No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(22)

‘You can say that again. How’s Grace getting on with you?’ she asked, deflecting the conversation away from her own family.

‘You should ask how am I getting on with her. My sister is a tough cookie. Wearing me down, in her own pleasant, unassuming way.’

‘When did she arrive?’

‘Sunday night. Offloaded by my mother. She’s doing a media course in Dublin for four weeks and staying with me during the week until it’s finished. She has to go home to Mam at weekends, but she thinks she can stay with me forever. Her word, not mine.’

‘How old is she again?’

Boyd hesitated before saying, ‘Twenty-nine, but she acts younger. She has a lot of anxiety issues.’

‘I can’t wait to meet her.’

‘Look, Lottie, Grace is different. You mightn’t like her.’

‘Let me be the judge of that. I know so little about you, yet in a perverse sort of way, I know so much. You’re a real conundrum, Boyd.’

After a few bites of his sandwich, he looked up at her. ‘I’d like to take you out to dinner.’

‘What?’ Lottie spluttered, drops of tea flying out of her mouth.

‘Dinner. You know, what normal people do? Go out at night. Sit in a restaurant and eat delicious food someone else has prepared. Would you like to?’

Gulping down her surprise, Lottie thought about it. It’d be nice for a change. Relieve some of her tension, especially with the murder investigation. No. It was a bad idea.

‘Like a date?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, like a date.’

‘I don’t think so. No, Boyd. Sorry.’

‘Think about it. Maybe tonight? I can pick you up around seven thirty.’

‘No … maybe some other time. Not tonight. It’s too soon.’

He’d been so good to her since all that heartache last October. A friend. And now Father Joe was back. What had made her think of him? She smiled.

‘Ah, that smile. It’s agreed so. Tonight. Seven thirty. Now, are you going to eat that mess you’ve made, before I do?’

She really should set him straight, but she hadn’t the energy, so she watched him finish the food instead. When it was time to leave, she felt like she could have sat there all afternoon in the silence. But they had a murderer to find. She needed to go back to the cemetery.





Seventeen





He bought a takeout coffee and a pastry and stood sipping and eating, looking up at the giant electronic timetable above his head. He knew that plain-clothes gardaí mingled with passengers on the concourse and armed detectives patrolled the main door. In plain sight.

Biting into the crumbling pastry, he turned and scanned the crowd. Watching. Waiting. He was impatient for her to arrive so that he could follow her and sit in the same carriage.

The digital clock clicked over. One minute closer to departure time in four minutes. He walked back to the café and dumped the coffee and paper bag into a flip-top bin inside the door. Licking his lips, he rubbed his hands together. She was late. She would miss the train. He moved towards the gate, careful not to stand under the lens of the camera.

He’d have to wait on the platform. He scanned his ticket and went to Platform 4. The train was waiting. Ready to go. There’d be no seats left. He’d have to stand. He hated standing. Come on, girl, hurry up.

A chill wind gusted from outside and up along the platform as a train entered on Platform 3 and the Belfast express shunted out on the track furthest away. And then he saw her. Desperately trying to scan her ticket. The woman behind her was trying to scan hers at the same time. Eventually they both rushed through, running on the slippery tiles. He knew they’d have to jump onto the last carriage, so he got on just before them.

As he’d thought, the carriage was full. He moved down halfway until he got to the blockage of people standing in the aisle with their technology glued to their hands. He glanced over his shoulder. Three rows down. The two of them were standing in the middle of the aisle.

The train snaked out of Dublin into the dark of the evening, heading for Ragmullin. Over the slow rhythm of the engine his mind whirled with plans. He had to ensure the other woman wasn’t going to be a problem. That was Plan A. Plan B was to ensure his target didn’t attempt to escape.

He smiled to himself and kept his eyes glued to the two women.



* * *



Grace laughed, a nervous reaction to mask her fear. She’d run too quickly. Her breath was catching in the back of her throat.

Fumbling in her pocket, she found her inhaler and, trying to keep the pulsing bodies from touching her, brought it up to her lips. As she inhaled, she felt a slight reduction in the palpitations, but the panic lingered beneath the surface of her skin.

‘Are you okay?’

She looked up at Mollie, her new friend.

‘I’ll be fine once I get to carriage C.’

‘Not a hope in hell.’

With her saliva drying up, Grace took another hit from her inhaler. ‘But I have to sit in carriage C. It’s the only way I’ll get home safe.’

Mollie laughed. ‘You’re not that superstitious, are you?’

Suddenly Grace found herself in what she called freeze mode. Stock still, only her eyes moving. Slanting to the right, then to the left, then back to Mollie’s grinning face. Her lips stuck together, tongue thick and throat closed. As she breathed quickly through her nose, perspiration bubbled on her forehead. She felt it drip down into her eyes and tasted the saltiness on her lips. Mollie’s hand reached out and grabbed hers. No! Don’t touch. But her words were lost in the drying mucus.