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‘Have you been here before, Imelda?’

‘Yeah. To initially interview Assumpta about a month ago. I wasn’t here for long.’

So she had a ready excuse if her DNA was found here, Lottie thought. ‘Why was Assumpta at the holiday cottage?’

‘She came to talk, and maybe to warn me. I hadn’t been expecting her. Someone must have followed her.’

‘Warn you about what?’

‘That I was in danger.’

‘But you escaped and she didn’t,’ Lottie said. ‘How did you manage that?’

‘I was lucky. I was in the kitchen, heard her scream, and when she was dragged to the bathroom, I grabbed what I could and fled. Coward’s way, but I was petrified.’ Imelda eyeballedher as if challenging her to comment. ‘What are we looking for here?’

‘I want to get a feel for the woman. I only saw her in death.’ Lottie waited for a beat to see if Imelda would query her explanation, but she didn’t. ‘Her body had been so badly damaged, I could not even determine her age. What can you tell me about her?’

‘Assumpta was a troubled woman, but I found her to be genuine. I believe she wanted to atone for events in her past. But someone else wanted to shut her up.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘Later. Do you want me to search here or not?’

‘I’m confident the investigation team have been through the place. I doubt we will find anything.’

‘Seeing as we’re here, I’ll start upstairs,’ Imelda said. ‘You can search down here.’

‘Not so fast.’ Lottie wasn’t about to let the woman find something pertinent and then destroy it. She did not trust her, nor did she believe her. ‘We stick together.’

‘I’m not going to steal?—’

‘Imelda! Just stay with me and don’t touch anything.’

‘You really are a piece of work.’ Imelda slouched into a beautifully upholstered Queen Anne chair like the surly teenager she might once have been. ‘I am trying to help, you know.’

‘If you wanted to help,’ Lottie said, ‘you’d have handed yourself in.’

‘Isn’t that what guilty people do?’

‘You are a person of interest. You need to provide the guards with whatever information you possess. Including all your recordings.’

‘I can’t do that. Not until?—’

‘Not until the documentary is ready to broadcast?’ Lottie tried to dampen her anger at the woman’s obstinacy. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Imelda, there have been five murders in less than a week. Assumpta Feeney, Mickey Fox, Brigid Kelly, Ann Wilson and Edie Butler were sadistically killed. All were in some way involved with the convent and its brutal laundry. You can’t keep evidence from the guards.’

‘You mean six murders. You forgot about little Gabriel.’

‘Do you even know who she was?’

‘Yes, I do. But come on, we’re wasting time.’

‘You sit there and I’ll scout around. I mean it, Imelda. Don’t move.’

A sound from the stairs that led down directly into the living room made Lottie look upwards. She heard Imelda gasp.