Page 23 of The Altar Girls

‘I help Dicky – Father Pearse. It will have to be after that.’

‘As soon as you can, then. Did you say morning Mass yesterday?’

‘That would have been Father Pearse. It’s his week.’

‘Is he here?’

‘He’s probably at the community centre, where we operate the food bank.’

‘Okay.’ Lottie watched Boyd make a note of this and returned her gaze to the priest. ‘Can you account for your whereabouts yesterday?’

‘Yesterday?’

‘From eight o’clock in the morning to the time Naomi’s body was discovered.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘Everyone is a suspect. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. Did you?’

‘No, I’m sorry. It’s shocking what happened.’

‘So, yesterday…’

‘I got up around seven thirty and helped Father Pearse with setting the altar for Mass. Then I came back here and had breakfast. I did some sick calls before catching up on admin work until midday. Then I was at the community centre helping out until after two thirty. Ate lunch here, followed by hospital and nursing home visits. After that I had my dinner and sent out the text to cancel choir. That’s it until I heard the scream outside.’

‘And you didn’t meet or talk to Mrs Coyne?’

‘Not that I recall.’

‘It was only yesterday, Father. And Mrs Coyne is not that easy to forget.’

‘She is not.’ He smiled, then added, ‘I didn’t see her yesterday.’

‘You say you helped out with the altar. You must have seen Naomi. Her mother said she was serving Mass yesterday morning.’

‘She may have arrived after I left. Father Pearse can give you more details.’

‘Anything else you remember?’

‘That’s it, and if you don’t mind, I have to go help him at the food bank.’

‘We will need to talk to him too.’

‘You know where he is.’ The priest spoke sharply as he picked up his music folder.

‘Can I keep this?’ Lottie waved the hymn sheet he’d shown her.

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll take a copy and get it back to you.’

‘That’s okay. I have more over in the cathedral and I doubt there’ll be any practice for the rest of the week with this weather.’

‘I’ll need the choir schedule too.’

He extracted a page from the inside cover of the folder and handed it over.

‘Who else has this schedule?’