Page 66 of Final Betrayal

‘Are you sure you want to go back to the station?’ He was already turning up the street.

‘We now have four murders to investigate, so yes, I have to go back.’

They entered the station through the back door, and negotiated the stacks of box files that lined the narrow corridor.

‘Make sure that door is shut,’ Lottie told Boyd. ‘Don’t want little Miss Nosy Rhodes getting in.’

The media scrum outside the front door had swelled in the couple of hours since they’d left. Avoiding McMahon was going to be impossible.

‘I think you’re better off talking to him now instead of spending the remainder of the day in hiding.’

Boyd was right, she knew that, but the prospect of McMahon’s anger was enough to make her want to avoid him at all costs. It was taken out of her hands when she entered the incident room. McMahon was seated at one of the desks, going over a stack of reports. She noticed a stranger sitting at another desk.

The acting superintendent raised his head. ‘My office.’

By the time he had pushed out past her, she still hadn’t formed her reply.

‘You’d better get it over with,’ Boyd said.

‘Everything might be over by the time he finishes with me.’

‘What are you going to say?’ Boyd said.

‘I’ll think of something.’

She dropped her jacket and bag on a chair and followed her superior.

He’d moved the furniture around in his office again. Where did he get the time? Lottie searched for a chair to sit on, but couldn’t see one. Was this a KGB-type ploy to make her faint at his feet and spill her secrets? Feck you, McMahon. She leaned up against the wall inside the door and waited while he settled himself behind his desk.

‘Explain yourself,’ he said at last.

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me. I know your type.’

‘What type might that be?’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘Sir.’ Best not to irritate him, though she suspected he was about to explode at any minute.

‘The type who protests their innocence knowing they’re guilty as hell.’

Unable to trust the words that might flow from her mouth, she remained silent.

‘I’m going to ask you a couple of questions and I want straight answers.’ He shifted a solitary pen from one side of his desk to the other. Then he leaned across and glared. ‘Are you related to Bernie Kelly?’

‘Sir, let me explain?—’

‘Answer the question!’

‘Yes, I think so.’ Feck him, she thought, he was going to screw her.

‘Did you know that fact at the time of the investigations you were conducting last October into the murders of Tessa Ball and Marian Russell?’

‘No, sir, I did not.’ Lottie squirmed against the wall. She’d discovered back then that Marian Russell too was her half-sister.

‘When did you become aware of your relationship to Bernie Kelly?’

‘After the case closed.’

‘The truth.’

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