Page 66 of Hidden Daughters (Detective Lottie Parker #15)

‘Grace, where can we find Bryan?’ Lottie asked as nicely as she could manage, not wanting to rattle Boyd’s sister more than she’d already done. She had warned Kirby to let her do the talking.

Grace was sitting at the table threading flowers, some dried, into a small wreath, possibly a headpiece for her wedding.

Tiny green leaves and discarded colourful petals were strewn over the worktop.

The kitchen smelled of a forest infused with a simple blossom scent.

All it needed was a few butterflies and bumble bees and you could be outside among the trees.

She looked up warily. ‘What do you want with him?’

‘Just a chat.’ Lottie squirmed under her steely gaze. Grace seemed to have a way of reading her mind, just like Boyd. ‘Listen, Grace, he knows more about this locality than we do. We just want to pick his brain.’

‘I’m from round here too, so ask me your question.’

‘It’s to do with the case that Kirby is working on back home.’

‘Oh, so another top-secret mission.’ Grace dropped the flowers and stood, shoving her chair noisily in against the table. ‘It sickens me, you know. How you work. It’s all a mystery, until it’s not.’

‘Huh?’ Kirby said, sniffing loudly.

Grace ignored him, her eyes throwing daggers at Lottie. ‘Mark has left you, hasn’t he?’

‘No, you have it all wrong,’ Lottie protested, but Grace wasn’t listening.

‘He’s my brother. My only relative. I love him, even more than he loves me.

I know I’m not a very expressive person.

Not a hugger or kisser like most people nowadays.

When did all that malarkey start in this country?

It was not long ago that a simple handshake was the norm.

’ She turned up her pert nose before a wave of hurt traversed her features.

‘I can’t bear it when I see Mark in pain.

He nearly died from cancer, and you stood by him.

I respected you for that. Now he is hurt in his heart and you let him drive off alone.

He was in a terrible state after your walk with him this morning. What did you say to him?’

‘Nothing.’ Lottie wished she could sink through the flagstone floor. She couldn’t take much more of Grace’s words, her piercing eyes, her loathing. ‘Nothing of significance to cause him to get upset and leave.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, I might look stupid to you, but I am far from it.

I notice things. I pick up vibrations. In here.

’ Grace thumped her chest. ‘I picked them up when he came back in after whatever argument you had. And do you know something else? I also picked them up between you and Ann Wilson this morning. So, Lottie Parker, don’t treat me like I am an imbecile.

You have run my brother from your life and you have also annoyed my fiancé.

’ She paused as if reordering her thoughts.

‘Tell me this minute, what is going on with Bryan?’

Lottie had never heard Grace raise her voice in all the time she’d known her. But she didn’t know Boyd’s sister very well. She pulled out a chair and sat. Kirby remained standing, looking from one to the other, wordless.

‘Sit, Grace.’ Lottie pointed to the seat opposite.

‘I am perfectly fine standing right here, thank you very much.’ Grace picked up a tea cloth and wiped it over the counter before twisting it round her fingers. She was far from fine, Lottie noted. At last she gave in and sank into the chair.

‘You should sit down too,’ she said to Kirby. ‘You’re making me nervous standing there like a lost sheep.’

‘Ah, I’m grand.’ But he must have seen Lottie’s pleading eyes, and he did as he was told.

‘Now, what is all this palaver about?’ Grace asked.

Lottie would have loved a coffee, a glass of wine. A pill. Anything to smooth the path for what she had to say. But she had to plough on without artificial fortification.

‘You know Bryan was in Knockraw as a boy?’

‘Yes, he told me. Only this week. I was annoyed with him, but I understand that he never wanted to revisit that part of his life. I respect him for that.’

‘Do you know anything about his family?’

‘Not a lot. He doesn’t like to talk about that either. And I’m not nosy like you.’

‘Okay.’ Lottie thought it better not to mention Bryan’s younger sister at this time.

She gathered her thoughts and hoped she could make sense of it all for Grace.

‘He had knowledge of the laundry and what went on there. And this week three people have been murdered in Galway and another in Ragmullin. It may have something to do with this Imelda Conroy and the documentary she was making. She spoke with Bryan a few weeks ago.’

‘I know. He told me that too.’

‘Right. And Ann Wilson, your dressmaker, she was in the laundry as a girl.’

‘She never told me that. But she is a discreet woman. Unlike…’ Grace looked pointedly at Lottie before recovering her poise. ‘We had a purely professional relationship, me and Ann.’

‘I know.’

‘Then what has she to do with Bryan?’

‘I’m just laying out facts. The woman who was killed in Ragmullin was called Edie Butler.’

‘Never heard of her.’ Grace shook her head, emphasising the fact.

‘She was in the Sisters of Forgiveness laundry, according to Brigid Kelly, who was also there and was murdered yesterday.’

Grace gasped. ‘The poor woman who was a priest’s housekeeper? It’s nothing to do with Bryan, though, and isn’t that the point of this conversation?’

Lottie was beginning to believe that she had underestimated Grace Boyd.

‘Detective Kirby has discovered that years ago… a long time ago,’ she added, to take the harm out of it, ‘Bryan knew Edie Butler.’

Grace didn’t flinch. ‘He knew her? So what?’

‘He has to be spoken to about it. That’s all.’

‘You’re making no sense. You have spouted stuff at me with no real connection to Bryan. A few very thin links, but nothing concrete.’

‘That’s why we need to talk to him,’ Kirby said, finding his voice. ‘To establish if he has information that can help us and?—’

Lottie interrupted him. ‘Sergeant Mooney believes the murders may link back to the Sisters of Forgiveness. To their laundry. There is a connection to that institution and at least two of the murders via a man called Robert Hayes.’

‘You are trying to confuse me now.’ Grace looked from one to the other.

‘No, we are not,’ Lottie said forcefully, immediately sorry for her raised tone. She’d alienated Grace enough as it was.

‘You are confusing me. First you say Bryan has a link to it all, and now it’s this Hayes man. Make up your mind.’

Lottie sighed. She knew she was skirting round the issue, but there was only so much she could reveal. ‘Robert Hayes was a deacon, chaplain to the laundry and to Knockraw industrial school. Then he was ordained a priest. Brigid Kelly was his housekeeper.’

‘Oh, I remember some scandal years ago about him.’ Grace seemed to brighten as she said this, maybe thinking Hayes’s misdemeanours would deflect attention from Bryan. ‘It was rumoured he interfered with young children or something awful like that. Seems he was a very bad man.’

Her summation of Hayes sounded childish in the current horror show. But that was Grace for you, Lottie thought.

Kirby said, ‘He worked as a chef and at some stage moved to Ragmullin, where he struck up a recent relationship with Edie Butler.’

‘I still don’t see anything to warrant you hounding my Bryan. He’s a good man.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ Kirby placated. ‘But he might be able to tell us more about Hayes, seeing as he was chaplain at Knockraw while Bryan was there.’

Grace turned back to Lottie. ‘But you said Sergeant Mooney thinks the murders have to do with the nuns and the laundry. Now you are talking about the industrial school. You are not making any sense to me.’

Lottie felt bewildered herself. ‘Nothing makes sense until we can see the whole picture. We think Bryan might be able to shed some light on it. He knew Edie Butler. He spoke with Imelda Conroy. He may have known some of the other victims.’

‘Everyone knows everyone in a small community. That does not automatically make them a criminal.’ Grace folded her arms indignantly.

‘I get that. Did you know them?’

‘No, but… You mentioned my dressmaker, and I picked up some tension between you two when I was showing you my dress. Did Bryan know her too?’

‘That’s one of the things we need to establish,’ Lottie said, hoping Grace didn’t dig any further. The time was not right to reveal Ann’s news about the little girl who might have been Bryan’s sibling.

Grace stood and slapped the tea towel down on the table. ‘I think my brother is right.’

‘In what way?’

‘Mark said that you are a hard, unfeeling woman.’

‘He never said that.’ Lottie felt the shock register on her face and bit her lip to keep from saying something she’d regret. How was this happening?

‘He did so. You are trying to stop me having any happiness in my life because you don’t have it yourself.

’ Grace paused, closed her eyes, then opened them.

She’d made up her mind. ‘I don’t want you under my roof tonight, Lottie Parker.

I’d like you to leave. Now. You can go and find a hotel for yourself. You are no longer welcome here.’