Grace Boyd settled into her usual seat on the train. Waiting for Mollie, she glanced out of the window, rubbing at the frost stuck to the glass like the spines of dead animals. Mollie would want to hurry up or she’d be late. The whistle sounded. The guard waved a small green baton and the doors whooshed shut.

Maybe she’d got on a different carriage. But no. Grace had been at the station at 5.50 a.m. She had checked the clock in Boyd’s car before she got out. She looked at her phone screen: 6.01.

Sighing, she tried to relax. Maybe Mollie was avoiding her. Quite possible, she thought. She’d never had any bother making friends; it was keeping them that was the unworkable trick.

She looked over at the adjacent seats. The man was there again, with his designer stubble, but his eyes looked darker, and red-rimmed. Further down the aisle she noticed another man. The reason she supposed she noticed these two was that they were both wide awake. Everyone else was already asleep.

She rocked in rhythm to the sway of the train, wishing her brain could shut off for at least five minutes. But she knew it never shut off. Not even when she was asleep.

Should she ring her brother? Now why on earth would you do that, Grace? He would say she was nuts. Maybe she was. But she didn’t think so. She liked to have silent conversations with herself. They comforted her when no one else would listen.

Grace eyed the man who had sat opposite Mollie yesterday; the man who had caused her to move seats. Maybe she was sick, or had she slept in? Why hadn’t she asked for her phone number?

The train stopped at Enfield and more people crowded onto it. Hadn’t Mollie said she lived alone? What if she’d fallen down the stairs and no one knew? Stop! Grace didn’t even know if there were any stairs in Mollie’s house, so why was she thinking these thoughts?

She took her phone from her bag and kept pressing buttons until her contacts appeared. All two of them. Mark and her mother. If she told Mark, at least she would feel better.

---

Detective Inspector David McMahon was already at the station when Lottie arrived. Leaning against the door to her office, arms folded and a smug expression on his square jaw.

She shuffled out of her jacket as slowly as she could manage and hung it on the coat rack. Who the hell does he think he is? With a sigh, she decided she would be nice to him today. If he kept his mouth shut.

His initial mistake was to speak first.

‘Well, if it isn’t Inspector Clouseau.’ He smirked and swiped his black fringe out of his eyes.

She ignored the comment, and brushed past him. Her immediate superior for the foreseeable future was a grade A shithead.

This wasn’t a good start to their new working relationship. A relationship that had been soured last October when he’d been sent from Dublin to help with her investigation into a suspected drugs and murder gang. He’d tried to take over, but she’d stood her ground and come out on top in the end. That was then. Now? She’d have to work hard at being civil. God, why had she opened that bottle last night when she couldn’t sleep?

‘Must be too early for you,’ he said. ‘I thought you had a sense of humour.’ He straightened his back. ‘I want you in my office with an update on your current caseload. Let’s say five minutes? That should give you time to wake up.’

She watched as he bent his head to leave her office. She had nothing against tall men, but giraffes gave her the shivers.

He turned back. ‘And remember this. Corrigan might put up with your bullshit, but I won’t.’

Collapsing onto her chair, she glared up at the ceiling. What had she done to deserve McMahon? Scrap that. She had done plenty over the years, and now it was time to prepare her army for battle.

‘Boyd!’ she called. Where was everyone this morning? There was no one in the office. Shit. She’d have to face the squatter alone. And keep her mouth shut. First, though, she popped in two paracetamol, hoping they’d dull her headache.

---

‘You didn’t waste much time,’ she said, entering what had been up until yesterday Superintendent Corrigan’s office.

‘What do you mean?’ McMahon looked up with an eyebrow raised in surprise.

‘Getting your feet under the table.’

She swept her hand around. McMahon had moved the desk to sit under the window, and the coat rack was now in the furthest corner of the room. Was there a strategy lurking in his actions? She didn’t know, but it put her on high alert. No matter how long or short his time in Ragmullin turned out to be, he was evidently intent on making his mark. She hoped she could stay out of the way of the arrow he was staking his claim with.

‘Sit, Detective Inspector Parker.’ He indicated the chair in front of his desk.

Much as it galled her, Lottie decided compliance was her best option. She sat down.

‘Now tell me what you’re working on.’ He unbuttoned his suit jacket and folded his arms over a double-breasted waistcoat. A red handkerchief poked out of the breast pocket. Jesus! She suddenly missed Corrigan, with his belly carved into the grain of the desk.

‘Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth Byrne went missing on Monday evening having caught the train home from Dublin, where she worked. We found her body yesterday morning in the cemetery. We have reason to believe she was murdered.’

‘I saw the skimpy report. How did she die?’

‘She had a broken leg and was covered in clay at the bottom of a grave. It appears she was suffocated by the dirt. We believe she was left there to die. I’m waiting for the state pathologist to contact me with a time for the post-mortem.’

‘So you don’t know for sure that she was murdered?’

‘I’m positive she was, sir. Just waiting for confirmation.’

‘She might have fallen into a grave, breaking her leg, and in her efforts to get out, dragged clay down on top of herself. Did you think of that?’

‘Yes, sir. According to Jim McGlynn, the head of the SOCO team, the amount of clay suggests someone covered her with it deliberately.’

‘Hmph. What other investigations do you have on?’

‘David—’

‘Sir! I am your superior.’

‘Don’t I just know it,’ Lottie muttered.

‘What?’

‘Thanks for reminding me. Can I speak for a moment about Elizabeth?’

‘Who?’

Jesus, this was hard work. She’d rather be outside, sourcing leads. She said, ‘The young woman who was murdered. Sir.’

‘No wonder Superintendent Corrigan is ill in hospital. You must have worn the poor man to a shell.’

Lottie thought that Corrigan was anything but a shell, but she let it go. She filled McMahon in on the information she had compiled so far.

‘Elizabeth worked in Dublin. Her mother hadn’t seen her since Sunday lunchtime. The girl caught the six o’clock commuter train each morning. She was at work on Monday and was last seen getting the 17.10 train from Connolly station to Ragmullin. We have a screen grab from Connolly CCTV footage, and two commuters who swear they saw her on the train. But we have no visual of her disembarking at Ragmullin. Then we have a young woman, Bridie McWard, who heard screams from the cemetery at 3.15 on Tuesday morning. Surveillance cameras outside the cemetery gates display the shadow of a car at 3.07 a.m. with similar images twenty-four minutes later. I am treating this as confirmation that the killer drove there with the girl in his car. It is possible she escaped and he followed her. She tripped over something and fell into the open grave, breaking her leg. Her abductor then seized the opportunity to cover her with clay and smother her.’

‘You have it all worked out nice and neat. Only two problems with your scenario.’

‘What might they be?’

‘One, you have no confirmation that she was murdered, and two, that could’ve been an innocent person’s car.’

‘I intend to find out. Sir.’

‘Do that. And report back to me.’

‘I have a team meeting this morning, if you wish to sit in?’

‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? Report to me.’

Lottie bit her tongue, stalling her reply. ‘Anything else? Sir.’

‘What other cases are you working on at the moment?’

‘Kirby and Lynch have been carrying out a surveillance operation on the traveller community. We believe there is an underground movement of bare-knuckle fights.’

‘Fights? Is that all you have to concern yourself with these days?’

‘It can be very nasty. Large amounts of money are wagered. And sometimes it turns into a fight-to-the-death kind of thing.’

‘Has anyone died?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then let them get on with it. I’ve seen this kind of thing in Dublin. It’s all a show of strength.’

Lottie sighed and pulled her sleeves down over her hands, trying desperately to keep herself from fidgeting. God, she needed a Xanax. ‘Do you want me to tell Kirby and Lynch to back off, then?’

The suddenness of his movement caught her by surprise. She sank back into her chair as he stood and marched around the small office, coming to a stop in front of her and perching on the edge of the desk. ‘I want you to do your job,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you getting stuck in my hair.’

You have enough of it anyway, she thought. As if reading her mind, he brushed his fringe out of his eyes. Shit, she hoped she hadn’t spoken aloud.

‘Attend the post-mortem and determine whether you are dealing with a murder. Pull your detectives away from the traveller community and present me with a killer. Today, preferably.’

‘Right so.’ Did he think she was Superwoman or what? ‘One other thing,’ she said. ‘Superintendent Corrigan asked that I look into a cold case.’

‘What cold case?’

‘A young woman called Lynn O’Donnell, disappeared ten years ago this week.’

‘And what has that got to do with anything?’

‘I haven’t had time to read the file yet, but it appears she was last seen on the commuter train from Dublin. Valentine’s Day.’

‘Perhaps she eloped?’

‘I don’t know. She’s never been found. I’ll read the file and maybe have a chat with her family.’

‘I think you’ve enough to be doing without burying your nose in a ten-year-old case.’

‘I’ll check it out anyway.’

‘Find the Byrne girl’s murderer. If she was murdered, that is. And that’s an order.’

‘Yes, sir.’ You bollocks, she added in her head.

‘You can go,’ he said.

Getting up, she edged out past his outstretched legs and left the office without a word. Sometimes it was better to remain silent. Sometimes, but not always.