‘How long has Cristina been in your employment?’
He blushed, and she knew Cristina wasn’t on the books. Something to hold over him, if things went belly-up at any stage.
‘About a year,’ he said.
‘How did you find her?’
‘After my wife died, I couldn’t cope with the house as well as the shop and the council. Amy was working too. I saw a card on the noticeboard in the pharmacy. I called the number on it and Cristina started working for me. Cleaning in the pharmacy and also here. She brought sunshine and polish into this house. I don’t think I’d ever seen it sparkle so much.’
‘How could she afford her apartment if she was just a cleaner? I imagine the prices are sky high over there,’ Lottie said.
He shot up out of the armchair and leaned over her. ‘If you’re insinuating what I think you are, you have some cheek. Cristina is a beautiful person. She has an aura about her. I had no relationship with her other than to compliment her on her work and hand over her wages. So you can squash that idea.’
A sting of discomfort shot through Lottie. She hadn’t even thought that Whyte could have been in a relationship with Cristina, just that he might have paid for her apartment. But now that he’d planted the seed of that idea, she couldn’t uproot it.
‘Does she keep any personal items here?’ Boyd said, and Lottie silently thanked him for defusing the situation before she said something she would regret.
‘Just the cleaning stuff. It’s in a cupboard in the utility room. Has something happened to Cristina?’ A streak of unease skittered across Whyte’s face.
‘Can we take a look?’ Boyd said. ‘If you don’t mind.’
Whyte led the way out the door, through the kitchen and into the utility room, which was as big as Lottie’s entire kitchen.
They found nothing of interest in the baskets of cleaning products, all neatly stored away. As Lottie shoved a basket back in, it snagged on something. Getting down on her knees, she ran her hand over the shelf and dragged out a small old-fashioned mobile phone.
Holding it up, and dropping all familiarity, she said, ‘Is this yours, Mr Whyte?’
Thirty-Three
Kirby was still hungry. He missed having Maria Lynch around to have lunch with. He should call and see how she was getting on with the new baby. But not now, not yet. He had no idea how to make small talk about stuff like that. He’d spent all morning collating information from house-to-house inquiries in relation to the Whyte and Brogan murders. Nothing unusual had jumped out at him. As usual with this town, no one knew anything.
As he moved to the photocopier, he felt the little box shift in his trouser pocket and his chest tightened. He gripped it tightly, feeling the soft velvet beneath his fingers, and his heart broke all over again. The surprise he’d planned for Gilly. The ring he’d ordered but never got to give her. Just yesterday, the jeweller’s had called to say it was ready for collection. He could have said it was too late; he didn’t need it any longer. But he didn’t. Instead he’d gone in, paid the balance and taken the little blue box home with him. He couldn’t find the willpower to open it up, to stare at the cluster of diamonds on the white-gold band.
She was gone. She’d never known of his intentions. Never got to answer his unasked question. Would never slip the ring on her freckled finger. He gulped back a sob, glad that everyone was out of the office. Working. Unlike him. He needed to do something or he was going to go stark raving mad.
He took his hand away from the box of shattered dreams, found his coat and trudged out of the office and out of the station.
He had to eat.
* * *
As Boyd drove back to the station, Lottie leaned her head against the window. When they reached the Dublin bridge, she sat up straight and looked down into the valley of her town. The cathedral’s twin spires, the Protestant church’s single one, and what Sean called the hangman’s crane over the courthouse. They all stood as if holding up the businesses and homes that nestled in their shadows. In a few years, she thought, there might be a little more life in Ragmullin.
‘You didn’t have to be so cynical,’ Boyd said, interrupting her musings.
‘What do you expect? When you have a grieving father lying through his teeth.’
‘Richard Whyte wasn’t lying.’
‘Oh come on, Boyd. He tried to pretend he knew nothing about that phone. But he did. I was studying his expression. He didn’t think we’d find it. And then he got all flustered, saying it must have been Cristina’s. Do you know what I think?’
‘No, but you’re going to tell me.’
‘I think it’s Amy’s secret phone. And now I have it.’
‘And do you think it will lead you to her killer?’
She didn’t answer, just leaned her head against the glass again. The traffic lights turned green and Boyd put his foot to the floor.
‘Lottie, it was in the cupboard with the cleaning products, so chances are it belongs to Cristina.’
‘We’ll have to wait until our technical guys have a look at it.’
‘Right.’
‘What’s eating you now?’ she said.
‘Nothing, and you still have to tell me why you’re avoiding McMahon.’
‘It’s about Bernie Kelly. The media broadcast about her escape. I was accosted by Cynthia this morning. Needless to say, shit from the fan is swirling around McMahon at the moment.’
‘Are you sure you want to go back to the station?’ He was already turning up the street.
‘We now have four murders to investigate, so yes, I have to go back.’
They entered the station through the back door, and negotiated the stacks of box files that lined the narrow corridor.
‘Make sure that door is shut,’ Lottie told Boyd. ‘Don’t want little Miss Nosy Rhodes getting in.’
The media scrum outside the front door had swelled in the couple of hours since they’d left. Avoiding McMahon was going to be impossible.
‘I think you’re better off talking to him now instead of spending the remainder of the day in hiding.’
Boyd was right, she knew that, but the prospect of McMahon’s anger was enough to make her want to avoid him at all costs. It was taken out of her hands when she entered the incident room. McMahon was seated at one of the desks, going over a stack of reports. She noticed a stranger sitting at another desk.
The acting superintendent raised his head. ‘My office.’
By the time he had pushed out past her, she still hadn’t formed her reply.
‘You’d better get it over with,’ Boyd said.
‘Everything might be over by the time he finishes with me.’
‘What are you going to say?’ Boyd said.
‘I’ll think of something.’
She dropped her jacket and bag on a chair and followed her superior.
He’d moved the furniture around in his office again. Where did he get the time? Lottie searched for a chair to sit on, but couldn’t see one. Was this a KGB-type ploy to make her faint at his feet and spill her secrets? Feck you, McMahon. She leaned up against the wall inside the door and waited while he settled himself behind his desk.
‘Explain yourself,’ he said at last.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me. I know your type.’
‘What type might that be?’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘Sir.’ Best not to irritate him, though she suspected he was about to explode at any minute.
‘The type who protests their innocence knowing they’re guilty as hell.’
Unable to trust the words that might flow from her mouth, she remained silent.
‘I’m going to ask you a couple of questions and I want straight answers.’ He shifted a solitary pen from one side of his desk to the other. Then he leaned across and glared. ‘Are you related to Bernie Kelly?’
‘Sir, let me explain—’
‘Answer the question!’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Feck h
im, she thought, he was going to screw her.
‘Did you know that fact at the time of the investigations you were conducting last October into the murders of Tessa Ball and Marian Russell?’
‘No, sir, I did not.’ Lottie squirmed against the wall. She’d discovered back then that Marian Russell too was her half-sister.
‘When did you become aware of your relationship to Bernie Kelly?’
‘After the case closed.’
‘The truth.’
‘That is the truth. I uncovered a little information during the course of the investigation, but when I was recovering from my stab wound, I confronted my mother and she told me what she believed to be the facts.’ Lottie felt like sliding down the wall and sitting with her hands around her knees like a child. But she remained standing, her head held high.
‘That’s a crock of shit.’
‘It’s the truth. Ask my mother.’
‘If I’m to believe Cynthia Rhodes, your mother died in a lunatic asylum.’
A gasp caught in her throat. He was nothing other than a grade-A shithead. ‘She might not be related by blood, but Rose Fitzpatrick is the only mother I’ve ever known.’
McMahon moved the pen to the other side of the desk again. ‘I’ll park that for the moment. When did you become aware that Kelly had escaped custody?’
Time for fudging the truth. She crossed her fingers. ‘When Cynthia doorstepped me this morning.’
He snorted. ‘You’re in serious trouble over this.’
Lottie copped the hint of a smirk curling his lips. Don’t say the wrong thing, she warned herself. That was what he wanted.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ she said, lobbing the responsibility back into his court. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him.
‘You’ve compromised a historic murder case. You’ve put this whole district under the spotlight. I can’t have you pissing all over another investigation, especially with your half-sister on the loose.’ He still hadn’t said what he was going to do, but she read between the lines.
‘You can’t take me off the current cases. I’m senior investigating officer. I have suspects, and clues to follow up. Two more murders discovered this morning, and I—’
‘You need to shut up. I know I can’t take you off the case immediately. I have assigned a detective from Athlone to your team. Sam McKeown. Be nice to him.’ He paused, and Lottie held her breath. She knew what was coming. ‘This is a formal warning. One step, one bloody step out of line, and you’ll be suspended.’ He held up a hand to stop her saying anything else. ‘You’re not off the hook. When you find this Bernie Kelly – and you will find her – I will know the whole truth of the matter.’
‘You think she’ll tell you the truth? You’re delusional, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ She couldn’t stop herself talking. She pushed away from the wall, leaned both hands on his desk and stared down at him. ‘Bernie Kelly was bred on lies. She lives in a world of her own making. She doesn’t know right from wrong. She couldn’t stand trial for the murders of Marian Russell or Tessa Ball or any of the others, on grounds of insanity. And you’re going to believe her over me? Come on! She’s threatened me already. My family and I need protection, not suspension or suspicion.’
‘Are you finished?’ he said.
She was breathless, so she nodded and took a step back as he stood. All the resolutions she’d made since moving into her new home – to be a good mother, to be the best at her job, to stop being dependent on pills and alcohol – suddenly seemed to dissolve into this single moment, and she felt totally lost. All she could see through the haze was one fact. She could not lose her job.
‘Threatened you? How?’
She could tell him about the seeds on her front step, but he wouldn’t get it. She should tell him about the coin, but she didn’t want to. She was in a bind. Before she could open her mouth, he continued talking.
‘You bring me the killer or killers of these young women without alienating Richard Whyte and Cyril Gill, two upstanding gentlemen of this town, and I will have a think about what I’ll do with you. Dismissed.’
Bollocks, she thought as she closed the door.
Thirty-Four
Conor straightened his shoulders as he marched over to Bob Cleary. Tony had got over himself and agreed to give him support.
‘Mr Cleary,’ he said, ‘can I have a word?’
‘I told him about the tunnel,’ Tony added. ‘You know … what we found down there.’
Cleary rounded on him. ‘Can you not take a direct order? Didn’t I tell you to say nothing?’
‘Yes, you did, but Conor is … well, he’s my friend and I had to tell someone. He won’t say anything.’
Watching the exchange, Conor decided he had to say something before Cleary took a swipe at Tony. Only God himself knew what would happen if he did that.
‘Mr Cleary, sir. I’m part of the team here. I need this job. Is it true, what Tony said? About there being an old body in the tunnel?’ He didn’t want to let them know he’d already been down there.
Cleary sighed, tipped back his hard hat and ran a muddy gloved hand through his straw-like hair. ‘I don’t know how old it is. But it’s been there a while, by the state of it. There’ll be guards and archaeologists and every Tom, Dick and Harry down there before long. So I have to tell Mr Gill about it now.’
‘Why?’ Conor shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned his head to one side. Trying to look intelligent.
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you have to tell him? Can’t you just ignore the fact that you found the body, do the job that has to be done in the tunnel and close it up again? That’s what I’d do.’
Cleary scratched his head vigorously but said nothing.
Conor decided to go for it. ‘If you report it, the job will be shut down. It could be months before we’re allowed back on site. The boss won’t like that. It’s already behind schedule, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Cleary conceded.
‘The tunnel hasn’t caved in in the last two hundred years and who’s to say there aren’t more bodies down there. Reporting your find will affect the job.’
‘The weight of the new lift shaft that has to be constructed might cause subsidence. The whole thing needs to be supported. That tunnel is make or break on this job.’ Cleary looked around wildly. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to think.’
‘Can I go down and have a look, and then we can decide?’
‘Since when did you become the decision-maker around here?’ Cleary said.
‘Since no one else can make a decision.’ Conor held his breath, waiting for the onslaught, but it didn’t come.
‘Okay. We’ll have another look.’ Cleary walked off towards the tunnel.
Conor looked at Tony, who shrugged his shoulders, and they both followed the foreman.
* * *
Kirby opened the door for Megan Price and followed her into Cafferty’s. It was quiet. And very dark. They ordered sandwiches at the counter and sat down in a corner of the lounge.
‘It’s never too busy at this time of day,’ he said.
‘I’m delighted you asked me to have lunch with you, even though it’s way past lunchtime. You need someone to talk your grief through with.’
‘I was just hungry,’ Kirby said, ‘and didn’t feel like eating alone.’
‘You’re full of charm.’ Her big eyes drank him in.
‘It’s been said before.’
He tried to relax, but every nerve in his body was sprung tightly. This was a mistake. What had he been thinking? Megan wasn’t Gilly. She wasn’t even his friend. Before Gilly, impulsive behaviour had been one of his traits. She had been so good for him. And now she was gone. He shook his head.
‘What is it?’
‘Look, Megan. I don’t think this is a good idea.’ He would take his sandwich and eat it back at his desk. Like he’d been doing for the last two months.
He felt her hand on his and
squirmed. This was wrong. But she was only trying to be friendly. He had to calm down.
‘You need to eat,’ she said. ‘I need to eat. Let’s just wait for our food. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.’
She had hung her coat on the back of her chair, and he noticed that the top button of her dress was undone. Had it been like that earlier, when he’d called into the pharmacy? He couldn’t remember. Surely she didn’t think he fancied her? God, no, he thought.
‘Okay so,’ he said, pulling his hand out from beneath hers. He consciously tried to unwind his body before the springs shot out of it, causing him to run out the door.
‘Tell me about Gilly,’ she said.
Ah, no. Not Gilly. He couldn’t talk about her.
‘How about you tell me about yourself?’ he said.
‘Not a lot to tell,’ she said, leaning into the chair’s upholstery. ‘You wouldn’t be interested.’
The change was instantaneous. He knew the signs off by heart. Because he did the same thing every single day. Withdrawal. He tried again.
‘How long have you worked in the pharmacy?’
‘A while.’
‘What’s Whyte like to work for?’
‘Richard? He’s fine. He’s not in too often. But now that Amy … now that she isn’t around any more, he’ll have to either employ someone else or take on the mantle himself. Poor man.’
‘Talking of Amy …’ Kirby said, but at that moment the food arrived.
With cups, saucers, teapot and plates, the little round table threatened to topple over. Though Kirby had lost weight in the weeks after Gilly’s death, recently a combination of takeaway food and too much alcohol had restored his considerable bulk. For the first time in a long time, he felt conscious of his size. Was it the way Megan winced when he took a large bite out of his sandwich? Or was it when she put out her hand to stop the table wobbling when his belly nudged it? Whatever it was, it sparked a serious bout of self-consciousness, and Kirby put down the food.
‘Sorry, my appetite has disappeared.’
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