She was home a little earlier than usual. Didn’t make any difference. The house was still the same. Her family was still the same.

Sean shouted down the stairs. ‘Mam? Do you know anything about photosynthesis?’

‘Ask Chloe or Katie.’

‘They won’t help me and this homework has to be in for tomorrow.’

Lottie rested against the door. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.

‘Sorry, Sean. I know nothing.’

A screech from the baby alerted her to the fact that he was in the sitting room. She poked her head around the door. Katie was lying on the floor, fast asleep, little Louis swaddled in a blanket in the crook of her arm.

Lottie lifted him up without waking her daughter. Cuddling the little boy to her chest, she brought him to the kitchen. She snapped on the electric heater and glanced at the clock, wondering where Chloe might be. Finding a full bottle of formula beside the steriliser, she sat in her armchair and began to feed the baby. Maybe her own rumbling tummy might soothe him.

As Louis sucked at the bottle, Lottie thought how this serenity was a million miles from the hectic day she’d endured. Work–life balance. Wasn’t that what management expounded? She doubted any of the suits resident on the top floor lived the life she did. And then there was Moroney, with his bloodhound nose, sniffing for a story, and her mother still refusing to tell her anything about her dad’s death.

Her grandson’s blue eyes closed and she admired the length of his lashes. She thought of Jason Rickard, the child’s father. Tom and Melanie had a right to know about their grandchild. She had to talk to Katie about it. Soon. Tomorrow, maybe.

‘Are you going to cook any dinner?’ Sean swung through the kitchen door, his head almost touching the lintel. If he grew any taller, she’d have to raise the roof. She smiled. Was it the baby relaxing her?

‘I’ll finish feeding him and then put something on.’

‘I can get stuff from the freezer,’ he offered.

She supposed this was easier for him than trying to do his homework.

Sean disappeared to the utility room and returned with a frozen pizza and a bag of oven chips.

‘Which switch is for the oven?’

---

Sean fed everyone. Chloe arrived home. In a tantrum, she pounded up the stairs and banged her bedroom door behind her.

‘Boy trouble?’ Sean said, and escaped to his own room.

Lottie was thinking of asking Chloe about Emma. The girls had been friends at one stage, though Emma was a year ahead of Chloe in school. But did she want to involve her daughter in a case again? No, maybe not, especially after the last time.

Katie put Louis into his buggy and pushed him up and down the hall trying to get him to sleep.

Boyd rang to say they were in the process of preparing to arrest Arthur Russell. Good. Now maybe they’d get the Tessa Ball case closed.

Deciding it was time to have a serious conversation with her mother, Lottie left her kids and headed out into the storm.

---

Rose was stirring soup in a pot on the stove.

‘Will you sit down for five minutes?’ Lottie asked, trying to flatten her flyaway hair. Ten seconds running from the car to the door and she’d nearly done a Mary Poppins up into the sky.

‘I can talk just as well standing up, missy.’

This was not going to be easy. She’d have to grovel.

‘Mother, please. This is important. I need to talk to you.’

‘Go ahead. I can hear you.’ Rose Fitzpatrick was trying Lottie’s patience to the nth degree.

‘I’ve spoken to everyone I could find who worked with Dad.’

‘I’d say that was enlightening. Old fogeys.’

Lottie smiled to herself. Her mother would never admit she was old herself.

‘I can’t get my head around the fact that he… that he did it in the shed. Here at home.’

‘Your father wasn’t himself those last few months. Things were not going well at work. It all got too much for him.’

‘But to steal a revolver from the station and bring it home? Why not do it at the barracks, or out at the lake? Anywhere but here.’

‘Lottie, this is exactly why I didn’t want you investigating it. You end up with more questions than answers.’

Twirling the end of the linen tablecloth around her fingers, Lottie said, ‘It doesn’t make sense. And no note. Why not?’

Rose turned, ladle in hand, dripping soup to the floor. ‘You’re making a dog’s dinner of that tablecloth.’

Letting go of the cloth, Lottie was about to tell her mother about the soup, but restrained herself.

‘I gave you the box file. That’s all there is.’ Rose shook the ladle.

‘There has to be more.’

‘You never know when to quit, young lady.’

‘Young? I actually feel quite old. Can I have another look around in the attic?’

‘No!’ Rose slammed the ladle on the table. Orange liquid splashed across the white linen and up into Lottie’s face.

Jumping up, she grabbed her mother’s arm. ‘Please, sit down.’

‘What did I just do?’ Rose dropped the ladle and sat on a chair. She suddenly looked very old.

‘Is everything all right?’ Lottie asked. ‘You don’t look well.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Shouldn’t you give up running around at all hours of the night? I heard the HSE might be clamping down anyway. Something about registering the soup kitchen as a charity.’

‘It’s not a soup kitchen. We just do soup runs. Different thing altogether.’

‘All the same—’

‘No, Lottie. I want to do it.’

‘At least visit the doctor. You might need vitamins in this bad weather.’

‘I don’t need vitamins. I need to keep myself busy. Keep my brain active.’

Lottie sighed. There was no way she was going to win an argument with Rose tonight. She switched the subject. ‘Did you have your knitting group today?’

‘We said the rosary for Tessa.’

‘Anyone have any idea why someone would want to murder her?’

‘No. But…’

‘But what?’ Lottie leaned over, interested now. She made a mental note to see if Kirby had followed up with the members of the knitting group.

Rose got up and put the ladle under running water. ‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. You know that house belonged to Tessa before she signed it over to Marian and went to live in her flat.’

‘I’ll follow that up.’

The soup was burning. Without alerting her mother, Lottie went over and switched off the stove. ‘I think this is done,’ she said.

‘So it is.’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be? I’m fine.’

‘And I can’t have a look up in—’

‘No, Lottie. Leave it be.’

She’d come back another time, when she was sure the house was empty.

As she left her mother, water still running over the ladle and splashing on the floor, Lottie knew without a doubt that there was something very wrong with Rose Fitzpatrick.

---

Turning off the tap, Rose looked around at the mess she had made. This wasn’t like her. Not like her at all. She ran the mop over the floor, bundled up the tablecloth and opened the washing machine. A small pile of clothes was already in the drum. She checked the drawer. Detergent still there. She’d forgotten to switch it on.

With a sigh she shoved in the tablecloth, then turned the knob and pressed the button to start the wash.

What else had she been about to do? Lottie’s words twirled around in her head like the drum of the washer. Back at the table, she tried to recall the conversation. Oh yes, the attic.

She fetched the pole from above the sitting room door and pulled down the attic stairs. At the top of the ladder, she put on the light and peered into the loft space. Boxes and papers were scattered everywhere. She paused and thought for a moment. She always kept her attic in perfect order. Everything shelved, with labels and markings, so she knew exactly where to find things.

Now it was in chaos.

Had she done this? Had Lottie come round while she’d been out? If so, she definitely wouldn’t have left it in a shambles.

A chill seized her body. She couldn’t move. Wind howled through the slates and down the chimney breast. It sounded like the roof was about to be lifted from the rafters.

With one last look at the vortex of memorabilia, she flicked off the light and carefully descended the ladder. Could she have left that mess without remembering? And if she had, what had she been looking for? She wasn’t at all sure of the answer to either question.