The Branded

Book 2: DS Lucy Golden

by Martina Murphy

Genres: Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

'The Branded pulls you straight into the story, snares you, and won't let you escape until you turn the last page' Patricia Gibney

During an unprecedented heatwave, the body of a young girl is found in a submerged suitcase in Loch Acorrymore on Achill Island. DS Lucy Golden is tasked with identifying her and returning her to her family. With the help of her team, they discover that the girl was a runaway, who had spent some time in a homeless shelter. She has been murdered and an investigation is launched.

Despite some promising leads, Lucy's enquiries seem to be going nowhere until another the body with connections to the homeless shelter is discovered in what initially appears to be a suicide. Lucy knows that there is no such thing as coincidence, but the race is on to find the link between the two victims before the trail goes cold.

As Lucy is drawn deeper into the case, she realises that these murders may be a whole lot more sinister than first thought. Can Lucy keep a clear emotional head and get to the truth before more girls end up dead?

Praise for The Branded

'Even better than her first [book]. . . a breathless crime novel, imbued with a sense of place' Westmeath Examiner

'Such a good, interesting read' Belfast Telegraph

'DC Lucy Golden returns in another nail-biting Irish thriller' Peterborough Telegraph

Release date: August 24, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 358

Sample

The first of August is the hottest day of the summer so far. The sky is a bright and cloudless blue, the sun is white, and the whole land, as far as the blue mountains in the distance, is a mass of gold and brown due to the hosepipe ban, which has been in force for the last two weeks. On either side of Johnny and Katherine’s garden, dried-up fields stretch on as far as my eye can see.

The glass of sparkling water I’m holding has lost its sparkle, as have I. Both of us are too hot to be out here, but Johnny and Katherine have insisted on having about two hundred people to their granddaughter’s christening and, in this southwest-facing back garden, the sun is relentless. There is no relief to be found either in their house or in the marquee.

This whole christening is a farce, I think, as I sip the tepid water. Neither Luc, my son, nor Tani, his girlfriend, is religious, but if the child didn’t get baptised, it’d be the talk of the district for months to come. My mother, who is normally pretty tolerant, was even anxious for it to go ahead.

‘God Almighty,’ she’d said to me one night, ‘if they don’t get the child baptised soon, she’ll walk up the church one day and do it herself.’

I’d stayed out of it, hoping that Luc and Tani would stay strong, but even they couldn’t withstand the pressure, and as Tani said the last time I saw her, ‘Sure a party is a party no matter what way you look at it.’

‘On your own?’ Johnny Egan, Tani’s dad, lands in beside me and I try not to blush. It takes everything I have to sound normal when faced with either him or his wife. I’d gone out with Johnny for a few years in school before Katherine had arrived, super shiny, down from Dublin and snatched him from me. Years later, my ex-husband, Rob, had lived up to his name and robbed Johnny and Katherine of most of their savings. And if that wasn’t bad enough, my eighteen-year-old son had got together with their eighteen-year-old daughter and subsequently made her pregnant. A litany of horrors.

‘My mother has gone to get us both another drink,’ I answer, my voice mercifully even. Looked at objectively, Johnny hasn’t aged well. Sometimes being top dog in school is a curse. To me, Johnny looks as if he’s still trying to hold on to whatever it was he’d once had because life hasn’t delivered on its earlier promise. His tan is too deep, his trousers too tight and I recognise his shirt, a blue and yellow flowery affair, from Luc’s wardrobe. But there is still something there, on my part anyway, maybe because he was my first love. Plus, he’s a lot friendlier to me than his wife is, though that may be explained by my having been the first girl to show him a bra. ‘Good party.’

‘It is in its arse,’ he fires back, blue eyes laughing down at me. ‘When did you ever get to be so polite, Lucy Golden?’

My heart gives a whump as my cheeks light up. For feck’s sake. I wish I could say it was a hot flush, but it’s not. It’s the way he smiles: it brings me back to when I was fifteen. I miss being fifteen. But, Jesus, Lucy, I chide, this is not the same man you used to fancy like mad. This is the man who picked a stuck-up cow for a wife, so how nice can he actually be?

‘I’m enjoying it.’ I sound like a nun.

I spot my mother picking her way towards us in her high shoes. Her mission to get me another drink has been aborted because she has Sirocco – my eight-month-old granddaughter – beautiful child, horrendous name – in her arms and has commandeered Luc to carry the drinks.

He looks even hotter and sweatier than me. He’s wearing the suit he wore for his Debs, which was a bad choice on a day that’s hitting thirty degrees. I feel suddenly sorry for him, catapulted into this adult world before he was ready.

‘Hello, Johnny,’ my mother calls, ‘didn’t ye get a lovely day for it? The baptism was beautiful. Isn’t that new priest an awful eejit, though?’ She smiles at Sirocco as she says it. ‘An awful eejit,’ she repeats, in a high-pitched voice, making Sirocco coo and gurgle. Turning back to Johnny, she adds, ‘Where was he going with the amount of water he threw over the poor child? I thought he was waterboarding her.’

Johnny laughs, and once more I’m catapulted back to fifth year in school and the sound of Johnny clattering along the corridors. My ears were hyper-attuned to every move of the boy back then. God, I haven’t felt that way about someone in such a long time. I wonder if I ever will again.

A trickle of sweat runs down my face, and as I go to wipe it away, my fingers find the track of my scar. The ugly puckering of skin that I earned courtesy of Ellen McKenna, the wife of one of my informants. In a trial, about ten years back, he’d been offered witness protection for his testimony. His wife refused to go and had blamed me for breaking up her marriage and leaving her son fatherless. In retaliation, she’d come to the station and thrown acid in my face, resulting in scarring for me and her son losing both a father and a mother. I pull my hand back, not wanting to draw attention to it.

I am aware that my mother is saying something to me and that I have zoned out. ‘Your phone,’ she says, probably for the third time. ‘Your phone, Lucy.’

Not today, I think. Today’s my day off.

I pull it out of my bag and see that it’s Dan, one of the detectives I work with and probably my closest friend on the force. It must be important because I’d told him not to ring me at any cost.

‘Shit.’ I hold up the ringing phone. ‘I probably have to get this.’

I move away to a quiet corner of the garden to take the call. I could kill Dan for this. I know Luc understands it’s my job but that doesn’t make it any easier to leave him any time there’s a crisis. And today of all days …

‘Dan,’ I say, flicking on the phone. ‘This better be important.’

‘They’ve found a body.’

‘Where?’ In the background someone has started singing a terrible version of ‘The Fields of Athenry’.

‘Lough Acorrymore. I’ll swing by and pick you up. That party sounds particularly painful.’

‘You have no idea.’

‘I’ll rescue you in twenty minutes,’ he says, and hangs up.

I rejoin Luc and my mother. Johnny has moved to talk to Milo McGrath, Katherine hanging onto his arm, like he’s her property.

Tani is talking to Luc. My mother is occupied with a neighbour who is cooing at Sirocco.

‘I’ve just about had enough—’ Tani breaks off, as I join her and Luc.

‘I’m so sorry. I have to go – it’s pretty important.’ I hope they can’t hear the relief in my voice. It’s been hard, this party, seeing Luc trying to fit in with this new part of his family. Hoping he’ll stay true to himself. ‘I’m so sorry, Luc.’

‘No bother.’ Luc gives me a wry grin. ‘I wish I could go home.’

Tani giggles.

‘Don’t be so ungrateful, Luc.’ I feel I have to chastise him. ‘Tanita’s family believe in God, so just go with it.’

It’s unfortunate that the singer chooses that moment to stop. My voice seems to rise above everything. Heads turn in our direction and Luc starts to snigger.

My mother, who has heard, pretends nothing has just happened. ‘God is a great fellow altogether,’ she says.

Now Luc shakes with suppressed laughter. I hand him my car keys so he and my mother can get home and I make my escape.

I find a shady spot, under a tree, opposite the house to wait for Dan. Everyone is at the christening, so there isn’t a sinner on the road. I pull my blouse away from my body because it’s sticking to me something rotten and you can definitely see my bra underneath. The heat is oppressive. Nothing moves in the dead air – it’s as if all the birds and insects have given up and retired until things cool down. The roads shimmer in the haze and the sun burns my skin. I pull some lotion from my bag and plaster my legs with it. The smell of summer.

I wonder about the body that’s been found. Something tells me it’s not going to be a slam-dunk open-and-shut murder. Dan would never have called me for that. He’ll fill me in on the drive, I suppose. Nothing stirs in the hot afternoon so I can hear Dan’s car from miles away, the purr of the engine as it grows closer, see the swimming image of it cresting the hill and the heat that radiates off it as he pulls it to a stop beside me.

‘Hot, is it?’ He grins as I climb inside the blessedly cool interior. ‘Belt up. We’re heading out to Lough Acorrymore.’

‘Lough’ means ‘lake’ in Irish and Lough Acorrymore is the reservoir for Achill Island. Though to call it a reservoir is to do it a disservice. It’s a low-lying lake surrounded by stunning cliffs. You can reach it easily enough by car, which is a relief for us. At least we won’t be hiking for miles to view a body, which could happen in a place like Achill.

‘Tell me what’s going on,’ I say to Dan, as he heads towards the island.

‘William rang. He hadn’t much information. Just said that a tourist who was fishing in the lake snagged his line on something. He tried to pull it in, but about three metres from shore the line snapped. So, our fisherman waded in, couldn’t find it and decided to ring the local lads.’

‘Over something his line snagged on? I’d say that went down well at the station.’

‘The lads creased themselves laughing, I heard, but Kev said he’d go and take a look because he was hot and he wanted a swim.’

‘Aw, God …’

‘Yep. So, he arrives at the lake and dives in.’

‘Kev Deasy dives?’

‘A boy of many talents,’ Dan says. ‘After a bit, he managed to grab what was a suitcase, hauled it ashore and found a body inside.’

‘Holy Jesus.’

‘I know, you’d swear we were in Dublin,’ Dan says, only half joking. ‘Kev then called for assistance and got the scene sealed off. He also called in Joe. He wasn’t too happy because he was away on a dirty weekend with his wife, who I’m sure was glad to be rid of him. Can you imagine?’ Dan makes a face and I laugh.

Joe Palmer is the pathologist and as contrary as hell. He’s rude and abrasive but good at the job.

‘Any details yet on the body?’

‘No. But it’ll be a media circus if we don’t get a move on. With the amount of tourists milling about, word is bound to get out. Before we know it we’ll have bloodhound Stacy on our backs.’

He says it as a joke. Stacy is a local journalist who has recently been promoted to senior reporter on Island News mainly because of the exclusives she’d managed to wrangle from me over the last big case I’d handled. She is as persistent as a mosquito and refuses to ring the garda press office, like every other journo.

We cross onto Achill, take the main and only road towards Keem Bay, but before we get there Dan takes a right, marked ‘Reservoir’, and follows the twisty narrow trail until we’re stopped by a guard, who tells us to park and walk the rest of the way. ‘Big cordon,’ I remark.

‘Yep.’ He holds out some dust suits for us. As ever, only the XXL ones are left. I pull mine on and complain that no one considers women on the force. As usual, it’s met with silence.

‘The Cig here?’ Dan asks, as the guard logs us into the scene.

‘Yep.’

The detective inspector is William Williams, whom I’d got to know a little during our last big investigation together. He’s a bit of an enigma, ploughs his own furrow, doesn’t do the bonding stuff and scares the life out of newbies. But he’s direct and fair and there’s no side to him. I really respect that.

‘It’s good that William is there,’ Dan says, watching as I try to wrestle the dust cover over my stilettos. ‘I suppose that means he’s been appointed SIO.’

I hope so. He’s a good man for managing an investigation. Nothing gets lost. ‘“Tell them what to do and why,”’ I say, quoting his famous line and actually doing a fair impression of him.

Dan snorts out a laugh. ‘If the garda career fails, go into taking the piss out of William. There’d be a lot of lads who’d pay to see it.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

The cordon is wide, extending from the road down to the entrance of the car park to the lake and about fifty metres on either side. Scene-of-crime officers are busy and a diving team has just arrived.

‘Right,’ I say to Dan. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’

A little later, Dan and I are by the lakeside, staring at the decomposed body of what appears to be a young teenager, wrapped tightly in thick see-through bloodied plastic, lying in a foetal position in a medium-sized suitcase. It’s the kind of suitcase that people immediately notice at airport arrivals carousels, hard shell, bright blue. The body appears to be naked, tiny-boned, with brown hair. Blood has leaked from the plastic all over the interior of the case.

She’s surprisingly dry after having been in the lake.

We are quiet for the longest time.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ Dan whispers eventually. ‘It’s a kid.’

‘She’s quite well preserved,’ Joe Palmer, the pathologist, says from behind. Even he doesn’t sound as abrupt as usual. Maybe the man does have a heart. He comes to stand alongside us. ‘Whatever troll threw her in there didn’t realise that a waterproof case like this would do us a favour.’

‘Can you tell us anything at the moment about the body?’ I ask.

‘Not much until I get her moved. That plastic she’s wrapped in hampers the view but she appears to have been beaten about the face – see the cheek, smashed there? Now, some of that injury could be due to the bag being bashed about by the currents, but this lake,’ he turns to look out over it, ‘is not famous for its currents. And the case is hard shell, so she’d have been partially protected.’

‘True,’ I agree. ‘Anything else?’ He’s being amazingly cooperative. Maybe the weekend with his wife has softened him up.

‘Just that she’s not in bad condition so there will be plenty of forensics. This should be an easy solve for you, Lucy. No excuse to fuck things up.’

I should have known he was lining me up. ‘I’ll be at the PM,’ I tell him, ‘so you’d better not fuck things up either.’

Dan sucks in his breath. The big pussy is far more terrified of Joe than I am. But though my words are feisty, my heart has started to rocket about in my chest as Joe’s eyes narrow.

‘I’ll see you then, Detective Sergeant Golden,’ he says. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do my job.’

‘Arsehole,’ I mutter, as I turn back to the girl. I crouch down, covering my mouth against the smell. She looks about fifteen. Who are you? Who is missing you? Whose heart will we break when we contact them to say you’re here?

‘We need fingerprints, if we can get them, and DNA as soon as possible, and a picture of that suitcase for the conference tonight,’ I say.

Dan nods. ‘Someone is bound to be missing her.’

I straighten up, my legs creaking with the effort. ‘You go and organise those pictures. Talk to William and see what the story is. I’ll take off the dust suit and have a chat with our fisherman.’

The fisherman is from Cavan. He’s twenty-two but looks younger. His name is Peter, only he pronounces it Pater, in the flat vowels of that county. He smiles uneasily at me as I approach and makes room for me to sit alongside him on the smooth rock he has found. I do not present a dignified picture of a responsible detective as I try to lower myself into a sitting position with high heels and a short skirt. I can’t even pull it down once I sit, and my thighs bulge out on either side. I don’t know how I’ll get back up again. I pull my notebook and pen from the waistband of my skirt.

‘I know you’ve had a shock, Peter,’ I say.

He flicks a wary glance towards the suitcase.

‘I’d appreciate it if you could talk me through what happened. I’ll take a few notes – it’s procedure. You’ll need to make an official statement later, though.’ I nod encouragingly at him. ‘Off you go, in your own words. Tell me what happened.’

‘Right,’ he says, and pauses, thinking about what to say. I like that sort of witness. They tend to be clearer in their stories. His accent is a creamy drawl. ‘I packed up the car this morning at about five-thirty to come and fish. I like to go somewhere different every week, you know, and sure this seemed as good a place as any.’

‘And you got here at what time?’

He rubs the bridge of his nose, his hand trembling, and I feel sorry for him. He’s only a young lad. ‘Maybe nine or thereabouts,’ he finally says. ‘I don’t know for sure. And when I got here, I was on my own and I set up the rods. Put the flies on them, that sort of thing. Do you fish yourself, Guard?’

‘I don’t, no.’

‘Aw, ’tis great for the head, like.’ There is a silence after that, as if he’s suddenly realising that fishing will be changed for him now. ‘Anyway,’ he goes on, after a bit, ‘I fish for a while, like hours, you know, and sure the going is slow. It’s probably the hot weather – the levels are very low in the rivers and that. Anyway, then I cast out, a bit further this time, and with a different hook on the line and I feel this weight. Now, I knew it wasn’t a fish because there was no to-ing and fro-ing like you’d have with a fish, but I also knew now that it wasn’t a rock because it was coming in with the line, very slow, mind you. So, anyway, I’m reeling it in and I decide to lift the rod up in the air, to get a look at what I have and sure, I seen a suitcase. I got a quare shock, I can tell you. But then the line snapped, and I thought, well, I had two choices, continue fishing or ring yourselves. I did try to go in after it but I couldn’t find it. And it was suspicious, I thought. So I rang Achill station and that lad there,’ he points to a tall, skinny guy, with a rapidly reddening bare back, standing just beyond the cordon – Kev Deasy, I realise, ‘he arrived out and he just stripped off, down to his boxers and dived right in. It took him no time at all to find the case. Then he made me get out of the way while he opened it. I never saw a fellow go as white and then I looked and …’ His voice trails off and he shakes his head. ‘It’s a terrible thing.’

‘It is.’ I ask him some questions about who he saw and what he saw, but the body looks as if it’s been in the water for at least a few days if not weeks, so it’s unlikely he saw anything of significance. Finally, he gives me his contact details and stands up.

‘Thanks, Peter, we’ll be in touch.’

After he leaves, I stagger to my feet and move towards Kev. ‘That was some find.’

He trots towards me. ‘Poor kid,’ is all he says, his usual sunniness damped. ‘Can you imagine doing that to anyone?’

‘Have you sun cream on?’ I ask.

He bats the question away. ‘I tan, so no need. Will William be heading up this investigation again, Luce? Would you say he’d let me on the team?’

I’d say he’s top choice. He’d been the surprise find of our last investigation, smart as a whip, able to look at things and turn them upside down. I smile. ‘If you get a shirt, maybe.’

He beams. ‘I’ll go and find one.’

‘I never knew you could dive.’

‘I’ve been swimming in lakes since I was a kid. My mother used to call me Flipper.’

I splutter out a laugh and he grins good-naturedly.

I scan the area for Dan and spot him with William some way off. William is staring out across the lake, hands in his pockets. To the casual observer, he seems relaxed, but I know from experience that he’s taking in every aspect of the scene. The man has an almost photographic memory for detail.

‘I’ll go and talk to the Cig,’ I say to Kev. ‘Sort out the incident room, see you back at the station.’

‘Sure thing.’

***

‘Hey, Cig,’ I say, picking my way towards him in my bare feet, shoes in my hand, ‘I didn’t see you when I arrived.’

‘I was talking to the SOCO team. Christ, I can’t believe Kev Deasy followed up on the phone call. Things must have been slow.’

‘And hot.’ I smile, then ask, ‘Have you been allocated SIO on this?’

‘I have. I want you and Dan on the team.’

‘Great. Thanks, Cig.’

‘We have a team of seven and—’

‘Seven? You’ll need more surely.’

‘Sorry?’ He looks startled at my interruption.

‘You’d need ten people at least, wouldn’t you?’

He doesn’t answer, just lets the silence build and, like an eejit, I rush to fill it. ‘That child deserves the best we can give her.’

‘I agree. That’s why I’ve put you on the case, Lucy.’ His voice is steely. He seems to be avoiding my gaze, though.

Dan digs a finger into my back, a warning to leave it.

‘Look, Cig, we have no ID, no idea when she was murdered, no idea where she was murdered, no motive, no murder weapon, and have you looked at this place? There’s no CCTV. Anyone from anywhere could have put her in the lake at any time. The body could have been there months, years, we do not know. Also—’

‘She’s been there at max two months,’ he says.

‘What? Sorry?’ Then I do the unforgivable: I laugh. ‘And how do you figure that?’

There is a yelp from Dan, which we all ignore.

‘Cig,’ I tag on weakly at the end. Then, softer, with a lot more respect, ‘How did you figure that, Cig?’

I’m not sure if it’s amusement I see in his eyes, but probably not. ‘I’ve seen bodies like that before,’ he says. ‘She’s not bad enough to have been in the water longer than a couple of months. And from pressing Joe, he reckons that any decomposition in the body took place mostly in the water, so chances are you’re looking at a two-month time span at most.’ He offers me a quick smile, eyes flitting away from me again. ‘That’s my thinking on it, Lucy. Anything else?’

I swallow hard. ‘No, Cig,’ I say.

‘Good. Get back to the station and see how they’re doing with the incident room. We’ve also got Kev, if he doesn’t die of sunstroke, Larry and Ben from Ballina – you worked with them on the last investigation. Larry’s great on the CCTV. Ben’ll be good if he takes his mind off his spectacularly awful ex-wife. Those Keystone Cops, Mick and Susan, from Ballina, seeing as you’re their biggest fan. So, including you and Dan, that’s seven.’

I ignore the barb about Mick and Susan: if he thought they were Keystone, he wouldn’t have them on the team. One thing I like about the DI is he gives people a chance, and even though Mick and Susan had fecked up on a case in court a few years back and had been the butt of jokes for a while, he’s slowly allowing them back in. Not many people would do that.

‘And IRC?’ I ask.

‘Incident room co-ordinator will be Jim D’arcy. Also we’ll use any of the regular lads who want to get involved. Jordy comes in useful now and again, even if he doesn’t seem to give a fuck. Get cracking.’

‘Will do.’

Then, sounding as uncomfortable as I’ve ever heard him, he says, staring into the middle distance, ‘You might want to put a jacket on for conference.’

I look down. Holy Jesus. My blouse is saturated. ‘Yes, William.’ With as much dignity as I can muster, I turn away. When we’re out of sight, I thump Dan.

‘Ow! What was that for?’ He rubs his arm, looking wounded.

‘You should have told me about my top.’

‘I was going to offer you my jacket but then I thought, Naw, if you talk to William looking like that, he’ll agree to give you whatever you want.’

‘Piss off.’

He laughs all the way back to the car.

The incident room is hopping that evening for the conference. Aside from the team, there are off-duty guards and detectives from other districts because murder is always big, and the death of a young woman in a bag in a lake is bigger still. And if it turns out that our victim is a minor, that’ll affect us all. Galvanise us too, I hope.

The air is stifling. It reeks of heat and body odour and coffee. Dan opens a window, which makes zero difference.

The boards erected at the top of the room will be used to track the details of the investigation. They’ll fill with information as the days go by. Kev has also secured a projector for us.

‘Thanks for coming in on a bank holiday,’ William says, standing up. He speaks quietly but there is almost instant silence. He has that rare air of command that I think will get him to the top in this job. He stands tall, hands in his pockets, and surveys the room. He’s wearing the same suit he had on earlier but it doesn’t look sweaty or wrinkled, and he appears totally relaxed and at ease. ‘So, lads, before we give out the jobs, a word about the case. As all of you know, the body of what we believe to be a very young woman or child was found in a suitcase in the water at Lough Acorrymore earlier on today. As of now, we have no ID and establishing her identity will be our first priority because until we do, or unless we do, we will not make much progress in this investigation. Once ID has been established, a family liaison officer will need to be assigned. This work is vitally important so, no matter how tedious, do everything with focus. Do not a. . .