Page 43 of Final Betrayal

Boyd stuck his head over her shoulder. ‘Yours is a little cleaner.’

She shoved out past him. ‘Where does she keep her clothes?’

‘There’s a cupboard over there.’ Boyd pointed to a set of double doors to the left of a gas fire.

Lottie opened them up and found hangers with clothes pressed tightly together. Beneath them was a line of shoes and two pairs of ankle boots. She searched through every item of clothing with pockets but came up empty-handed.

‘There’s nothing here,’ she said. ‘We need to look in Amy Whyte’s house.’

‘I wish you luck getting past the councillor,’ Boyd said as he searched through a basket of nail polish.

‘Didn’t you know my middle name is luck?’

‘Luckless, more like. What’s this when it’s at home?’ He held up a small bottle with white liquid inside.

‘Let me see.’ Lottie took the bottle and shook it. ‘Doesn’t look like a nail product.’ She opened the lid and sniffed.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Boyd said. ‘It’s like ammonia.’

‘Nail polish remover then.’

Boyd took the bottle, screwed back the lid and replaced it in the basket. ‘SOCOs can analyse it.’

As she was leaving, Lottie noticed a jacket hanging on the back of the door. She searched the pockets. ‘Bingo.’ She held up her find.

‘What the …?’ Boyd stared.

‘Must be a couple of hundred euros here.’ Lottie flicked through the roll of notes.

‘Would she make that much from nails?’

‘Depends on who her customers were.’

Boyd patted the appointment book. ‘This might be more of a help than a hindrance after all.’

‘We’re trying to catch a murderer, Boyd. Not nail a tax-dodger. Pardon the pun.’

‘You’re so funny. Not.’

As he left, she turned around to look at the two SOCOs. They were not going to find anything here, unless the killer was into nail fetish. Then again …

She sighed and followed Boyd to the car.

Bernie Kelly curved her back into the wall of Grove’s Coal Suppliers. She didn’t care that a black slick of oil would leave a mark on her jacket. She only had eyes for the tall, hooded figure of Lottie Parker getting into the car with her sergeant. She needed to feel that freckle-skinned neck beneath her fingers as she crushed and squeezed the life out of the woman who had halted her personal crusade of retribution against the family that had never acknowledged her. She knew she had to get a knife. She would plunge it deep into Lottie’s body. Deeper than the last time. And this time it would be fatal.

A drop of water nestled into the nape of her neck. She flicked it away. The blue lights on the car grille flashed before the car turned right and headed away. She moved out from her secluded corner and began to walk in its wake.

Lottie Parker could wait.

It was time to have some fun with her family.

TWENTY-THREE

Sitting on a bench outside the courthouse, Conor Dowling smoked the cigarette he’d swiped from Tony. From his vantage point he could see the activity in the car park beyond the council buildings.

Guards. Plenty of them.

‘What are you looking at?’

---