They showed their IDs to the guard outside the hospital ward and signed in.

Lottie had been up close with a victim of burns before, but was not prepared for the scene before her.

‘Oh shit, Boyd, he looks bad.’

‘Understatement of the century.’

‘This amount of tubing and machinery could operate a small factory for a year, let alone keep one man alive.’

A groan from the bed and she jumped. Moving closer, she dragged a chair behind her, but decided she was better off standing. Boyd sat down and took out his notebook.

‘Lorcan, I’m Detective Inspector Lottie Parker. This is my colleague Detective Sergeant Boyd. We want to ask you a few questions.’

‘His vocal cords are damaged,’ said a nurse, entering the room with a bag of fluid. ‘You’ll have to lean in close if you want to hear him. Though I doubt you’ll make out anything he says. Your last man left in a fluster. He couldn’t understand a word. Though I didn’t tell him what I’m telling you.’

‘Thank you,’ Lottie said.

The nurse said, ‘Ring the bell when you’re done and I’ll come back.’

When they were alone, Lottie did as the nurse had said and crouched down beside the bandaged Brady.

‘Lorcan, I’d like to know who was behind the killing of Tessa Ball and the torture of Marian Russell.’

Brady groaned; a gurgle emanated from his throat and a wheeze escaped his melted lips.

‘Did you catch that, Boyd?’ Lottie glanced round. She certainly had no idea what the injured man had said.

‘No.’

‘I know you were only involved in minor drug dealing, Lorcan.’ She automatically crossed her fingers at the lie. ‘That doesn’t concern me. I think you’re too nice a lad to be up for murder, so can you tell me anything at all that will help me find who is behind all this?’

The swollen eyelids flickered without opening. His blistered lips stretched slightly. God, she thought, he’d be better off dead. Then she noticed his hand, cannula protruding from bandages, twitching. The hand with just a thumb and index finger remaining.

‘This is useless,’ she said, turning back to Boyd.

In an instant, she froze as her own hand was gripped by the two-fingered man.

‘You scared me half to death there, Lorcan,’ she said. Realising he wanted her to come closer, she crouched down at the side of the bed, her ear to what was left of his mouth. ‘Who was behind the murders, Lorcan?’

His voice was cracked from fire damage, but she could make out a word.

‘Wuinnie.’

‘Quinnie?’ She looked back at Boyd. ‘I think he means Jerome Quinn.’ She leaned closer to the injured man. ‘Who did this to you?’

‘Wuinnie.’

Her hand was released from the thumb and finger and the machines began to emit high-pitched beeps. Lottie indicated to Boyd that it was time to leave.

‘We won’t get anything out of him. Not today, at any rate.’

The nurse breezed into the room. ‘Time you two left.’ She busied herself, flicking switches on the machine until the room was restored to the relative calm of a monotonous hum.

Lottie waited until Boyd had pocketed his notebook, then followed him out.

‘He can’t mean Jerome Quinn,’ Boyd said when they were at the elevator. ‘He was stabbed; burned to death. It has to be the half-brother, Hammer Quinn.’

Deep in thought, Lottie stepped inside when the door slid open.

‘Brady is so badly injured, he could’ve been saying something completely different.’

The door shut and the elevator descended.

‘We’ll see what McMahon has to say.’

---

Lottie figured McMahon was a man used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it. He was seated in his office, her office, on a new leather chair, behind a desk with a laptop.

‘I went to see Lorcan Brady,’ she said.

He eyed her from under his black fringe.

‘I thought I told you I’d be speaking to Lorcan Brady,’ he said.

‘How did you get on?’ She stood in the doorway.

He shuffled in his seat, the leather squeaking under him. ‘Couldn’t get a word out of him.’

‘Do you think Jerome Quinn’s half-brother Hammer has anything to do with it?’ she ventured.

‘He has everything to do with it.’

‘But why now? Why wait until this very week to go for him? He must’ve known where he was all along.’

‘Did you stop to think that Marian might have talked before they ripped her tongue out?’

Lottie felt her stomach shrivel at the thought of what the woman had suffered. And they had found her tongue in black refuse sacks, thrown out like a piece of rotting detritus.

‘Where is all the money? We only found nine hundred and fifty euros,’ she said. ‘And I have doubts that it is drug money.’

‘Offshore accounts, probably. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Lottie said. ‘And I’d like to know what business you had calling to the Kellys this morning?’

‘I would’ve thought that was obvious.’

Lottie balled her hands into fists. Why did bastards in authority succeed in making her feel inadequate? She straightened her spine, tried to look important. ‘I know they were neighbours, but—’

‘They were the only neighbours on that road,’ he interrupted. ‘So they were the obvious people from whom to get information.’

‘And did you?’ From whom! Where the hell did he go to school?

‘What?’

‘Get information?’ Jesus, he was a first-class bollocks.

‘I need to confirm a few details.’

‘Look here, DI McMahon. I’m SIO and I’m entitled to know what you know.’

‘On the contrary, I think it works the other way round. So unless you have anything useful to tell me, let me get on with my work and I suggest you do likewise.’

‘I’ll see what Lynch found out about the data on Marian’s hard drive.’

‘No need,’ he said. ‘I’ve looked through it myself. Nothing of interest. Don’t waste your time.’

‘It’s my job, whether you like it or not.’

‘I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but you’re out of line, Inspector. Be careful whose toes you step on.’

She would have slammed the door on him if there had actually been one there to slam.