‘Thirteen,’ said Detective Inspector Lottie Parker.

‘Twelve,’ said Detective Sergeant Mark Boyd.

‘No, there are thirteen. See the bottle of vodka behind the Jack Daniel’s? It’s in the wrong place.’

She counted things. A fetish, Boyd called it. Boredom, Lottie called it. But she knew it was a throwback to her childhood. Unable to cope with a trauma in her early life, she had resorted to counting as a distraction from things and situations she couldn’t understand. Though now, it had just become a habit.

‘You need glasses,’ said Boyd.

‘Thirty-four,’ said Lottie. ‘Bottom shelf.’

‘I give up,’ said Boyd.

‘Loser,’ she laughed.

They were sitting at the counter in Danny’s Bar among the small lunchtime crowd. She felt little warmth as the coal fire roared up the wide chimney behind them, taking most of the heat with it. The chef stood at the carvery stirring a thick skin off the top of the gravy in a tray beside his Special of the Day – wizened roast beef. Lottie had ordered chicken in ciabatta. Boyd had copied her. A slight Italian girl lounged with her back to them, watching bread brown in a small toaster.

‘They must be plucking the chickens the time these sandwiches are taking,’ said Boyd.

‘You’re putting me off my food,’ said Lottie

‘If you had any food to be put off,’ said Boyd.

Forgotten Christmas decorations twinkled along the top of the bar. A poster, Sellotaped to the wall, advertised the weekend’s band, Aftermath. Lottie had heard her sixteen-year-old daughter, Chloe, mention them. A large ornate mirror proclaimed in white chalk last night’s special deal – three shots for ten euro.

‘I’d give ten euro for just one, this minute,’ said Lottie.

Before Boyd could respond, Lottie’s phone vibrated on the counter. Superintendent Corrigan’s name flashed on the incoming call.

‘Trouble,’ Lottie said.

The little Italian girl turned round with chicken ciabattas.

Lottie and Boyd were already gone.

‘Who could want this woman dead?’ Superintendent Myles Corrigan asked the detectives standing outside the cathedral.

Obviously someone did, Lottie thought, though she knew well enough not to utter this observation aloud. She was tired. Perpetually tired. She hated the cold weather. It made her lethargic. She needed a holiday. Impossible. She was broke. God, but she hated Christmas, and hated the gloomy aftermath even more.

She and Boyd, still hungry, had rushed to the crime scene at Ragmullin’s magnificent 1930s cathedral. Superintendent Corrigan briefed them on the icy steps. The station had received a call – a body had been discovered in the cathedral. He immediately swept into action-man mode organising the crime scene cordons. If it proved to be a murder, Lottie knew she was going to have trouble extricating him from the case. As detective inspector for the town of Ragmullin, she should be in charge, not Corrigan. For now, though, she needed to put station politics aside and see what they were dealing with on the ground.

Her superintendent spouted instructions. She scrunched her shoulder-length hair into the hood of her jacket and zipped it up without enthusiasm. She eyed Mark Boyd over Corrigan’s shoulder, caught him smirking and ignored him. She hoped it wasn’t a murder. Probably a homeless person with hypothermia. It had been so cold recently she didn’t doubt for a minute that some unfortunate had succumbed to the elements. She had noticed the cardboard boxes and rolled-up sleeping bags hugging the corners of shop door nooks.

Corrigan finished speaking, a sign for them to get to work.

Having navigated her way through the gardaí activity at the front door, Lottie strode through the secondary cordon set up in the centre aisle. She ducked under the tape and approached the body. A gaseous smell came from the tweed-coated woman wedged between the front row kneeler and the seat. She noticed an earphone cable round the neck and a mini lake of liquid pooled on the floor.

Lottie felt the urge to put a blanket over the body. For Christ’s sake, this is a woman, she wanted to shout, not an object. Who is she? Why was she here? Who would miss her? She resisted leaning over and closing the staring eyes. Not her job.

Standing in the chilly cathedral, now bathed in bright lights, she ignored Corrigan and made the necessary calls to get the experts on site immediately. She secured the inner area for the Scene of Crime Officers.

‘State pathologist’s on her way,’ said Corrigan. ‘Should only take her thirty minutes or so, depending on the roads. We’ll see how she calls it.’

Lottie glanced over at him. He was relishing the prospect of getting stuck into a murder case. She imagined his brain conjuring up a speech for the inevitable press conference. But this was her investigation, he shouldn’t even be part of her crime scene.

Behind the altar rails, Garda Gillian O’Donoghue stood beside a priest who had his arm around the shoulders of a visibly shaking woman. Lottie made her way through the brass gates and approached them.

‘Good afternoon. I’m Detective Inspector Lottie Parker. I need to ask you a few questions.’

The woman whimpered.

‘Do you have to do it now?’ the priest asked.

Lottie thought he might be slightly younger than her. She’d be forty-four next June and she would put him in his late thirties. He looked every inch a priest in his black trousers and his woolly sweater over a shirt with a stiff white collar.

‘I won’t take long,’ she said. ‘This is the best time for me to ask the questions, when things are fresh in your minds.’

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘But we’ve had a terrible shock, so I’m not sure you’ll learn anything worthwhile.’

He stood up, extending his hand. ‘Father Joe Burke. And this is Mrs Gavin who cleans the cathedral.’

The firmness of his handshake surprised her. She felt the warmth of his hand in her own. He was tall. She added that to her initial appraisal. His eyes, a deep blue, sparkled with the reflection of the burning candles.

‘Mrs Gavin found the body,’ he said.

Lottie flipped open the notebook she’d extracted from the inside of her jacket. She usually used her phone but in this holy place it didn’t seem appropriate to whip it out. The cleaner looked up and began to wail.

‘Shush, shush.’ Father Burke comforted her as if she was a child. He sat down and gently rubbed Mrs Gavin’s shoulder. ‘This nice detective only wants you to explain what happened.’

Nice? Lottie thought. That’s one word she’d never use to describe herself. She eased into the seat in front of the pair and twisted round as much as her padded jacket allowed. Her jeans were eating into her waist. Jesus, she thought, I’ll have to cut out the junk food.

When the cleaner looked up, Lottie surmised that she was aged about sixty. Her face was white with shock, enhancing every line and crevice.

‘Mrs Gavin, can you recount everything from the moment you entered the cathedral today, please?’

Simple enough question, thought Lottie. Not for Mrs Gavin, who greeted the request with a cry.

Lottie noticed Father Burke’s look of sympathy, which seemed to say – I pity you trying to get anything out of Mrs Gavin today. But as if to prove them both wrong the distraught woman began to speak, her voice low and quivering.

‘I came on duty at twelve to clean up after ten o’clock Mass. Normally I start at the side,’ she said, pointing to her right, ‘but I thought I saw a coat on the floor at the front of the middle aisle. So, I say to myself, I better get cracking over there first. That’s when I knew it wasn’t just a coat. Oh Holy Mother of God . . .’

She blessed herself three times and attempted to stem her tears with a crumpled tissue. The Holy Mother of God wasn’t going to help any of them now, thought Lottie.

‘Did you touch the body?’

‘God no. No!’ said Mrs Gavin. ‘Her eyes were open and that . . . that thing around her neck. I’ve seen corpses before but I never seen one like that. By Jesus, sorry Father, I knew it was a dead person.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I screamed. Dropped my mop and bucket and ran for the sacristy. Collided head first with Father Burke here.’

‘I heard the scream and rushed out to see what was going on,’ he said.

‘Did either of you see anyone else around?’

‘Not a soul,’ said Father Burke.

Fresh tears escaped down Mrs Gavin’s cheeks.

‘I can see you’re very upset,’ Lottie said. ‘Garda O’Donoghue will take your details and arrange for you to get home. We’ll be in touch with you later. Try to get some rest.’

‘I’ll look after her, Inspector,’ Father Burke said.

‘I need to talk to you now.’

‘I live in the priest’s house behind the cathedral. You can get me there any time.’

The cleaner leaned her head into his shoulder.

‘I ought to go with Mrs Gavin,’ he said.

‘Fine,’ Lottie relented, seeing the distraught woman ageing by the second. ‘I’ll be in touch later.’

Father Burke nodded and, supporting Mrs Gavin by the arm, he led her across the marbled floor toward a door behind the altar. O’Donoghue followed them out.

A gust of cold air breezed into the cathedral as the Scene of Crime Officers arrived. Superintendent Corrigan rushed to greet them. Jim McGlynn, head of the SOCO team, offered him a precursory handshake, ignored small talk and immediately began directing his people.

Lottie watched them working for a few minutes, then walked around the pew, as close to the body as McGlynn would allow.

‘Appears to be a middle-aged woman. Wrapped up well for the weather,’ Lottie said to Boyd, who was standing at her shoulder like a persistent mole. She moved back toward the altar rails, partly to view from a good vantage point, mainly to put distance between her and Boyd.

‘Hypothermia’s not an issue here so,’ he said, stating the obvious to no one in particular.

Lottie shivered as the serenity of the cathedral was decimated by the heightened activity. She continued observing the work of the technical team.

‘This cathedral is our worst nightmare,’ said Jim McGlynn. ‘God himself knows how many people frequent here every day, each leaving a piece of themselves behind.’

‘The killer picked his location well,’ Superintendent Corrigan said. No one answered him.

The sound of high heels clipping up the main aisle caused Lottie to look up. The small woman rushing toward them was dwarfed in a black Puffa jacket. She jangled car keys in her hand and then, as if remembering where she was, dropped them into the black leather handbag on her arm. She shook hands with the superintendent as he introduced himself.

‘State pathologist, Jane Dore.’ Her tone was sharp and professional.

‘You’re acquainted with Detective Inspector Lottie Parker?’ Corrigan said.

‘Yes. I’ll be as quick as I can.’ The pathologist directed her words to Lottie. ‘I’m anxious to get the autopsy underway. As soon as I can declare this one way or the other, the sooner you can officially spring into action.’

Lottie was impressed with the way the woman handled Corrigan, putting him in his place before he could start a sermon. Jane Dore was no more than five foot two, and looked tiny beside Lottie, who stood without heels at five eight. Today Lottie wore a pair of comfortable Uggs, jeans tucked untidily inside them.

After donning gloves, a white Teflon boiler suit and covering her shoes, the pathologist proceeded to carry out the preliminary examination of the body. She worked her fingers under the woman’s neck, examining the cable embedded in her throat, lifting her head and concentrating the examination on the eyes, mouth and head. The SOCOs turned the body on to its side and a stench rose in the air. Lottie realised the pool congealed on the floor was urine and excrement. The victim had soiled herself in the last seconds of her life.

‘Any idea on time of death?’ Lottie asked.

‘My initial observation would indicate she died within the last two hours. Once I complete the autopsy, I’ll confirm that.’ Jane Dore peeled the latex gloves from her petite hands. ‘Jim, when you finish up, the body can be removed to Tullamore mortuary.’

Not for the first time Lottie wished the Health Services Executive hadn’t relocated the mortuary services to Tullamore Hospital, half an hour’s drive away. Another nail in Ragmullin’s coffin.

‘As soon as you can declare the cause of death, please inform me immediately,’ Corrigan said.

Lottie tried not to roll her eyes. It was obvious to everyone that the victim had been strangled. The pathologist only had to officially class the death as murder. There was no way this woman had accidently or otherwise strangled herself.

Jane Dore dumped her Teflon garments into a paper bag and, as promptly as she had arrived, she left the scene, the echo of her high heels reverberating in her wake.

‘I’m heading back to the office,’ Corrigan said. ‘Inspector Parker, get your incident team set up immediately.’ He marched down the marble floor behind the departing pathologist.

The SOCO team spent another hour around the victim before expanding their area of operation outwards. The corpse was placed into a body bag, zipped up and lifted on to a waiting gurney, with as much dignity as could be attached to a large rubber bag. The wooden door creaked as they exited. The ambulance blasted out its sirens, unnecessarily, as its patient was dead and in no hurry to go anywhere.