Chapter 97
The light on the recording equipment was green, but it didn’t matter, because Alice was saying nothing.
Sitting beside Boyd, Lottie wondered how on earth she could break down the stubborn woman seated across from her. Alice had said she didn’t need a solicitor because she had nothing to say. And nothing was what came out of her mouth after that declaration.
Needing proof, Lottie took a different route. ‘Alice, we got a match for the bruise on Caroline’s back.’
The woman looked interested now.
‘Yeah,’ Lottie went on. ‘We matched it to a woman’s shoe.
Can you believe that? And there are similar Mary Jane shoes in your closet, amongst the other crap you hoard there.
’ She knew that the shoe that had been used to assault Caroline was on the victim’s own feet when she was found. She hoped Alice might trip herself up.
No reaction. No reply.
‘Why would you harm your own grandchild? I have a grandson, and I’d go to the ends of the earth to protect him.’ A lump formed in her throat as she thought of her darling Louis, a bright light that illuminated her world.
Alice still refused to utter a word.
Lottie decided to plough ahead with supposition, because she was still lacking proof of murder.
The only evidence of Alice’s wrongdoings was her assault on Josie, abducting Eugene, and threatening everyone and anyone who’d stood in Dermot Macken’s farmhouse earlier.
‘We believe you were grooming and exploiting children. Two children that we know of. Your own granddaughter and her friend Lily Clarke. How do you account for your actions?’
No answer.
‘We found scores of these in your bedroom.’ Lottie placed a brown bottle of pills on the table.
‘What were you doing in my house?’ Alice snarled, then curled back into herself as if annoyed she’d spoken. A snail sheltering in its shell. Lottie planned to crush that shell underfoot.
‘We were looking for you, actually. Care to comment on why you had a stockpile of sleeping pills? Were you intent on wiping out more than just your own family?’
Alice unwound her body and leaned across the table. ‘For your information, I sometimes suffer from insomnia. I don’t need the pills all the time, hence they build up. I don’t know why I’m even explaining this to you. It’s none of your business.’
‘Caroline, Freya and Cameron had large quantities of benzodiazepine in their systems. So it is my business.’
‘I’m not the only one who takes such pills.’
Lottie produced a photo of the gift bag with the birthday cards and presents. ‘You had these in a room in your house.’
‘Not a crime. I was minding them for Freya.’
‘You neglected to volunteer that information to the investigating team. When did you take them?’
Alice seemed to be considering whether to return to her shell or to talk. Much to Lottie’s surprise, she chose the second option.
‘When the party finished up. Caroline hated mess. I said I’d mind them until the next day. But their next day never came. And you’ve done feck-all to find out what happened to them.’
‘You originally told me they were still at the house when you left after the party, so why didn’t you tell me this before?’
Alice turned up her lip.
‘Were you going to sell Freya’s gifts like you were selling photos online of your granddaughter and her friend?’
‘That’s a lie.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is,’ Alice shouted, slamming her hand on the table. ‘Why would I do such a thing? What sort of monster do you think I am?’
‘Still figuring that out. Did you assault your daughter?’
She narrowed her eyes as if this question had blindsided her. ‘Assault?’
‘Yes. As in holding her down with your foot.’
‘That’s ridiculous. You have no proof I did a thing to any of them.’
Lottie decided to take it easy, because she figured that at some point Alice was going to change her mind and request a solicitor. Then again, the woman was arrogant enough to think she could outsmart the detectives on her own.
‘You intimated to me that Caroline was having an affair. We found no proof of that other than text messages.’
‘Not my problem if you didn’t do your job properly.’
‘You were a friend of Denise Tormey.’
Alice raised an eyebrow, a reflex motion. ‘I was an acquaintance.’
‘Enough of an acquaintance for you to seek out her ex-husband, Eugene?’
‘He has to know where Sadie is, because I don’t believe she was abducted.’
‘Do you think the killer took her?’
Alice turned up her lip, forming a half-smile. ‘Maybe Sadie is the killer you should be looking for.’
Deciding to go back in time, Lottie said, ‘Were you there the night Denise and Poppy died?’
‘What? That was twenty years ago.’
‘Were you there?’
‘No.’
She changed tack. ‘You told me that Caroline delivered drugs back then. You must have known what she was up to. Why didn’t you stop her?’
‘I found out after the event. The guards said they’d caught her riding around on her bike, dispatching bags of weed for some low-level drug gang. She was caught by accident, but they let her out when they nabbed the ringleader.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t coerce your own daughter to deliver drugs when she was no more than a child? A quick way to make a buck.’
‘I saved Caroline from a life of poverty. I worked hard to accumulate enough money to relocate down the country. If it wasn’t for me, that girl would be in the gutter.
Everything I did in my life was for her.
I worked my fingers to the bone and she was still ungrateful.
You’re clutching at straws and I’ve no idea where this is going. ’
‘I’m building a picture of the type of woman I believe you to be.’
‘Build away. It’s all a figment of your imagination, because you know nothing about me.’
‘I know you had Liam Scanlan run a financial account for you. Did Cameron know about it?’
She wondered if Liam had visited Cameron Healy on Sunday to either tell him about it or to warn him.
Liam was due another formal interview soon, and she hoped he’d tell the truth now that Alice was unable to touch him.
He seemed petrified of her, so much so that he’d admitted stabbing two young women because of her.
But what about Chloe? He was still denying that assault.
Alice spoke, rousing Lottie from her reverie.
‘There was nothing for Cam to know, because I didn’t ask anyone to run any sort of account for me.
’ Her face took on an ugly sneer. ‘Why don’t you talk to Thomas Clarke?
He came to my house last night waving a wad of cash.
He claimed he found it. Maybe it was his, or maybe it belonged to his lying, murdering bitch of a wife. ’
‘Where is that money now? And the photos?’
‘Ask him.’
‘He says you kept everything.’
‘The man is a liar.’
‘Makes two of you.’
‘What exactly are you accusing me of, Inspector?’
‘You’ve been arrested for assaulting Eugene Tormey’s carer, for abducting Eugene and for threatening people with a deadly weapon. I saw that with my own eyes.’
‘You can’t prove that any assault occurred. The old man fell over.’
‘His carer suffered a knife wound to her hand.’
‘Not my doing. Thomas Clarke may have done that when my back was turned.’
She was insufferable. Lottie struggled to keep her tone even. ‘You claimed you brought Eugene to Macken’s farm because you said they knew where Sadie was. Why did you think either of those men would know?’
‘One or both of them hid her. She was a murderer back then and she’s one now too.’
‘You are so sure of that. Why?’
‘I know what she’s like. She killed her family because she was a jealous cow.
And then she swanned around Ragmullin like Lady Muck.
She had my Caroline in her clutches. Stealing her clothes, taking money off her.
I’m sure she physically abused her too. Caroline was too soft.
If anyone held my daughter down and stamped on her back, it was Sadie Clarke.
She killed Caroline, and then she was canny enough to put those same shoes on my daughter’s feet. ’
Lottie was wondering how she could break Alice down when she realised what the woman had said. She couldn’t help a smile forming.
‘What’s so funny?’ Alice asked.
‘I think the shoe is on the other foot now.’
‘What?’ Alice bit the inside of her cheek. Worried now. Good.
Leaning back in her chair, Lottie looked her direct in the eye. ‘I think you might have just walked yourself into a slam-dunk murder charge, Mrs Quigley.’