Shaking her head, thinking how her mother always got a dig in, Lottie watched Rose walk slowly to her car. She was getting more stooped. The once straight and strong Rose Fitzpatrick was ageing quickly. But Lottie had little sympathy, because at that moment she felt older than her mother.
She dropped her coat on top of the multitude on the banister. The smell coming from the kitchen reached her nose. She was ravenous. First, though, she checked her children. All appeared to be in good form, greeting her with silent nods. Picture with no sound, as Adam used to say. They were waiting to see what her form was like. Not good, she silently transmitted.
Katie followed her into the kitchen. Switching on the stove to reheat the casserole, Lottie heard her drag a chair out from the table. The chair legs screeched on the tiled floor.
‘Where’s my cute little man?’
‘Louis is in bed.’ Katie sat down. ‘Mam, can we talk for a minute?’
‘Sure.’
Obviously her elder daughter hadn’t got the memo. Lottie joined her, bracing herself for a row.
Katie joined her hands on the table. ‘Like I told you on the phone, Mam, I want to bring Louis over to visit his Grandad Tom for Christmas. I think it would be good for Chloe to come too. Tom says New York is fab at this time of year.’
Lottie turned up her nose. ‘I presume Tom Rickard’s paying for it?’
She didn’t like Tom funding Katie’s trips, but Louis was his grandson and she couldn’t deny him access. She felt a squirming niggle like a hungry worm under her skin. Was he buying her family out from under her? Was Leo doing that also?
‘I knew the first thing out of your mouth would be about bloody money,’ Katie snapped.
Lottie held her hands up and attempted a wry smile. ‘I always do that, don’t I?’
‘You do.’
‘That aside, I’m not sure it’s a good thing to be away for Christmas. Granny will miss you. And what about Sean?’ She would miss them.
‘We asked Sean,’ Katie said quickly. ‘He says he doesn’t want to travel.’
‘Are you certain you asked him?’
Katie dipped her head. Lottie wasn’t sure what that meant.
‘He’ll be like a grizzly bear over the holidays with just me for company.’
‘You’re thinking of yourself again.’
‘I’m thinking of your brother. His moods are black enough without this on top of him.’
‘Okay.’ Katie counted on her fingers. ‘One, leave the money aside. Two, leave Sean out of it. Three, we want to go. I think it’d be great for Louis.’
‘It’s cold in New York.’
‘It’s cold here too.’
‘I’ll miss you all being here.’ There, she’d said it.
Katie reached out and took her hand. ‘No you won’t. You’re in the middle of a case. And you know what you’re like with a murder investigation.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You forget all about us. You lose yourself in the job. You’re never here anyway. You don’t listen to us.’ Katie snapped her hand back. ‘And you … you float off into another world.’
‘No I do not.’ Lottie clasped her own hands into each other.
‘You do. When you have big cases, you get stressed. All the bloody time. You won’t even notice if we’re here or not. Mam, I’m not asking your permission. Me and Chloe are adults, and anyway … Tom has the tickets booked.’
Lottie felt her jaw drop. ‘You did this to me before. Broke my heart, Katie.’
‘Oh, get real, Mam. Even Boyd can’t break your heart. Why don’t you hurry up and marry him? What are you waiting for? We don’t mind, if that’s what’s holding you up. Sean loves him. I know you do too.’
Lottie felt her cheeks flush. Her own daughter knew more about her than she did herself. Guilt framed a shadow around her, and in that moment, she thought she might never break through it. ‘I’ve failed as a mother,’ she whispered.
‘Mam! Stop feeling sorry for yourself.’ Katie stood. ‘I smell something burning. Did you leave the stove on?’
‘Oh shit.’ Lottie jumped up to switch it off.
‘By the way, Uncle Leo was here earlier.’
Swinging around, she stared at her daughter. ‘Uncle?’
‘Well, that’s what he is, isn’t it?’
The word stuck in Lottie’s craw, conjuring up images she’d seen in the course of her work. Horrors perpetrated by so-called uncles on defenceless children. She sensed her thoughts were irrational, but in reality, she knew very little about her half-brother.
‘Don’t call him that,’ she said. ‘Please, Katie. And watch yourself around him.’
‘What the f—’
‘Katie! Just be careful. He’s not allowed in this house again unless I’m home. Got it?’
‘Granny was with him. Feck’s sake, Mam, you’re such a pain in the hole.’
‘I’ve had enough of this. I need to eat.’
‘There you go again. Just when I wanted to have a proper conversation with you. It’s always about you. You. You. You.’
‘Katie!’
The girl was half out the door. Over her shoulder she said, ‘And for your information, Uncle Leo is booked on the same flight as us.’
The door slammed shut. Lottie slumped against the stove. She snapped her hand away from the heat and watched the tips of her fingers redden. She should run water from the cold tap over them, but she just stared, waiting for the blisters to rise. She deserved it, after all.
As tears stung behind her eyes, she wondered how she was going to right all the wrongs she’d visited on her family over the years. Somehow, she felt it might be too late.
The night crew were busy updating files and PULSE, the garda national database. Kirby sat at his desk with a McDonald’s meal. He tipped the chips onto a sheet of photocopier paper on his desk and tried to tear open a sachet of ketchup with his teeth. It ripped, and ketchup spurted onto his face and hair.
‘Holy Jesus,’ he said to the empty room.
Tipping the chips to one side, he scrunched the page and wiped his face with it. He wanted to throw the whole lot in the bin, but he was starving. He devoured the chicken nuggets, stuffed the chips into his mouth and swallowed the coffee, which was now cold.
Burping loudly, he bundled the wrappers into the box and dumped it in the bin. On his desk, he spread out a copy of Beth Clarke’s article that had appeared in the Tribune the week after Robert Brady had been found dead. If Brady’s death had not been a suicide, he sensed maybe there might be a clue here.
As he read, he couldn’t help admiring the young journalist’s technique in handling the sensitive subject.
Robert Brady had been thirty-four years old, an unmarried and unemployed builder’s labourer. He’d lived in Ragmullin all his life. Neighbours told Beth Clarke that they fondly called him Bob the Builder, but that the change in him had been massive after his employer had gone bust a year ago and the workers had been let go. Brady had struggled to get another job. With only odd jobs coming his way, he’d struggled to pay his mortgage. Lost his house to the banks. Struggled to live.
Kirby put his name into PULSE. One misdemeanour turned up. Drunk and disorderly. Brady had kept his nose virtually out of trouble. Good lad, Kirby thought, feeling an affinity with the dead man.
He returned to the article and noticed the name of the person who had reported the body hanging in the woods. Colin Kavanagh. He read on. Two men who’d been looking for fir trees for Christmas found the body, but with no phone coverage in the forest, they’d run to Kavanagh’s house to raise the alarm. Kavanagh, the thorn in the boss’s side. That might give her a bone to chew on.
Pushing back his chair, Kirby switched off the computer and dragged on his coat. Time to go home. He paused in the middle of the office. Maybe he’d stop off in Cafferty’s to stave off the boredom before another lonely night.
He made his way out of the station and into the snow. Yes, he thought, a couple of hot I
rish whiskeys would do the job.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Beth showered and changed into clean black jeans, T-shirt and a knitted sweater. She felt hollow, like someone had stuck their hand in her chest and pulled out her heart. She walked slowly down the stairs and grabbed her jacket from the banister.
She flicked off the hall light. Passing the living room, she noticed the light in there was on. A shadow moved. She screamed, clutching her hand to her chest.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Colin Kavanagh raised his head. He was seated on Christy’s chair. The paperwork that twenty minutes ago had been scattered all around was now in neat piles on the desk.
‘Ah, Beth. Hello.’
‘I asked you a question. Why are you here, going through my dad’s papers?’ She stepped into the room, glancing around to see if anyone else had entered her home. ‘How did you get in?’
‘The back door was unlocked. You should be more careful now that you’re living alone.’
‘My dad’s blood is not yet cold in his veins and you barge in here, preaching to me. You are the pits.’
‘That’s no way to speak to your elders. Did Christy not teach you any manners?’ He pointed to a chair in front of the desk. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
‘Why don’t you get out?’ Beth felt her flesh flare with rage. ‘You’re trespassing.’
She watched as Kavanagh tidied the last sheaf of pages before leaning back into her father’s chair. He joined his hands behind his head. ‘Trespassing? Now, Beth my darling, that’s where you’re mistaken.’
Had she misheard him? Blinded with rage, she was certain of one thing. She wanted Kavanagh out of the house.
‘I’m asking you one last time to get out. Otherwise I’m phoning the guards.’
‘Phone away. You’ll only make a fool of yourself.’
‘What are you talking about?’ She was unwilling to concede defeat, but the trauma of the last few hours raced through her body like an unfettered pony and she sank onto the chair. Kavanagh’s white hair shone like a halo in the gleam of light from the lamp. Shadows flashed up and down his long face. Beth felt a shiver travel the length of her spine, and her entire body shuddered.
‘I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.’ He unlocked his hands and his body seemed to curl like a snake as he reached forward and picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Read this. It’s a legal document. It states that I am the owner of your late father’s house and business. All of it. Lock, stock and steaming pig shit.’
Beth’s hands froze on her lap like two cubes of unbreakable ice. It could not be true. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Your father signed everything over to me. Did he not tell you?’
‘When? Why? I don’t understand.’
‘When your mother left him, Christy felt it was the best course of action to prevent her from getting her dirty, cheating paws on anything remotely connected to him.’
‘I don’t believe that for a minute. My mother never came looking for anything. She had no right to, anyway. She was the one who left.’
‘I suppose you never wondered why she ran off with another man?’
‘That didn’t concern me at the time, and it doesn’t concern me now. I can’t believe Dad would come up with such a crooked plan all on his own. What did you promise him?’ Beth failed to suppress a sense of rage. She knew the likes of Colin Kavanagh. Sleazebag was usually uttered in the same sentence as his name. Now she was convinced he had cheated her father out of his livelihood; stolen her inheritance.
‘I offered him a way out,’ Kavanagh said smugly. He leaned back, this time keeping his spine erect. More threatening, Beth thought.
She couldn’t stand it any longer. She jumped up. ‘Fuck you. You might have seen him as a lightweight, an inconsequential excuse for a human being, but he was my dad! He was the only person in the world who loved me. Let me tell you, I won’t let you get away with this.’ She paused, her breath dying on her lips, exhaustion rattling her knees. ‘I’m coming after you.’
His guffaw filled the room. She steeled herself against physically cringing. She had to appear strong, though she felt like her insides were breaking into a million pieces.
‘You are so funny,’ he said. ‘You should be on the stage. Maybe Giles Bannon might have a role for you in one of his piss-poor shows.’
How could he mock her like this? How could he have fleeced her father? In that instant, Beth loathed Colin Kavanagh with more hate than she thought a human heart could possess. Fiona had been right to leave him.
She let fly. ‘Your daughter is missing. You should be more concerned with her than with me. God knows what sick fuck is having his way with her right now.’ She instantly felt horrible saying those words, but she received the reaction she craved.
Kavanagh thumped the desk. ‘What do you know about Lily? Have you done something to her?’ Suddenly the hardness floated away from his eyes. They watered, and his hands trembled. ‘I have to find her. She’s my daughter and I love her, just like your father loved you, even if it looks like he didn’t. You have to understand that. Tell me if you know where she is.’
Beth couldn’t help the smile she felt spreading across her face like a warm breeze. Kavanagh’s face told her she had him rattled, if only for a moment.
He stood up. She dropped her smile as he stepped around the table and towered over her.
‘Don’t threaten me, Beth Clarke. Not about my daughter. Ever. Just don’t.’
Ryan Slevin was surprised that the garda forensic team had left his cottage in a surprisingly good state.
It had been his and Zoe’s parents’ home. When Zoe married Giles, she’d moved into his house in the village. She’d been good enough to let him stay with her for the last six months while he worked every evening and weekend transforming the cottage. For Fiona and Lily.
He stood at the kitchen window and peered out at the darkness. He couldn’t stay here any longer. Much as he loved the cottage, getting away from Ballydoon and Ragmullin was now his main aim. December wasn’t a good month to sell property, but he hoped the cottage would be snapped up quickly.
He turned from the night. Opening a cupboard, he took out his spare camera and checked to see if the gardaí had confiscated the SD card. It was still there. They’d probably been looking for evidence that a crime had occurred in the cottage. But there wouldn’t be any, because Fiona had died at the abbey. That much was perfectly clear.
The caw of crows travelled down the chimney. He didn’t like birds. It was okay photographing them from a distance, but the thought of them flying down the wide chimney and landing in his living space made the hairs on his arms shoot up.
He’d have to put a cowl on the chimney if he was going to have to live here for any length of time. Pocketing the SD card, he slid the camera back onto the shelf and closed the cupboard door. He stood stock still when he heard a loud knock on the door.
‘Ryan? Are you in there? Let me in. Please.’
‘Beth?’ He lifted the latch.
She burst inside, her face a mess of tears, and threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh Ryan. Help me.’
‘Is there someone after you?’ He looked out over her head, staring deep into the night. It was dark save for the light spilling forth from the depth of his cottage.
‘Zoe told me you’d be here. I had a shower and then … He was there. He’s a horrible man.’
‘Who are you talking about?’ He disentangled himself from her grasp and led her into the kitchen, sitting her down.
She seemed to gather her wits quite quickly and blinked back her tears. ‘First Fiona, and now my dad. Why, Ryan? Why?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Start at the beginning.’
‘I left work early. I had to look for my dad. I thought he was missing, you see.’ She paused, catching her breath. He didn’t see, but he nodded for her to continue. ‘I couldn’t find him anywhere. I’d even called to the garda stat
ion. But that detective said I had to wait forty-eight hours or something. I searched the village. No one remembered seeing him. And then … then I saw his car at the rear of the garage …’ She began to cry again.
‘What garage?’
‘Dad’s old garage. I had the spare key and I went in. Oh Ryan. He … he’d killed himself.’
‘Your dad?’
She nodded, sobbing hysterically. ‘Why would he do such a thing?’
He shook his head. How would he know? Christy Clarke had never had much time for him. ‘Maybe he was in debt or something.’
‘That’s what I thought. And then, just now, he was in my house.’
‘Who?’ Ryan scratched his head. ‘Your dad?’
‘No, no. Colin Kavanagh.’
Feeling his skin prickle, he hooked a gentle finger under Beth’s chin and lifted her head so he could look into her eyes. ‘That prick Kavanagh was in your house? What did he want?’
‘H-he was s-sitting at my dad’s table, his desk, going through his paperwork,’ she sobbed.
‘The cheek of the pig.’
‘He said Dad had signed everything over to him. The farm. The house. Everything. Leaving me with nothing. What am I going to do?’
‘Back up there.’ Ryan tried to think logically. ‘Was Kavanagh your father’s solicitor?’
She shrugged. ‘He must have been, I suppose. I never got involved in all that stuff.’
‘Christ, Beth, this is serious shit.’
‘I know.’
He’d offer her a drink, but he had no alcohol in the cottage. Tea, maybe? But Beth looked like she was too far gone for tea.
‘Do you want to head into the village for a drink? You could probably do with one. I know I could.’
‘Maybe.’ She leaned into him and he hugged her. ‘Oh Ryan, I don’t know what to do.’
‘I do.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The village pub was pulsing with a crowd in for a football club table quiz. Lottie smelled silage and fried food, though she hoped the two odours did not emanate from the same source. The atmosphere was loud and warm. The decor cool yet old-fashioned. The barman struggled with the crush of bodies and shouts for more beer, shots and shorts.
Broken Souls: An absolutely addictive mystery thriller with a brilliant twist (Detective Lottie Parker Book 7) Page 19