The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(13)

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Boyd asked. ‘You look like a rat crawled over your face.’

‘Very funny, Boyd.’ She unbuckled her seat belt. ‘Second floor. Apartment 6B.’

She tried to avoid splashing in puddles. Her boots would never dry out at this rate. In the clean, square foyer, smelling strongly of disinfectant, they were met with the steel door of an elevator. She pressed a button, stepped inside and waited for Boyd to join her.

The elevator trundled slowly up to the second floor. They exited into a corridor lined with doors.

Stepping into the apartment, Lottie felt around the wall for a light switch and flicked it on. They were standing in a living area. Curtains drawn across the window. The room was split in half by a breakfast bar, behind which lay a galley-type kitchen. A couch piled with cushions in knitted covers was pushed up against the bar. There was a single armchair too, and the floor was covered with flowery deep-pile carpet.

‘Like a return to the seventies,’ Lottie said. ‘I thought these were relatively new apartments?’

‘Built about ten years ago, maybe less. She must have decorated it herself.’

‘I wouldn’t call it decorating; not in the modern sense.’ She appraised the acrylic paintings on the wall and sniffed the air. ‘Wintergreen.’

‘To mask the fusty smell, or maybe she had muscle problems?’ Boyd shrugged and lifted up a newspaper from the coffee table. ‘Yesterday’s Irish Times. No Sun for this lady.’ A basket with wool and knitting needles sat beside the newspaper.

Lottie moved to the window and drew back the brocade curtain. It didn’t add much light to the room. One of those days that refused to brighten up. A moth escaped the darkness and fluttered up to the glass chandelier.

The kitchen counter top was clean and the sink empty. One by one she opened the mahogany doors of the cupboards. Pulling out a few pots, she checked there was nothing hidden.

‘What are we looking for?’ Boyd asked, opening the refrigerator.

‘Make sure you check the freezer box,’ Lottie said, recalling how they’d overlooked evidence in an earlier case.

‘Not even an ice cream.’

She walked down the narrow corridor and opened the first of three doors. Bathroom. She searched the cabinet. No prescription medicines. A packet of paracetamol, a brown bottle containing iron tonic, and a tube of wintergreen. Shampoo bottle on the floor of the green-mosaic-tiled shower. The chrome handrail made her think perhaps Tessa was feeling her age.

The next door appeared to be a spare room. Single bed, neatly made up with a white candlewick bedspread. One locker, empty. Free-standing wardrobe, empty. No boxes on top and nothing under the bed.

‘This one must belong to the lady of the house,’ Boyd said, opening the door.

Lottie bit down a sarcastic retort. Her head was pounding and she needed to get out of the suffocating air as quickly as possible.

Mrs Ball’s bedroom was what she had half expected. An old brass bed, made up with a spread similar to the spare room. A picture of the Sacred Heart hung above it, with the requisite red lamp lit beneath. Lottie got down on her knees, scrabbling beneath the double bed. She sneezed. Mrs Ball’s tidiness hadn’t extended to hoovering under here. Her fingers touched a cardboard box – a shoebox. As she dragged it out, another cloud of dust rose up.

Boyd ran his hand underneath the mattress. ‘Nothing.’

‘I thought all little old ladies stored their life savings under the mattress.’

‘What’s in the box?’ Boyd knelt beside her.

Lottie shook it. ‘It’s light.’

‘Are you going to open it or bag it?’

Lifting the lid, she peered into the rectangular space that had once held size seven black court shoes, according to the label. A bundle of letters held together with a rubber band, sticky with age.

‘She hadn’t touched these in years,’ she said.

‘Old memories?’

‘Bad memories?’ She got a plastic evidence bag from her handbag and placed the bundle inside.

‘Not going to have a sneaky look?’

‘No time now.’ Claustrophobia tightened her airways. ‘I’ll check the cabinet and wardrobe. You search the living room.’ She stood up to let Boyd edge out and noticed he was careful not to let their bodies touch. Her imagination?

She opened the door of the wardrobe. Ran her fingers through the hangers. Polyester and wool dresses, blouses and coats. Marks & Spencer Classic range trousers and sweaters folded on a shelf. On the floor, three pairs of well-worn black shoes. She closed the door and turned her attention to the three-drawer bedside table.

On top of it sat a ticking alarm clock, set for seven a.m. A lamp. A small leather purse with gold lettering proclaiming that it came from Lourdes. Inside was a string of rosary beads. How many did she need? A laminated prayer to St Anthony was taped to the side of the locker. Lottie supposed Mrs Ball had recited it when she’d been in bed at night. Could this religious old woman really have beaten her adult daughter? Nothing would surprise her any more.

She opened the top drawer. It was kept tidy, with plastic separators for loose change, and an assortment of pill bottles. Aspirin, blood pressure and sleeping pills. She shut the drawer. The next one held underwear and tights. The bottom drawer was lined with a selection of paperback novels.