Chapter 77
The rain poured down in torrents on the area where Chloe Parker had been attacked.
Two women taking a shortcut down the lane to Cafferty’s pub had stumbled across the unconscious young woman.
They’d tried to stem the bleeding with a jacket, so the likelihood of SOCOs finding anything forensically viable was greatly diminished.
Kirby patted his pocket for a cigar, but was unable to find one. That stressed him out more. Even if he never lit it, having a cigar was like a life belt. It kept him afloat, kept his fears at arm’s length.
He’d seen Chloe as she’d been put on the stretcher, mask over her face, wrapped in a silver hypothermia blanket, gauze and other stuff he couldn’t name stemming the blood.
Three young women had now been attacked in the last few days, and he’d been first on the scene for all of them.
Well, second on the scene for Chloe, after McKeown, but this was the most traumatic.
The girl’s vital signs placed her in a critical, life-threatening state, according to one of the paramedics.
Kirby hadn’t been brave enough to tell Lottie.
She’d find out for herself how grievously hurt her daughter was once she got hold of someone at the hospital to interrogate.
Onlookers were gathering at the outer cordon, some holding drinks in their hands. The light was dim and he’d requested SOCOs to bring lights as well as a tent, but he was experienced enough to realise that the bulk of their work could not commence until morning.
He eyed McKeown as the detective dipped under the tape.
‘I thought you were supposed to stay with Chloe at the hospital?’
‘I didn’t want to hang around after her mother arrived. She wasted no time telling me to get back here and do my job.’
‘That’d be Lottie all right.’ Kirby once again wished he had something to hold, to smoke, to pretend to smoke. He felt around his pockets and was rewarded with a vape.
‘You have no idea what’s in those yokes,’ McKeown warned.
‘Would you ever mind your own business?’ Kirby sucked hard and coughed before putting the device away. ‘How come you were first on the scene?’
‘I was walking down Gaol Street and heard the commotion. Called it in once I realised what was going on. I tried to stop the bleeding.’ McKeown held out his hands and coat to demonstrate. ‘Have you interviewed the two women who found her?’
‘Not yet,’ Kirby conceded.
‘I’ll do it.’
‘No, I will. Did you notice anyone else around when you arrived?’
‘It’s Friday night. The place was buzzing. The Court pub over there has bouncers on the door. They might have seen something. I’ll start with them, will I?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
Kirby watched McKeown saunter across the street and wondered why he was being so helpful all of a sudden.
It was unusual not to be on the receiving end of more insults from him.
Maybe he was in a state of shock also. As he moved back to talk to the two Good Samaritans, he wondered why McKeown had been walking the streets of Ragmullin on a Friday night and not at home with his family in Athlone.
Lottie crumpled up the paper coffee cup and threw it in the bin beside the chair. She wanted Boyd with her. To hold her hand. To talk sense into her brain. What brain? She felt disembodied. This was happening to someone else. Not to her family. Not to her beautiful, carefree daughter. Not to Chloe.
Glancing around, she tried to ground herself.
She’d sat on the edge of this same chair on one of her cases a while back.
She’d been talking to a mother, holding her hand when the surgeon had come out to tell the woman her little girl had died.
No one was going to tell Lottie that Chloe was dead. No one. She would not allow it.
She went thought the blame game. Boyd’s fault for helping Chloe get into Templemore.
If Chloe had been at home, she’d have been working the evening shift in Fallon’s pub.
No, that wasn’t true. She’d have got the night off to go to the party.
But then wasn’t it her own fault for telling Chloe to go out and enjoy herself, even though her daughter had told her she was tired?
Or was it Rose’s fault because she had dementia and Lottie was exhausted and confused over what to do about her, so much so that she had barely spoken with Chloe that evening.
She’d been selfish, craving peace and space. It was in fact her fault.
Who had attacked Chloe? The most likely candidate was Liam Scanlan, but why target her daughter? He didn’t know Chloe, did he? She thought of the Tormey murders that Chloe had phoned her about, but she couldn’t recall Scanlan’s name cropping up anywhere in relation to that crime.
Maybe Chloe hadn’t been targeted at all, Lottie reasoned. It could have been a random attack by some random guy with a knife on a random night down a random lane. A lane that Chloe had randomly walked down. She swallowed a sob. She was making no sense. Everything was irrational.
Staring at the double doors, she willed someone to come out to tell her not to worry, that Chloe was going to be fine.
She had never felt so alone in all her life.
Maybe in the days after Adam had died. The uncertainty.
The pure heartbreak. If her daughter didn’t pull through this, she had no idea how she could go on.
It felt like hours she’d been sitting on her own when the lift doors opened. She looked up expecting to see Boyd rushing towards her. It wasn’t him. When she realised who it was, she began to cry in earnest.