Page 133 of The Altar Girls

‘I’ll let you know. Should be sometime today. Tomorrow at the latest. I’ll make a call when I get back to the office. How is Bethany?’

‘Slept all night,’ Isaac said. ‘She’s just fallen asleep again, poor thing.’

‘It’s been a traumatic week for you all.’

‘It’s been more than traumatic for Bethany,’ Ruth said. ‘I hope that boy rots in hell.’

Shit.

‘That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.’ With Ruth’s hostility, Lottie didn’t think this was going to go the way she’d hoped. ‘Alfie says he meant Bethany no harm.’

‘The lying little shit.’ Ruth seemed to have dropped her puritanical vibe. ‘That brat is a scourge. I heard enough about his mischief and antics to believe he would have killed her if he could, just like he did to my Naomi and Willow. I want him locked up for good.’

‘Ruth,’ Lottie said, ‘Alfie is eleven years old. You regularly allowed Naomi to go to his house after school, didn’t you? He says he just took Bethany for a walk. He didn’t lay a finger on her. When she is up to it, I’d like to talk to her. In the meantime, it’s serving no purpose having him locked up at the present time.’

‘What do you propose?’ Isaac asked before his wife let fly with another tirade.

‘I want to release him, with a caution, into the care of his mother. Depending on what else we discover in the course of our investigation, we can then prepare a file for the DPP.’

‘He’s a murderer!’ Ruth shouted, and Jacob screamed in alarm in her arms. ‘I refuse to entertain anything you have to say. You let my daughter be murdered.’

Lottie didn’t want to point out the obvious: that Ruth hadn’t even noticed her child had been missing for hours before her body was found.

Jacob’s cries woke Bethany. Isaac lifted his daughter onto his knee.

‘Ruth, bring Jacob into the kitchen and I’ll talk to the inspector.’

With a snort, Ruth jumped up and stomped out of the room with the squealing baby in her arms. The silence left in her wake was palpable until Isaac spoke. Softly.

‘I know what prison is like. It’s no place for a boy. If what you say is true, he was just being a curious lad and he didn’t mean to scare Bethany.’ He seemed to be trying to convince himself. The little girl looked up at him and tightened her arms around him. ‘I know what can happen in prison. It changes a person. And not always for the good. That boy is too young to be in a place like that, even in a youth offenders’ institution, especially if he meant no harm to my daughter.’

Lottie felt there was a question at the end of his sentence, but she wasn’t going there. ‘You’re okay with me releasing him into his mother’s care?’

‘Yes, of course. If you find evidence that he intended to hurt Bethany or that he… murdered Naomi, we must let justice take its course. In the meantime, I think the boy might need help.’

‘Thank you, Isaac.’ She was stunned by his wise words. ‘I believe he needs counselling and I’ll see that his mother agrees to it. Alfie lost a little brother years ago and I don’t think he dealt with his grief. And I promise you, I’m actively searching for your daughter’s killer.’

‘Do that, and let us bring her body home.’

As she left, her heart was as heavy as Isaac’s, but she was also filled with renewed motivation to get to the bottom of what was rotten in her town.

She could tell from the smell of his breath that Kirby had sneaked a coffee.

‘Tell me what has you panting like a hyperactive puppy.’

‘He’s not there,’ Kirby puffed. ‘I checked everywhere.’

‘Who’s not where?’ Lottie clutched the file close to her chest, hoping she was misunderstanding her detective.

‘Father Maguire. I called to the house and they told me he was at the community centre. I went down there, and that Father Pearse told me Maguire left a while ago. Claims he doesn’t know where he was going. I really need to talk to that Pearse fella a bit more too.’

‘Damn. Do you think…? Could Maguire…? Shit, Kirby, we have to find him.’

‘I’ll put out an alert on his car.’

‘First phone the nursing home where his mother is. He might have gone there. Did you check in at St Patrick’s?’

‘No.’