Page 131 of Hidden Daughters

He hoped to God he hadn’t led him to Ann’s door.

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The promenade was getting busier. Lottie retraced their steps knowing she had to say something to move things on before they reached the car. Imelda had said Assumpta Feeney could be key to it all, and she now wanted to know more about the novice who had left her vocation.

‘Do you know where Assumpta lived?’ she asked.

Imelda looked at her, a raised eyebrow in her thin face. ‘Yes. Why?’

‘I want to go there and see if there’s anyone, a neighbour, who knew her.’

‘I can tell you what you want to know.’

Lottie shook her head. ‘You want to keep me going round in circles, Imelda. But listen to me. Too many people have died. I don’t want another person on my conscience. You have directly involved me, so I need to be proactive.’

‘Okay. I’ll show you where she lived.’

‘Maybe I should call Sergeant Mooney to meet us there,’ Lottie said quietly.

‘And maybe I should destroy my recordings.’ Imelda’s tone had taken on a sinister cadence.

Lottie said nothing as she unlocked the car. Imelda was showing signs of instability. And one thing was for sure, she did not want those tapes destroyed in a fit of rage.

‘I’d like to hear what you’ve recorded. I need to get a handle on what this is all about.’

Imelda considered her over the roof of the car. ‘I don’t trust you.’

‘I don’t trust you either. But I haven’t turned you in yet. Shouldn’t that allow you to have some level of trust in me?’

She could see the woman turning this over in her mind, biting the inside of her cheek.

‘We’ll go to Assumpta’s house first, then I’ll decide.’

Fuck you, thought Lottie, but she just nodded.

Assumpta had rented a narrow pebble-dashed house on the outskirts of the city. A sprawling new housing estate arched up and behind the little terrace. It made Lottie wonder if the residents had refused to sell up to the developer. Good on them, she thought.

‘Number six,’ Imelda said.

After parking a little way down the road, they walked back to the black-painted door. There was no evidence of crime-scene tape, but Lottie hadn’t expected it. SOCOs would have completed their examination of the house quickly. The true crime scene was the holiday cottage, so that was where they would have concentrated their efforts. She remembered poor Assumpta’s scalded, blistered body, and shivered.

Imelda extracted a key from a zipped pocket in her fleece.

‘How the…?’ Lottie stared, mouth agape. ‘You have a key?’

‘I took it from Assumpta.’

Snake-like apprehension stalled Lottie. ‘You killed her.’

‘That’s getting old. I told you I did not kill anyone. Not directly, but my work may have been a factor. That’s my only crime. Are you coming in with me or not?’

‘Yes, I want to see what we can find.’

They entered directly into a small carpeted living space.

Lottie closed the door behind her. It was immediately clear that SOCOs had been very discreet in their work.

The room was small but elegantly furnished. What she noticed was that which she could not see. No photos or personal effects. The surfaces were naked of any knick-knacks. Clean and polished. The fireplace was pristine, as if a fire had never graced the grate. No items of clothing hung from the back of chairs, and the small kitchenette was neat and tidy. She opened a wall cupboard to find clean crockery, and in another the non-perishables were sorted by jar size. The refrigerator was well stocked, though the milk was now out of date. There were a couple of bottles of wine too, but no evidence of who Assumpta Feeney had been.

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