the head and tore off her jeans and knickers. And then … then the baby slid out between her legs in a pool of blood. Didn’t even cry, but he hadn’t a chance. Mum leaned over, wrapped her hands around his little throat and squeezed the life out of him. She told me to put him in the canal. Said it would cleanse my soul as well as the baby’s.’
The tone of his voice never changed. One long monotone. What had that woman done to her son? Lottie shook her head.
‘Barry, that must have been so tough for you.’ She tried to show him compassion, but all she could think about was him holding little Louis captive.
‘It was. But I couldn’t tell anyone. The only thing I could do was make sure the baby was found. And I did that.’
He raised his eyes and stared at Lottie, his eyes two shards of steel. She felt a shiver trickle between her shoulder blades.
‘That was good thinking.’ But he’d helped dispose of a body. Did he not see the seriousness of his actions? And he was just the same age as her Sean.
‘You knew Mikey, Kevin and Toby?’
‘I did.’
‘And how did you discover your father was abusing them?’
‘Mum told me. She warned me to be careful around him. I couldn’t believe it at first. But I knew something was going on.’
‘Why didn’t you report your father’s abuse of the boys?’
He shrugged. ‘I tried to warn them to stay away from him. But I think they felt more threatened by me. Mum told me not to worry, that she had ways of dealing with Dad. She was just waiting for Hope’s baby to be born, and then she said she would free the boys from
their pain. I thought she meant she was going to go to the guards.’
‘Why did you bring Sean with you to recover the baby’s body?’
He picked at his fingernails. ‘No matter what, that baby was my half-brother. I couldn’t leave him there to be eaten by fish and rats. I thought he needed to be buried or something.’ He laughed. ‘And having your son with me would help prove my innocence if it came to that. It almost worked.’
The evil that stalked his mother’s soul was living in Barry’s heart. Lottie felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
‘And Rory Butler. What happened when he came to your house last night?’
‘You’d better ask my dad about that.’
‘We did. You had the knife, Barry. I think you killed him.’
‘What does Dad say?’
Lottie knew that Paul Duffy had already confessed to murdering Rory after the younger man had arrived at his home shouting accusations. But she still felt that Barry had lost control.
‘I’m asking you. What happened?’
Barry shrugged. ‘Rory was accusing Dad of killing his son, Mikey. I had to shut him up. Dad was kicking the shit out of him so I lashed out with the knife.’ He paused before adding, ‘What killed him? The kicks or the knife?’
You’re one smart little fecker, Lottie thought. She had to wait for the post-mortem results to confirm the exact cause of death, but for now, she was satisfied that father and son were equally culpable in the death of Rory Butler.
She stood. ‘Boyd, add the charge of murder to his growing list of offences.’
‘When can I go home?’ Barry said.
‘Home? You no longer have a home.’
But Lottie had, and that was where she was going. She flew out the door and ran down the corridor to the front door. She didn’t even hear Boyd calling after her.
Day Five
Friday
Eighty-Seven
Cafferty’s was pulsing with hot bodies on this warm Friday evening. Some of the crowd had spilled over into the smoking area outside.
Tell Nobody: Absolutely gripping crime fiction with unputdownable mystery and suspense Page 32