Carnmore was a quiet area, situated on the outskirts of Ragmullin. The main road had once run through it, but after the ring road had been constructed, it was cut off and mainly accessed by residents, or used as a rat run by those aware of its existence. Almost five hundred metres separated the two houses built there and only every third street lamp remained lit. On a night like this, with rain thundering down to earth, it was a bleak and desolate place. Trees shook their wet branches free of their remaining leaves and the ground was sludgy and black.

The crime-scene tape was already in place when Detective Inspector Lottie Parker and Detective Sergeant Mark Boyd arrived. Two squad cars blocked the house from the view of any curious onlookers. But the area was quiet, except for garda activity.

Lottie looked over at Boyd. He shook his head. At over six feet tall, he was lean and well toned. His hair, once black, now shaded with grey, was cut close around his ears, which stuck out slightly.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s get out of this rain. I hate calls late at night.’

‘And I hate domestics,’ Boyd said, turning up the collar of his coat.

‘Could be a home invasion. A burglary gone wrong.’

‘Could be anything at this stage, but Marian Russell’s had a barring order against her husband, Arthur, for the last twelve months,’ Boyd said, reading from a page dripping with rainwater. ‘An order he has flouted on two occasions.’

‘Still doesn’t mean it was him. We have to assess the scene first.’

She pulled her black puffa jacket tight to her throat. She hoped this winter wasn’t going to be as bad as the last one. October could be a lovely time, but currently there was a storm warning, status orange, and forecasters intimated it could change to red at a moment’s notice. Being surrounded by lakes, Ragmullin was susceptible to flooding, and Lottie had had enough of the rain over the last two weeks.

After a cursory look at a car in the drive, she approached the house. The door was open. A uniformed garda barred the entrance. When he recognised her, he nodded.

‘Good evening, Inspector. It’s not a pretty sight.’

‘I’ve seen so much carnage in the last year, I doubt anything will shock me.’ Lottie pulled a pair of protective gloves from her pocket, blew into them and tried to ease them over her damp hands. From her bag she removed disposable overshoes.

‘How did he get in?’ Boyd said.

‘Door isn’t forced, so he might have had a key,’ Lottie said. ‘And we don’t know it’s a “he” yet.’

‘Arthur Russell was on a barring order; he shouldn’t have had a key.’

‘Boyd… will you give me a chance?’

Bending down, Lottie inspected a trail of bloody footprints leading along the hallway to where she was standing. ‘Blood tramped the whole way out.’

‘Both ways.’ Boyd pointed to the imprints.

‘Did the assailant come back to the door to check something, or to let someone else in?’

‘SOCOs can take impressions. Mind where you walk.’

Lottie glared at Boyd as she stepped carefully along the narrow hall. It led to a compact old-style kitchen, though it appeared to be a relatively new extension. Without entering further, she shivered at the sight in front of her. She welcomed the sense of Boyd standing close behind her. It made her feel human in the face of such inhumanity.

‘It was some fight,’ he said.

A wooden table was turned upside down. Two chairs had been flung against it, and one had three legs broken off. Books and papers were scattered across the floor, along with a phone and a laptop, screens broken, smashed as if someone had stomped on them. Every movable object appeared to have been swept from the counter tops. A combination of sauces and soups dripped down the cupboard doors, and a tap was running water freely into the sink.

Drawing her eyes from the chaos, which evidenced a violent struggle, Lottie studied the corpse. The body lay face down in a small pool of blood. Short brown hair was matted to the head where a gaping wound of blood, bone and brain was clearly visible. The right leg stuck out to one side at an impossible angle, as did the left arm. The skirt was torn and a red blouse was ripped up the back.

‘Bruises visible on her spine,’ Boyd said.

‘Badly beaten,’ Lottie whispered. ‘Is that vomit?’ She looked down at a splurge of liquid two inches from her feet.

‘Marian Russell’s daughter was—’ Boyd began.

‘No. She couldn’t get in. She’d forgotten her front door key and didn’t have the one to the back door. She yelled for her mother through the letter box. Ran round the back. After heading back up the road to her friend’s house, she called the emergency services. So the report says.’

‘If she didn’t go inside, then one of ours spilled his guts,’ Boyd said.

‘No need to be so explicit. I can see it.’ Lottie went to run her fingers through her hair but the gloves snagged. ‘Where’s the daughter now?’

‘Emma? With a neighbour.’

‘Poor girl. Having to see this.’

‘But she didn’t see—’

‘The report says she looked through the back door window, Boyd. Saw enough to never have a decent night’s sleep for the rest of her life.’

‘How do you sleep? I mean, with all you witness in the job. I know I pound it out on my bike, but how do you cope?’

‘Now’s not the time for this conversation.’ Lottie didn’t like Boyd’s probing questions. He knew enough about her already.

Stepping into the kitchen, she realised they were compromising a scene already contaminated by the first responders. ‘Are the scene-of-crime officers on the way?’

‘Five minutes or so,’ Boyd said.

‘While we’re waiting, let’s try and figure out what happened here.’

‘The husband broke in—’

‘Jesus, Boyd! Will you stop? We don’t know it was the husband.’

‘Of course it’s him.’

‘Okay, for a second, say I agree. The big question is why. What drove him to it? He’s been barred from the family home for twelve months and now he goes mad. Why tonight?’ Lottie sucked on her lip, thinking. Something wasn’t right with the scene before her. But she couldn’t put her finger on it. Not yet, anyway. ‘Has Arthur Russell been located?’

‘No sign of him. Checkpoints are in place. Traffic units have the car registration. Our records show he’s banned from driving, but the car isn’t here so we can assume he took it. We’ll find him,’ Boyd said.

‘If your hypothesis is correct, then who owns the car in the drive?’

‘Registration is being checked as we speak.’

Hearing a commotion behind her, Lottie turned. Jim McGlynn, SOCO team leader, was beside her in two strides, his large forensic case weighing him down on one side.

‘Are you two retiring any time soon?’ he asked.

Lottie squeezed against the wall, allowing him to pass. ‘No, why?’

‘Death seems to follow you around. Stay outside until I say you can come in.’

Gritting her teeth, Lottie forced the words she wanted to say to stay in her mouth, and waited as McGlynn’s team laid down foot-sized steel pallets so they wouldn’t add anything else to the crime scene. She eyed Boyd rubbing his hand down his mouth and along his jaw. Burning to say something. Putting her finger to her lips, she shushed him.

‘Who does he think he is?’ Boyd whispered in her ear.

‘Our best friend at the moment,’ Lottie said.

They stood in silence and watched the forensic team work the scene for evidence. After twenty-five minutes, Jane Dore, the state pathologist, arrived, and McGlynn eventually turned the body over.

It was then that Lottie realised what was wrong. The body could not be that of Marian Russell. It was a much older woman.

‘Who the hell is that?’ Boyd asked.