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Grace emerged, still glowing. She handed the dress to Ann. ‘I’d like to pay. How much is my balance?’

Lottie remained standing where she was and watched as the seamstress began to search for a suitable zip cover and hanger for the beautiful dress. She felt that the excitement of earlier was tainted. And once again, it was her fault.

The simple one is getting married to the monster. A dress fitting, no less. As if anything could look good on her. She does not deserve happiness, because she is getting married to him.And he definitely does not deserve to find happiness this late in his life.

The detective could cause me a problem as she is a bit of a mystery. I don’t want her to detract from my mission, though. She is not on my itinerary. I need to get rid of the others first. All those who committed the sins of the past. And then I can rest easy in the knowledge that I will be the only one left who knows the truth.

58

When she found a few minutes to herself, Lottie and Boyd went for a walk up through the fields. She told him what the dressmaker had said.

‘It’s gossip,’ he said.

‘What if it’s not?’ She curved her arms around her body, feeling cold suddenly. Shit, she’d nearly passed out with the heat in Ann Wilson’s cabin, and now she was cold.

‘You don’t know what she meant, so please, Lottie, leave it alone. I’m beginning to think there’s some sort of conspiracy against Bryan.’

‘But don’t you want to find out now rather than when your sister is married to him?’

‘It’s her life, her choice. I realise that we can’t interfere in fate.’

‘We interfere with it all the time in our daily work,’ she said, unable to mask sounding petulant.

‘How so?’

‘When a perpetrator thinks he or she is off scot-free, we catch them.’

‘That’s called following the evidence.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t.’ He stopped walking. Turned to her. ‘You need to leave all this alone and let Mooney do his job.’

‘But this has nothing to do with Mooney. Ann mentioned Bryan’s family. Something isn’t right. Why didn’t he look for his little sister? Why, after all this time, does he want to know about his old girlfriend?’

‘Imelda Conroy resurrected the past for him. That’s why. Now leave it be.’

He strode on ahead of her. She debated staying stock still in the field of gorse bushes, but in the end that would achieve nothing. She followed him.

‘I’m going to phone Ann and find out what she was on about,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll sit Bryan down and get the truth out of him.’

Boyd shook his head. ‘You never listen to me, do you? You go off on one and ruin people’s lives. I’m wasting my breath with you.’ With longer strides he left her almost running to catch up.

‘Hey, not so fast,’ she panted. ‘What’s got into you?’

‘More like what’s got into you?’ he shouted over his shoulder then waited until she reached him. ‘I am asking you to leave well enough alone, Lottie. Please, for me. Do it just this once.’

But she knew that was not possible. ‘I can’t, Mark. I really can’t leave it. People are being murdered. Older people. It must have something to do with their past. What if Bryan is a target? What if he’s murdered too?’

‘You don’t really believe that, do you? You think he has something to do with all this.’

‘Well I know for a fact he didn’t kill Brigid Kelly. He was here all evening.’

‘Oh, so that’s the only way you can absolve him of guilt?’ He snorted derisively. ‘How do you know he didn’t creep out in the dead of night? Were you up at the window looking out like a bloody nightwatchman?’

She didn’t like his tone. Didn’t like the way he was staring at her. And most of all she didn’t like that he made her feel guilty of something she had not done. She only had Grace’s interests at heart. But then again, that wasn’t wholly accurate. She wanted to know the truth.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last, not wanting to fight with him.