No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(25)

She didn’t want to talk about Lynch or Boyd. She’d never really got along with Lynch but she didn’t want anyone else knowing.

‘Did you interview Bridie McWard?’ she said.

‘Same as she told you. Heard screams around 3.15 Tuesday morning. Refuses to come in to make a formal statement. I spoke to her at the site.’

‘And the footage from the camera at the cemetery. Was there anything useful on it?’

‘The tech guys sent me a clip.’ He pressed an icon and a grainy grey image appeared in the centre of his screen. Maximising the size, he sat back and let Lottie watch it. ‘This is 3.07,’ he said.

‘I don’t see anything.’

‘There’s nothing to see except for a change in the light. Hold on and I’ll rewind it.’ He clattered his thick fingers on a couple of keys and the image rolled once more. ‘Look carefully at the road. See that? It’s the lights of a car approaching, but then they disappear. I’d say he swung the car to park on the opposite side of the road, where there’s no camera coverage.’

‘Okay. But we can’t see any people?’

‘No.’

‘Might just be someone dumping rubbish over the wall.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the footage confirms a vehicle was parked here for twenty-four minutes.’ He fast-forwarded to 3.31. ‘Look. There’s a swerve of light on the road as if a car is turning.’

‘And?’

‘And that’s it.’

‘Nothing in between? No other cars?’

‘Not a thing. On a Monday night, the town is dead.’

‘So it looks like he drove in from town, stopped for nearly half an hour, then turned and went back towards town. Track our own traffic cams around those times and see if you can pick up the car.’

‘I’ll try.’

Lottie pushed the chair back and moved towards her own office. ‘I want all the residents in the nursing home interviewed. Especially those with windows facing the cemetery.’

‘Tonight?’

‘No. Tomorrow. Did uniforms get anything useful from the housing estate?’

‘Database is being compiled, but nothing worth reporting so far.’

‘And the residents at the traveller site?’

‘No one heard or saw anything.’

‘Same old Ragmullin. Squinting windows and silent houses.’

‘What?’ Kirby scratched his head with the tip of a pen.

‘I want an update at our incident team meeting in the morning.’





Twenty





He secured a seat once passengers disembarked at Maynooth. The two women got seats also. Now they were sitting opposite him, albeit a few rows down the aisle.

How he wished he was beside her, with her soft flesh trembling beside his own. Skin on skin. Nothing more beautiful, he thought. Unless you counted the rocking motion of the train. Oh, naked flesh on flesh in tune to the motion of the train. That was an image he couldn’t stop flitting behind his eyes. How beautiful would that be? The quiver of her lips as he looked down on her, the redness puckered, waiting.

For him.

For no one else.

With the answer he craved.



* * *



Ragmullin train station was crumbling under its age. Multiple renovations over the years had done little to enhance its appearance. The fact that it was a protected structure limited the railway company from doing anything major. Protecting it was a paradox, because it was disintegrating before twenty thousand pairs of Ragmullin eyes.

‘How’s it going, Jimmy? Any news?’ Boyd sauntered over to the porter and leaned on the gate to the platform.

‘Sure, the only news around here is the weather and late trains.’ Jimmy Maguire scratched at a point on his scalp under his cap.

‘I hope this one isn’t late.’

‘Should be in on time. Due at 18.20.’

Boyd smiled as Jimmy made a drama of checking his watch with his gloved fingers. Bright yellow, synthetic fabric. The top of his peaked-capped head only came to Boyd’s shoulder, and he looked as weather-beaten as the station.

‘In fifty-seven seconds, to be exact.’

‘Very precise.’

‘It’s my job to know these things.’

Boyd stared up along the platform as he heard the train approach.

‘She’s a little early.’ Jimmy straightened up. ‘By fifteen seconds.’

Boyd ducked as a pigeon swooped from the gantry that hung over the concrete platform.

The train’s hydraulic brakes hissed as it idled to a stop and the doors slid open. Boyd stood to one side to allow the passengers to pour from the carriages, rush to the gate and head for their cars in the overcrowded car park. As quickly as it had arrived, the train departed with a loud rumble along the tracks.

His sister appeared. ‘Hi, Mark. You look tired. Is anything wrong?’

‘No, just waiting for you. Couldn’t see you for a minute.’

‘I have a new friend.’ Grace looked around. ‘She was here a minute ago. I was going to ask if you could give her a lift.’

‘Probably went on ahead,’ Boyd said, thinking that Grace’s new friend wanted to escape his sister’s constant chatter. ‘Car’s outside. On double yellow lines.’