The morning had lapsed back into its familiar greyness. Rain was spitting against the windscreen as Lottie drove along the motorway, chasing the clouds.

The Dead House seemed colder than usual, which Lottie thought heightened its odour, and she couldn’t help the feeling of unease scratching behind her eyes. Two bodies were laid out on the autopsy tables. Covered. Good, she thought, glad she hadn’t to look at the terrified, dead eyes of young Emma.

‘Come into my office. I need to speak to you in private,’ Jane said. There was no one else around and she hadn’t yet robed up. Why the delay? Lottie wondered.

She ushered Lottie into the cramped office. Lottie pulled off her jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. Jane sat down facing her, clutching her hands together like they might escape their wrists if she let go. Her face, usually like a fine porcelain teacup, now looked like a cracked ceramic mug.

‘Coffee?’ she offered.

Lottie shook her head. ‘I’m grand, thanks. You look awful. Has something happened?’

‘There was a break-in here,’ Jane said, her voice just above a whisper. ‘Last night.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Lottie said, thinking of all the evidence that could potentially be interfered with. ‘Tell me.’

‘The alarm was disabled and all the CCTV cameras were either smashed or covered. I was first in at seven thirty this morning…’

‘Was anything taken? Evidence damaged or tampered with?’

‘No evidence or bodies were interfered with that we could determine. But it might throw a shadow over chain of custody and verification of samples. No equipment was damaged, except for the CCTV, of course. I called Tullamore gardaí and they were excellent.’

‘All logged and reported?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why the break-in?’

Jane hauled a large leather bag from beneath her desk. With trembling hands she extracted a bulky green folder. ‘I brought this home with me last night. What if they were after it?’

Lottie frowned. ‘What is it?’

‘Your father’s post-mortem file and relevant inquest documents.’

Lottie felt her mouth hanging open. She blinked and leaned forward, grabbed Jane’s hand. ‘You got it? After all this time? Why do you think someone was after it?’

Shoving the file across the desk, Jane said, ‘I made a copy. I wanted to replace it without anyone knowing I had it. Of course it must have flagged on a computer system somewhere.’

‘So this is a copy?’

‘No, this is the original. I made the copy yesterday but I hadn’t time to return the original, so I took it home with me to have a read-through. And maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I thought it was safer with me.’ She buckled up her bag and laid her hands on top of it. ‘The copy was here, on my desk. It’s the only thing missing.’

‘Oh God. I’m so sorry about all this.’

‘It’s not your fault. I went through the correct channels to get the file. I had no reason to suspect it might send a red flag to someone. But Lottie, this may mean you were right to suspect that your father’s death wasn’t all it seemed.’

‘I know. And I apologise for putting you in an awkward position. Did you tell the investigating guards?’

‘I don’t know why, but I said nothing. Anyway, I still had the original.’

Lottie put a protective hand on top of the file. At last she might get some answers. Or had she opened a Pandora’s box? ‘You said you read it last night.’

‘I did.’

‘Anything strike you as odd about his death?’

‘I think your father did kill himself.’

Lottie slumped back in the chair. Unwanted tears stabbed the corners of her eyes. She brushed them away angrily.

Jane continued. ‘But I think he may have done it under duress. I studied the PM photographs and found evidence of excess pressure on his thorax. There were strange indents across his chest too. I think he may have been tied to a chair. I believe someone forced him to pull that trigger. Then they untied the ropes.’

Lottie sucked in her bottom lip, desperately trying not to cry. She had been right all along. All these years, struggling with the idea that her father hadn’t loved her enough to want to live.

‘Thanks, Jane,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you so much.’

She felt the pressure of Jane’s hand on hers.

‘Lottie, you need to drop it now. Don’t keep after it. You won’t find answers. It will destroy you.’

‘But don’t you see? My father was murdered. I have to find out why, and then I have to bring the perpetrator to justice.’ She wondered once again why Tessa Ball had had in her possession the gun that had killed her father.

‘Whoever it was, they’re probably dead by now,’ the pathologist said.

‘Someone knows, Jane. Someone, somewhere knows. Why else were they prepared to steal that file?’