Page 13 of The Guilty Girl

He smiled. ‘Thought you’d be at the airport by now.’

‘Last-minute gift buying.’ Albert eyed his wife and tapped his man bag sadly. ‘Still can’t believe how small the world is. You’re not the first from Ragmullin we’ve met out here. It was good to see you. When are you heading home?’

‘Soon,’ Boyd said, not wishing to divulge his plans.

‘Don’t forget to look us up. We can go out for a drink. Cafferty’s bar is your local, isn’t it? Can’t say I’ve ever been in there, but there’s a first time for everything, as they say. Come on, Mary, or we’ll miss the flight.’ He patted Sergio on the head and strutted off with his wife in tow.

‘You don’t like him,’ Sergio said.

Boyd had to give it to the lad, he was astute.

10

Masked, suited and booted, Detective Inspector Lottie Parker glanced around the impressive hallway. The deep-pile cream carpet was stained, saturated in spilled drink and littered with shattered glass fragments, scrunched-up paper cups and bits of food.

‘No sign of forced entry,’ Detective Larry Kirby said, looking back at the big heavy door.

‘The cleaner said it was open,’ Lottie said sharply. A late night was not good for an early morning. ‘I picked Sean up from a party here last night. Must have been around midnight. Every door and window was open.’ She shivered at the thought of her son having being at a party that had ended with a murder.

‘Your Sean was here?’ Kirby asked. ‘Last night?’

‘Do you have to repeat everything I say? I’m tired. I’ve a headache and I haven’t even had a sniff of coffee yet.’

She moved away from him, treading carefully, her forensic suit crinkling with each muffled step. She recalled the report she’d received earlier. Sarah Robson, the cleaner, had been first on the scene and called 999. The two responding uniformed officers had been professional and sealed off the perimeter, standing guard awaiting the ambulance, detectives and the scenes-of-crime officers. The uniforms had taken a statement from Sarah. She’d said she arrived around seven a.m. to clean the house and stumbled into a nightmare. The parents were away and if the guards wanted more information they should talk to Ivy Jones, the deceased’s best friend. Once they’d taken down her garbled statement and had her checked by a medic, she was sent home.

Lottie approached Detective Maria Lynch, suited up, standing at the foot of the staircase.

‘The body is up there,’ Lynch said, ‘but you might want to have a look in the living room first.’ She pointed to an open door to Lottie’s right.

‘Thanks.’

Lottie walked on the stepping plates placed on the floor to preserve any evidence that might be salvageable. She felt instantly disturbed by the scene inside the living room. Blood spatter on the walls. Blood dried into the floor. Upturned chairs and tables around the room. The glass from one of the patio doors was scattered in a thousand pieces on the ground, inside and outside. Food had been trampled underfoot and glass splinters shone in the early-morning sun streaming in. Besides the food walked into the lawn, she noted expensive-looking rattan furniture, one chair upended, a hot tub, an egg chair sans cushion, and a cabin-like structure at the end of the garden. She turned back to the living room.

‘Someone lost it in here,’ Kirby said.

‘I agree, and we need to get the sequence of events straight,’ Lottie said, trying to sound amicable.

‘If the body is upstairs, why is there blood in here?’

‘Whatever went on, it started here before moving on up the stairs. But I didn’t notice any blood out in the hallway.’

Looking up from the job of dusting an overturned table for fingerprints, a SOCO said, ‘There’s a back staircase, Inspector. Head that way, it takes you through the kitchen.’

Lottie followed his direction to a doorway located behind what seemed to have been a music station. Cables protruded from an extension lead and some equipment. A speaker, turntable and mixing dock. Shouldn’t there be more equipment? She filed that for later.

To her left, another upturned table, bottles smashed on the ground. A stack of crates lined the wall, with others skewed across the floor.

She trudged through the doorway and stepped into a monstrously large open-plan kitchen diner. Drops of blood along the white floor tiles, some smudged. Despite the jumble of bottles, glasses and pizza boxes littering the countertops, there was no evidence of destruction of fixtures or fittings. The wounded person had fled this way. With someone in pursuit? She couldn’t see any footprints in the blood, but SOCOs might be able to find them if they were there.

Through another door to a set of concrete steps. Each droplet was marked by a numbered plastic card. She climbed the stairs, careful not to smear anything.

Lots more activity. Outside the bedroom, she braced herself for Jim McGlynn’s grouchy face. He was the SOCO team leader, but she was pleased to find Gráinne Nixon in his place.

‘What have we got, Gráinne?’ she said, already feeling a lot calmer. The woman was a dream to work with, unlike grumpy McGlynn.

‘Based on the blood downstairs and in here, in lay terms I’d describe it as a frenzy.’ The SOCO got up from her knees on the far side of the bed. ‘It’s worse over here.’

Lottie leaned forward. ‘Hell.’