Page 17 of The Altar Girls

‘Mrs Coyne, is it okay to call you Betty? We’re sorry to disturb you this early in the morning, but we believe you were in the cathedral grounds last night. Around eight p.m. Is that correct?’

‘When?’

Lottie repeated the question.

‘I go there a lot. I work there, you see.’

‘I thought… that you don’t work there any more.’

‘Of course I do. I bet that Father Maguire said I didn’t. He thinks he knows it all. And what does he really know? Nothing, that’s what. I don’t like him, so I don’t. Call me Keith, he says, and him a man of God. Never in a million years.’

‘You chaperone the children at the choir, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ Betty said, her raised eyebrow querying why Lottie would need to pose it as a question.

This was going to be tough. Lottie ploughed on. ‘It was snowing heavily last night. Why did you go out?’

‘Go out? When?’

‘Last night. You were over at the cathedral around eight.’

Betty shook her head, a distant look in her eyes. ‘If you say so. I can’t remember. It gets that way at times. I had a stroke, the doctor tells me. Maybe there was choir practice on?’

‘Father Maguire cancelled the practice by text.’

She curled her lips in a grimace. ‘Why couldn’t he ring me like a normal person?’

‘A young boy says he saw you at the cathedral around eight p.m. Can you try to remember what you saw there? It’s important.’

‘How could I remember what I saw when I can’t remember being there? You are a silly detective.’ She sniggered like a child, then sneezed and rooted in a box of tissues, hauling out a handful. She blew her nose noisily before scrunching the tissues up her sleeve.

This was impossible. Lottie stood and placed her card on the mantel. ‘If by any chance you do recall anything, Mrs Coyne, will you ring me straight away?’

Boyd stood and helped the old lady from the armchair. She smiled at him.

‘I think it will come back to you during the day,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave a few sheets of notepaper and a pen with you. The second you remember anything about last night and what you may have seen, please write it down. Like you did for your job at the church.’ He tore a couple of pages out of his notebook and left them on the coffee table along with his pen and card.

‘I will do that, young man. Thank you for being so kind.’ Betty Coyne shadowed them into the hallway. She ran her hand over a coat hanging on an old-fashioned stand. ‘I think you might be right. My coat is damp. I must have gone out.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I’ll think of it later, I’m sure, and thanks for the pen and paper. When I see it there, I’ll know what it’s for. I hope.’

Once they were out on the icy pavement, Lottie turned to Boyd. ‘Mr Sheen.’

‘Mr who?’ Boyd blew into his hands, trying to inject some warmth.

‘Furniture polish. That’s the smell I was trying to think of.’

‘If you say so. Where to next?’

‘Let’s see if McKeown found anything on CCTV around the cathedral.’

15

Martina felt like shit because of the way she’d spoken to McKeown. He deserved all he got, but that kind of talk was not in her nature. She’d have to apologise, wouldn’t she? Later. If she felt like it.

Her job for the day was sorting through the door-to-door reports coming in from the interviews conducted yesterday when Willow Devine was reported missing. First, though, she’d find Isaac Kiernan’s information on PULSE, the Garda database. Inspector Parker had requested it.

She smiled warmly at Boyd. It was good to see him back. Maybe now the inspector wouldn’t be so grumpy. She put a hold on that thought when Lottie walked into the office, speaking before she had even taken her coat off.

‘What have you got for me? And I don’t want to hear the word nothing.’

---