No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(98)

His eyes were shrouded as he lowered his head. ‘I’ve just lost my wife and my son. And you think I had something to do with that girl? You are the lowest form of scum on the earth.’

‘But you knew Lynn O’Donnell. Did you abduct her? Hide her away for ten years and then leave her to die?’

‘You’re mad, do you know that?’

‘Left her to rot out at the lake?’

‘I did not.’

Lottie sighed. She had nothing on Paddy McWard. Not a single thing, yet her bones itched with the feeling that he was involved.

‘All those days and nights you spend away from home. Where do you go?’

‘This again?’

‘Yup. I’ll find out eventually, so you may as well tell me.’

He folded his arms, put them on the table and laid his head on top of them. ‘I must be due a break.’ His voice was muffled.

With her own shoulders sagging in defeat, Lottie asked Boyd to terminate the interview.

‘As you have no home at the moment, we’ll provide you with a nice sterile cell for the night. Give you time to decide to tell us the truth.’

‘Bare-knuckle boxing.’

‘What?’ She nodded to Boyd to continue the recording. She’d seen this on PULSE. He’d been arrested for it eight years ago, but the charges were dropped. Was this all he was guilty of? She needed to find out.

McWard raised his head listlessly. ‘I used to be involved in underground bare-knuckle fights. Lost a lot of money. Nearly lost my life.’

‘Go on.’

‘I had a younger brother who … who died from a kick to the head at one of those fights seven years ago. That changed me.’

‘How?’

‘Now I try to stop them. I travel the country hunting them down. I try and talk sense into the young lads. Anyone who’ll listen, I take them to legit boxing clubs. I even train some of them myself. That’s all I’ve been doing. Nothing suspicious. Just trying to make up for the loss of my brother.’

Was this what Queenie had meant by his broken heart? Glancing sideways at Boyd, Lottie raised a questioning eyebrow before returning her gaze to McWard.

‘Can you prove this?’

‘I can bring you to some of the clubs. The lads might talk to you. But the illegal stuff, I can’t let you in on that. Sure, even your own pigs couldn’t uncover anything about them.’

Lottie took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. ‘I think you’re telling me the truth, but not the whole truth.’

‘You’ve nothing to hold me on. I’m not going to flee, I’ve funerals to organise. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘You’re going nowhere until you tell me the truth. About everything, Paddy.’

Maybe it was the use of his first name that did it, but Lottie watched in wonder as his fingers gripped the image of the ring.

‘I loved her so much,’ he whispered.

Her breath caught at the back of her throat and her mouth opened without any words escaping.

‘My Lynn. I can’t believe she’s dead. I always thought she’d be found. I searched and searched. We were so in love. But it could never be. Not with that arsehole family of hers. Once they found out, we were finished.’

‘Found out what?’

‘That we were meeting. That we were lovers.’ He looked up at the ceiling, cleared his throat. ‘Bridie was only fourteen when I was betrothed to her. I didn’t love her. But that was the way of my people. I’d already met Lynn by then, when I went to Dublin to sort out some welfare stuff at the head office. That was where she worked. She had such a happy smile. I was in love from that first day. And the odd thing was, she felt it too.’

‘You had a relationship with Lynn O’Donnell?’ Lottie said, incredulous.

‘Don’t look so shocked. Love happens. I gave her that ring. To show her my loyalty and love.’

‘You’re sure it’s the same one?’

‘If you let me see it, I’ll know.’

Lottie didn’t know if that was a good idea. Was he lying?

‘What I can’t understand is that your name never appeared anywhere in the original investigation. Why is that?’

‘Her family didn’t want to suffer the indignity of the whole country knowing their beloved girl was making out with a traveller. The shame of it.’ He curled his lip in distaste. ‘I hate them. Every last one of them. It’s their fault Lynn went missing.’

‘I think it’s your fault.’

‘Maybe you’re right there.’

‘Where did you keep her for the last ten years, Paddy?’

His eyes, blacker than she’d noticed before, stabbed her with a look of hatred. ‘I didn’t take her and I didn’t keep her anywhere. I want my solicitor. I’m not saying another word.’

With exhaustion eating its way into the core of her being, Lottie wound up the interview, then made arrangements for Paddy’s detention to be extended overnight. They needed to run more DNA tests. She hoped that maybe tomorrow she could extract the whole truth from him and, in doing so, find Mollie Hunter.



* * *



McMahon’s mood had soured considerably in the half-hour she’d left him to stew.