Page 147 of Final Betrayal

‘Have you got a brighter idea?’ Lottie said.

Conor knew he could easily take the knife from Megan, but he wanted to hear what she had to say. He walked slowly across the ground, holding his damaged arm, wishing there was more light. But maybe he could use the dull hue from the distant street lights to his advantage.

‘Why did you kill the girls?’ he asked.

‘I killed no one,’ Tony said.

‘Not you, you moron. Her.’ Conor had had enough of the pussyfooting. He stopped and turned to face Megan.

‘Why do you think I had anything to do with that?’ Her voice was weaker now. That was a good thing, Conor thought. But he had to get the truth out of her first.

‘I know it wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘and I don’t think Tony had the wit to carry it out.’

‘You always were smarter than him.’ Her sarcastic laugh was carried away on the edge of a breeze as rain poured down.

‘But I don’t understand how you knew about this place.’

‘Bill, my stepdad, had all the maps. One reason he was such a vehement objector to Cyril Gill’s project was because he knew the medieval history of Ragmullin would be lost if Gill got his way. He showed me ancient maps of the underground network. I couldn’t care less about them at the time. But I remembered them.’

‘What sparked that memory?’ Conor had to keep her talking.

‘Penny Brogan couldn’t keep her mouth shut.’

‘Penny?’ Keegan said. ‘What did she know?’

‘She was my manicurist. Always gabbing about everybody’s business. She told me about Cristina Lee coming over to Ireland, following in the footsteps of her aunt who used to work for the Gills. The family hadn’t heard from Hannah in years, according to Penny, but she’d been in Ireland illegally so no formal report had ever been made to the authorities. As it turned out, Cristina was here illegally too. You know, I’d forgotten all about Hannah Lee until that very moment. With the attack on Bill and the court case and all that followed, I never gave her a thought.’ She pointed the knife at Keegan. ‘And then I married you. You let me lead a lie for my entire adult life. Whatever became of the money you stole?’

‘I stole nothing.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Tony. The time for lies is well past. It had to be you.’

Conor edged to one side. While Megan was getting angrier by the second, waving the knife erratically with each word, he was figuring out a way to escape. It meant going back down the tunnel, but he could suffer that if it got him out of here alive.

SIXTY-FOUR

Boyd silenced the siren as they approached the area McKeown had marked on the map.

‘No point in alerting them,’ Lottie said. ‘Look.’ A car was parked with all the doors open outside the hoarding.

He glided the car up behind a Ford Fiesta. ‘What’s the plan?’

Lottie wanted this over and done with. She wanted to be at her daughters’ bedsides. She knew she should be there already, but she also knew they were in safe hands. Once she had this wrapped up, they would get her undivided attention. Her heart lurched with guilt, but she couldn’t deal with that right now.

‘Let’s see if they’re in there,’ she said.

They left the car, closing the doors quietly, and made their way to the open door in the hoarding.

Lottie put her finger to her lips and eased up against the timber. Voices carried towards her as she peered inside.

Tony said, ‘The money was well spent on that lavish wedding you had. You should have known I couldn’t have earned enough as a labourer to afford that, but you never questioned it.’

‘Biggest mistake of my life,’ Megan said. She put one hand in her pocket and extracted a handful of coins. She threw them on the ground, where they sank into the grey water of muck and dirt.

Conor took a step backwards.

She spun her head around, pointing the knife at him. ‘If you had come clean, I would have been spared a lifetime of misery.’

‘But now you know why I didn’t. You made your own decisions. Nothing to do with me.’

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