Page 102 of Final Betrayal

‘Please don’t say sorry again.’

‘Okay. This notebook seems to be a diary of prison visits that Louise Gill made over the last year. May I?’ He took the pages from Lottie and scanned them, then handed one back to her. ‘This one here. Three months ago. Mountjoy Prison. See the name of the prisoner she visited?’

‘I might have bloodshot eyes, but I can still read.’ Lottie squinted at the neat spidery handwriting. ‘Louise visited Dowling in prison a month before his release?’

McKeown nodded. ‘Her notes read like a confession. In a nutshell, she told him that she was sorry. That she’d been sure he was the man she saw that night, but that maybe she’d made a mistake. That she was finding it hard to live with herself.’

Lottie swallowed hard.

‘Are you okay?’ Sam asked.

‘Fine, thanks.’

‘Do you need a drink of water? I can fetch a bottle for you. Or a coffee?’

‘You’re trying too hard. You don’t have to impress me. Back to Louise and Dowling.’

‘It seems to have been an angry meeting. He said he wouldn’t forgive her. She told him that she intended to do something to uncover the truth.’

‘The truth?’ Lottie said. ‘What was she going to do?’ She hastily flipped through the remaining pages.

‘She doesn’t say. I’m still waiting for the transcripts from her computer. There might be something on those.’

‘You need to find out if she met with Dowling after his release.’

‘How will we do that?’

‘You will do it. Talk to her mother. Her friends. Anyone you can find who knew her. Her course tutor. Use that detective’s brain you have.’

He smiled then, a broad, toothy smile, and Lottie was amazed at his dental work. If only Rose had paid attention to her teeth when she was growing up, she wouldn’t forever be smiling with closed lips.

‘And I’ll talk to Dowling when I find him.’

He stood. ‘That reminds me of another thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘The list of casualties from the accident is in. Ten deceased so far. A crane is arriving at daylight to assist in recovery. There may be more bodies. But Conor Dowling is not on the list.’

‘He might still be buried.’

‘Possibly. I recognised one name from the Amy Whyte investigation reports, though.’

‘Who’s that?’ She wondered if Cyril Gill had escaped without injury.

‘Dermot Reilly.’

Lottie blew out a gasp of air. ‘Poor Ducky.’

‘He was only twenty-four.’

‘So sad.’

‘I’d better get back to work.’ McKeown moved to the door.

‘What about the CCTV you’ve been working on? The car park at Petit Lane.’

‘I don’t think we’ll find anything. Whoever it was seems to have been able to disappear into thin air.’

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