Page 3 of The Altar Girls

Before Lottie could reply, the phone rang on Kirby’s desk. From the changing expressions on his face, she knew it wasn’t good news.

When he hung up, she said, ‘Amy?’

‘No, but we have a body. Everything’s going to hell and back, boss,’ Kirby said, rubbing his large nicotine-stained fingers across his eyes. ‘It’s a child.’

Lottie grabbed her black puffer jacket from her office, a tingle of dread knocking out a death tune on every single vertebra of her spine. She shivered uncontrollably. This was going to be bad.

Institutionalised religion had long since diminished her belief in God, but all the same, she said a silent prayer that she was not about to walk onto a crime scene with the body of eight-year-old Willow Devine at its centre.

Her prayers were rarely answered.

* * *

It was warm in his apartment, but still Mark Boyd had swaddled himself in a fleece blanket, a picture of a Lego character imprinted on the outer side. He’d bought it for Sergio when he’d brought his son to live with him from Spain at the end of June. The boy had complained of the cold in Ragmullin when he’d arrived, even though the weather was mild. It was the Mediterranean heat his son missed. The son he hadn’t known about for the first eight years of his life. All down to his sadistic ex-wife. The bitch who’d taken the boy away again, vanishing without a trace.

Every waking hour, he trawled websites, online forums, social media outlets, every damn thing, trying to find Sergio. He’d trekked all around the country searching. It had been established that they hadn’t left Ireland. Not by legal means anyhow. His Malaga police source was on the lookout over there, but so far, nothing.

He walked to the window, raised the blind and wrapped the blanket even tighter around his body. Outside, he noticed that a fresh fall of snow had blanketed the road. He hoped the bad weather would keep the crime rate down. It usually did. He hadn’t time to be chasing criminals when he wanted to chase after his ex-wife.

He’d been suspended for a month after he’d decked Detective McKeown. His defence that the bastard deserved it hadn’t held up under the ire of Superintendent Farrell. During that month he’d used his time to search, to no avail. After that, he’d taken days here and there and driven the roads aimlessly. He was currently on three days’ leave. Lottie wouldn’t put up with his absences much longer. Not if a major investigation came along.

If that happened, he’d have to think of something, but for now, all his thoughts were consumed by his son. It was going to be a long winter if he didn’t find him.

As he gazed out at the blizzard taking hold, he hoped that wherever Sergio was, he was warm.

5

The little girl’s body looked like that of an angel, blending into the earth, the fresh fall of snow feathering her skin like soft cotton wool. She was clothed in a thin white robe coated in a snowy sheen, her long black hair fanned out around her head like a dark halo. Her hands rested on her chest, little fingers interlaced as if she had fallen asleep while praying. At first glance Lottie couldn’t determine any visible injuries, but the robe could be masking a multitude of horrors.

She looked at peace, her white skin like a Fabergé egg, fragile, lined with thin blue veins as if they had been painted on. Within that outer layer lay the secrets of what had happened to her. The child’s eyes were closed. Good. Lottie didn’t want to be watched with accusation by a little girl who had been failed by all who knew her. A whisper of a snowflake caught in her long dark lashes. It shimmered but did not melt. Tiny stars made of snow, Lottie thought.

‘It’s not Willow.’ She couldn’t even feel relief that the child was not Willow Devine. This was another little girl, with black hair rather than blonde. Soon Lottie would be knocking on the door of an unsuspecting parent, the grim reaper with deadly news. But why had this child not been reported missing?

Crouching down, she tugged off her damp knitted glove and touched the girl’s cheek. Stone cold. How long had she been lying behind the cathedral undiscovered? How long had she been dead? Questions for the pathologist, but Lottie wanted answers this minute. A wave of rage threatened to overwhelm her. She inhaled the cold night air and her lungs were infused with the odour of death.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Kirby said.

‘Done what?’

‘Touched her without protective gloves.’

She swallowed an angry retort. ‘Where are the SOCOs? Why isn’t there a tent over her? We need to preserve the evidence, if there is any.’

She wanted to fetch a blanket from the boot of the car and tuck it around the girl to save her from the cold. Her tears were turning to ice at the corners of her eyes and she hastily wiped them away. She rarely cried at crime scenes, but God almighty, this was a child. Glancing heavenward to hide her heartache, she felt a feather of snow blossom on her face.

Shaking herself, she looked around wildly. ‘Who found her?’

Garda Lei stood at the edge of the hastily taped cordon. He stepped forward. ‘A young boy. Alfie Nally. He arrived for choir practice not knowing it had been cancelled. He’s with his mother in the sacristy. He’s in shock, poor lad. A Father Maguire made them tea and—’

‘Okay, okay, Garda Lei. Make sure everything is secure out here until SOCOs arrive. I want to know who that little girl is, how she got here and how long she’s been here, and I really want to know when and how she died. And then I want the bastard who did this behind bars.’

‘Was she murdered?’

‘It’s highly suspicious.’ The way the child was laid out on the ground had not happened by chance. Someone had placed her there like that.

Trying to pull her glove back on, she conceded defeat, stuffed it in her pocket and walked with Kirby around the side of the church.

Pushing in the heavy door, Lottie was unable to welcome the wave of heat coming from inside. Her heart was filled with red rage at the death of the child. She wanted to lash out at someone, something, anything. She felt Kirby’s hand on her back and appreciated the touch. It would be better to have Boyd with her, but he had his own problems.