Standing by the gateway, Nick saw the way Grace’s shoulders slumped as she turned away from the inspector and headed in his direction. What the hell is she still doing here? he wondered savagely, and in the next breath realised he would do exactly the same. Working through it.
“You all right?” he asked as she neared. Her stride faltered, and for a moment he almost expected her to bite back at him. But then her face closed down again into that seamless mask.
“I suppose you could say I’ve been better.”
He straightened, dragged the gate open and followed her to the van, where she dumped the fresh collection of evidence. It hit the metal floor with an ominous dull clank.
“He waited, didn’t he? Until I was clear.” She turned, sank onto the open side-step of the vehicle, sitting with her forearms clamped between her knees, hunched, eyes on the ground. “He could have set off that bomb the moment we got up there. So, why did he wait?”
Nick crouched in front of her, tilted his head until he was sure of her gaze. “If it is Conor O’Keefe who’s responsible for this, not Pete Tawney, maybe he does have a problem killing women.”
“What about Angela Inglis?” Grace pointed out. “He didn’t have any problem killing her.”
Nick gave a sigh. “Women he considers innocent,” he amended. “Women who are not his primary objective.”
“You think he has one? Perhaps we’re looking for logic in a madman.”
“No, there’s an agenda here. We just don’t quite know what it is yet.”
Grace nodded slowly and sat for a moment longer. “I’m sorry.” She stiffened her spine as she rose. “I didn’t mean to go all maudlin on you.”
“If that’s your idea of maudlin, you’ve led a very sheltered life.”
Her smile lost heart before it was fully formed. “What are you doing back here?”
“Just come to update Pollock on O’Keefe.” Nick reached into his jacket for his notebook. “He’s no longer at the last address we had for him in Liverpool—surprise, surprise,” he said gloomily. “I spoke to his ex-landlady, though, lives in the flat above. She was the usefully nosy type, told me O’Keefe apparently went ‘up north to some religious place’ about a month back. Found out last Christmas that he had something terminal, so she reckoned, and either sold everything he owned or gave it away, even his dog.”
“He gave his dog away?” Grace queried.
“That’s what she said. It’s not a bad cover story, if this is what he had in mind.” He gave a twisted smile. “She was halfway through telling me about the very nice TV set he’d given her when she obviously realised that if the cops were asking questions about him, it might be stolen, so she started back-pedalling madly.”
But Grace didn’t return his smile. “He gave his dog away,” she repeated, meeting his gaze with troubled eyes. “So, wherever he went, he knew he wasn’t coming back.”