No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(48)

‘You have a brand spanking new canteen and that’s where you take your breaks. Anyway, I don’t agree with this constant stream of tea-making.’

‘It’s coffee.’

‘Are you being smart with me?’

Lottie shook her head, sniffed her mug. ‘A bit strong, but it’s definitely coffee.’

McMahon puffed out his chest. ‘This kitchen will be dismantled before the day is out.’

He took himself off down the corridor. Lottie shook her head and opened her mouth to speak.

‘Don’t say a word,’ Boyd warned.

‘Two words then. Complete bollocks.’

She stormed back to her office, slopping coffee everywhere.

The phone rang. McGlynn.

‘I’ve something you’ll want to see,’ he said. ‘In the yard.’

‘On my way.’ She pulled on her jacket and headed outside.



* * *



The yard had been cleared of all vehicles and a tent erected over the skip from the cemetery. A second area for the examination of the rubbish was also covered. Three SOCOs were working their way through the sacks, one by one, as they removed them from the skip.

‘It was six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ McGlynn explained. ‘At least doing it here, we’re away from the media circus and the public gawkers.’

‘What did you find? Besides rubbish?’

‘As you can see, it’s mainly domestic waste. People too mean, or too poor, to pay their bin charges must have used the skip as a personal dump. But I have one sack over here that you will certainly be interested in.’

Lottie followed him to the corner of the tent. The smell was worse than anything she had smelled at the Dead House. Rotting detritus. Scraps of waste food, wrappers and everything you were liable to find in a kitchen bin.

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘This is a horrible job.’

‘Give me a decomposing body any day,’ McGlynn said. ‘Here we are.’

On a fold-out table covered with Teflon, Lottie saw what had made McGlynn so animated.

A black leather jacket. Grey hoodie. Blue checked shirt. Blue jeans. A pair of ankle-length black leather boots. White fluffy socks, pink bra and white knickers.

She went to touch the jacket.

‘Wait.’ McGlynn handed her a pair of nitrile gloves.

Lottie stared at the clothing. ‘These are hers. They have to be. No one would throw out a good leather jacket.’

‘Not unless it had come from someone they’d killed or were about to kill.’

‘Check for DNA, trace evidence—’

‘I know my job, Detective Inspector.’

‘No handbag?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Can I photograph these? I need to show them to her mother for identification purposes.’

‘They were all wet.’

‘Wet?’

‘As if they’d been dunked in a bath of water. I’ll test them.’

‘Thanks. From the CCTV images, I’m sure Elizabeth was wearing a jacket and jeans similar to these. Good work.’

‘Just doing my job. I’ll bag these and get them analysed.’

‘Let me know as—’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’



* * *



‘He surely left DNA somewhere on the clothes.’ Lottie put her feet up on top of her waste-paper basket as she shouted from her office out to the general area.

‘This has the markings of an abduction that was well thought out,’ Boyd said.

‘Do you think he intentionally let her run through the cemetery?’

‘Anything is possible.’

‘Wish we had some idea of what we’re dealing with. Hell, we aren’t even sure where she was taken from. There are those unaccounted hours from six in the evening to three in the morning.’ Lottie dropped her feet. ‘Lynch! I need to know where Matt Mullin is.’

‘I’ve asked for a check on his passport,’ Lynch shouted back.

‘What did the bank say?’

‘They let him go before Christmas.’

‘What?’ Lottie jumped up and rushed out of her office. ‘He has to be at home.’

‘There was no answer yesterday.’

‘Check again.’

‘But I need to—’

‘Now. Kirby will go with you.’ Lottie turned to Boyd, eyeing his meticulously tidy desk. ‘Did you find anything of interest on the list of runners from Rochfort Gardens?’

‘Nothing to report. I copied the pages and scanned all the names into the computer, but nothing jumps out at me.’

‘Did she run every weekend?’

‘These records go back to the week after Christmas. The only day she missed was last Sunday.’

‘Dying with a hangover, according to her mother.’ Leaning over his shoulder, she squinted at the list on the screen. ‘Is it the same crowd every weekend?’

‘More or less. I’ll collate them into some sort of order.’

‘When you’ve finished that, we’ll have to interview each and every person on the list.’

‘What about the nursing home interviews?’