Page 151 of Her Last Walk Home

‘I said shut up!’

‘If you’re going to kill me, do it now. I can’t bear to listen to your lies any longer.’

‘You will suffer first. Perhaps you’d like to see your grandson in pain as you die. Fetch him for me.’ She pushed him and he staggered from the room.

He didn’t like this. She was supposed to love him. But did she even know how to love? She’d taken everything from him, from everyone. And he’d been complicit. A weakling. Was now the time to stand up to her? But fear burrowed its way deep into his groin and he almost cried out.

As he made his way to the room where they held the children, he wondered if he should just keep walking. Out the front door. Out the gates. Up the lane. Across the fields. Keep going until he had put enough distance between them to feel safe for once in his life.

At the front door, he hesitated, long enough to hear a crash and two gunshots from somewhere behind him. Where had she got a gun from?

He backed away from the door without unlocking it.

Something was very wrong.

Both knees of her jeans were torn and she’d ripped her jacket sleeve up to her shoulder, but Lottie had succeeded in climbing the wall despite the cumbersome Kevlar vest. A fallen tree, its trunk rotting, had given her the leg-up she’d needed. The crows had departed in a flurry of noise, but she was masked by a multitude of branches that swept low over the wall.

A car was on fire towards the front of the house and some sort of shed smouldered at the rear wall. The scene confirmed that she was in the right place. Someone was trying to cover their tracks while getting ready to escape.

Dropping down the other side of the wall, she heard sirens in the distance. She lay flat on her stomach and crab-crawled across the slabbed ground towards a solid back door. Rising, she glanced in through a darkened window. A slit at the bottom of the blinds revealed what she’d suspected.

At the door, she found there was no handle, only a lock for a key. She pushed, but it was secure. She fired two shots at the lock and kicked the door in, crying out with the pain shooting through her foot before ignoring it. The next door was easier to kick in, and she flew through it into the nightmare scene.

‘Drop the knife, Charlie.’

‘Like hell I will.’

Charlie Lennon, still dressed in her designer jeans, her shirt creased and stained with sweat and smoke, stood behind a tied up Diana Nolan, holding a knife to her throat. The skin had already been nicked and a trickle of blood ran down Diana’s neck. Her eyes were wide with terror, and though she was bound, her right knee bounced uncontrollably.

Lottie forced herself to stay calm. ‘You’ve nothing left to gain by killing another woman. Especially with a witness present.’

‘I killed no woman, you delusional bitch.’

How many times had Lottie been called delusional in her life? The word pulsed red-raw anger through her veins and shepropelled herself across the space and hit Charlie in the side of her head with her gun before the woman could react. She drew back her arm to thrash her again, but stopped. Charlie was knocked out. Not dead. Pity.

‘You okay, Diana?’ She bent to untie the rope.

‘Leave me. He’s gone to get Aaron. Find him.’

Taking handcuffs from her belt, she secured Charlie’s hands behind her back and left her lying on the floor as the woman moaned, regaining consciousness.

She listened at the internal door. All was quiet. Too quiet.

She depressed the handle just as the door opened, knocking her back across the kitchen. Banging her head against the corner of a cupboard, she slid to the ground. She heard Diana scream as a tidal wave of darkness crushed her and she gave herself up to the darkness.

106

The hospital was quieter than earlier that day, when she’d been there with Gordon Collins. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Lottie’s head felt as if it’d been split open with a mallet, though she’d only needed five stitches. Her black eye and bruised cheekbone would fade. Her damaged foot would heal in time too. Boyd had had ten stitches on the back of his head, and he had concussion. War-wound comparisons would abound once they were back at work.

She glanced over at him on the bed by the window as he slept. Amy and Kirby had agreed to keep Sergio for a few nights so Boyd didn’t have to worry about his son. On the other bed, Diana Nolan was sitting up drinking a cup of tea. Aaron was in the paediatric unit being assessed physically and psychologically. Easing herself off the bed, Lottie winced at the torn ligaments in her foot as she hobbled over to sit beside Diana.

‘I’m sorry,’ the older woman said. ‘I should’ve told you about Charlie, but I was scared witless. I knew what she was like as a teenager, and that made me terrified to challenge her.’

‘Why had you got a birth certificate for Magenta McCabe at your house?’

‘That was Aneta’s birth name. She found the certificate among her adoptive mother’s things when she died, and she gave it to me for safe keeping that day I was visiting Laura in Cuan. She recognised me from the photograph. She recognised Charlie too, at the event. It was like seeing her own reflection, she said, and she was petrified. Though when I saw Aneta’s death photo, she looked nothing like she did that day. How could a woman be so cruel to her own flesh and blood?’

Lottie wasn’t sure of the full story about what had happened all those years ago. ‘We believe Maggie L is Charlie’s daughter. We had Charlie’s DNA on file, as she was present when John’s body was found. We’re not sure if Thomas McCabe is the father. Waiting for DNA analysis on that.’

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