Page 59 of Three Widows

She wanted to scout around town before she met up with her son and her ex. God, but he was in for a shock.

Exiting the hotel, she couldn’t help the conspiratorial smile that curled her lips.

39

Neither Boyd nor Kirby had turned up for work by the time Lottie decided to have a chat with Éilis Lawlor’s kids to see if she could learn anything further. Their mother still hadn’t come home, nor had she been found.

She parked outside the house and quickly checked her phone for emails. The initial results on the stain found on Éilis’s carpet were in. Urine. Human. Not the dog, so. It was fast work by the lab, but there was no report from SOCOS at the site where Jennifer’s body had been found. Time was against them while the killer was still free and another woman was missing.

About to enter the Lawlor house, she received the dreaded call. A body had been discovered at Ladystown Lake.

She sped out there and parked in the car park. Pausing to gather her wits, she gazed out over the vast expanse of water. A family of swans nestled by the shore, oblivious to the horror in the trees behind her. A warm breeze skirted over the reeds and a smell of late summer hung in the air. She shook herself into work mode.

Skirting the outer cordon, a hundred yards from the shore, she found her feet slipping on the muddy terrain. There hadn’t been much rain since yesterday morning and she wondered why it was soggy underfoot. Making her way through the trees, she reached a tarmac pathway and could walk without sliding. Maybe she should have entered via the gate in the car park fence, but it was too late now.

The inner cordon was alive with activity as SOCOs set up. She saw Boyd talking earnestly with Grainne Nixon.

She dipped under the tape and approached them. ‘What have we got?’

Grainne pointed a little further up the path, where a tent was being erected over a large wood carving. Lottie had been out here during the summer, walking with her grandson, Louis, and knew there was a series of life-sized carvings from felled trees along the pathway, representing Irish mythological figures.

‘The body is draped over the Fionn Mac Cumhaill statue,’ Grainne said.

‘I want to get closer to see who it is.’ Lottie glanced up through the leafy canopy above her head, praying it wasn’t Éilis. She donned gloves and a mask, and pulled booties on over her muddy footwear before falling into step beside the SOCO, with Boyd behind them.

As they neared the clearing, her heart rate raced. She had to see this for herself and make her initial assessment. The tent was in the throes of falling apart, and Grainne took charge of her team while Lottie stood in front of the carving. She couldn’t see much of the statue because a woman’s body was indeed draped over it, as Grainne had warned.

It was as if the dead woman was asleep, her arms around the statue’s neck, her head resting on one shoulder and her legs out behind her. The skirt of her yellow cotton dress fluttered in the breeze and a white feather floated downwards from an overhanging branch to rest in her hair. Lottie glanced up, but couldn’t see any birds.

Returning her attention to the body, it was evident, even without further investigation, that both legs had been savagely broken. Bones protruded though flesh.

‘Same killer?’ Boyd said. ‘The dress, the legs…’

Lottie shrugged.

She couldn’t see the face, none of them could, but the nausea rising in her stomach told her it was Éilis Lawlor. She visualised little Becky and Roman’s sweet faces in anticipation of their mother’s return. ‘Goddammit. I told two children I’d find their mother.’

‘You’ve found her,’ Boyd said softly.

‘Not the way I hoped. This is awful.’ She took a breath of fresh air to compose herself. ‘I need a closer look.’

‘Best to pull on the full gear then.’ Grainne rooted in her large steel case and drew out a white overall.

Once she was suitably attired, Lottie made her way forward, walking on the stepping plates.

Grainne said, ‘She’s in rigor. Dead over two hours; no longer than six, maybe eight. Two broken legs are the obvious injuries. Possibly her right arm too, for it to be in that position.’

‘Post-mortem injuries?’ Lottie hoped.

‘Can’t say.’

‘No blood that I can see.’

‘She was killed elsewhere. And before you ask, I have no idea how she died.’

‘I want to see her face.’

‘We can move around to the back of statue.’

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