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

The train stopped and started at all the fiddly suburban stations and the carriage warmed up considerably with the pressing crowd. The aisle was now full of people clutching bags and phones, the air clogged with the smell of feet and body odour. It was so crowded that he could no longer see her. He closed his eyes, conjured her up from memory and touched her straight dark hair with an imaginary finger, all the while stroking himself through the pocket of his coat. He couldn’t wait much longer. This evening he would see her again.

The train swayed and chugged, speeded up and then slowed down as it entered Dublin’s Connolly station. An air of anticipation rose with the heated breath of the passengers as they readied themselves to disembark. He’d have a long day ahead thinking about her, waiting for her. But it would be worth it. Come 6.30 this evening, she would be his.





Five





At the garda station, Detective Inspector Lottie Parker climbed the stairs and made her way down the corridor. Her refurbished office was to the rear of the general area. The last piece of the puzzle that had involved three years of renovations and extensions. It even had a door that shut properly. But she couldn’t get used to it, so she sat down at her old desk in the main office. Detective Sergeant Mark Boyd was seated opposite her in the cluttered space he shared with Detectives Larry Kirby and Maria Lynch.

‘I can use it if you don’t want to,’ he said with a wink, indicating the empty office behind her.

‘Not on your life,’ she said. ‘It’s good to retreat in there when I want; to close the door and scream in peace.’

‘You scream out here most of the time. We’re immune to your outbursts.’ He lined pages up in a file and shut it.

‘What did you say, Boyd?’

‘I’m only expressing out loud what we’re all thinking,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘I know when I’m not wanted.’ She picked up her well-worn leather handbag, shrugged it onto her shoulder and marched into her new office, closing the door behind her.

At her desk, she tapped the keyboard and the computer pinged into life. She opened the page she had been viewing the day before, clicked and zoomed up the photograph of twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth Byrne. Not officially classed as missing because it was too soon. But it was a calm week in Ragmullin, so she’d tasked Boyd with taking a cursory look into Elizabeth’s suspected disappearance.

Crooking her chin in her hand, she studied the portrait picture, stared into the shining eyes of the young woman and wondered at the sheen on the auburn hair swept up behind her ear and hanging seductively across one brown eye. Instinctively her hand flew up to her own matted tresses. She needed a colour and cut. Payday was a week away, but she still couldn’t afford the eighty-plus euros it would cost.

‘Anything else you want me to do regarding Elizabeth Byrne?’ Boyd stood half inside, half outside the door.

‘I don’t bite,’ she said, trying to keep the smile from her lips.

‘Really? I thought that was you sharpening your teeth a few moments ago.’

‘Don’t be a smartarse, Boyd. Come in and sit down.’

He closed the door and sat on the grey fabric chair, which she had strategically placed at an angle, ensuring he couldn’t see what she was doing. Which wasn’t a whole lot, if she was honest.

‘Get anything from CCTV?’ she asked.

Rustling through the file on his knee, Boyd scanned his eyes over a page then placed a black-and-white image in front of her.

‘You know it’s not official,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘It’s not yet forty-eight hours.’

She nodded. ‘Just tell me what you’ve got so far.’

‘What has you so cranky this morning?’

‘Boyd! Just tell me what I’m damn well looking at.’

He scrunched his shoulders and leaned over the desk. ‘That’s a screenshot of the CCTV from the train station. Taken as she purchased her weekly ticket, Monday morning at 5.55 a.m., before getting on the commuter train to Dublin. She works in the Financial Services Centre, an administrator at a German bank. According to her colleagues, she was there all day and clocked out at 16.25 in order to get the 17.10 train back to Ragmullin. I asked a friend in Store Street garda station to help. He trawled footage from Connolly station CCTV but as yet he hasn’t come across her.’

‘Cameras on each platform?’

‘Mainly on the DART lines. Other than that, they’re focused on the general concourse and ticket offices.’

‘Damn.’

‘That’s mild coming from you.’

‘I’m cutting down on swearing. Katie says baby Louis will pick up on it.’

‘Ah, for Jaysus’ sake,’ Boyd laughed. ‘Any sign of her going back to college?’

‘What do you think?’ Lottie shook her head. ‘She’s hell-bent on heading off to New York to meet up with Tom Rickard, Louis’ grandfather.’

‘That might be a good thing.’

Mulling over Boyd’s words, Lottie was reminded of the trauma her family had suffered the previous year with the death of Rickard’s only child, Jason, Katie’s boyfriend. A few months later, Katie, then nineteen years old, had discovered she was pregnant with Jason’s baby. She’d deferred her college course, and now all her time was consumed with caring for her son.