No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(64)

‘You were putting enough feet in it for both of us,’ he said, and made off down the trail.

What the hell was eating him? she wondered.

At the outer cordon, they tore off the protective clothing and bagged it.

‘Mulligan next on your list?’ Boyd said.

‘Yes.’

She decided to let him stew in whatever mood he was in. She had enough worries without Boyd. And then she wondered how Katie was doing on her flight. ‘Dear God, keep them safe,’ she muttered.





Fifty-Four





The bones. Tiny chips of them lying on the narrow table. And the smallest skull. She should have asked him. Were they real? Had they been left there to frighten her into submission? She didn’t know, but she supposed she didn’t want to find out either. Best to pretend they were made of plastic. A toy. Yes. No. They were real. Very real.

Sitting on the side of the bed, she took a sip of water from the plastic bottle he’d left her. And still she stared. Why would there be the bones of a child down here? Unburied. Or had they been buried and then excavated? Fear trawled her skin, pricking away like bites from hungry ants. And the odour. The room was filled with it. Like ammonia, or bleach. What had he been cleaning before he’d brought her here? Whatever it was, he hadn’t done a very good job. She could smell the underlying scent. Like rotting meat. Like the dead mouse she’d found behind a skirting board once. Much as she feared and detested vermin, she hoped that was what she was now smelling, masked beneath the acidic fumes.

She was weak and tired but knew she wouldn’t sleep. Not with those bones over there. On display. Taunting her.

Was she to suffer a similar fate?

No way. She was stronger than this. She wouldn’t meet the same fate as … Her throat snagged and she gulped. Were the child’s bones challenging her?



* * *



A picket fence surrounded Bob Mulligan’s home. The prefab house sat in a dip half a mile from the lake shore and about the same from where the body had been found. It was obvious to Lottie that it had been constructed long before more stringent planning laws had been introduced. Then again, maybe Bob Mulligan operated outside the law.

A wire run housed a few hens devoid of most of their feathers, and the dog was tied up with a gnawed rope on a concrete square.

Mulligan brought them into the house and they sat at a table cluttered with the remains of breakfast. No tea was offered, which pleased Lottie. She didn’t fancy drinking out of the brown-rimmed mugs.

‘How long have you lived here, Mr Mulligan?’ she began.

‘Thirty years or thereabouts. Inherited from my granny.’

‘What do you work at?’

‘Retired. I just fish the lake now.’

‘It seems very isolated.’

‘It’s what I like. Me and the animals are happy. Wasn’t always so. There was a time, must be fifteen, if not twenty years back, when the travellers threatened to take over with their caravans. But the council moved them to a site in town.’

‘Really? Why were they out here?’

‘There’s that caravan park down the other side of the lake. For holidaymakers, you know. I think the travellers thought they could set up their own park over this side. I didn’t have an issue with them, but they had no running water or toilets.’

‘That was a long time ago,’ Lottie said. ‘Has anything other than that ever disturbed you out here?’

‘Boy racers from time to time. Lovers in cars with steamed-up windows at night. Other than that, it’s nice and quiet.’

‘How often do you walk through that particular area where you found the body?’ Lottie said, folding her arms.

‘I’m not a suspect, am I? I had nothing to do with it.’

‘Can you answer the question?’ Boyd said.

‘I usually walk on the road along the lake, but last night there were those youngsters mucking about. They found the body first. It was the young girl’s scream that alerted Mutt. He got the scent and took off. So I followed him.’

‘When were you there before last night?’ Boyd asked.

‘Like I told you already, it was more than a week ago. You can ring my friend in Galway. I went over there Friday last, the fifth.’

‘And before that, you were here all the time?’

Lottie watched as Mulligan shuffled on his chair.

‘Yes. Doesn’t mean I killed anyone.’

‘We’re just exploring everything until we get the time of death.’

‘Was she murdered, do you think?’

‘Why would you say that?’

He pointed to the newspaper on the table. The front page carried a report on the murder of Elizabeth Byrne.’

‘“Buried in someone else’s grave”,’ Lottie read. ‘We’ll check with your friend. And I need details of your movements for the last couple of weeks.’

‘I’ll write it out for you.’

‘You can make a formal statement at the station, and give a DNA sample. Sometime today suit you?’

‘That’s grand.’

‘Here’s my card. Let me know if you think of anything else that might help us. I’m leaving a uniformed officer at your gate while the forensic examination of the scene is ongoing.’