The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(34)

‘It’s for your own safety.’

‘Yeah, I’ve heard that before.’

Lottie wondered how she’d missed the memo where it said teenagers no longer had to respect their elders.

‘Did Garda O’Donoghue or Detective Lynch tell you about your mother’s injuries?’

Emma bit her bottom lip. Tears loomed in her eyes. She nodded.

‘And you’ve no idea who would do something like that to her?’

A shake of her head, with a sob. ‘It’s all my fault. I just want to see Mum.’

‘How could it be your fault, Emma?’

‘I wasn’t nice to her,’ the girl cried. ‘I sided with Dad all the time. I know she’s not the best mother in the world, but she’s my mum and I made her life a misery.’

Lottie wanted to put an arm around her, to comfort her, but after the previous rebuff, she kept her hands firmly in her pockets.

‘The night of your granny’s… death, are you sure you saw nothing unusual around the house?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘Why were you so late going home? Was it usual for you to be late?’

Emma shrugged. ‘Depends on what me and Natasha are watching on the telly.’

‘So you were watching Netflix, is that correct?’

Emma hesitated, eyes searching out the corners of the room. ‘Yup… I think so.’

Lottie watched her closely. ‘Orange is the New Black?’

‘What?’

‘The programme you were watching?’

‘Oh, yeah. That’s what we watched.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Yup.’

‘So you were here with Natasha and Bernie from six thirty p.m. until you went home around half past ten?’

‘Yes. Well, no…’

‘That’s what you told us originally. Is there anything you want to change or add?’ Lottie studied the girl carefully; she was sure there was a lie in there somewhere.

‘I was here and we watched the telly. Can I get some clean clothes? Natasha’s are a bit small.’

Lottie wanted to press on, but her motherly instinct warned her to relent. That way Emma might trust her more. Later she could grill her about the strange plants growing in the coal bunker.

‘I’ll go to your house and get some clothes for you. Then we’ll drive to the hospital and see if they’ll let you see your mum.’

Emma nodded.

‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

Lottie was glad to escape from the suffocating house.





Thirty





She was winded by the time she arrived back at the Russells’.

‘Only five hundred metres and I’m fecked,’ she said.

‘Thought you were babysitting,’ Boyd said.

‘Just picking up some clothes for Emma.’ Lottie scanned the yard, now busy with life. ‘Find anything?’

‘They’re going to start looking soon.’

‘What if the attack here is linked to the cottage fire?’

‘Maybe when we get to see what’s in there,’ he pointed to the shed, ‘and what’s at the cottage, we’ll have a better idea.’

‘Maybe,’ Lottie said doubtfully.

‘I’ll get back to work,’ Boyd said.

She watched his retreating back before heading inside.

Upstairs in Emma’s room, she pulled on her protective gloves as a precaution and rooted around for suitable clothing. She decided on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a hoodie, then searched through the shoes. Nothing really appropriate for bad weather. A pair of blue Nike trainers would serve better than white Converses. As she was putting them in a gym bag she’d found at the bottom of the wardrobe, her fingers rubbed against something inside one of the trainers. Letting them drop, she jumped back, falling onto her bottom, sure that it was a mouse.

It wasn’t a mouse. A roll of cash lay on the floor beside the trainer, held together by a hair bobbin. She picked it up and put it into a plastic evidence bag she had plucked from her pocket. The outside note was a fifty. A lot of money for a teenager, she thought. Had robbery been the motive after all? And why did Emma have it secreted away in the bottom of her wardrobe?

Putting the plastic bag with the money into her handbag, Lottie scanned the room for a jacket. Not seeing one, she went downstairs and rummaged through the rack of coats in the hall. She noticed a man’s black North Face jacket among the feminine attire, and wondered if it belonged to Arthur Russell.

Inspecting it, she found the outside pockets empty, but in the inside breast pocket her fingers touched a piece of paper, neatly folded, nestling at the seam. It looked like a receipt. Opening it up, she found that it was a receipt, dated the day of the murder. From Danny’s Bar. Arthur worked there. The time on the receipt was 19.04. She put it into another small plastic evidence bag.

Unhooking a jacket for Emma, she stuffed it in the gym bag and rushed outside.

‘Boyd?’

He stuck his head out from behind the shed door. ‘What?’

‘There’s a black North Face jacket hanging in the hall. Get it bagged, tagged and brought in for forensic examination.’

‘Sure,’ he said.