Page 157 of Three Widows

‘That is your job, Inspector. I have no idea.’

Lottie mentally scanned what they’d learned since Jennifer’s body had been discovered. Who benefited from these murders? A widow wronged? One person stood out as being more damaged than others.

‘Kathleen Foley’s daughter has issues, problems. Kathleen is a widow. Was she one of Tyler’s victims?’

‘Kathleen is a dear friend. She recently told me that she was fragile at the time she was duped by the swindling charmer. Both she and Helena suffered greatly following that experience.’

‘Do you think Helena is capable of murder?’ Even as she asked the question, Lottie couldn’t understand what the young woman’s motive might be. But the fact remained, she had maintained the pretence of having a son, and now she could not be found.

‘I can’t answer that, Inspector. You arrived here talking about the carpet under our feet. Tyler took ownership of a lot of old properties, some of which he didn’t get to offload before his disappearing act. Maybe it came from any one of those.’

‘I don’t have enough evidence to get warrants to begin ripping apart properties that might have nothing to do with my investigation.’

Madelene sat erect, her hair like a halo on her shoulders. She dragged her briefcase onto her knee and was about to open it when Lynch stuck her head back around the door.

‘Boss? You’re needed. Another body has been found.’

96

‘The car bothered me from the time it was found,’ Kirby said to Garda Lei as they walked around the area specified by the GPS from Tyler Keating’s Hyundai. He glanced down at his phone. He had scanned a page from one of the files in the lock-up boxes.

‘Did you carry out all the searches at the time of Keating’s disappearance?’ Garda Lei asked. ‘I know it wasn’t a murder investigation, but there are certain protocols to be—’

‘Don’t tell me how to do my job.’

‘I was only saying… Do you think we need to crack Tyler Keating’s disappearance to figure out why people are being killed and abducted and beaten? Why was the car left near Kathleen Foley’s house? Was she interviewed in connection with Tyler’s disappearance?’

‘Lei? Shut up.’

‘Perhaps the connection is her daughter.’

‘Helena?’ Kirby scratched his head and a flutter of dandruff floated before his eyes. ‘Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way round. What if the GPS was manipulated to lead us here?’

Lei pulled up short, and Kirby watched as the young garda turned around. ‘Can that be done?’

‘How would I know?’ He checked the image on his phone. ‘Kathleen Foley once owned a house close to here. These are the coordinates from the land registry map. It’s around here somewhere.’

‘She didn’t move far then.’

‘Seems like it.’

‘So the GPS wasn’t tampered with?’

‘Doesn’t matter for now. Come on.’

His phone rang with an incoming call. Garda Brennan.

‘Shit, Lei,’ Kirby said. ‘Another body.’

* * *

McKeown was determined to be the hero on this case. The back-breaking work of trawling through CCTV had yielded little, so when Boyd asked him to check into Tyler Keating’s finances, he rose to the challenge. He was sure Tyler Keating’s disappearance had led to the current murders. But how? And more importantly, why?

He searched everywhere for the man’s financial footprint. Made phone calls. Scoured the internet. As a last resort, he put in a call to his friend in Revenue. She put him on to the Criminal Assets Bureau. That was when he learned something he knew was important.

Two months ago, based on a call from an anonymous source that they believed was credible, CAB had begun an investigation into Tyler Keating’s financial affairs. It was early days, they said, but they’d discovered that he’d set up a company fifteen years previously. McKeown calculated that Keating was still a student then and already thinking years ahead.

He waited patiently for the information to be securely emailed over.