Arriving back in Ragmullin, Lottie drove through the flooded streets and parked outside Willie ‘The Buzz’ Flynn’s apartment.

Buzz brought her into a cluttered living room. A two-bar electric heater blazed in the fireplace and a gas heater flamed out a noxious heat in the centre of the room. She searched for somewhere to leave her jacket, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere free to put it. The room was packed to the ceiling with memorabilia relating to the late singer Joe Dolan. The old man, one hand gripping a Zimmer frame, pointed out each prized possession, documenting its significance.

‘I’ve a few videos here too, of Joe singing. I’ll put one on for you.’ Buzz pulled a cassette from a bookcase.

Lottie placed her hand on his arm. ‘Not now, if you don’t mind. I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’d like to ask you a few questions. About your time working with the Midland Tribune.’

He croaked a laugh. ‘I’m retired out of there donkey’s years. What could a pretty young lady like yourself want to know about the old days?’

‘I’m not altogether sure, to be honest.’

‘Start at the beginning.’ He lowered his thin body into an armchair and sat on top of a bundle of newspapers.

Looking around, Lottie spied a stool with a frayed leather seat. She pulled it over and sat down gingerly, hoping the bandy legs wouldn’t give way under her weight.

‘Have you heard about Tessa Ball’s murder?’ she asked.

‘Nothing goes on in this town without Buzz knowing.’ He tapped his nose with a thin finger, the skin almost transparent.

‘Tell me about her.’

‘Didn’t know her at all, at all. Not recently anyway. She used to be a solicitor. At a time when there weren’t many women in the profession. Not like nowadays. Tough-nosed biddy she was.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘She had a reputation.’

‘Reputation? Not a good one?’

‘Depends on what you mean by good.’ He leaned into the chair, newspapers rustling as he made room for himself. ‘From what I can remember, Tessa Ball was good at winning cases in the district court. She mainly dealt with what you’d now call family law. Though there was no such title then.’

‘What sort of cases?’

‘Father against son, brother against brother – land stuff. Husbands beating their wives – abuse stuff. That kind of thing. It was a long time ago. My memory is not what it used to be.’

‘You’re doing fine,’ Lottie encouraged him. ‘Is there any case in particular that you can recall?’

He closed his eyes. She thought he had nodded off when he started to speak. ‘Not a case. No. A bit of a scandal, you could say. She sorted it out, though. Oh yes, Tessa was the go-to woman to get things sorted.’

‘What scandal? Would I find it listed in the newspaper’s archives?’

‘No, you won’t, because it was never reported. All hush-hush, covered up. Ha! But every dog in the street knew about it.’

‘Can you remember it?’ Lottie wondered what she was doing here. Surely this old man’s unreliable recollections had nothing to do with her investigation. She wanted answers to things she didn’t even know the questions to.

‘Let me think,’ he said, knotting his fingers together. ‘It was the time of the IRA bombings in Dublin. You can look it up on the goggle thing you use nowadays. Seventy-two or three, I think. It was all over the press. God, that was a time when the Special Branch were sprouting up everywhere like wild ivy. Shocking times. Shocking.’

‘I was only a child then,’ Lottie said. ‘What was this thing that Tessa was involved in?’

‘There was a local woman… Carrie… I can’t remember the surname. I remember the name Carrie, because wasn’t there a horror film of the same name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, this Carrie was a bit of a horror show herself. A right madam. Into drugs and drink in a fierce way. Must’ve been from Woodstock or somewhere that she got her barmy ideas. A hippy. That’s what she was. Wild clothes, every colour under the sun; hair all matted… What do you call it? Dreadlocks? Aye, that’s it.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘So, Mr Flynn, what’s your point?’

‘Buzz. Call me Buzz. It’s the only name I answer to nowadays.’

‘You were telling me about this Carrie woman,’ Lottie prompted.

‘I know what I was telling you. Not senile yet.’

‘I’m sorry. Go ahead.’

‘She slept around. Anyone that’d give her a few bob or a drop of whiskey was welcomed. You know what I mean?’

‘I think I do.’

‘Got herself caught with buns in the oven a fair few times.’ He tapped his nose again. ‘She had more than one pregnancy?’ Where was this going?

‘There was a rumour doing the rounds that young Mick O’Dowd and even a couple of the guards up in the station were regular visitors to her.’

Lottie felt her stomach lurch, then somersault. Shit, this wasn’t what she’d been expecting. ‘Really? Did you hear any names?’

‘No. All part of the hush-hush,’ he said. ‘Here’s the thing. The rumour mill sizzled with the news that Carrie had a child, but there was no sign of it. One day she was pregnant, and the next she wasn’t. Don’t know what went on there, now do I? A few months later, wasn’t your woman going around with another bun in the oven. No contraceptive pill available in them days, was there? Until the women took the train to Belfast protesting about its availability in the North…’

‘Go on,’ Lottie said.

‘The story went that Tessa Ball took the child and reared it as her own. I don’t know if that was fact or fiction. And this is the best bit so far. It must only have been two years later and your woman was pregnant again. Like a rabbit, she was. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so vulgar.’

‘Back up a minute. You think Tessa took a child away from this woman?’

‘Rumour, that’s all. Will I go on?’

‘Yes, do.’ Some memory, for an old man, Lottie thought. Or perhaps he was making it up, now that he had an audience.

‘Twins she had that time. And this is the really interesting thing. The two mites were taken from her and placed with a foster mother, and Carrie was shunted into St Declan’s. About a year, maybe two years later, she was back out. Tessa Ball was involved. Got her released, so the story goes. And Carrie had her twins back.’

‘So what happened then?’

‘Tried to burn the bloody house down, she did. The mad witch.’

‘Jesus. Did the children die?’ Lottie was now convinced this was the same Carrie that Kirby had mentioned.

‘I don’t rightly know what happened to them, though I heard one of them was fostered.’

‘And Carrie, did she die?’

‘No, she didn’t. Sure you can’t kill a bad thing. Great saying that. Back into the asylum she went. Come to think of it now, one of the children was placed there with her until they could find a home for it.’

‘Is there any way I can get verification for any of this? St Declan’s records?’

‘That monstrosity closed down years ago. Run by the Health Board then. What’s that called now?’

‘The Health Services Executive.’

‘Fancy name for the same bloody thing. You should try them.’

‘So you think Tessa Ball was complicit in everything to do with Carrie and her children?’

‘That was the talk at the time. And sure, then all the files were stolen out of the solicitor’s office. Any evidence of her supposed involvement gone.’

‘I must say, Buzz, you have a great memory, to recall all this after so long.’

‘Told you I’m not senile yet. But it’s just with Tessa’s murder the other day, and talking to you now, it all came back to me. Different times now. That carry-on wouldn’t happen today, sure it wouldn’t.’

Lottie thought for a moment. Maybe the murders, though linked to criminal and drug activity, were in fact intrinsically rooted in the past. Had Rose been right with her offhand remark about Tessa’s past come back to haunt her? Tessa was dead; her daughter and granddaughter were dead. Who else was left to be haunted by that past?

She stood up, her legs like jelly. ‘Thank you, Buzz. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll see myself out.’

‘Just me and Joe here now.’ He dragged his old body out of the armchair and put a cassette into the VHS recorder. ‘I go to the day-care centre on Thursdays; other than that, I’m here all the time. Call and visit. I’ll boil the kettle for you next time.’

As Lottie stepped outside and the clouds gave way to another downpour, her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Shit. Moroney.