No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(37)

Detective Inspector David McMahon was already at the station when Lottie arrived. Leaning against the door to her office, arms folded and a smug expression on his square jaw.

She shuffled out of her jacket as slowly as she could manage and hung it on the coat rack. Who the hell does he think he is? With a sigh, she decided she would be nice to him today. If he kept his mouth shut.

His initial mistake was to speak first.

‘Well, if it isn’t Inspector Clouseau.’ He smirked and swiped his black fringe out of his eyes.

She ignored the comment, and brushed past him. Her immediate superior for the foreseeable future was a grade A shithead.

This wasn’t a good start to their new working relationship. A relationship that had been soured last October when he’d been sent from Dublin to help with her investigation into a suspected drugs and murder gang. He’d tried to take over, but she’d stood her ground and come out on top in the end. That was then. Now? She’d have to work hard at being civil. God, why had she opened that bottle last night when she couldn’t sleep?

‘Must be too early for you,’ he said. ‘I thought you had a sense of humour.’ He straightened his back. ‘I want you in my office with an update on your current caseload. Let’s say five minutes? That should give you time to wake up.’

She watched as he bent his head to leave her office. She had nothing against tall men, but giraffes gave her the shivers.

He turned back. ‘And remember this. Corrigan might put up with your bullshit, but I won’t.’

Collapsing onto her chair, she glared up at the ceiling. What had she done to deserve McMahon? Scrap that. She had done plenty over the years, and now it was time to prepare her army for battle.

‘Boyd!’ she called. Where was everyone this morning? There was no one in the office. Shit. She’d have to face the squatter alone. And keep her mouth shut. First, though, she popped in two paracetamol, hoping they’d dull her headache.



* * *



‘You didn’t waste much time,’ she said, entering what had been up until yesterday Superintendent Corrigan’s office.

‘What do you mean?’ McMahon looked up with an eyebrow raised in surprise.

‘Getting your feet under the table.’

She swept her hand around. McMahon had moved the desk to sit under the window, and the coat rack was now in the furthest corner of the room. Was there a strategy lurking in his actions? She didn’t know, but it put her on high alert. No matter how long or short his time in Ragmullin turned out to be, he was evidently intent on making his mark. She hoped she could stay out of the way of the arrow he was staking his claim with.

‘Sit, Detective Inspector Parker.’ He indicated the chair in front of his desk.

Much as it galled her, Lottie decided compliance was her best option. She sat down.

‘Now tell me what you’re working on.’ He unbuttoned his suit jacket and folded his arms over a double-breasted waistcoat. A red handkerchief poked out of the breast pocket. Jesus! She suddenly missed Corrigan, with his belly carved into the grain of the desk.

‘Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth Byrne went missing on Monday evening having caught the train home from Dublin, where she worked. We found her body yesterday morning in the cemetery. We have reason to believe she was murdered.’

‘I saw the skimpy report. How did she die?’

‘She had a broken leg and was covered in clay at the bottom of a grave. It appears she was suffocated by the dirt. We believe she was left there to die. I’m waiting for the state pathologist to contact me with a time for the post-mortem.’

‘So you don’t know for sure that she was murdered?’

‘I’m positive she was, sir. Just waiting for confirmation.’

‘She might have fallen into a grave, breaking her leg, and in her efforts to get out, dragged clay down on top of herself. Did you think of that?’

‘Yes, sir. According to Jim McGlynn, the head of the SOCO team, the amount of clay suggests someone covered her with it deliberately.’

‘Hmph. What other investigations do you have on?’

‘David—’

‘Sir! I am your superior.’

‘Don’t I just know it,’ Lottie muttered.

‘What?’

‘Thanks for reminding me. Can I speak for a moment about Elizabeth?’

‘Who?’

Jesus, this was hard work. She’d rather be outside, sourcing leads. She said, ‘The young woman who was murdered. Sir.’

‘No wonder Superintendent Corrigan is ill in hospital. You must have worn the poor man to a shell.’

Lottie thought that Corrigan was anything but a shell, but she let it go. She filled McMahon in on the information she had compiled so far.

‘Elizabeth worked in Dublin. Her mother hadn’t seen her since Sunday lunchtime. The girl caught the six o’clock commuter train each morning. She was at work on Monday and was last seen getting the 17.10 train from Connolly station to Ragmullin. We have a screen grab from Connolly CCTV footage, and two commuters who swear they saw her on the train. But we have no visual of her disembarking at Ragmullin. Then we have a young woman, Bridie McWard, who heard screams from the cemetery at 3.15 on Tuesday morning. Surveillance cameras outside the cemetery gates display the shadow of a car at 3.07 a.m. with similar images twenty-four minutes later. I am treating this as confirmation that the killer drove there with the girl in his car. It is possible she escaped and he followed her. She tripped over something and fell into the open grave, breaking her leg. Her abductor then seized the opportunity to cover her with clay and smother her.’