Page 85 of Hidden Daughters (Detective Lottie Parker #15)

Lottie listened with mounting doubt as Robert told his story in halting words. Was he reinventing the past to suit his present situation? She had no option but to hear him out. After all, he was the one holding the knife.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘when that Kirby detective told me Edie’s body had been found blistered and scalded, it brought me right back to the laundry and what had happened that fateful day.’

‘That’s because you made it happen,’ Imelda said.

‘Do you want to hear about it or not?’

‘Go on,’ Lottie said, throwing Imelda a look to keep a lid on it. Imelda’s cheeks flared but she remained mute. Thank God.

‘I wondered if someone was sending me a warning. Or taunting me. I thought it had to be someone who knew what had happened. That made me think of Assumpta. Beautiful, young and bubbly. She had told me what the girl’s body looked like when they took her out.

Blistered and scalded. That tragedy in the laundry soured our friendship. ’

‘You had a relationship?’ Lottie asked quietly, not sure if interrupting him would make him stop or continue.

‘It wasn’t a relationship. She was too devout for that. But she caused me to have thoughts about leaving the priesthood even before I was properly ordained. I was a deacon, a chaplain, but only a few years in the seminary.’

‘But the events of that day did not make you leave the priesthood, you fucker,’ Imelda said.

‘Stop! For God’s sake, stop.’ He raised the knife, pointing it at her, his eyes even darker now, his complexion wan. Lottie sensed he was at his most dangerous when challenged. Not good.

‘You locked a tiny defenceless child in a washing machine.’ Imelda smothered a sob.

He sighed and ran his free hand over his eyes. ‘I was compelled to do it. You wouldn’t understand that. When I next saw Assumpta, she attacked me. Fists flying. But her verbal assault was worse than anything physical.’ He lapsed into silence.

‘What did she say to you?’ Lottie pressed.

‘She told me she had recorded the whole incident in her notebook. That’s when I told her the truth. But it was no good. She said that if I ever came back to the convent, she’d destroy me.’

‘And did you go back?’

‘She left soon after. I still had to do my chaplain duties. But she was gone and I was heartbroken. Years later, I met Edie. I realised that she’d been there that day too. She believed me when I told her how I was forced into the act. You see, she already knew the man who’d forced me.’

Lottie had been thinking Hayes had meant a higher force, not a human one. This was interesting. ‘Who was he?’

‘I can’t say.’

She’d had enough of his reminiscing and lies. ‘I heard that you ferried young girls over to Knockraw. That you and others abused them.’

‘What? No, that was not me.’

‘Maybe you were “forced” to do that too?’ Imelda sneered.

‘Shut up, you little bitch,’ he snarled. ‘You have ruined me all over again. You and your stupid documentary.’

‘You don’t have to worry about that now,’ Lottie lied. ‘Imelda has lost all her research and recordings.’

‘I did not—’ Imelda shut up quickly when she realised Lottie’s ploy.

‘Where is it?’ Hayes asked, having caught her words before she’d stopped.

When Imelda next spoke, Lottie was glad the woman could think on her feet.

‘Mickey Fox took it and burned it, along with all the convent records.’

‘How would you even know that?’ Robert asked.

‘I was there. After he was murdered.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t murder him?’ His voice rose in a shriek.

He’d asked the question that had been simmering within Lottie all this time. She sensed Imelda was not an innocent in all that had happened. But had she been the facilitator or the perpetrator? That was the burning question of the day.