Page 33 of Three Widows

‘If she hasn’t been seen for a month or more, does that mean she was held captive that long? If so, where? Jane said she had frostbite, so it could be a cold storage room. To find out what happened, we need to strip her life down to the last bone.’ She recounted what else Jane had found at the post-mortem. The starvation. The beating. The eyes.

He shook his head. ‘God, she went through hell.’

‘This bastard left her body out to be found. No attempt to hide her. What’s he playing at?’

‘It might be someone she met online.’

Rubbing her chin, Lottie said, ‘Jennifer isn’t on social media. Could be a client from the dental clinic.’

‘Maybe.’ Boyd was pensive for a moment. ‘Or one of her colleagues?’

‘Anything is possible. As we have so little to work on, I think that’s the best place to start. And then there’s this support group for widows that she belonged to.’

‘We should locate the other members and talk to them.’

‘Yes, definitely,’ Lottie said, feeling relieved that they had something practical to do at last. ‘I wish there’d been such a thing available when Adam died. It would have been good to talk to others in the same situation.’

‘You could have gone to counselling.’

‘I tried that. Anyhow, you were better than any counsellor. See if Lynch is back from that missing woman’s house. Get her working on the members of this widows’ group.’

‘Right, boss.’ He smiled, the first genuine good humour she’d seen on his face today.

As he turned to leave, he was almost upended by a flushed-faced Lynch bustling in.

‘That missing woman, Éilis Lawlor, she was the founding member of the widows’ group that we think Jennifer O’Loughlin was part of.’

Lottie jumped up, dragging her bag from the floor and unfurling her jacket from where she’d thrown it under the desk. ‘Who’s at the house?’

‘I left Garda Lei there. I know it’s not the required forty-eight hours, but we need to open a missing person file and issue alerts.’

‘Do that. I’m heading round there to see for myself. Boyd, you’re with me.’

In her rush to leave, she missed Lynch’s surly expression at once again being left out.

* * *

They’re staring at me. Two white orbs with their brown irises. Are they losing their colour? They shouldn’t be, because I sourced the formaldehyde online and thought it would do the job. Now, I’m not so sure.

I’d love to have been up close to the guards when they discovered the corpse was sightless. She was dead, so of course she was sightless. It was ingenious to remove her eyes. Give them a puzzle they will struggle to figure out.

I turn away from the glass jar and begin to scour the cold room clean. Jennifer was a pushover. No fun at all. Breaking her bones was exhilarating, but I still felt a little let down. This one won’t cheat me out of my fun. As I scrub, I wonder what clues I might have left behind at her house. The kids slept soundly. The dog? Who calls their dog Mozart? I couldn’t harm an animal, I’m not that heartless. A little chloroform helped him to la-la land. I hope he wakes up. He was so small, it was hard to calculate the amount to give him.

A rattle echoes along the pipes.

She’s awake. Good.

Dropping the scrubbing brush into the bucket of bleach, I leave it there to soak and strip off my Marigolds and apron. Time to have some fun.

But then I remember.

I have some people to see to first.

22

Kirby was in two minds about answering the call flashing on his phone screen, but he was out the back again, having a quick smoke, so he did.

‘How’s the head?’

---