Page 85 of Her Last Walk Home

‘He went to Redwood Court to find out from Diana if Laura was ever in rehab. Should be back by now. I’ll give him a call.’

‘We should go ahead and publish the photo of the unidentified victim,’ Boyd said.

‘You know I hate having to do that.’

‘What about her DNA? It needs to be checked to see if it throws up anything.’

‘Too soon for that, but we do need a starting point. I’ll talk to Farrell again about the photo.’

Kirby ended his call. ‘McKeown’s on his way back. Diana went out over an hour ago. To clear her head, according to Martina. She’s not back yet and not answering her phone.’

‘She probably needs the headspace,’ Lottie said, though she had a jelly-like feeling in her stomach. Was that all Diana wanted? Headspace. Or was she meeting someone? Had she had something to do with her daughter’s death? ‘Where’s Laura’s son?’

‘With Diana.’

‘Ask Martina to check if she took any belongings with her. Just to be sure. Then do a background check on Diana.’

As Kirby got back on the phone, Lottie caught Boyd’s eye. He had that look.

‘What?’

‘I know we need an identity for the woman found this morning,’ he said, ‘and Shannon Kenny might yet be okay, but we should draw up a graph of anything and everything that links the victims to each other. Are we missing something? Something crucial.’

‘We’re missing John Morgan’s murder weapon, for one thing,’ she said.

McKeown arrived and filled them in. ‘I’m sure Diana Nolan only wanted to escape from Martina’s sour?—’

‘Enough,’ Lottie said. ‘Anything else to report?’

‘Regarding Shannon Kenny, I found her on CCTV outside Danny’s Bar. She was on her phone. Must be when she called her friend Jess. Then she pocketed the phone and headed off down the town. Alone.’

‘Check out CCTV from Fallon’s for Friday night. A guy with a beard.’ She told him what Jess had said, and the time. ‘Have you accessed any other footage along the route she’d take home?’

McKeown checked his iPad. ‘I almost forgot. I discovered this young lad on CCTV from the clubhouse across the road from where Laura’s body was found.’ He angled the screen to show Lottie the still he’d taken from the footage.

‘What time was that?’

‘After six a.m. They have no other footage because there was a power outage.’

Lottie examined the image. ‘The child climbs over the wall and into the grounds of the cinema complex.’

‘Who is he?’ Boyd asked. ‘Why is he out at that hour of the morning?’

‘And why has no one brought him in? Laura’s case is on all the news channels and social media outlets. The super has taken part in countless media briefings.’

‘Maybe the kid hasn’t told anyone,’ McKeown said. ‘Maybe he didn’t even see the body.’

‘Show me the actual footage,’ Lottie said, and braced herself.

The furniture in the superintendent’s office was shining. The smell of polish caught the back of Lottie’s throat as she explained about the boy on the CCTV footage.

‘It’s a grainy image and he does nothing.’ Deborah Farrell smoothed down her clip-on tie.

‘I know, but this is important. That little boy was on the site before Shane, the barista, discovered Laura Nolan’s body. SOCOs found small footprints there. They must belong to the child. We need to put out an appeal for him.’

‘First you want to issue a death-mask photo to identify a woman’s body and now you want to paste an innocent child’s image all over the media. Do you even know what you’re doing any more, Inspector Parker?’

‘Look…’ Lottie paused. ‘We have numerous investigations on the go. Boyd is drawing up a document as we speak outlining how the cases intersect. The unidentified woman whose body was discovered this morning has a stab wound similar to those on Laura Nolan’s body. It’s possible they were killed by the same person. I’ll have more information once the post-mortem is carried out. And?—’

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