The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(36)

‘Emma’s not here. Hospital next?’

‘Yes. Lynch should be there now.’

When she got back into the car, her phone rang. Lynch. ‘Emma’s not here at the hospital, but you…’

‘What?’ Boyd asked.

‘Shush,’ Lottie said.

Lynch was still talking. Lottie said, ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes.’

She looked at Boyd as she hung up. ‘I think we just found Lorcan Brady.’

‘Where?’

‘He’s one of the fire victims.’



* * *



Huddling in the hospital corridor, Lynch updated Lottie. Boyd lounged against the wall.

‘So one of the guys is Lorcan Brady,’ Lottie clarified. ‘But you don’t know which one yet?’

Lynch nodded.

‘How were you able to get the name?’

‘I ran the registration of the car found at the cottage.’

‘But we’ve just come from Brady’s place. There’s a red Honda Civic there.’

‘Maybe it belongs to the other fellow. We still have no positive ID on either man.’

‘We’d better run the Honda plates.’ Lottie walked around in a circle, tapping her phone against her leg. ‘Is the victim still unconscious?’

‘Yes. Severe burns and fingers hacked off.’

‘So it might be Lorcan Brady and it might not.’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Brady is in the system. See if anything else matches to this guy. Is his room still guarded?’

‘Yes, and Marian’s.’

‘This is getting complicated,’ Lottie said. ‘Brady was Emma’s boyfriend and he’s possibly either a burned man or a dead man.’

‘You only have Natasha’s word, though,’ Boyd said.

‘But if it’s true, it could link Tessa’s murder to the fire. I’m going to have a look at the cottage now.’

‘What will I do?’ Lynch asked.

‘Find out who owns that Honda and get the burned victim identified. Put out an alert for Emma Russell.’

Boyd said, ‘Do you want me to go back to Marian Russell’s house? See if SOCOs have unearthed anything?’

‘Follow it up. Main priority is to find Emma. That little madam has been economical with the truth from day one. God knows what she’s into or who she’s into it with, but I want her found.’

Without waiting for a reply, Lottie pulled her bag around her chest and ran down the stairs.





Thirty-Two





It was nearing four in the afternoon and the sky was bulging with black clouds when Lottie arrived at the burned-out cottage.

Looking over at the wet embers, now cordoned with crime-scene tapes, she zipped her jacket to her neck and tucked her hair into the hood. The temperature had dropped significantly and an east wind was gathering pace across the miserable fields.

Listening to the roaring wind and the rainwater drip-dripping from the bare branches above her head, she stretched her arms and legs. She felt like she’d been cooped up in the office all day, when in fact she had been out for most of it. Once her name was ticked off by the garda standing at the small iron gate, she walked towards the cottage.

The roof had caved in, which didn’t make much difference as the internal structure and personal effects had been either burned or saturated by fire hoses and the elements. But once it was deemed safe to do so, it’d be searched. SOCOs would have a hard job going through it, she thought.

A glare of lamps was lighting up the rear. She headed there. Gardaí and SOCOs were busy bagging and tagging the plants found in the insulated outhouse. Just as well the fire hadn’t reached that far.

To the left of the outhouse she noted a galvanised shed. Three walls stood haphazardly and its front lay open with a sagging line of washing hanging beneath the roof. Denim jeans, jogging pants and T-shirts. All blackened with smoke. They might be dry by Christmas, she thought.

She walked up to the SOCO standing with a clipboard in his hand.

‘I’m assuming you wouldn’t get those in a garden centre,’ she said.

‘Definitely not,’ he replied. ‘Cannabis plants might be a tad expensive for the likes of those places.’

‘Not very discreet about it, were they?’

‘Out here in the countryside you can grow just about anything without anyone passing the slightest remark. They’re just plants, if you don’t know any different.’

‘Was it locked?’

‘Chains and combination lock, nothing a good pair of shears wouldn’t cut through.’

He turned to check off another bag of plants being dragged by one of his colleagues to the waiting technical bureau van.

Lottie walked around the yard. From the hedge she could see smoke rising from the chimney of a house in the distance. There wasn’t anything to done here, and as she returned to her car, she wondered if Mick O’Dowd knew what was growing close to where his cows grazed.



* * *



The Land Rover was parked haphazardly at the side of the farmhouse. Net curtains were draped across sash windows, and the front door had been painted green a long time ago, going by the weather-beaten look of it. The satellite dish on the chimney creaked eerily in the growing gale.