Page 76 of Final Betrayal

‘Do we need anything else?’ Boyd asked.

She couldn’t help but feel the distance his tone was placing between them. She was wrong to have yelled at him at the station, but the day had been stressful. McMahon was gunning for her. Cynthia Rhodes knew stuff she shouldn’t. Bernie Kelly was prowling around on the loose. And to cap all that, they had two more bodies.

‘Her phone.’ Lottie found the jewel-encrusted iPhone lying on the pillow. She tapped the home key. Like the laptop, it required a passcode.

She bagged the phone. Boyd did likewise with the laptop. Then, while he flicked through the pages of the notebooks, she took a quick look around the en suite bathroom. She opened the mirrored cabinet above the washbasin without looking at her appearance. Toothpaste, electric toothbrush, hair serum, small bottles of shower gel. No medicines of any sort. No contraceptive pills either. She shut the cabinet.

Returning to the dressing table, she inspected each bottle of expensive perfume and nail polish. The drawers held an assortment of jewellery still in the boxes they’d been bought in. The remainder were filled with underwear. All luxurious, though there was nothing flimsy or erotic.

‘No sign of a coin. No note,’ she said.

‘Her death may not be connected to Amy and Penny,’ Boyd said.

‘It has to be. There were coins left with the bodies. It is the same killer.’

As Boyd lifted a black leather-bound Moleskine notebook, Lottie heard something fall to the floor.

‘What was that? Don’t move. Stay where you are,’ she instructed him as the hairs on her arms tingled.

‘Not going anywhere.’

She got down on her knees and searched around his feet. ‘Something fell out of the notebook. I heard it.’

‘You’re imagining things.’

She scrabbled around under the bed. Nothing. Eased her hand beneath the bedside cabinet. Feeling something through the latex of her gloves, she dragged it out and lifted it up to the light.

‘A coin,’ she said triumphantly.

THIRTY-SEVEN

His mother’s voice carried out to the hall door before he’d hardly had a chance to step inside.

‘What are you doing home at this hour of the day?’

‘We were let off early,’ he lied, and put one foot on the stairs. He’d been lucky. This time. His solicitor had got him released immediately. The guards had had no evidence to hold him on.

‘Come here!’

He sighed and went into the sitting room. His senses were now accustomed to the stench and dirt but his eyes could not deny the vision of degradation. He really should get his mother into a care home. How had she managed while he’d been away? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

‘What?’ He remained standing behind her.

‘Come over here where I can see you.’ She tapped her walking stick on the floor beside her.

‘Give me a minute.’

Back in the hall, he draped his jacket on the banister and went to the kitchen. He needed a drink. The fridge only held a carton of milk. Instead he poured a glass of water from the sink tap, drained it, then went back to his mother.

‘Okay. I’m here. What’s all the rush for?’

‘I need a wash.’

For the first time since he’d left prison, he noticed the balding patches on the top of her head. Pink scalp peeked out in odd spots, and the strands of hair that remained were oily and plastered to her head. Suddenly he realised that in the two months since he’d been home, she hadn’t had a proper wash or shower. No wonder the room smelled putrid.

He straightened his shoulders, preparing himself for a battle he could do without after the day he’d just had. ‘Mam, I think you need a proper carer. I can’t work and look after you.’

She said nothing. He took that as a good sign.

---