No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(59)

She glanced at the file. Maybe a few minutes buried in the old case would help her sleep.

As she opened the cover, her phone rang. She jumped up as the vibration filled the kitchen. When she ended the call, she rang Boyd. It was going to be a long night.





Fifty





It was gone midnight as Lottie drove with Boyd down the narrow road to Barren Point on the shores of Ladystown lake.

Ladystown was the largest lake bordering Ragmullin. Whereas Lough Cullion was the water source for the town, Ladystown had treated sewage pumped into its depths daily. It was still good for fishing, so Adam had told her years ago.

‘Where am I going?’ she asked.

‘Sharp left,’ Boyd said. ‘Mind that tree. Jesus. You should have let me drive.’

‘I’ve to be on my way to the airport at six, so it’s best I have my own transport.’ She hoped he couldn’t smell the alcohol on her breath.

‘What about me?’

‘There’s the squad car.’

She parked haphazardly and jumped out. She took her protective suit from the boot and dragged it over her clothes, then got a torch and headed towards a uniformed officer standing beside a crime-scene tape. A man with a dog was there too.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Bob Mulligan.’

‘You’re the man who discovered the body?’

‘To be honest, I think two teenagers stumbled on it before Mutt here. Don’t know how much damage he did to it.’

‘Did he dismember it?’ She was anxious to see the scene, assess the situation and maybe catch some sleep before she had to be back on the road.

‘He had part of a hand in his mouth. I got it out. You’ll need to be taking my DNA because I touched it. Isn’t that the right procedure?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It can’t have been there long.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The body. It must have been dumped in the last week. Mutt and I have been away, over in Galway, and he’d have sniffed it out if it had been there before that.’

‘Where do you live?’

Mulligan pointed to a light shimmering through the trees. ‘Over there.’

‘Do you know where these teenagers went?’

‘They might be staying at the caravan park.’

‘Wrong time of year for holidaymakers.’ She instructed two guards to check. ‘Mr Mulligan, please stay here. I’m going in to have a look.’ She turned to the uniforms. ‘Anyone got a torch stronger than this? And call in reinforcements. We need to find the teenagers.’

With an industrial-sized torch in her hand and Boyd behind her, she made her way through the bushes in a crouch, frozen leaves crunching underfoot, until the clearing opened up in front of her.

Though she’d seen a fair number of bodies, her stomach heaved and her skin bumped and crawled. Under the glare of the artificial light, the blue-black body seemed to be heaving too.

‘Jesus, Boyd. Tell me what I’m looking at.’

He joined her. ‘I hope that isn’t Mollie Hunter.’

Lottie took a step back and looked up at him. ‘Who?’

‘I don’t think it can be. This body is too decomposed. She only went missing yesterday evening, if she even is missing.’ Boyd was shaking his head.

‘What on earth are you on about? Who is Mollie Hunter?’ She stepped into his space.

‘A young woman who may or may not have disappeared. Gilly O’Donoghue is her friend and she can’t locate her. Could be nothing.’

She felt her mouth hanging open and quickly said, ‘And when were you going to inform me about this? Jesus, Boyd, sometimes, you know … sometimes I just want to … Oh, I don’t know!’

‘Why don’t we see what we have before you hang me out to dry?’

‘Don’t touch a thing until the scene is fully cordoned off. Did you contact Kirby and Lynch?’

‘Neither of them is answering. McGlynn said to secure the site and he’ll be here in the morning.’

‘Get a tent erected over the body. And I want those teenagers found.’

As Boyd went off to make more phone calls, Lottie stood at the side of a tree with the light of her torch directed on the body.

‘Who are you?’ she whispered, then screamed as a rat ran out from beneath the remains.





Day Three





Friday 12 February 2016





Fifty-One





After the train left Enfield station, Grace realised that the man who had eyed her suspiciously yesterday did not appear to be on the train. Maybe he didn’t have to go to Dublin on Fridays, or perhaps he was seated in a different carriage. Was she in the wrong one? She twisted to look at the sign above the door. C. Relief.

The carriage heated up from the extra body warmth as people crowded on. The smell of perfume and hastily sprayed deodorant filled her senses. She avoided breathing in too deeply or her allergies would play up.

Where was Mollie? And where was the man she had seen talking to her at Ragmullin station on Wednesday evening?

It was then that she remembered she hadn’t told anyone about him. She must tell Mark. She looked in her bag for her bulky Nokia, but couldn’t find it. She’d charged it last night and with all the fussing had forgotten to put it in her bag this morning. Damnation, she thought, she had no way of contacting him. He was expecting her to be heading straight to Galway from Dublin this evening, and she had forgotten to tell him that she’d changed her plans. Late last night she had phoned her mother to say she would be staying in Ragmullin for the weekend. She’d just have to take a taxi to Mark’s place this evening.