The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(99)

‘This gets more complicated by the minute.’ Lottie paced in small circles. ‘We need to find O’Dowd. He’s the only one who can tell us about Tessa.’

She thought of her search of O’Dowd’s house and the book she’d found under the sink cupboard, with its inscription inside.

‘Carrie King,’ she said. ‘Did you come across any connection to her?’

‘No, don’t think so,’ Kirby said.

‘No,’ Lynch said.

‘Let me get this straight.’ Lottie sat down and drummed her knuckles against her forehead. ‘The Belfields owned all that land. Stan was in partnership with Tessa Ball. Something occurred in the early to mid seventies to warrant him signing a large part of his fortune over to Tessa. What?’

Boyd said. ‘What do you know about this Carrie King?’

‘She was supposedly into drugs and alcohol. Had a number of children taken from her and was eventually locked up in St Declan’s. Kitty Belfield said Tessa was heavily involved in the circumstances surrounding Carrie King’s incarcerations. She even suggested to me that Mick O’Dowd could have fathered at least one of Carrie’s children, and she remarked how alike Marian was to O’Dowd. But if Tessa and Mick were brother and sister, perhaps that’s the reason for the resemblance.’

‘Or, as you first thought, O’Dowd fathered Marian with Carrie King and Tessa cobbled together a birth certificate and raised her as her own.’

‘Let’s go with that for a minute,’ Lottie said. ‘It still doesn’t explain all that land transfer. What hold could Tessa have had over the Belfields?’

‘Maybe they had no children of their own and saw Tessa as an heir,’ Lynch said.

‘Kirby, check it out,’ Lottie said. ‘Boyd, we’re going to have a go at Cian O’Shea.’





Eighty-Nine





She wasted a full hour with Cian O’Shea and his solicitor. She’d be hearing ‘no comment’ in her sleep for a year.

‘The bastard,’ she said, entering Cathal Moroney’s house.

‘He’s afraid, though,’ Boyd said.

‘He should be very afraid. By the time I finish with him he—’

‘Lottie, there’s nothing you can do. Let’s find the evidence.’

‘Right.’

‘What do you hope to discover?’

‘I have no idea, but if it was Cian O’Shea who broke in and murdered the Moroneys, you can be sure it wasn’t something on a computer he was looking for. It had to be the file Moroney told me about.’ She headed straight for the study.

‘So it is drug-related.’

‘If I knew that, O’Shea would be in front of a judge this minute. As it is, we still have to look. This place is a mess.’

On her knees, Lottie carefully stacked pages. Once she had a good sheaf, she handed them to Boyd. ‘Make yourself useful.’

‘Doing what?’

‘These were all in the drawers and filing cabinet. So at one time they were in some sort of order. You’re good at that.’

‘But I don’t even know what they relate to.’ Boyd took the papers and sat on a chair by the desk.

‘Use your head.’

‘Is there anything in particular you want me to highlight for you?’

‘Something that caused a murderer to break in and kill Cathal and Lauren Moroney, while one of their terrified children hid upstairs.’

‘Murder might not have been the intention.’

‘Probably not. If he’d found what he was after, I think he’d have been in and out without being discovered. Just sort the papers and I’ll go through them.’

Should she tell Boyd about her conversation with Moroney? But surely his murder had nothing to do with what his father had wanted to print back in the seventies. Had it? No. It was something Moroney himself had uncovered about the drugs ring. Had to be. And if the killer hadn’t had enough time or couldn’t wrangle it out of him, then that information was still here. Somewhere.



* * *



‘It’s all stuff he’s already reported on,’ Boyd said three hours later as he surveyed his handiwork. Lottie was still on her knees, wading through the morass of paper.

‘It’s here somewhere and I’m going to find it.’

‘You don’t even know what you’re looking for. Let’s call it a night and we can get back to it tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Lottie threw her hands in the air. ‘We have case files as high as the body count. Something links them all together. Moroney was on to it.’ Sitting back on the floor, she caught sight of the clock on the wall. ‘God! Is that the time?’ She jumped up, scattering paper and files in her haste.

‘Hey! I just sorted those. And yes, it’s 12.03, madam inspector. Just after the witching hour.’

‘I should’ve been home hours ago.’ She edged out past Boyd to the living room. Catching sight of the box of toys, she faltered. Thank God the children had not been harmed physically, though they would suffer psychological damage. And she knew how bad that could be. Picking up her jacket, she felt her phone vibrate in the pocket. She checked it. Chloe.