Chapter 110
Lottie watched Chloe sleep, relieved to have her daughter home.
Her mind was racing with the events of the last week.
Most of all she struggled over Liam Scanlan’s vehement denial of having attacked Chloe.
If she was to believe him, then who had stabbed her daughter?
A randomer on a Friday night down a dark lane? Why was Chloe even there?
She wanted to take her daughter in her arms, to hold her tight and never let her go.
Never let her walk into danger again. Had that been what Sadie had tried to do with Poppy?
Lottie swayed between thinking Poppy’s death was murder and believing it was unintentional.
One thing she was sure of was that Alice hadn’t intended to kill Freya.
The child was too valuable to her alive.
She graced Chloe’s forehead with a kiss and made her way back down the stairs. To her surprise, she found Boyd sitting at the table with Matt Mooney.
Matt stood. ‘Sorry for barging in on a Monday night. Mark made me tea. A fine cuppa, too.’
‘No problem at all,’ Lottie said, taking a mug of steaming tea from Boyd, raising a questioning eyebrow. His face was passive. No hint. She turned to Mooney. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I had a weight on my conscience. Did Chloe tell you anything? About what happened to her?’
‘She says she can’t remember a thing.’
‘Well, don’t shoot the messenger.’
‘I’m listening.’ Lottie sat at the table.
The two men glanced at each other.
Boyd spoke first. ‘This lunchtime I went back to Cafferty’s. Spoke to the staff who had already left by the time I went in there after the attack. One of them recalled seeing Chloe with someone in the pub a few minutes before she left.’
She held her breath, her eyes darting from Boyd to Mooney and back again. ‘Who was it?’
‘The description I got was vague. But Matt here happened to call the office looking for you this afternoon. I told him you were off, as Chloe was home from hospital.’
Matt took over. ‘I wanted to know if she’d told you the name of her attacker. When Mark gave me the description he’d got from the bar staff, I had to come talk to you.’
‘Are you saying Chloe knew her attacker? Who was it?’
‘I’m breaking her confidence, but Mark has the description, so you’d work it out eventually.’
Lottie stood quickly. ‘Tell me, or I’m going up those stairs to hear it from her.’
‘She told me she was going to tell you,’ Mooney said, ‘but I reckon he must have threatened her and now she won’t point the finger.’
‘Who the fuck stabbed my daughter?’
Mooney bit his lip as if he feared her reaction when he said the name. Boyd stepped in.
‘McKeown,’ he said. ‘Detective Sam McKeown.’
She fell back into her chair. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We have that eyewitness description,’ Boyd said. ‘Don’t go apeshit, because we need to build a case.’
‘Haul him in. Arrest him. What are you waiting for?’ She stood, went to the door, came back again. ‘Jesus Christ, why are we even here talking about it?’
‘We need to build a case.’
‘You’ve said that already, so please tell me what case you have to build.’
Mooney paused. ‘Attempted rape.’
In that instant, Lottie’s world imploded.
Tears blinding her, her heart shattered into pieces, she raced up the stairs. She flung herself on the bed and hugged Chloe tightly.
‘Mam?’ Chloe said, roused from her sleep. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I love you, sweetheart. I love you more than life. And I will nail the bastard to a cross.’
Then Chloe cried too, mother and daughter joined in their anguish. And Lottie vowed to never let any of her children come to harm again. A promise she would do her absolute best to keep.
‘Mooney shouldn’t have said anything,’ Chloe sobbed.
‘He had to. Boyd got a description.’
‘But you don’t understand. Sam swore he’d get Louis if I talked. Mam, you have to walk away from this. Promise me.’
The Healy murders had happened because Sadie and Caroline had kept quiet about their mothers’ abuse twenty years ago.
Alice was allowed to run free to groom and exploit her granddaughter and ultimately murder her and her own daughter.
Lottie was not about to allow McKeown a similar freedom.
She would protect her daughter and grandson.
She now understood teenage Sadie’s anger, her need for revenge.
‘I can’t promise you that, Chloe. Sam McKeown better watch out, because I am coming for him.’
Chloe nodded. ‘Okay, you’re the boss.’
‘I bloody well am.’
Lottie hugged her daughter tighter until the girl said, ‘Mam, mind my stitches.’
They laughed at that, then cried in each other’s arms.
***