Page 138 of Final Betrayal

‘Did you receive a note from Conor Dowling to deliver to Amy Whyte?’

‘You’re talking utter rubbish. I can give you the number of a therapist if you’d like.’

She opened the car and sat in.

Kirby leaned on the open door. ‘Can I have a look around your house?’

‘No you cannot. Just leave.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m going.’

‘Good. I’m heading back to work.’

She slammed the door and Kirby had to jump out of the way as she reversed out onto the road and drove off with water splashing from the potholes.

He watched her go before making his way to his own car. He threw his phone on the seat, then sat in and returned his attention to Megan’s house.

She emerged up the stairs from the basement like a shadow creeping out of a coffin. All in black, her hair shorn and her skin an unusual pallor.

‘I thought she would find me before you,’ she said.

Leo leaned against the kitchen table, wondering how he was going to handle this.

‘Where are Lottie’s girls?’

‘You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?’

As she took a step onto the flagstones, he noticed she was twisting a rope round and round her hand. The end of it was shaped like a noose. He prayed she hadn’t already killed them.

‘It doesn’t have to be this way, Bernie.’ Edging along the length of the table, he knocked against a chair, the sound screeching in the fusty air.

‘Stop!’ She raised her other hand. In the moonlight streaming through the window, he saw the steel of a knife glinting in her hand.

Back at the station, after they’d settled Belinda Gill with a blanket and a cup of tea with plenty of sugar, Lottie and Boyd entered the incident room. Dowling and Keegan had been released. There was nothing she could have done to prevent it, so she would just have to follow the evidence. McKeown surfaced from the midst of a group of detectives and hurried over to them. His tie was sticking out of his pocket and his shirt was undone at the neck. He looked like she felt. Exhausted.

‘Boss,’ he said. ‘We rushed through the DNA from Dowling and Keegan. The forensics lab have outdone themselves this time. Probably because we now have five bodies.’

Lottie perched on the edge of a desk, tapping a text to her mother. ‘Go on.’

‘Do you remember the hairs found on the bodies at the first murder scene?’

‘Yes.’ She glanced at the incident board, where a photograph of said hairs was pinned. ‘But we didn’t think we’d get much success seeing as they came from a doss house.’

‘Anyway, we already had Dowling’s DNA on file from the original case. Though I don’t think any comparative analysis was ever carried out, once you had the witnesses.’

‘Things were different then,’ Lottie said. ‘Samples had to be sent to the UK. It cost a lot of money, and budgets were as tight as they are now.’

‘Well, just to let you know, it isn’t a match for the hair.’

‘Doesn’t prove anything.’

‘I know. But I thought it was important. I’ve fast-tracked Keegan’s DNA sample to the lab. My contact there said he should have something within four hours.’

‘That must be a record,’ Boyd said.

‘It’s all about who you know,’ McKeown said, and tapped the side of his nose.

Lottie read the reply from her mother. No word on the girls. She pocketed her phone.

---