The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(105)

Without a glance at the food, Lottie stood up and gingerly took a step towards the girl. She was dressed in black Converses, jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. Her hair was tied back and she looked younger than her seventeen years.

‘What do you want with me? Why have you brought me here?’ Another step forward. The girl retreated up the stairs.

‘You couldn’t leave us alone! If you’d stayed away, we could’ve left without any fuss. But you had to come around upsetting my mum. Now she says she’s staying until the end. I hate you.’

Before Lottie could utter another word, Natasha had slipped through the door and snapped the bolt shut.

Kneeling down to the tray of toast and tea, Lottie tried to assimilate everything that had happened in the last week. How did Bernie Kelly fit into the equation? At the back of her mind she’d always felt that something was off with Bernie and her daughter. But events had occurred so quickly, she hadn’t explored the possibility of Bernie’s involvement. Now she had to figure it out. Her life depended on it.

If Bernie Kelly was behind the murders of Tessa, Marian and Emma, then Lottie knew exactly what the woman was capable of.



* * *



She must have fallen asleep after the tea and toast, because she awoke with a jolt. Bernie Kelly was sitting on the bottom step, tapping a long knife against her thigh. The door above her was open, light streaming in.

‘Sleeping Beauty awakes,’ she snarled. ‘Though I don’t see much beauty.’

‘What do you want? Why did you abduct me?’ Lottie scrambled her thoughts and tried to sit up straight.

‘I followed you to Moroney’s house. Saw you leave with that file.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lottie said. ‘Where am I?’

‘In the cellar of what should be my rightful inheritance.’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t read the story in the file, did you?’

‘I had no time to read it. You attacked me.’

‘Yes, me and my sweet girl. Strong, aren’t we?’

‘You’re insane.’

Bernie Kelly laughed. ‘I wasn’t always insane, you know. But when that greedy bitch Tessa Ball had me locked away with my mother in the asylum, I was condemned to a life of madness. If you can’t beat them, join them. You ever hear that saying?’

‘I did, but I think you know exactly what you are doing, Bernie. And this is wrong. I’m a detective inspector. You need to let me go. We can work this out.’

Another laugh, louder, more demonic. The woman stood up, the light behind shrouding her. She looked like the devil rising up from the flames of hell.

Lottie eased back against the arsenal she’d built up. She couldn’t let Bernie see it. It might be her only hope of getting out alive.

‘This is Kitty’s house, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Ah, so you are a detective. How did you figure that out?’

‘It’s either O’Dowd’s or Belfield’s, and I can’t smell cow shite, so…’

‘Your deduction skills are a little primitive. You didn’t figure me out, did you? You or your team. Incompetence.’

‘What did you do with Kitty Belfield?’

‘My grandmother?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Kitty Belfield is your grandmother?’

‘Was is the correct grammar. The old witch.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’ll enlighten you, shall I?’

As long as she kept Bernie talking, Lottie thought she might get a chance to use her makeshift ammunition. Boyd and the team had better have got their act together. But how would they figure it out in time? She would just have to trust them, she told herself.

‘I hope you didn’t harm the old lady,’ she said.

‘Lady? Don’t make me laugh.’ Bernie sniggered. ‘Now see what you made me do!’

‘Tell me your story. I want to know what happened to you.’

‘I’m not sure I want to tell you anything,’ Bernie said, wrinkling her nose. She wandered towards the old washing machine. ‘I’m fascinated by this. It’s so small. Not like the ones I had to work with in the madhouse.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t keep interrupting me!’ The eyes glaring in the half-light were ferocious. Pinpricks in a white face. Daggers of evil. ‘Are you going to be quiet?’ Her whisper was laced with menace.

Lottie nodded, one hand behind her back encircling a can, the other around the hose beneath her legs. She might only have one chance, and she’d have to take it wisely. She watched intently as Bernie heaved herself up on top of one of the cupboards and folded her arms, the knife still in her hand. She didn’t appear to see Lottie as a threat. That would work in her favour.

‘My mother spent most of her young life inside St Declan’s. Money greased hands for that to happen. That’s fine. I can understand that. But I can’t understand why I was also consigned to the asylum. And I’d never have found out the truth about the history of my sordid family if Marian Russell hadn’t decided to burrow a little deeper during her course. Marian. My older sister, or half-sister, depending on who her father was. But I’d never have known she was related to me if she hadn’t started digging with an industrial-sized spade. I know it now. I knew it before I ripped her tongue out of her head. The bitch and her adoptive mother. Tessa, the cow, got rid of all her property so that I could get nothing from her. She thought I’d be happy renting that poxy house. And me in league with one of the biggest drug families in the country.’ She swung her legs like a little girl.