‘Anything from your lot?’
Michael placed a glass of water and a bag of sour jellies on Laura’s desk. They were working on the list of Holland employees and had taken twenty names each, delegating the basic background checks to the uniforms so they could concentrate on deeper research if anything came up.
Laura shook her head and took one of the fizzy worms, her face contorting as she sucked the bittersweet sugar coating. Her eyes were tired from staring at the computer screen. She’d gone through name after name and nothing had jumped out at her.
‘Zilch,’ she said. ‘This week, all that bloody travel, it’s catching up on me. I can’t concentrate on anything today.’
It was late afternoon and she wanted to pack it all in and go home. Scratch that. She wanted to go for that drink with Ray. They’d barely exchanged two words all day and while she knew it was because they were busy, she was starting to wonder if yesterday had actually happened. The whole exchange had been eerily similar to the daydreams she used to have.
Michael gave her a comradely pat on the shoulder and wandered off to answer the phone ringing on his desk.
Laura looked at her screen again, speed-reading down the Excel sheet. The names had been formatted with ages; addresses for when they’d applied for the job and their current abodes; length of service in the Hollands’ business; job description; and anything of note in the person’s background. She’d bet there was plenty on here the Hollands weren’t aware of. Her eyes flicked to the name of a girl who’d been sacked for stealing from a former employer. There was no way she’d included that in her CV. Another man had faced an accusation of rape of a minor. That one had given Laura pause for thought. But when she’d dug deeper, it turned out he’d been seventeen at the time and the person he was accused of raping had been his fifteen-year-old girlfriend. Her parents had pursued the prosecution, but the charges had ultimately been dropped.
Fergus Holland was listed as an employee, his job title simply ‘landscape and delivery’.
Laura looked away from the screen.
She glanced around the room at her colleagues, all beavering away at various tasks. The guard across from her was on the phone again to the liaison officer in Scotland Yard. They were still trying to establish if any suspected or known killers in Britain might have fled to Ireland in the last decade and slipped through the police communications net.
The officer behind Laura was on the phone to Natasha McCarthy’s unit, trying to get an expanded list of registered sex offenders – historical cases that might not have been included in the current files.
The volume of information they were wading through was incredible, but it was getting them nowhere.
Laura closed her eyes and an image flashed before them.
There had been something on her screen that stood out.
She looked back to where her mouse arrow had paused on Fergus’ name, trying to see what it was she’d spotted.
There. It was probably nothing, she thought, scanning the details. But then, they didn’t have much to go on.
She looked up to say it to Michael, but he was gone.
‘Did anybody see where DS Geoghegan went?’ she called out.
‘He said he was getting some air,’ the officer behind her said, hand covering the phone receiver.
Laura jogged down the stairs and through reception. Outside, she cast her eyes left and right to see if she could spot Michael. When she couldn’t, she tried his mobile.
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘Shit, has something happened?’
He sounded worried.
‘No, nothing like that. I just want to go check something out.’
‘Thank God for that. Sorry, I should have said. Anne needed to pop out for an appointment and the babysitter cancelled. I’ve nipped home. Can it wait a half hour and I’ll leave Matthew off in my mother’s?’
‘Don’t do that,’ Laura said. ‘You’re fine. It’s probably nothing. I’ll catch you later.’
She hung up. Michael lived in nearby Chapelizod, on the other side of the Park. He probably thought he could be over and back before anybody even noticed he was missing, given how busy they all were. Well, she wasn’t going to dob him in for skiving. If Ray had turned up offering her a late lunch, she’d have been out the door in seconds.
She’d follow up the query on her own. Her other colleagues were busy and Laura didn’t want to drag one of them away on what she was pretty certain would end up being another wild goose-chase. She just needed to finish the day doing something concrete. She’d spent most of it thinking about Ray, entirely distracted.
Laura had driven a good distance when the man himself rang. She hit the answer button on the hands-free set.
‘Hey, where are you?’ he asked.
‘Driving. Do you need me?’
‘No. Well, yeah. I just called down to see you and you weren’t there. It was only to tell you I’m tied up this evening, but I was wondering if I could drop you home tonight?’
Laura felt a rather pleasant sensation in her stomach.
‘That’s thoughtful of you,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I do have my own car.’
‘Of course you do.’
Neither of them spoke for a moment, both suddenly shy.
‘Can I …’
‘Could we …’
They were talking over one another. Laura laughed.
‘Can I still get you some dinner, later?’ Ray said, seizing the initiative. ‘Just take-out to the station, I mean. We have to talk to Carney again, so I can’t leave.’
‘I’d love that,’ Laura said.
‘Brilliant. I mean, thanks – I’ll see you later.’
‘See you later.’ She ended the call. She hadn’t imagined it, so. He was interested. Though with the way things had gone over the last couple of years, she didn’t think she’d truly believe it until she was waking up with him in the bed beside her.
Laura caught sight of her reflection in the rearview mirror, her cheeks flushed.
‘You’re a lustful disgrace,’ she told herself, still smiling and blissfully happy.
She found the house without much trouble. She wasn’t familiar with Meath, but the Hollands’ business was well signposted and she knew from Google maps that the house was situated not too far from there.
Laura pulled into a gravel drive that ran alongside a perfectly landscaped garden. It was a big house, expensive-looking. And isolated. Nobody around to hear you scream, she mused, then chastised herself for being silly.
She got out of the car, admiring her surroundings. Not bad, for somebody who was essentially a gardener.
Nobody answered her knock at the front door. She tried again, then decided to walk around the building. Maybe the residents of the house were out back and couldn’t hear her.
If Laura was honest with herself, she was a wee bit concerned. If her theory was correct, as outlandish as that seemed, could this actually be their man? It was so ridiculously inconceivable that the case could be solved with some guesswork and a stroke of luck. But if she was right … maybe she shouldn’t have come out on her own.
Laura shook her head. She was being daft. It was broad daylight. The sun shone in the sky, birds sang in the trees. In all likelihood, there was nothing of interest here and once she’d had this chat, she could go back to the station and get that dinner with Ray. If this man had answered his bloody phone, she wouldn’t have had to drive out here at all.
And when the doubts crept in again, Laura reminded herself that she’d left him a voice message. He knew she was a detective. Their serial killer was selective and had a particular methodology. Even if her madcap notion was correct, Laura wouldn’t find anything out on this trip. But at least she could say her day had been productive.
She walked along the side of the house, peering in windows as she went. Everything looked normal inside, cosy and welcoming. She could imagine living here. At the very last window, she thought she saw something inside the house. She cupped her hands to the glass and peered in. She hoped she wouldn’t cause too much alarm if anyone inside caught her gazing through the glass.
She didn’t hear him approach until it was too late.
The blow, when it landed, was completely unexpected. Just a blinding pain, then darkness as Laura collapsed to the ground.
She was still clutching her mobile phone, set up as a caution with Ray’s number on the screen so she could dial fast if anything happened. She’d known he would answer straight away. Even as she’d told herself that nothing untoward was going to happen, she’d been prepared in case it did.
The phone crashed to the ground, its screen shattering.