No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(7)

‘What’s your name?’ Lottie sat beside the woman.

‘My name has got nothing to do with anything. I just want to report what I heard, but no one will listen to me!’

‘I’m happy to listen to what you have to tell me. But if you want me to take you seriously, I need to know your name and address.’ Lottie extracted a notebook and pen from her bag.

‘If I tell you that, you definitely won’t believe me.’ The woman folded her arms tightly around the child.

‘Try me.’

‘Right then. Let’s see how unprejudiced you are. My name is Bridie McWard, and I live on the traveller site.’

‘Okay, Bridie,’ Lottie said calmly. ‘What did you want to tell me?’

The young woman shifted uneasily on the hard seat, seemingly disconcerted that Lottie was prepared to listen.

‘Little Tommy is cutting a tooth, see, and wakes up every hour on the hour. And Monday night, he was really bad. The tooth is just out, but all weekend he was a little hoor. Sorry. Don’t suppose you’d know about a screaming baby?’

‘You’d be wrong there. Go on.’

‘Like I said, Monday night, he was a nightmare. I’d got up to him maybe three times, and that was when I heard it.’

‘Heard what?’

‘The screaming. Like I told that ditsy madam over there.’ She pointed at Garda O’Donoghue.

Lottie smiled to herself. Bridie was a mile out in her conclusion. Gilly O’Donoghue was one of the brighter young guards at the station.

‘Go on,’ she said.

Bridie glanced at her. ‘You know where the site is? The temporary accommodation. Temporary my arse. It’s been there this twenty-five years. I was born there, and Mammy lived in a caravan on the site all her life, before the wee houses were even built. Reared eight of us, she did, until she had to go into the nursing home. I’m the youngest. Now we have the house. Temporary? No way. Anyway, I live right next door to the graveyard.’

‘I know it,’ Lottie said. She frequented the cemetery to visit Adam’s grave, though not as often as she used to. She should go over soon and leave some red roses for Valentine’s Day. Adam would probably turn in his grave laughing at her. They’d never bothered with Valentine’s Day when he was alive.

Bridie continued talking. ‘There’s a high wall between the houses and the graveyard. And Monday night – well, it was really Tuesday morning – I heard screaming coming from beyond the wall. I thought the dead had risen up to haunt us. It was like a banshee. Mammy told me she heard it once, years ago. I grabbed Tommy out of his cot and turned to wake Paddy, my husband. Except Paddy wasn’t there. He does that sometimes. Goes visiting friends and forgets to come home. I know he would’ve told me I was a stupid woman and to go back to sleep, but how was I supposed to go back to sleep with Tommy awake and someone screaming in the graveyard? Scared shitless I was. Still am, to tell you the truth.’ She bit her lip and bowed her head, as if it was a crime to be afraid.

Lottie paused, pen mid-air; the only sound was little Tommy sucking hard on his thumb.

‘You heard a scream?’

‘You believe me, Guard, don’t you?’

‘I’m Detective Inspector Parker, and yes, Bridie, I do believe you heard something. But I don’t know what. Why didn’t you come in yesterday to report this?’

‘Had to go to the social, didn’t I? To sign on.’

‘Right. What time on Monday night did you hear this screaming?’

‘I just knew it. You don’t believe me.’ Bridie jumped up. ‘The minute I said where I lived and mentioned the social. You think I’m just one of them time-wasters. Well, Missus High-and-Mighty Detective, you can think what you like. I’m educated. I got my Leaving Cert and a job. Then I got married, had Tommy and gave up work. So I had to sign on.’

‘Sit down, Bridie.’ Lottie waited a beat as Bridie slumped back onto the bench. ‘You’re reaching that conclusion about me possibly because of the way you’ve been treated in the past. But I do believe you.’ She watched the young woman running fingers loaded with gold rings through her son’s hair, biting her lip. Deciding what to say next?

‘I couldn’t see anything,’ Bridie said eventually. ‘Our windows are right up next to the wall. But the screams, they weren’t that far away. Just over the other side somewhere. It was a woman. I’m sure of it. It’s usually so quiet at night. Unless there’s a row on the site, or ambulance sirens wailing into the hospital. But Monday night it was frosty and silent. Then I heard those screams. It was 3.15 on the clock. I remember seeing the red numbers when I got up with Tommy.’

‘How long did the screams last?’ Lottie had already decided that Bridie had heard teenagers acting the maggot, running through the graves for kicks and frightening the shite out of themselves in the process.

‘Not long. A short burst, followed by silence again.’

‘And it was definitely a woman?’

‘Yeah. Are you going to go out there and take a look?’

‘I’ll send someone to scout around. Don’t be worrying. It was probably just teenagers playing around.’

‘Don’t send just anyone. You go. I’d trust you to look properly. And I’ve heard kids there before. This was different. This was real terror.’