No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(57)

‘I’ll do what you say.’

‘Ah, you’ve lost your fight.’

Mollie knew she would have to acquiesce to his demands. The knife he was using to cut her bonds was short and sharp. Could she grab it? Not now, when the pain in her released wrists was screaming at her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, rubbing her wrists.

‘There’s a bucket there. Use it.’

‘I don’t need to go. Not now.’

She studied him. Unable to determine his height because he was bent over under the low ceiling, she tried to see his face. The bone structure. The eyes. His features scrunched up suddenly like a squeezed lemon and he sneered at her.

‘You pissed yourself. You smell like a dirty cat.’

‘What day is it?’ she asked tentatively. She knew it’d be wrong to anger him even more.

The slap was quick and fierce. She fell back on the bed, cracking her head against the iron frame.

‘Don’t speak unless I say so. You hear me?’

She nodded and bit her bottom lip, trying desperately not to cry. With him leaning over her, she couldn’t get a decent look at the room again. She needed a good idea of the layout, for when he left her alone. But maybe he’d tie her up again. Maybe he wanted to kill her. She began to cry, the tears that had dried up during the day flowing once more.

‘And don’t fucking cry. I can’t stand whingers.’

‘Sorry.’ She rubbed her wrists again, trying to get the blood to circulate.

He pulled her by the arms until she was sitting upright. A finger streaked a line down the bones in her jaw, travelled along her throat and caressed the crevice between neck and shoulder blade. She used every inch of willpower not to recoil from his touch. She had to understand what he wanted. Surely he wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of drugging her and hauling her into this cavern if he was going to kill her? Would he?

And then she saw the bones.





Forty-Seven





Boyd watched Kirby jostling down the narrow hallway with Gilly O’Donoghue behind him.

‘This better be important,’ he said when they were all seated, with Grace sitting on a chair in the kitchenette watching them. Why couldn’t she go to bed? He introduced her and waited to see what Kirby had to say.

‘You tell him,’ Kirby said.

Gilly tapped her phone and handed it to Boyd.

‘Well, that’s you at the Jealous Wall. And who’s that with you?’ Boyd pointed at the photograph.

‘She’s the reason Gilly dragged me across town to see you.’ Kirby grunted and folded his arms.

‘I know her through my weekend running,’ Gilly said. ‘Remember you asked me earlier this evening about Elizabeth Byrne?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s Mollie Hunter. We met last year. Joined up for running at the same time. We started going for a drink the odd evening. I think I’m the closest she has to a best friend. Her family moved to London a few years ago.’ She glanced at Kirby. ‘The thing is, I can’t make contact with her.’

‘Her name is Mollie?’ Grace said.

Boyd looked away from his sister’s wide eyes and open mouth, the expression saying, ‘I told you so’. Shaking his head, he said, ‘Does she commute to work on the train?’

Gilly leaned forward in the armchair. ‘She does. And so did Elizabeth Byrne.’

Boyd sighed, getting the insinuation. ‘That’s a stretch of the imagination. Have you checked out Mollie’s home?’

‘She gave me her spare key a while back. I’ve been to her apartment and it looks like the last time she was there was Wednesday morning. Breakfast dishes were in the sink. No coat or handbag lying around.’

‘How do you know it was Wednesday?’

‘I phoned her Tuesday. We agreed to meet up for a drink Wednesday night. But she didn’t turn up and I called to her home.’

‘She could have just been out,’ Boyd suggested.

‘We checked it earlier this evening too,’ Kirby said.

Boyd stood. ‘I’ll do something about it in the morning.’

‘Elizabeth Byrne disappeared after getting the train home,’ Gilly pointed out.

‘You don’t know Mollie got on the train. She could be in Dublin,’ Kirby said.

‘What if she’s in the hands of Elizabeth’s murderer?’

‘Murderer?’

Boyd swung around to see Grace with her hand clasped to her mouth. ‘Grace, why don’t you go to bed?’

‘Tell them what I told you,’ she insisted.

Boyd sighed and sat back down. ‘According to Grace—’

She interrupted him. ‘Mollie sat beside me yesterday morning on the train and we began talking. Then we got the train home together, the 17.10 from Connolly … and now she has vanished.’

Boyd said, ‘I’ll talk to Lottie tomorrow. We’ll see if we can locate Mollie and establish if there is any connection to Elizabeth.’

He watched Gilly linking Kirby’s arm as they left.

When Grace had gone to bed and he was alone, the shroud of loneliness settled on his shoulders once more.





Forty-Eight