Page 20 of The Altar Girls

‘Thank God. No other clothing? Coat, hat, gloves?’

‘Nothing else.’

Where were the girl’s clothes and school bag? Lottie knew that if these items were found, they might help snare the killer. ‘Any idea what the robe is used for?’

‘Not really. Could it be a choir robe?’

‘No one mentioned it last night. I’ll check. What about the time frame for her murder?’

‘It’s difficult to pin down with a child, especially one so young and small-boned as Naomi. Then the freezing weather affects everything. But I’d estimate she’d been dead about eight to ten hours when her body was discovered.’

‘We have her on CCTV at eight forty-five a.m.’ She glanced at the still image McKeown had printed for her. ‘It appears she was murdered not too long after that.’ Her brain went into overdrive. Did whoever had killed Naomi keep her body before dumping her when darkness fell? Did that person also have Willow Devine?

‘I found something in her hands, Lottie. I’ll email a copy of it along with my prelim report.’

‘In her hands?’ Lottie recalled the joined hands on the girl’s chest.

‘Yes. It was folded up tightly and I’ve dispatched the original paper for analysis. It looks like sheet music. It may give you a clue to her killer, or to where she was held and killed.’

‘That’s good. Thanks. Anything else for me?’

‘This is going to annoy you even more than the blunt force trauma, Lottie. I found that the victim had old bruises, and when I X-rayed the body, I could see that she’d suffered a broken wrist at some stage. You should request her medical history.’

Lottie took a quick intake of breath. Goddammit, the girl was only eight years old. She fought to keep her tone neutral. ‘I’ll do that. Thanks.’

‘It’s okay to be angry, Lottie, but don’t let it cloud your judgement.’

Sitting for some minutes after the call, Lottie was unable to shift the red haze of rage from behind her eyes. When Boyd stepped into her office, she pulled herself back to reality. Back to the job. Back to finding the worst sort of person any detective could ever expect to search for. A child killer.

17

Sinead Healy was anxious to get to work, but she had to wait for Carol to come and sit with her daughter, Annie. School was closed for a second day, a nuisance just as she had a huge breaking news story.

She’d live-reported for the morning radio news over the phone, but for the one o’clock television news she’d have to source a presentable warm coat. She’d showered and was drying her hair with one hand while scrolling her phone with the other. She clicked into regional news and read over her report from the previous night.

The next item came from Mayo. A fatal car accident outside the town of Ballina. There had been a snowstorm at the time and conditions were reported to have been treacherous. The sole occupant of the car, a woman, died when she apparently skidded off the road into the River Moy. It took three hours to extract the car from the river. There wasn’t much else on the report other than the guards appealing for witnesses and those with dash-cam footage to come forward.

It wasn’t as big a story as a dead child, but curiosity won out and Sinead rang her north-western colleague. Enda Daniels answered on the first ring.

‘Hi, Enda. I’m reading your report on that accident in Ballina.’

‘Yeah, it’s a bad one.’

‘How so?’

‘Victim has yet to be identified. Licence plates don’t match the car. Makes it difficult to determine the owner if it was stolen. Guards can’t release a photo because my source tells me the driver wasn’t wearing a seat belt and her body was hanging out through the windscreen. They extracted her from the wreckage before they hauled the car out of the water with a crane.’

‘Are her features badly damaged?’

‘Unrecognisable is what my garda source told me. Of course, I couldn’t report that. What’s your interest, Sinead?’

‘Curiosity.’

‘I see you caught a bad one down in Ragmullin too.’

‘Yeah. A dead child. Suspicious is what I’m hearing. They had a cordon up so quickly I couldn’t get close. Waiting to be notified about the press briefing.’

‘Good luck with it. I’d find it extremely difficult to report on a child murder. I’d keep seeing the faces of my own kids.’