Page 49 of Final Betrayal

‘Answer the question,’ Boyd said.

‘What question might that be?’ Conor sighed loudly. ‘Yes, I can write, and I can read too. Happy?’

‘No, I’m not.’ Lottie took the page and slipped it back into the folder. ‘And your smart mouth is not endearing you to me at all.’

‘Tough shit.’

‘This is a photocopy of a coin found in the envelope with the note.’ She showed him an image of the round piece of metal. She held back on talking about the coins found with the bodies. No point in showing her hand too early.

‘Never saw it before.’

‘I think you did. You refused to talk last time, but you can tell the truth about this crime.’

‘Would you ever fuck off?’ His face flared red, and his knuckles, crunched into fists, were white. He stood up. ‘I’m leaving. And don’t think you can frame me for whatever this is about. I won’t stand for it a second time.’

The door swung closed behind him.

Lottie said, ‘Interesting young man, don’t you think?’

Boyd said, ‘Did you notice he never once asked how she died.’

‘Maybe he already knew.’

‘Like he’d heard about it?’

‘No, like he did it.’

The cathedral bells rang out the hour as Conor walked past the wrought-iron gates. He didn’t even bother to check how many chimes. Time was his enemy. Time had betrayed him and continued to do so. He’d learned that in a cell with the shouts and roars of the other inmates for company. A plump black crow perched on a railing ahead of him. He picked up a drink can from the path and toyed with the idea of hurling it at the bird. As he came closer, he noticed that the crow’s beak was thick and hard. The eyes black. He paused and stared. The bird did not move. Which of us has the darker soul? he wondered. Then he laughed. Birds had no souls.

He dropped the can and kicked it down the footpath in front of him. He kept on kicking it until it ended up in a muddy drain. Then he thumped his fist into a car door. His probation officer would be pissed off to learn he’d been questioned by the guards. Well, tough shit.

He needed a pint. Hadn’t he promised Tony he’d buy him a drink after work? He didn’t fancy going into Cafferty’s. All the guards drank there. He took out his phone and found his hands were shaking. Goddam you, Parker.

He texted Tony. Told him he’d meet him in Fallon’s pub.

No reply.

He’d have one pint anyway, then go home to see what his mother had got up to during the day. And then he remembered he’d put on a wash that morning. The clothes had probably been in the machine all day. They’d be rank. He’d have to wash them again. After he’d had his pint.

TWENTY-FIVE

‘Rosie, Rosie, you were always the sly one. You and that husband of yours. Shot himself, I heard. Got fed up with the lies, did he? Or had he had enough of your frosty face?’

Rose was seated at the table, clutching her hands together. Her skin felt like a thousand spiders had taken over and were spinning a multitude of webs. She unclenched her hands and flattened the palms on her knees.

The woman in front of her had eyes steeped in the depths of evil. Rose was no psychiatrist, but she knew that look. From true-life dramas on television. Interviews with serial killers. That look. That deep black nothingness.

‘Answer me.’

Bernie was lounging against the kitchen wall, her dirty coat flung across the back of a chair. Her legs were thin, clad in dark jeans, and her black sweater was stained. Her skin was pale, but her nose and cheeks were flushed, and tufts of wild red hair sprouted around her ears. She looked like a circus clown who had run away before the make-up artist had completed the job.

‘What do you want?’ Rose thought her voice sounded like someone else’s. Was that what stark fear did to you? she wondered.

‘I wanted to see you. To see what type of person steals another woman’s baby.’

‘I did not steal anyone.’

‘Your parasite of a husband did.’

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