No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(9)

There was no way Bridie McWard could have seen anything over the wall in daylight, never mind in the dead of night. As she scanned the headstones in the chilly haze, she glimpsed Adam’s granite resting place, on the high ground to her left.

‘Isn’t Adam buried up there?’

She jumped. ‘Jesus, Boyd. For a minute I forgot you were here.’

‘Didn’t mean to scare you. But it’s kind of creepy in this weather.’

‘Creepy at the best of times.’

She turned left along the wall, and came to a stop beside the freshly turned clay that Fahy had pointed out. The open grave was covered with slats of timber.

‘Mrs Green’s new abode, I presume,’ she said.

‘Dermot Green.’ Boyd read the inscription. ‘Died September 2001. Aged eighty years. Yes, I’d say this is where she’ll be going. To rest beside her late husband.’

‘You’ll make a good detective someday,’ Lottie said with a laugh.

Boyd laughed too. The sound appeared to echo back at them, and she shivered.

Memories of the day Adam had been buried flooded her mind. His body lying in a wooden box with a gold-plated cross on top, interred forever in sacred ground. Dismissing the images, she looked at the area around the Greens’ burial plot. The grass outside the kerbstones was flattened, presumably by Fahy and his workmen as they dug the grave. Lottie made her way slowly along the path, stopping at a grave three up from the Greens’.

‘Boyd, look at this.’ She knelt down. ‘Is that blood?’

Boyd leaned over and they stared at the bead of brownish red staining the white pebbles adorning the burial plot.

‘Looks like it.’ He took a plastic evidence bag from his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll get it tested.’

‘Do that.’

Standing up, she glanced all around. Some of the grass here was flattened too. It could be from the frost, or people visiting buried loved ones, or even the caretaker, she supposed. Or was it something else entirely? And why was there that stain that looked like blood within screaming distance of the traveller site?

She began to think that maybe Bridie McWard hadn’t heard a banshee after all. It seemed more likely that someone had indeed screamed while running through the graveyard early on Tuesday morning.

Turning back to Boyd, she said, ‘You done yet?’

‘I am.’

‘I don’t like the feeling I’m getting. Let’s have another chat with Mr Friendly.’



* * *



The caretaker’s office was just inside the main gate. The windows were criss-crossed with iron cladding and the roof was shaped like one you’d find on an old country church.

‘This used to be living quarters at one time,’ Bernard Fahy said.

He’d divested himself of his workman’s jacket and was shuffling around the small office. He wore a thin jumper under a pair of dungarees at least two sizes too big for him. His hair had probably once been blonde but had turned yellow. From cigarette smoke, Lottie suspected.

‘Does anyone live here now?’ She stared at the bare concrete floor, then the cracked walls.

‘Not a sinner, except for the poor souls buried six feet beneath us.’

‘Really?’

‘Not literally.’ He laughed, the same harsh sound that had earlier scared the birds.

Lottie felt her skin crawl. She looked up at the tall, thin man. It was hard to tell his age, because his skin was so weather-beaten.

‘I’ve been caretaker here for the last fifteen years, and I could tell you a thing or two about what goes on around here. You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘I think I would,’ Lottie said. She wasn’t here for reminiscences. She wanted answers. ‘If someone wanted to gain entry to the graveyard at night, is it easy?’

‘The main gate is locked, unless a hearse is arriving, but the side gate is left open day and night. And anyone can hop over the wall if they’ve a mind to. There’s a lot of illegal dumping. I work for the council and they won’t listen to me about it. Did you see the mound of black bags out there? Don’t suppose you can do anything?’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’ Opening her bag, she took out Elizabeth Byrne’s photograph. ‘Have you ever seen this young woman?’

Fahy picked up the photo and ran a dirty fingernail down Elizabeth’s face. ‘Pretty girl. What did she do?’

‘She didn’t do anything.’ Lottie pulled the photograph from him and wiped it clear of smudges. ‘We’re trying to locate her.’

‘You won’t find her here, unless she’s dead and buried,’ he sniggered.

‘Have you seen her?’

‘You keep asking the same questions. Must be hard, training to be a guard. No, I never saw that girl before.’ He picked up his jacket. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’ve Mrs Green’s funeral arriving in a few minutes.’

‘If you hear anything else from Bridie, or anyone else, please let me know.’ Lottie handed him one of her cards.

‘I will. If truth be told, she did rattle me a little with her scary stories. I was beginning to believe them myself.’ He looked up at the diamond-shaped windows, lost in thought, before adding, ‘You sure you don’t want to look into that illegal dumping for me?’