Little Bones

Book 0: Detective Lottie Parker

by Patricia Gibney

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

She lifted up her granddaughter from the cot, clutched her to her chest and, without looking at her beautiful daughter lying dead on the floor of her bedroom, ran from the house. Only when she was outside did she let a wail escape her lips, frightening the baby who joined in her screams.

When Isabel Gallagher is found murdered on the floor of her baby’s nursery by her mother, it’s a gruelling case for Detective Lottie Parker. Isabel’s pyjamas have been ripped, her throat cut and an old-fashioned razor blade placed in her hand. As Lottie looks at the round blue eyes and perfect chubby cheeks of Isabel’s baby daughter, she can’t understand who would want to hurt this innocent family.

That very same day she receives a call with devastating news. Another young mother, Joyce Breslin, has gone missing, and her four-year-old son Evan has been abducted from daycare. Lottie is sure that the missing mother and son are linked to Isabel’s death, and when she finds a bloody razor blade in their house, her worst fears are confirmed.

Desperate to find little Evan, Lottie leaves no stone unturned as she delves into Isabel and Joyce’s pasts and when she realises the two women have been meeting in secret, she knows she must find out why.

But when Joyce’s body is found in a murky pond and some little bones are found on a windy hillside, it feels as if this merciless killer will stop at nothing. The bones aren’t Evan’s but can they give Lottie the final clue to find the innocent child before more lives are taken?

This absolutely gripping and unputdownable crime thriller from bestselling author Patricia Gibney will leave you gasping for breath. A perfect read for fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni and Rachel Caine.

What everyone’s saying about Patricia Gibney:

‘This was THE BEST book I have read in quite some time. If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would!… absolutely riveting. Once I started reading, I was unable to stop… this story was just pure genius!… took everything I THOUGHT I knew and threw it right out the window!’ Butterfly's Booknerdia Blog, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘AMAZING, BRILLIANT, THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN A LONG LONG TIME!!! It's not often I've been left speechless after reading a book but this time I was!!!… From the very start I was gripped and couldn't put it down!!!… If I could have given it ten stars I would have!!!’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Hoo boy, can Patricia Gibney spin a tale!… The opening chapter alone is like a kick to the stomach and from that moment on, I already knew this was going to be another corker of a book!… It’s dark, disturbing and heart-breaking…

Release date: September 22, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

She had to save her children. That was what mothers did. They saved their children.

When he was smashing his fist into her stomach, her only thought was her babies upstairs. And if she had to save them, she must extricate herself from the murderous relationship. But how? And was it already too late?

‘Please, that’s enough,’ she whimpered, struggling up onto her knees. ‘Please, stop.’

Something caused him to pause. Her helplessness? No. Weakness in others spurred him on.

Up until now, she had taken the beating in silence. She stared up into his flint-like grey eyes and frowned at the blood dripping from the small cut high in his hairline where she had struck him with the tip of the knife. The cut wasn’t deep. Pity, but it had been enough to cause his explosion of rage. She had no idea where the knife had landed when he’d squeezed her wrist and unfurled her fingers, forcing her to release it.

He wiped the trickle of blood away before drawing back his arm to land another slap on her face. She cowered, desperately trying to defend herself. Any one of these thumps could be the blow to leave her debilitated, or the one to kill her. Who would protect her children then?

‘Please …’ She sheltered her head in cupped hands, hoping her fingers, rather than her head, would take the pressure from his fist.

‘And who is going to make me? You? Not a chance in hell. You think I don’t know what you were doing behind my back? I know! I bloody well know every fucking thing about you, and I told you before, you talk to no one. No one. You are mine!’

He grabbed her by the collar of her white blouse – stained black from the grime on his fists – and hauled her to her feet. She found herself staring at a chest full of curled hair, and unwillingly inhaled his disturbing scent of rage.

‘I’m sorry. Truly sorry. Let’s sit and talk it out,’ she whispered, terrified by his insane lies.

‘Let’s sit and talk it out,’ he mimicked, pushing her away, squeezing his hands into tightly scrunched-up balls, hiding the long fingers she thought she had loved. That had been her first mistake.

There never had been any love. Only torture and pain. She’d deluded herself with romantic notions to conceal the torturous hell in which she lived. She now recognised that he was consumed by psychopathic jealousy and a yearning for power, and she was nothing in his presence. A mouse in a trap. Clamped for ever. No escape. She sobbed, but quickly covered up her cries, fully aware that any display of weakness only provoked further violence.

Leaning against the cupboard for support, she scrabbled around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. But her hands fell to her sides when he stepped into her space and headbutted her.

She didn’t fall over. She didn’t cry out. She couldn’t wake the children. Then she wondered how they were sleeping through the noise.

‘You think I’m stupid?’ he sneered. ‘Skiving off to the shops without my say-so. Talking to all and sundry. I’m not bloody stupid. I know you must have slept with some dirty bollix. I have eyes everywhere. Everywhere, do you hear me? I know that bastard child is not mine. She doesn’t even look like me. You betrayed me.’ Sweat trickled from his temples. ‘Never wanted a daughter anyhow.’

He turned and landed a punch to her stomach. She sank to her knees. As she fell, he thumped her ribs. ‘I won’t have to listen to her screeching any longer. Job done.’

She bit her lip so hard, blood trickled down her chin.

‘What? What … what have you done to my baby?’

He laughed, loud and mocking. She realised in that instant that she would never escape him. No matter how long it took, he would eventually kill her.

He stopped laughing and sneered. ‘She’s gone to fluffy cloud land in the sky, where I won’t have to listen to her squawking and squealing ever again. She wasn’t even mine. Bitch.’

She dragged herself upright, knees wobbling and hips shuddering with pins and needles. A pit of fear opened up in her chest and she had nothing to douse the flames as they ignited with anger and rage and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A streak of madness had invaded her brain. Had she truly lost her mind?

She shoved him then, with the full force of her shoulder, dodging his flailing arm, and flew out the door and up the stairs. Into her three-year-old daughter’s room. Rushed to the cot where the child still slept. The pillow from her own bed was in there. On top of her little girl. Whipping it off, she stared into the milky-white face, eyes closed, the tiny butterfly lips stretched in an unnatural grimace. She reached out and touched her daughter’s forehead.

Cold. Oh God, so cold. Her hand flew backwards as if it had been plunged into ice.

‘No, no, no, no …’

Then she saw the blood. So much blood for one so small.

She ran to her fifteen-month-old son’s room. She found him lying on top of his Spider-Man duvet, one foot and one arm hanging through the bars of his cot, the way he always slept, starfish-like. She gulped, then held her breath. Pain coursed through every bone and sinew, and her muscles cramped in terror. She waited. She counted.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

Relief flooded her veins and she sank to her knees. Her son was breathing. She ran her hand over his forehead and felt the warmth of his skin. She nudged his limbs back into the cot and draped the light duvet around him. He turned over, his breathing steady, dreamless.

What was she to do?

He was still downstairs, pacing the kitchen. She heard the soft thump of his feet on the floor, where a few moments earlier she had thought he was about to kill her. He was still going to kill her.

Her baby girl was dead.

‘Oh my God!’ She clamped a hand to her mouth, ran to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. Blood and water spewed, swirling in the bowl. She returned to her son’s room, her mind a riot of confusion.

She had to stop him. But how? He had taken her phone. She had no friends. She didn’t know any neighbours. She’d never had a real family. She was alone. With her children. No, that was wrong. With her son, now that her little girl was dead. Her little girl was dead! Maybe she was safer in the arms of the angels, she thought, before vomiting bile on the carpeted floor by her son’s cot.

Sobbing, she wiped her mouth, fought the rising trauma and grief and flew back to the bathroom. There, she searched the cupboard under the washbasin. Bleach? Could she throw it in his eyes? Would it kill him? She had no idea, but she took the bottle anyway. Opening the mirrored door above the sink, she eyed the toothpaste and brushes. No make-up or pills. He never allowed them. Then her eye fell on his razor. The old-style cut-throat he preferred to use. Dancing with danger, she thought, as she took the blade in her hand. It would have to do.

Beating down her nausea, and with every creaking muscle and bone in her body screaming in pain, she slowly descended the stairs.

He was in the kitchen, on his knees, his face a mask of serenity. The red mist of anger, of insanity, had lifted, like it always did after his rages. She had to use this lucid time to convince him to let her go. She paused in the hallway and prayed she could at least save her son.

She would hold the death of their daughter over him with the cut-throat in her hand. It was the only way to escape.

He could not believe what he was hearing. He’d come to the Mireann Stone to cleanse his spirit, here on the side of the sacred hill. Mother Earth. The centre of the country. He held his finger to his lips to silence any sound that might come out.

The tramp of footsteps. Coming towards him.

He squinted through the darkness to see two people walking up the hillside, a light like a sabre guiding them. One of them carried something wrapped in a blanket.

A pink hue skirted the horizon as the morning struggled to overcome the night. He’d spent hours on the hill, part of the ritual he’d hoped would fill him with renewal. He had too much trauma in his soul, too many secrets to hide. He needed release from the anguish that clouded like a shadow all around him.

He leaned back against the stone, making himself as small as possible while still being able to see them.

‘We have to bury her.’ A woman’s voice. High-pitched. Like loud shrieking whispers.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We can’t leave her exposed to the elements. We have to put her somewhere. A bit deeper. So the animals won’t … Oh God, I can’t do this.’

‘This was your idea, not mine. Do you think I can dig this dry earth with my bare hands?’

‘She’s so tiny, and the ground isn’t that hard. We can dig a little. There’s a load of rocks around. We can cover her with them too.’

It took them over an hour, and the cold light of morning was casting its rays on the mound under the tree when at last they made their way back down the hill.

He couldn’t believe what he had witnessed, or the voices he’d heard. Voices he knew all too well. He did not want to believe any of it. But he would never forget it.

Abandoning his ritual and all thoughts of cleansing his spirit, he made his way home, consumed with more darkness than when he’d arrived.

It was the second day of November, and the souls of the dead were all around him.

When Anita Boland’s daughter, Isabel, rang her shortly after the nine o’clock TV news, whispering down the phone, asking her mother to mind the baby at nine the following morning, Anita was annoyed. It was just like Isabel to ask at the last minute. No thought that her mother might have a life, might have something else to be doing – not that she did have anything to be doing, but all the same, it rankled.

It was 8.57 the next morning when Anita reached the bungalow at Cloughton, eight kilometres from Ragmullin.

Without locking the car – no one locked anything out here in the countryside – she made her way to the back door, relishing the silence all around. She breathed in the air to fill herself with the freshness of nature, but the stench of slurry rose from the fields and caught in her throat. So much for country living; she preferred town life.

Opening the door, she immediately felt unnerved, for no good reason.

She stepped inside.

The air splintered with the high-pitched cry of a child. The wail was ancillary to the sound of silence. Anita knew her daughter was a terrible fusser and rarely let the child cry. Usually Isabel was all a-flutter through the house – television blaring, washing machine humming or hoover knocking against skirting boards – when she had an appointment in Ragmullin.

‘Isabel?’ Anita walked through the utility room.

No answer, save for the baby’s hysterical cries.

An icicle of fear skated down Anita’s spine. Her heart beat so wildly she thought it might break free from her chest. With her hand instinctively clutching her throat, she entered the kitchen, and froze.

Drawers hung from their moorings. The cupboard doors were open, a few pieces of crockery smashed here and there on the floor. The clothes horse lay askew against the wall and one chair was on its side.

‘Isabel?’ She called her daughter’s name again, her voice a fearful whisper.

Was there an intruder in the house? She had to get to her granddaughter. Where the hell was Isabel? Anita tiptoed through the kitchen towards the bedroom from where she’d heard the baby’s cries.

She had stepped into the room before her eyes registered someone lying on the floor. The overriding smell was metallic, mixed with the foul odour of the baby’s unchanged nappy.

‘Isabel, sweetheart.’ Her lips trembled as she took a tentative step towards the figure lying face down.

Isabel’s short hair was matted with blood. Her pyjamas were torn, the cotton sliced and bloody. Anita raised her eyes to see baby Holly lying on her back in the cot, feet kicking frantically, her empty bottle on the floor. The child turned her head and her screams ceased, as if she’d recognised her grandmother through the wooden bars.

As she knelt beside her daughter’s body, Anita’s nursing training kicked in. She knew Isabel was dead. Still she laid a finger on her daughter’s cold neck and checked for a pulse. There was nothing.

‘Dear God in heaven,’ she cried. Someone had brutally assaulted her Isabel. What if the assailant was still in the house?

The baby! She had to get little Holly out of here.

She traipsed through the blood – there was no other way to get to the cot – and lifted the baby girl, feeling the weight of the soiled nappy and the dampness on the Babygro. She clutched the child to her chest, and with a final heartbreaking glance at her beautiful daughter lying slaughtered on the floor, she ran from the room.

Only when she was out front, by the car, did she let a howl escape her lips, frightening the baby, who joined in her screams.

A flock of birds startled in the trees rose as one and swept across the sky in a black line of doom.

It was a mistake. A huge bloody mistake. Lottie spooned granola soaked in goat’s milk – Katie’s latest fad – down her throat. It stuck there, a big gluey lump.

Mark Boyd sat across from her, the wide wooden table between them. His cheeks were beginning to fill out, but his illness still shadowed him. The thing that concerned her most was the shroud of melancholy that hung like chain mail on his bony shoulders. The death of his mother hadn’t helped, and he was worried about his sister, Grace, living alone in the west of Ireland, almost two hours’ drive from Ragmullin. Lottie doubted Grace was worried about Boyd and knew for a fact the young woman was doing just fine.

No, it was the ever-present spectre of cancer that veiled his good humour. The fear that it might return, the damage it might do if it did. All that gave him a haunted look and tormented him even during his sleep. She’d felt his twists and turns and shouts in the dark when he stayed over, which was quite often now, and she didn’t mind that.

Pushing the half-eaten bowl away, she recognised that what she was feeling had nothing to do with Boyd’s illness – she had plenty of experience coping with sickness. It wasn’t even their disastrous wedding, scuppered by their last case. No. It ran deeper than that. It was this cold, creepy house consumed with the horrors of her past. And she didn’t know how to tell him that the move to Farranstown House had been one big messy mistake.

Boxes and bags littered every available space, and Lottie wanted to run out the door, across the field and down the hill, to stand on the shore of Lough Cullion and scream her heart out. Why had she moved out here? Leo Belfield, her half-brother in New York, was still wheeling and dealing their affairs, changing his mind and plans as quickly as the Irish weather. She had agreed to move as caretaker into Farranstown House until he decided how he wanted to proceed. He was taking his bloody time. Nothing ever went to plan where Lottie was concerned.

The turmoil crashing around her brain manifested itself physically and her hands shook. Boyd noticed.

‘Penny for them,’ he said.

‘Feck’s sake, Boyd, you sound like my mother.’

She picked up the breakfast dishes and, turning her back to him, brought them to the cracked ceramic sink.

‘You should invite Rose over for dinner,’ he said. ‘She’d love to see the progress we’ve made on the house.’

Whirling around on the ball of her bare foot, Lottie let fly.

‘Progress? Jesus, Boyd, look around you. It’s a bloody mess. Everything is everywhere. I can’t think straight, can’t even walk from here to the front door without falling over bags of unpacked clothes, and ladders and paint tins and—’

‘You should have hired professionals.’

‘With what?’

‘Look, Lottie, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

He rolled down the sleeves of his white shirt and began fastening the cuffs at the wrist, until he realised one button was hanging by a single thread and the other had disappeared altogether.

A feeling of hopelessness engulfed Lottie. She turned away and wiped down the counter beside the sink with a tea towel, her nails breaking through the thin fabric and scratching against the wood. Crumbs fell to the floor and she heard him fetch the sweeping brush.

‘Leave it,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll do it later.’

‘Lighten up.’ He came up behind her and kissed her cheek. It had the desired effect. She relaxed into his body and welcomed his arms around her.

‘That’s gross.’ Sean waltzed into the kitchen. ‘Are you not going to work today?’

‘Are you not going to school?’ Lottie said.

‘Mam! It’s the Easter holidays. What planet are you on?’

‘Really?’ Lottie stared at her six-foot-plus son buttering bread and mooching through the refrigerator. Her heart leapt in her ribcage as he closed the door and turned.

‘What?’ Sean said.

‘Nothing.’ In that split second of movement, her son had transformed into Adam, her dead husband. It was like a spear had split open the core of her heart. Adam hadn’t seen his son grow up. Or his two daughters and little grandson.

Sean slapped three slices of cheese onto the bread and took a bite. With his mouth full, he said, ‘I’m painting my room today. Want to help out, Mark?’

‘Sure,’ Boyd said, ‘but it will have to be this evening. Your mother and I have to work. No Easter holidays for us.’

‘Okay, I’ll just spend a few hours on my game and we can paint when you get home.’

‘You might be on holidays,’ Lottie said, ‘but you have to study.’

Sean rolled his eyes and sauntered out, letting the door swing shut behind him.

She quickly gathered her thoughts. ‘Thanks for saying you’d help him with the painting. He really likes you.’

A commotion sounded outside the kitchen door before Katie burst in. ‘I swear to God, I’m going to kill Sean Parker one of these days.’

‘What’s he done now?’ Lottie said.

‘He’s here, isn’t he? In my way everywhere I turn, and I’ve so much to do.’

‘Like what?’

Katie quickly buttered two slices of bread while pouring the remainder of the goat’s milk on a small bowl of cornflakes. ‘I’ve to feed and dress Louis and get him to day care before I head to work. And I’ve hardly time to feed or dress myself. God!’ She folded the bread and with both hands full elbowed the door open. ‘Some of us have to work, you know.’

‘Grand Central Station comes to mind,’ Boyd said as the door shut behind Katie.

‘Some days I feel like I’m in a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’

‘I better get my stuff, or someone might think I live here.’

His chair scraped on the concrete floor as he shoved it to the table, and the soft thud of the door was more telling than if he had banged it.

She was aware he wanted to move in permanently. The sensible thing, she knew. They’d been on the brink of marriage, for God’s sake. But still she stalled. Why?

Her dilemma was forgotten about when she received the call from the station.

Boyd let himself into his apartment, picked up the post from the floor and made his way into the living room. He rolled up the blinds. Light flooded the room. The air smelled stale, but he couldn’t leave the windows open as he’d be out at work all day. A change of shirt was needed. No way could he spend the day with a button hanging off his cuff. He rooted in the wardrobe and took out a blue cotton slim-fit with a matching navy tie around the hanger.

After a quick shower, he dressed and glanced in the mirror, noting more grey flecked through his hair. He quickly turned away, ignoring the rest of his scrawny visage.

The night spent at Lottie’s had been enjoyable. He loved being around her kids and little Louis, but he couldn’t deny that Sean was his favourite. They could talk about hurling and cycling and play a few games of FIFA on Sean’s PlayStation. For the first time in ages, Boyd felt he was part of a real family. That made him think of Grace. He needed to give his sister a call. Later. Tonight. Maybe tomorrow. He loved her dearly, but she was hard work at times. Most of the time.

He whistled as he returned to the living room. Picking up his keys, he cast an eye at the post. He flicked through the envelopes, bemoaning the fact that he had never set up online billing. He paused at the sight of familiar handwriting. Shit. His ex-wife. What could Jackie want from him now? Who wrote letters any more? Email, texts and phone calls had taken over, so it must be something she didn’t want electronically monitored. Knowing her involvement with the criminal world, it could be nothing good.

He thought of how Jackie had left him to take up with a party-going criminal who could wine and dine her with his illegal income. They had fled to the Costa del Sol. Then a couple of years ago, Jackie had appeared back in Ragmullin when she’d followed her boyfriend after discovering his involvement in sex trafficking. She’d been instrumental in having him arrested but had skipped the country before any charges could be brought against her. Boyd wasn’t even sure charges would have stood, but Jackie had been clever enough to flee.

Turning the envelope, his fingers hovered over the flap. Open it now and risk a bad mood for the day, or leave it until tonight and suffer it then? He even toyed with the idea of tearing it up and putting it in the trash. Instead, he slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. Later, then.

As he left his apartment, a little of the zing had left his step.

The envelope plopped loudly onto the hall floor.

Curled up in bed, twenty-seven-year-old Joyce Breslin tugged the sheet to her chin, smoothing down her long hair. Another restless night.

It was too early for the post. That usually arrived later in the day. But someone had walked up the narrow path and pushed something through her letter box. Even though her thoughts were totally irrational, she felt the follicles on her scalp itch and the hairs on her arms pulse with electricity.

She flung back the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed. This was madness. Of course it was just the postman.

But her antenna for danger was on high alert.

He’d come for her. She just knew it. Flying on shredded wings, torn by her past, she’d fled because she’d been left with no choice but to run. And now she was flightless. Stagnating in this three-bed semi with Nathan, a man she barely loved. The price of freedom had turned into another form of incarceration.

A shiver coursed through her body like an overflowing river, but the dam had yet to break. She could crest this wave and hopefully make it to the other side. That’s it, be positive. Easy to say, but doing it was a whole other ball game.

Inhaling deeply, she floundered around on the floor for her fleece and pulled it over her head. On tiptoes she left the bedroom and stood on the landing.

Not a sound. Her child was still asleep.

Down the stairs carefully, so as not to put pressure on the creaking fourth-last step, she stepped onto the wooden floor. A soft hint of light bled in through the coloured glass at the top of the door. The heating had yet to kick in and she was suddenly cold. Very cold.

Another step forward, her eyes open wide, all sleep banished to the night-time horrors that stalked her.

There it lay. A white envelope. Like a blemish on the polished wood.

She wondered if she had the strength to even pick it up. To open it. To glance inside. She knew it was bad. Nothing came through the letter box this early in the morning. Nothing good, anyhow. Not for her.

Bending down, the legs of her satin pyjamas swimming around her bare feet, she reached out, her fingers floating over the envelope as if they might be burned by whatever lay sealed inside.

She studied it as it lay there. The front was blank. No name. No nothing. Maybe she was imagining it. Was it a mistake? Something for her neighbour, maybe? Something for Nathan? That’s it! She sighed in relief, before deflating again.

No. She’d felt something ominous was on the way. And she had only herself to blame, having put in motion the actions that had surely led to this.

With her heart palpitating outrageously, she scooped up the envelope before she changed her mind.

Tore at the seal. Peered inside.

Her heart stopped beating for a few seconds and she lost her breath. Then the pace ratcheted up in her chest.

She upended the envelope.

A rusted razor blade clinked onto the floor, coming to rest under the radiator, followed by another. Two blades.

Her hand flew to her throat.

‘No,’ she whispered.

It was a warning. A warning that she had to flee. Take her child and run. Then she saw something else inside. A scrap of paper with a typed address and nothing else on it.

No! A small scream escaped from her throat.

They were coming for her. No longer floating out there in the ether of bad memories and haunted nightmares. They were here. And she had brought them back into her life.

‘Dear God, help me,’ she whispered to the ceiling.

Her hands trembled as she picked up one of the blades. She couldn’t find the other and didn’t care either. She stuffed it into the envelope, which she crumpled into her pocket, and took a deep breath.

Joyce was certain this would be the last day of her life.

By the end of the day, she would be wishing that was true.

Lottie stood on the threshold of the open door, transfixed in horror. She tried to absorb the scene by sweeping her eyes over the room in front of her. Battling her anger, she straightened her spine and threw back her shoulders, physically and mentally transforming into work mode; becoming Detective Inspector Lottie Parker, not the mother, widow, lover, combatant, but the professional detective.

The victim’s mother, Anita Boland, stood outside, her tears mingling with raindrops, clutching her granddaughter tightly to her chest. Lottie would do her best for Mrs Boland and the baby girl.

She was glad that SOCOs had placed steel plates on the floor to preserve the bloody shoe prints leading from the bedroom. Similar prints led from where the body lay to the baby’s cot. They more than likely belonged to Mrs Boland, but they had to be preserved and analysed because some of them might be the killer’s.

Before she moved fully into the bedroom, Lottie stared at a large wedding photo hanging on the wall in the hallway. The husband, Jack Gallagher, was tall and broad-shouldered. His bride, Isabel, only reached his shoulder. Her demeanour was mouse-like, but the hint of a smile added light to her face, and her fair hair glistened in the sunshine glowing behind them.

Lottie steeled herself before looking at the body.

Twenty-nine-year-old Isabel Gallagher lay face down on the wooden floor, her white cotton pyjamas now reddish brown in colour, torn and slit with a multitude of cuts. Short fair hair sticky with matted blood, her face invisible for the moment. That was good, wasn’t it? That she didn’t have to look at the woman’s last expression. Enough to know Isabel was dead.

But what got to her were the pink fluffy bed socks on the woman’s feet. The simple things, the mundane little things, found in a room of horror were what penetrated her professional veneer and broke Lottie’s heart. She imagined Isabel slipping out of bed with her fluffy socks on to keep her feet warm on the cold floor, and now here she was, cold and dead, lying in her own blood.

Lottie made her way over to Jim McGlynn, SOCO team leader.

‘It’s not pretty,’ he said redundantly.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

A white, wooden-barred cot stood in the corner of the bedroom. The baby had been taken outside by the victim’s mother, but how long had she been left here screaming and crying? Apparently untouched physically, but what damage had been caused psychologically to the little mite? Lottie shook her head to dispel the image.

‘I take it Isabel didn’t die quickly,’ she said. There was too much blood pooled on the floor, spread out in an arc away from the body. The pastel wallpaper above and around the bed was spattered with red pearl drops.

‘I’ve counted five wounds on her back. I’m not turning her over until the state pathologist gets here.’

‘Might be a robbery gone wrong,’ Lottie said. ‘The kitchen is ransacked. Maybe someone thought the house was empty.’

‘That’s your job, Inspector.’

‘Can you find any evidence of who … did it?’ She clenched her hands, desperately struggling not to choke from the smell of death suspended above the body. It was so intense, she could taste it glued to the back of her throat through her mask. It made her think of her granola breakfast, and she gagged.

‘God almighty, give me a chance, woman,’ McGlynn said.

‘Any sign of the murder weapon?’ Lottie persisted.

McGlynn glared. She held his stare. The house hadn’t been fully searched yet. The body was his priority for now. She knew all that, but still …

‘The baby,’ she said quietly, ‘was here when … Christ, Jim, this is too horrific even for my strong stomach.’

The older man glanced towards the empty cot, shaking his head wearily before returning to concentrate on his work. He tried to remain detached from the human side of the crimes he dealt with, assessing things forensically, but sometimes she saw the glimmer of sorrow deep in his green eyes. He had to work up close and personal with the horror.

Leaving him to his grim task, she sidestepped Gerry, the phot