No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(52)

Forty-One





After asking a nurse whether she could speak to Queenie McWard, Lottie found herself sitting by the old woman’s bed.

She looked frail, with a pair of thin-framed spectacles perched on her nose, a long gold chain holding them in place. Grey hair, nicely permed, framed her face like a painting. Her wraith-like hands, clutched at her chest, held rosary beads intertwined on her fingers. And her lips were moving rapidly and silently.

‘Mrs McWard?’ Lottie said. There was no response, though the lips increased their movement. ‘Can I have a chat?’

The old woman’s eyes flew open and the spectacles fell from her face to her chest, the rosary beads slipping from her fingers.

‘Now I’ve lost my place. I can’t remember if that was my fifth Hail Mary or my sixth.’ A pair of dark brown eyes cut into Lottie. ‘What do you want?’

Queenie’s mouth was devoid of teeth and Lottie noticed a set of dentures resting in a glass on the bedside cabinet.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I was passing by and thought I’d say hello.’ She crossed her fingers.

‘That’s a lie. Tell me why you’re here, young one, and let me get back to my prayers.’

‘I was talking to your daughter.’

‘Which one?’

‘Bridie.’

‘What has that husband of hers done now? Hope he didn’t beat her. Wouldn’t surprise me, though, seeing as his father is a third cousin of my husband, God rest his thieving soul.’

‘Ah, I wondered at you and Bridie having the same surname.’

‘Wonder no longer, young one.’

‘Bridie thought she heard a banshee the other night. Turns out it was the screams of a girl we later found murdered.’

‘Then it was the banshee for sure. Heralding the death of the one you speak of. You lot don’t believe in the banshee, but my people do. Why are you pestering me?’

‘You heard a banshee once before.’

‘Says who?’

‘Bridie mentioned it.’

‘I heard many a banshee in my day. Every time I hear her, someone in the family dies. It’s a warning. To be on your guard. She can shriek and keen for nights on end. Never saw one, but my great-grandmother did. Now that wasn’t today or yesterday, was it?’

‘I don’t suppose it was,’ Lottie said. She was wasting her time here, like she’d been told once too often. She had to get home and help Katie pack. So much to do.

Queenie was still talking.

‘Then there was the time that young woman went missing. Last seen getting off the train. Long time ago. Must be ten years if it’s a day. I heard the banshee for seven nights in a row back then. And they never found her.’ She paused, placed her spectacles back on her nose and stared at Lottie. ‘Don’t be looking at me as if you don’t believe me. Like I said, they never found her. She was just … gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Mark my words, she’s as dead as those buried out there in that graveyard.’

‘The anniversary of her disappearance is this weekend.’

‘Is it?’

Lottie recalled the flyer she’d found in town. She had it rolled up in her pocket. Taking it out, she flattened it and showed it to the old woman.

‘Aye, that’s her that went missing all them years ago. Never found. But the banshee found her.’

I’d better read the cold case file, Lottie thought.





Forty-Two





Boyd sat with the engine idling, watching the commuters exit the station. Why had no one noticed Elizabeth Byrne on Monday evening? Where had she been from the time she got off the train until her screams were heard at 3.15 the next morning? She didn’t go home. She didn’t go to her friend Carol’s house. So where? The only obvious conclusion he could reach was that she was taken after she got off the train on her walk home, and held by her abductor until he killed her.

He waved to Grace. She hurried to the car. When she had her seat belt secured and her bag on her lap, she turned to him.

‘Mark, I want you to find my friend. She’s missing.’

‘She’s not your friend and she’s not missing.’

‘You’re not much of a detective, are you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You won’t take me seriously.’

‘Grace, you don’t even know the girl’s name. You know nothing about her. And we have no reports of anyone missing. Let’s go. We need to eat. You must be starving.’

‘I was. Now I’m not.’

‘I’m going to cook something nice. You might change your mind.’

‘Mollie,’ Grace said.

‘What?’

‘Her name is Mollie.’



* * *



Mollie still had no idea where she was or what day it was, and now she almost felt like she didn’t know who she was.

The darkness was propelling her swiftly into madness. No shadows. No sounds apart from her own breathing. Even the strip of light seemed to have vanished. Her brain conjured up her worst fears. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what might be around her. Fear of what was going to happen to her. She tried to dredge up stuff she’d learned on a mindfulness course she’d attended at work. Live in the moment. That was what it professed. A load of bullshit. She certainly did not want to live in this moment. No way. Not a second longer.