Page 123 of Three Widows

‘Listen.’ He moved closer to the door.

‘What?’

‘I heard something.’

‘From inside?’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ He held the phone over his head, the light bumping all over the walls and ceiling. ‘Maybe it was from the freezers.’

‘Shit.’

She bundled past him and began lifting the lids. Layer upon layer of dried flowers and herbs. Boxes of green tea. So not all made from scratch by Helena with her pestle and mortar.

‘Lottie,’ Boyd called. He’d opened the lid of the last freezer.

‘What? It’s empty.’

‘I know, but look right at the bottom corner.’ He shone the phone torch inside. ‘Could be blood.’

‘Right. SOCOs will have to confirm it. We found blood in Helena’s house too. We just need a sample of her DNA to find out if it’s hers.’

‘You think she’s dead?’

‘She could be, or this blood could be from a victim and Helena is our killer.’

‘She’d want to be mighty strong to be lugging dead bodies around.’

‘Ways and means,’ she said. ‘Someone was strong enough to knock out both myself and Lei. But you said you heard something. It hasn’t come from the freezers, so it has to have come from the locked room. Get the big key.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘That’s an order, Boyd. Get the battering ram.’

* * *

Once Kirby had ensured that Garda Lei wasn’t going to die, he went over to listen at the storeroom door. The boss and Boyd were going hammer and tongs. He knew who would win that argument.

Outside, he walked down the alley at the back of the shop and opened a small gate that led to a paved yard surrounded by high walls. Glancing around, he studied the end wall. It had a raised platform, bedded with herbs and plants. A wooden planter, full of peat, which appeared to have been recently disturbed. Why? he wondered. He began to dig in with his fingers, rewarded with little more than dirty hands. Nothing was buried there that he could find at the moment.

Wiping his hands on the legs of his trousers, he stepped back and studied the building directly behind Helena’s shop. It looked like offices, but he couldn’t get the location straight in his mind. Spatial awareness was not one of his strong points. He took a series of photos on his phone.

As he unlatched the gate to leave, something caught his eye. On the paved ground to his right lay a thick plank of timber with what looked like blood on its tip.

‘Fuck me,’ he said with a whistle. ‘The bastard fled this way.’

He didn’t dare touch it, but he examined the herb beds more carefully and was rewarded with two footprints, one deeper than the other, as if someone had launched themselves upwards.

Small feet. Trainers. The Nike symbol imprinted on the peaty earth.

‘There you are,’ Boyd said.

‘Look at this,’ Kirby said as he walked carefully around the small yard. ‘He came out this way.’

‘Someone did.’

Kirby felt like thumping Boyd for not respecting his powers of deduction. ‘There’s a bloodied plank by the gate. Don’t touch it.’

‘Did you?’