Page 57 of Final Betrayal

She parked her car in the yard and was debating entering through the back door when she saw the melee of cameras and reporters turning the corner and heading for the gate. Nothing for it but to brave the storm.

Of course Cynthia Rhodes was at the head of the pack, microphone in hand, camera held aloft by someone behind her. And a sea of smartphones raised high. Bollocks.

Squaring her shoulders, Lottie headed straight towards her nemesis, intent on elbowing her in the gut as she passed.

Cynthia smiled. ‘Detective Inspector Parker, can you tell me if it’s true that you were instrumental in gaining a day release for Bernie Kelly? The same woman you helped put behind bars?’

‘No comment.’ She was going to kill Leo. As soon as she found him. And then Bernie. As soon as she found her too.

‘Is it true that Bernie Kelly is your half-sister?’

Lottie stopped, her blood rapidly reaching boiling point. ‘Oh, it’s half-sister now, is it? Ten minutes ago she was a fully fledged sibling.’ Her skin prickled.

‘My sources inform me that?—’

‘What sources?’ Wrong to engage her, but she wanted to know.

‘My sources are confidential. Can you tell me?—’

‘No comment.’

‘Is she linked to the deaths of the two young women discovered yesterday?’

Dipping her head, Lottie shouldered her way through the crowd, ignoring questions and almost tripping up the front steps when she reached them.

‘Where is she, Inspector?’ Cynthia’s voice carried over the pack.

‘I wish I knew.’ Lottie let the door slowly close on the reporter.

Inside, she found Cyril Gill ranting and raving at the desk sergeant.

‘Mr Gill, can I help you?’ She dropped her keys into her bag and eased the man away from the desk and into the small interview room to her right. ‘What’s the matter?’

The suave business persona she’d witnessed on Monday had been replaced by a wet and dishevelled-looking man. Lines of worry were etched into his jaw, and his eyes drooped, circled with black rings. He ran one hand furiously through his hair while trailing the other up and down his suit jacket, as if he was searching for something. The hem of his shirt was sticking out untidily over his belt.

‘My daughter, Louise. She didn’t come home last night. I’ve no idea where she is.’

‘Sit down, please,’ Lottie said as she took off her jacket. A sense of worry wormed its way through her veins. ‘Do you want me to make out a missing persons report?’

‘I want her found, that’s what I want.’

‘Please sit.’ Experience had taught her that distraught people needed to be taken in hand. Maybe she should take a leaf out of that bible herself. She was surprised when Gill complied.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘About eight o’clock last night. We had an argument.’ He seemed to think better of this and added, ‘It wasn’t really an argument. I was trying to tell her that Amy Whyte, her old friend, had been found murdered. But she wouldn’t believe me. Ran out of the house with no phone or anything. And I haven’t seen her since.’

‘How old is Louise?’ But Lottie knew the girl’s age. Louise Gill had been with Amy Whyte ten years ago when they’d witnessed the aftermath of a crime and ID’d the culprit, Conor Dowling. Lottie couldn’t shake the feeling that Louise being missing and Amy being dead were connected.

‘Twenty-five,’ Gill said. ‘But she’s still my baby girl.’

‘Tell me more.’

He sighed and clenched his hands into fists on the table. ‘What’s to tell. I don’t know where she is and I’m worried.’

‘Was she still friends with Amy Whyte?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so.’ He seemed evasive, shifty somehow. ‘A few years after the Dowling court case, they drifted apart. College and stuff.’

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