Page 130 of The Altar Girls

Father Pearse eyed him anxiously, his flabby cheeks pulsing from the heat. His bald head was on fire too.

‘Keith, you look like you’re about to explode.’

‘You can talk!’

‘Why are you wearing your jacket?’

‘I have to leave shortly. There’s something I need to do. Not a word to anyone.’

‘I think I know where you’re off to and it’s a big mistake. The guards are everywhere. Or are you blind?’

‘Let me worry about them. I’ll slip out when I can.’

‘It’s your funeral, pal.’

‘Maybe you could use different terminology. I’m too young to see the other side.’

‘Sure.’ Father Pearse chuckled, wiped his scalp and headed for his counter.

The volunteers were occupied with the few patrons who had ventured in. A good time to disappear. Father Maguire hated leaving them short-handed, but he really had to clear things up.

Guilt was like a shroud weighing heavy on his shoulders as he slipped out the side door.

81

Kirby went off to find Father Maguire to bring him in for questioning about the rosary, while Lottie prepared to interview Maurice Connolly. She needed someone to sit in on the interview with her. McKeown was seated at his desk with a contented smile plastered on his cheating face. His head was freshly shaved and the air around him was suffused with a strong cologne. Turned her stomach.

‘Glad you could join us,’ she said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. Sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She decided to add a little praise, to take the sting out of it. ‘Good work on the CCTV footage finding Bethany. All okay with you?’

‘Everything is just perfect today.’ His smile was sincere. How long would it take for his eye to wander again?

‘Where is Garda Brennan? She should be in by now. I need her to relieve Garda Lei at the Devine house. He’s been there all night and hasn’t reported in at all.’

‘I can check in with him, and I’ll call Martina’s mobile.’

‘In a minute. Throw an eye over that file as we walk. I’ve arrested Maurice Connolly for abducting Alfie Nally. His solicitor is here. Interview Room 2.’

The small, stuffy interview room was overcrowded with four of them in it, two of them big men. If a fight broke out, she knew neither of them would find the space to swing a fist. Not that a fight would break out, but stranger things and all that.

Connolly’s solicitor, wiry and sweaty in a smart but well-worn suit, attempted to stand in the tight space but was hemmed in. ‘Seamus Duff. I’m here to represent Mr Connolly.’

Lottie nodded. McKeown went through the recording formalities. Connolly kept his head down and sniffed continuously. There was nothing more pathetic than a snivelling giant of a man who had abducted an eleven-year-old boy and possibly murdered two little girls. Her morning coffee curdled in her stomach.

‘Mr Connolly, you have been arrested for the abduction of Alfie Nally. Have you got anything to say?’

Connolly glanced at his solicitor and Duff nodded.

‘It isn’t what you think… I’m not going to deny it. So yes, I admit I took him.’

‘Why did you do that?’ Lottie failed to hide her surprise at his admission, even though, given that he’d been caught with the boy on his premises, deniability was near impossible.

‘It was spur-of-the-moment. He was hanging around the toilets behind the cathedral. I thought he was acting suspiciously. I recognised him as that Jacinta Nally’s son. I thought maybe he had killed the two children and had returned to the scene of his crime. After all, he was the one who found the body Monday night, wasn’t he? I had to do something.’

Lottie shook her head. Did everyone nowadays think they were detectives? ‘Why didn’t you call us instead of being a vigilante?’

‘You already suspected me, didn’t you? All that snooping around and asking stupid questions. But in the heat of the moment, I didn’t stop to think. I wanted to make a show of him in front of his snitch of a mother. Then… don’t know what came over me. I panicked and locked him in a room and had a long think overnight. I was about to bring him home when you stormed in. I never would have hurt him. Didn’t even lay a hand on him.’

‘That’s not true, Maurice. You snatched him, manhandled him into your car and locked him up.’