The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(72)

My dearest love,

I know we cannot be together, but I want you to know that I think of you every day. Others have decided that we are to be apart. Not me. I want you to believe that. If I had my way, we would be together. You deserve to be loved. I would give you mountains of it. I want to. But that is not to be, unfortunately.

I will write again as soon as I can.

Please believe that I really do love you.

Love you always.



‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘The rest of the letters are in a similar vein.’

Boyd picked up another. ‘So if we get the handwriting analysed, and allowing for passage of time, are we going to be able to categorically say that Mick O’Dowd wrote these letters?’

‘I think so.’ Lottie put them back in the folder. She closed the ledger and replaced it in the evidence bag. ‘But they read kind of… weird, as Kirby would say. Don’t you think?’

‘We have no clue as to what this separation was. Her husband might still have been alive at the time.’

‘He died early in the marriage, leaving Tessa free. Something isn’t right with them. I can’t fathom it.’

‘We know there’s a connection between Tessa and O’Dowd. She sold or gave him the cottage, for Christ’s sake.’

‘She was a solicitor. Maybe she was a go-between for O’Dowd and someone else.’

‘But she kept the letters. Never sent them on.’

‘Yeah.’ Lottie wiped a hand over her throbbing head. ‘And that gun… I’m going to have a chat with Buzz Flynn. See if he can enlighten me about anything my father might’ve been involved with.’

‘You’re right. Newspaper hounds know even more than us guards. And I’ll check to see if there’s been any sighting of our two missing men.’

‘Do. One of them must be a murderer.’

‘Or both?’

‘We also need to find out what McMahon gets from Brady. Better still, we could go talk to Brady ourselves.’

As she grabbed her jacket, her phone vibrated. She saw a red circle indicating that she had an earlier voice message. She should ring Annabelle. She answered the call.

‘Hi, Jane. Any news on Emma’s PM?’

‘Can you take a quick trip over here? There’s something you need to know.’

‘I was just on my way to interview someone, but I’ll call to you first if you think it’s important.’

‘It is.’

‘I should be there in half an hour.’





Sixty-Five





The morning had lapsed back into its familiar greyness. Rain was spitting against the windscreen as Lottie drove along the motorway, chasing the clouds.

The Dead House seemed colder than usual, which Lottie thought heightened its odour, and she couldn’t help the feeling of unease scratching behind her eyes. Two bodies were laid out on the autopsy tables. Covered. Good, she thought, glad she hadn’t to look at the terrified, dead eyes of young Emma.

‘Come into my office. I need to speak to you in private,’ Jane said. There was no one else around and she hadn’t yet robed up. Why the delay? Lottie wondered.

She ushered Lottie into the cramped office. Lottie pulled off her jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. Jane sat down facing her, clutching her hands together like they might escape their wrists if she let go. Her face, usually like a fine porcelain teacup, now looked like a cracked ceramic mug.

‘Coffee?’ she offered.

Lottie shook her head. ‘I’m grand, thanks. You look awful. Has something happened?’

‘There was a break-in here,’ Jane said, her voice just above a whisper. ‘Last night.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Lottie said, thinking of all the evidence that could potentially be interfered with. ‘Tell me.’

‘The alarm was disabled and all the CCTV cameras were either smashed or covered. I was first in at seven thirty this morning…’

‘Was anything taken? Evidence damaged or tampered with?’

‘No evidence or bodies were interfered with that we could determine. But it might throw a shadow over chain of custody and verification of samples. No equipment was damaged, except for the CCTV, of course. I called Tullamore gardaí and they were excellent.’

‘All logged and reported?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why the break-in?’

Jane hauled a large leather bag from beneath her desk. With trembling hands she extracted a bulky green folder. ‘I brought this home with me last night. What if they were after it?’

Lottie frowned. ‘What is it?’

‘Your father’s post-mortem file and relevant inquest documents.’

Lottie felt her mouth hanging open. She blinked and leaned forward, grabbed Jane’s hand. ‘You got it? After all this time? Why do you think someone was after it?’

Shoving the file across the desk, Jane said, ‘I made a copy. I wanted to replace it without anyone knowing I had it. Of course it must have flagged on a computer system somewhere.’

‘So this is a copy?’

‘No, this is the original. I made the copy yesterday but I hadn’t time to return the original, so I took it home with me to have a read-through. And maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I thought it was safer with me.’ She buckled up her bag and laid her hands on top of it. ‘The copy was here, on my desk. It’s the only thing missing.’