Chapter 83
Boyd drove in silence. It suited Lottie fine. She’d checked in with the hospital before they’d left. No change in Chloe’s condition. She popped two paracetamol into her mouth for her headache and closed her eyes.
‘We are backtracking over all we’ve already done,’ Boyd said at last.
‘We need to see where this leads us.’ She gave up on trying to rest her head and straightened her back.
‘Denise and Poppy Tormey were murdered after Poppy’s tenth birthday party.
The similarities to the Healy murders are too great to ignore when you consider that Sadie Clarke was a friend of the Healys.
We have to find another thread that connects both cases.
Then we tug hard on it and everything will begin to unravel. ’
‘As long we don’t unravel too,’ he said, eyes focused on the traffic ahead. Careful as always, she noted. ‘And for the record, I don’t share your optimism.’
‘Who said I was optimistic? I’m clutching at proverbial straws here, Boyd. Something nasty went on back then, and I want to know what, and how it has resulted in three murders this week along with three stabbings and two disappearances.’
‘When you put it like that… it still makes no sense.’
‘And Dermot Macken’s role? What the hell is he at? A fucking chicken farm and party balloons? Now that definitely makes no sense.’
Eugene Tormey’s carer, Josie, shepherded them inside and then went into another room without a word.
‘You’re back,’ Eugene said with little enthusiasm. ‘Have you found Sadie?’
‘No, we haven’t found your daughter or granddaughter.’
The man did a double-take, his gnarled hands clutching the dirty armrests on his chair. ‘You never said I had a granddaughter. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I thought I did.’
‘No, I’d have remembered that. And you’re telling me she’s missing too?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’re digging for more dirt on Sadie. Jesus.’ He clacked his teeth, the sound grating.
‘We don’t know what’s happened to either of them. They just disappeared.’
‘I didn’t disappear them, so what do you want with me?’ His knuckles were white and his face red. She hoped he wasn’t going to have a heart attack, but she had to keep going.
‘We mentioned when we were here yesterday morning about a family who were murdered in Ragmullin last Sunday. Did you see it on the news or read about it?’
‘When the news comes on, I channel-hop. I’m bad enough without being depressed over things I can’t control.’
‘The thing is, the Healy family murders bear a striking similarity to the deaths of your wife and daughter twenty years ago. The current crime occurred in the hours after their daughter’s birthday party. Freya was just twelve years old.’
‘You wouldn’t be here unless you thought my Sadie had something to do with it, would you?’
‘We have no evidence to suggest that, just suspicions, but the very next day, Lily, your granddaughter, went missing. Then the day after that, Sadie was gone too. No sign of a disturbance or a break-in.’
‘Is she married? Sadie?’
‘Her husband is Thomas Clarke.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He’s an architect.’
‘Girl did well for herself then. Good on her.’
‘She claimed he was… ehm, rough with her.’
Eugene snorted. ‘Maybe she ran away from him. He could have killed these Healys.’
She’d thought the same herself at one stage. ‘We have nothing concrete to tie Thomas Clarke to the murders. It’s a mystery.’
‘Youse are the guards. You can’t expect me, a disabled alcoholic, to solve it for you.’
‘No, but we think you might have information that could help us. Something you don’t even know is relevant.’
‘If I don’t know, how can I know what it is? Can’t you come straight out with what you mean?’
‘Are you sure you don’t know anyone named Liam Scanlan, back then or now?’
‘Told you already, I don’t have a head for names. Do you have his picture?’
Boyd scrolled on his phone. He turned it round with the photograph.
Tormey shook his head. ‘Don’t recognise him.’
Lottie sighed. They’d wasted so much time on this journey, they had to come away with something. ‘I asked you about Caroline Quigley yesterday, and you didn’t recognise the name. What about Alice Quigley?’
He ran a finger along his stubbly chin. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure. Show me her picture.’
Boyd did the honours and Lottie kept her eyes on Eugene’s expression.
He was about to shake his head when he said, ‘Where the hell are my glasses? Josie?’
The young carer rushed in. ‘Yes, Mr Tormey?’
‘My glasses. Where are they?’
She found them in his shirt pocket and placed them gently on his face.
‘Ah, that’s better. Thanks, Josie.’
She scuttled out of the room, closing the door behind her.
He took the phone and studied the image. ‘Holy God. It’s her. I might not have a head for names, but by Jesus I have an eye for faces. She was much younger when I knew her. Alice. Yeah, that was her name. Don’t think I ever knew her surname.’
Lottie felt the palms of her hands sweating. She rubbed them on her jeans. ‘How did you know her?’
‘It was before Denise kicked me out. This woman had started to come around to the house. Fucking magpie, I called her. I had my suspicions she was looking to steal from us. Not that we had a thing ourselves. Nothing worth stealing, anyhow. But it was like Denise was under her spell.’
‘Eugene, are you telling me that your wife, Denise, was friends with Alice Quigley?’
‘Why else would that woman be sitting in my chair most evenings when I came home? Not that I remembered much after a few hours in the pub. Awful affliction, the curse of alcohol. Like being in an abusive relationship. AA got me on the straight and narrow. For a time, anyhow. My old brain is fucked now. I remember stuff one minute, then it’s gone. ’
‘How did the friendship between Alice and Denise come about?’ Lottie wanted to keep him on track and not allow him to ramble.
‘Fucked if I know. Pardon the language. One day she was there and that was that. I think Denise worshipped the ground she walked on. This Alice had some sort of hold over her, though that’s hard to believe.’
‘Did Alice have a daughter with her?’
‘No memory of her. But my girls were not allowed to be under their mother’s feet. Denise was a bit of a tyrant that way, especially when she had a bottle hid down the back of the couch. Might be the reason I spent so much time in the pub.’
‘What do you mean?’
He took off his spectacles and slipped them into his shirt pocket, staring into the distance.
‘Denise was not a nice woman, Inspector, especially with drink in her. She was hard on Sadie and Poppy and hard on me. I admit I wasn’t real sorry when she died.
But my little Poppy… I’ll regret to the day I die that I wasn’t around to keep her safe. ’
‘Do you think Alice could have murdered your wife and daughter?’
‘I’d love to say yes, but the truth is, I wasn’t there.
I don’t know what happened. The guards never got anyone for the crime.
Not even a suspect. They said it was a family-side thing or whatever it’s called.
But who made the 999 call then? I’ve no idea if they interviewed this Alice woman or not.
But you could find that out, couldn’t you? ’
Lottie knew there was no mention of Alice or her daughter anywhere in the slim Tormey murder file. There’d been no suspects and it had been ruled a possible murder-suicide. Not good enough, she thought.
‘Where was Sadie that night?’
‘I don’t know, and I don’t know where she is now either.’ Eugene began to cry. Loud, racking sobs.
Josie flew into the room. ‘What did you do?’ she said accusingly before kneeling by her charge, rubbing his shoulders, comforting him. ‘It’s okay, Mr Tormey. Would you like something to eat? I think these people should go.’
He put up a hand to stay her. ‘It’s fine, I’m fine. I’d love a sandwich, Josie. Thanks.’
She disappeared into the kitchen.
‘We have a few more questions, Eugene. Can you continue?’
‘This is hard, resurrecting the past. Will it help you solve these murders?’
‘The honest answer is that I don’t know. But it might help us find Sadie and Lily.’
‘I’d love to meet Lily. I could be a better granddaddy than I was a daddy.’
Lottie blew out a breath. ‘Did you ever know of a man called Dermot Macken?’
He shook his head slowly.
‘Do you want to see a photo… his picture?’ she added, using the man’s own terminology.
‘Sure. Show me.’
Boyd did the honours again.
Eugene blinked behind his smeared spectacles. ‘Had he something to do with chickens?’
‘That’s him.’ Lottie grew excited. ‘How did you know him?’
‘The pub. He often drank there. You’d smell him before you’d see him. Young lad. He used to ask about Sadie. Think he had a thing for her, but he was a good bit older than her. Why are you interested in him?’
‘Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that we can’t fit in anywhere.’
Her mind was in overdrive. If Eugene’s memory was credible, and that was a huge doubt given his supposed Alzheimer’s, she now had two people with connections to the recent murders who had also known Sadie’s family twenty years ago. How could she knit it all together?
‘Can I ask one last question?’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘Was Alice Quigley acquainted with Dermot Macken?’
‘Now how on earth would I know that? You should ask her yourself, if she’s still around.’
‘She is.’ Lottie wondered where Alice was. ‘And so is Dermot Macken.’
‘That boy wouldn’t say boo to a goose. You know something? Thinking of him makes me smell chicken shit.’
‘I feel the same way.’
‘Here you are.’ Josie arrived with a plate of sandwiches and a mug of tea.
‘Hope them aren’t chicken sandwiches,’ Eugene said with a glint in his eye.
Lottie’s stomach flipped.