Page 27 of Three Widows

Helena shook herself to wake up as she answered the phone. How long had she been asleep at the counter? Twenty minutes if the time on the old wall clock was correct.

‘Bianca?’ she said. ‘Éilis talks about you. Says you’re great with the kids. No, I haven’t heard anything from her this morning. Did she get home okay last night?’

‘Yeah, she did,’ Bianca whispered. ‘Any idea where she might be now?’

‘Maybe at the shops or out for a walk with the dog. But it’s odd that she wouldn’t take her phone with her.’

‘The dog is here. Her purse, too.’

‘Are the children okay?’

‘Just worried. I’ll give Jennifer a call. She’s in your group, isn’t she?’

‘We haven’t seen her for over a month. It was just myself, Éilis and Orla last night. We left the pub around eleven. Maybe Éilis went somewhere after. You know… met someone…’ She hoped Bianca could fill in the gaps.

‘No, she came home. She paid me and I left. But the kids say she wasn’t here this morning. Any idea at all where she could be?’

Helena felt a cold tongue of dread lick its way down her spine, swallowing up her hangover. ‘Shit, Bianca, I don’t know. Should you phone the guards?’

‘I thought of that, but if she’s only gone out for a walk and arrives home to find it’s like a scene from CSI, I’d look a right eejit.’

The girl was correct, but Helena couldn’t help the prickling sensation on her skin that something bad had happened. Her sensory powers, dulled by alcohol, now fizzed through the follicles on her arms, sounding alarm bells.

‘Phone the guards, Bianca. I’m working and can’t leave yet. Call me the second you have any news. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘And stay with the children.’

‘I’m not stupid.’

‘Sorry. I know Éilis trusts you.’

As Bianca killed the call, Helena stood up from the stool and moved around the shop, biting at the skin around her nails. Stop! Worry never solved a problem. Not for her, anyhow.

Deciding she needed to keep busy in order to put a halt to her irrational thoughts, she began clearing a shelf of vitamin D. When she had all the tubs on the floor, she sensed someone watching her. She swung around so quickly she crashed into the tower she’d created. She watched helplessly as it toppled. Luckily the tubs had childproof lids, or she’d be sweeping up pills for a year.

She thought she saw something moving along the floor by the magnesium and sleep therapy products. A shadow? Footsteps? Had someone come into the shop while she’d dozed by the till? She scanned her eyes all around. No, there was no one. It must have been her imagination. Then she thought of the door behind the tiny storeroom where she mixed her herbal remedies.

That was when she heard the back door slam shut and the roller door at the front of the shop crashed to the ground.

She screamed.

Then she thought: how stupid. No one can hear me in here.

She was all alone.

Maybe she was alone now, but had she been a moment before?

17

Opening Jennifer’s personnel file, which she’d brought from the dental clinic, Lottie pulled on gloves and extracted the resignation letter. She slipped it into a clear plastic sleeve, photocopied it and pinned the copy to the board. Then she asked Lynch to send the original for forensic analysis.

‘We need to know if Jennifer wrote it herself,’ she said. ‘We found no laptop or computer in her house. No sign of her phone. A hand-written letter in this day and age is unusual.’

‘Maybe it was her way of being final about it?’ Lynch said. ‘Written in longhand, stamped and posted, with no trace left behind like you’d have with an email.’

‘If she even wrote it,’ Boyd said.

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