The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(98)

‘Detective Inspector Parker, you don’t know anything about me.’

‘True,’ Lottie said as they reached Cian’s study. ‘So, what did you want to show us?’

‘This here is Gary. He’s a technical genius.’

Lottie nodded at the young man. He was suited up, as she was, but she assumed he was young. Not too many technical geniuses in her age group. ‘What did you find, Gary?’

‘This is some set-up,’ he said, and she could hear the admiration in his voice. ‘There’s a whole games development suite here. I could sift through it all day long.’

‘Gary,’ McGlynn said. ‘Tell the detectives what you discovered.’

The technician reluctantly walked away from his prize. ‘This is an impressive CCTV system. Remotely linked. And from what I can see, it’s mainly via mobile phone network.’

‘So he was spying on people via their phones?’

‘And computer webcams.’ He tapped a keyboard with his gloved fingers.

The screen Lottie had accidentally accessed earlier popped open. Annabelle’s surgery. She looked back at Boyd.

‘This is what I told you about.’

‘So the bastard was spying on her,’ Boyd said.

Gary clicked a mouse and another screen sprang life.

‘Looks very modern,’ Lottie said.

‘It’s an office. But have a look at the reflection on the glass wall behind the desk.’

Leaning over, Lottie squinted at the image. ‘A skyscraper?’

‘I think this office is in Manhattan.’

‘Jesus,’ Boyd said. ‘Was he spying on someone in New York?’

‘Can you access the address of the building?’ Lottie asked.

‘The image is a still, not live. I tried accessing the code, but no luck.’

Tiredness and frustration seeped into her bones; she just wanted Gary to get to the point.

‘And brace yourself for this one.’ The technician clicked a third screen open.

‘What the…?’ Lottie gaped open-mouthed. ‘That’s my son’s room.’ She stared incredulously. ‘How…?’

‘He hacked into his computer with a game download.’

‘But why was he spying on Sean?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe it was the only way he could access your home.’

‘Why would Cian O’Shea be spying on me and my family?’

‘And for how long?’ Boyd said.

‘I’ll let you know more once I get stuck in.’

She could only see his eyes, but Lottie knew the young man was itching to get started on Cian O’Shea’s project. Whatever the hell that was.

‘And all that is live feed?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it’s in real time.’

‘Copies? Recordings? Tapes or anything?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘O’Shea has some serious questions to answer.’

McGlynn handed Lottie a file. ‘This was in the cabinet. Know anything about it?’

Lottie stared at the copy Jane Dore had made of her father’s post-mortem file. With all Cian’s expertise, she supposed it was a simple task for him to hack into the state computer systems and put a flag on the file. But why did he need to do that, and then steal the hard copy?

Feeling the confinement of the room and the heat from the equipment, Lottie turned and rushed out. It suddenly felt way too small. And she felt even smaller.





Eighty-Eight





Lottie wanted to go home. Instead she sent a technician to her house to check out Sean’s computer equipment and to search for further intrusions. Exhaustion caused her knees to creak, but Kirby wanted everyone in the incident room. He’d pinned maps up on one of the incident boards.

She tried to hide a yawn with the back of her hand. ‘Explain.’

‘For some reason, in 1976 all this land was transferred from Kitty and Stan Belfield to Tessa Ball. Then two years ago, Tessa transferred the farmland, including the cottage, to O’Dowd, and six months ago, the land containing the Russell and Kelly houses to Marian.’ Kirby smiled triumphantly.

‘So?’ Lottie said.

‘Why?’

‘I wanted answers, not more questions.’

‘This might explain part of it.’ Lynch pinned two sheets of paper on the board alongside the maps. ‘Birth certificates.’

Lottie rose from her chair and stood beside Lynch.

‘Tessa was born Teresa O’Dowd.’ She glanced at the other certificate, noted the parents’ names. ‘She was Mick O’Dowd’s sister.’

‘Maybe that explains why she signed the land over to him,’ Lynch said.

‘Answers one question,’ Kirby said.

‘But why did she only do it two years ago? What happened in her life then to force her hand?’

‘The only thing I can come up with is that the cottage was rented out around then. So it might have been the start of their involvement with the drug lord.’

‘Jerome Quinn?’

‘Yup.’

‘Was she trying to distance herself by formally signing the land to O’Dowd?’

‘How does Cian O’Shea fit in?’ Boyd said.