With cans stacked behind her and the hose strategically near her hand, Lottie resumed the position she had been left in by her abductor. She didn’t have long to wait.

The screech of a bolt being shot back and the door at the top of the staircase opening caused the hairs on her arms to stand to attention. She was in pain, but ready. Shielding her eyes from the light, she made out the silhouette of a slight figure coming down the stairs.

‘Natasha.’

‘Don’t say anything. Just be quiet and you won’t get hurt.’

Lottie laughed. She couldn’t help it.

‘Natasha, how are you involved in this?’

‘I’m bringing you some food, so shut up and eat. You don’t want her coming down. She’s in a bad mood and that’s not good.’ She placed a tray on the ground, four feet from where Lottie sat.

Without a glance at the food, Lottie stood up and gingerly took a step towards the girl. She was dressed in black Converses, jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. Her hair was tied back and she looked younger than her seventeen years.

‘What do you want with me? Why have you brought me here?’ Another step forward. The girl retreated up the stairs.

‘You couldn’t leave us alone! If you’d stayed away, we could’ve left without any fuss. But you had to come around upsetting my mum. Now she says she’s staying until the end. I hate you.’

Before Lottie could utter another word, Natasha had slipped through the door and snapped the bolt shut.

Kneeling down to the tray of toast and tea, Lottie tried to assimilate everything that had happened in the last week. How did Bernie Kelly fit into the equation? At the back of her mind she’d always felt that something was off with Bernie and her daughter. But events had occurred so quickly, she hadn’t explored the possibility of Bernie’s involvement. Now she had to figure it out. Her life depended on it.

If Bernie Kelly was behind the murders of Tessa, Marian and Emma, then Lottie knew exactly what the woman was capable of.

---

She must have fallen asleep after the tea and toast, because she awoke with a jolt. Bernie Kelly was sitting on the bottom step, tapping a long knife against her thigh. The door above her was open, light streaming in.

‘Sleeping Beauty awakes,’ she snarled. ‘Though I don’t see much beauty.’

‘What do you want? Why did you abduct me?’ Lottie scrambled her thoughts and tried to sit up straight.

‘I followed you to Moroney’s house. Saw you leave with that file.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lottie said. ‘Where am I?’

‘In the cellar of what should be my rightful inheritance.’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t read the story in the file, did you?’

‘I had no time to read it. You attacked me.’

‘Yes, me and my sweet girl. Strong, aren’t we?’

‘You’re insane.’

Bernie Kelly laughed. ‘I wasn’t always insane, you know. But when that greedy bitch Tessa Ball had me locked away with my mother in the asylum, I was condemned to a life of madness. If you can’t beat them, join them. You ever hear that saying?’

‘I did, but I think you know exactly what you are doing, Bernie. And this is wrong. I’m a detective inspector. You need to let me go. We can work this out.’

Another laugh, louder, more demonic. The woman stood up, the light behind shrouding her. She looked like the devil rising up from the flames of hell.

Lottie eased back against the arsenal she’d built up. She couldn’t let Bernie see it. It might be her only hope of getting out alive.

‘This is Kitty’s house, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Ah, so you are a detective. How did you figure that out?’

‘It’s either O’Dowd’s or Belfield’s, and I can’t smell cow shite, so…’

‘Your deduction skills are a little primitive. You didn’t figure me out, did you? You or your team. Incompetence.’

‘What did you do with Kitty Belfield?’

‘My grandmother?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Kitty Belfield is your grandmother?’

‘Was is the correct grammar. The old witch.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’ll enlighten you, shall I?’

As long as she kept Bernie talking, Lottie thought she might get a chance to use her makeshift ammunition. Boyd and the team had better have got their act together. But how would they figure it out in time? She would just have to trust them, she told herself.

‘I hope you didn’t harm the old lady,’ she said.

‘Lady? Don’t make me laugh.’ Bernie sniggered. ‘Now see what you made me do!’

‘Tell me your story. I want to know what happened to you.’

‘I’m not sure I want to tell you anything,’ Bernie said, wrinkling her nose. She wandered towards the old washing machine. ‘I’m fascinated by this. It’s so small. Not like the ones I had to work with in the madhouse.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t keep interrupting me!’ The eyes glaring in the half-light were ferocious. Pinpricks in a white face. Daggers of evil. ‘Are you going to be quiet?’ Her whisper was laced with menace.

Lottie nodded, one hand behind her back encircling a can, the other around the hose beneath her legs. She might only have one chance, and she’d have to take it wisely. She watched intently as Bernie heaved herself up on top of one of the cupboards and folded her arms, the knife still in her hand. She didn’t appear to see Lottie as a threat. That would work in her favour.

‘My mother spent most of her young life inside St Declan’s. Money greased hands for that to happen. That’s fine. I can understand that. But I can’t understand why I was also consigned to the asylum. And I’d never have found out the truth about the history of my sordid family if Marian Russell hadn’t decided to burrow a little deeper during her course. Marian. My older sister, or half-sister, depending on who her father was. But I’d never have known she was related to me if she hadn’t started digging with an industrial-sized spade. I know it now. I knew it before I ripped her tongue out of her head. The bitch and her adoptive mother. Tessa, the cow, got rid of all her property so that I could get nothing from her. She thought I’d be happy renting that poxy house. And me in league with one of the biggest drug families in the country.’ She swung her legs like a little girl.

Lottie felt pieces of the puzzle begin to click into place. She struggled against slipping into detective mode, asking questions. Remain silent. Safest option, she concluded.

‘You didn’t figure that out either, did you? Me and Jerome Quinn. We were an item. I coaxed him away from the city, brought him down here. Got him into the cottage. The same one my twin and I were almost burned to death in by our mother. Seemed only right that I succeeded in burning it to the ground.’

‘With two men, including your lover, inside?’ Lottie couldn’t help herself. She tried to bite her tongue, but failed. ‘How did you manage it?’

‘Easy. Once I doctored their weed, they turned into two laughing imbeciles. I stabbed Jerome and knocked out Lorcan as he stood there with his mouth open. I knew he was stealing from us, so I exacted retribution by hacking off his grubby fingers. Don’t know how he didn’t die, but I reckon he’s not far off it.’

‘You are a heartless bitch.’

‘I am what others made me.’

‘What had Emma to do with Lorcan?’

‘Nothing. Great idea to lead you to believe he was Emma’s boyfriend. You fell for that. Like you assumed I was with the two girls the night I killed the old bag, Tessa.’ She paused before continuing. ‘Jerome and Lorcan helped me bring Marian to Lorcan’s. I left her for dead. Then those two fools had a change of heart and dumped her at the hospital. Almost ruined everything. I think they met a suitable fate for their sins.’

‘And Emma. Why did you have to kill her?’ Lottie couldn’t understand anything Bernie had done, especially the murder of Emma. ‘She was no threat to you.’

‘I gave her food and shelter and she repaid me by running off to that old man. Her grandfather! I don’t think she knew who he was. Only that Tessa had once said that if anything bad happened, he was the only person who could help her. So she stole Natasha’s bike and fled.’

‘But Emma was no danger to you.’

‘Are you stupid or what? She knew I wasn’t with her and Natasha at the crucial time that night. I returned as she was leaving to go home. She said nothing because she didn’t think it was important. Not then. But she had time to think about it out on that stinking old farm, because she rang Natasha and said she was going to tell the guards. She believed I might have seen something to help solve the murders. The innocent cow.’

Lottie tried to understand what she was hearing. One thing she knew for certain – Bernie Kelly had no intention of releasing her alive. Otherwise she wouldn’t be relating her murderous story. The woman’s cold-blooded monotone poked at every nerve in her body. She wanted to lash out with the can, smash it into Bernie’s face. But she was too far away. Bide your time, she warned herself.

She said, ‘Mick O’Dowd. Where is he?’

‘Mincemeat, I should think. Before we dragged Emma outside, I went looking for him. Found him working in the cow shed. He tried to come at me with a slash hook, but I accidentally kicked aside one of those slats on the floor. Down he sank into the shithole. Very effective tool, that agitator. I don’t believe you’ll find even a fingernail intact. Slurry whence he came, slurry to where he rests. Is that a line from a poem? If not, it should be.’ More laughter.

Biting down nausea, blocking the image of O’Dowd’s last horrendous moments, Lottie said, ‘He could’ve been your biological father.’

‘What of it? I don’t care. He certainly didn’t care enough to stand up and claim me. No one did. They paid off the asylum manager so that they would take me in with my mother. Me. A child.’ A derisory snort.

‘What became of your twin?’

‘I don’t know. I remember having a foster mother at one stage. But I honestly don’t know and I really don’t care any more, because now I’ve got rid of the witches.’

‘Why did you torture Marian?’

‘She knew too much, with all her genealogy stuff. I tried to be her friend. But she wasn’t anything like I believed a sister should be. Too interested in her herbal remedies. Thought she could grow something to help my depression, as she called it. Then she wanted to go public with what had happened to me as a child – being thrown into the asylum. Said I could make money out of it. The stupid woman.’

Lottie turned this around in her head. Marian had had her tongue cut out because if she went public, Bernie’s association with criminals would be discovered. ‘Your mother, Carrie, was she into herbal remedies also?’

‘How would I know?’

‘There was a book on herbs at O’Dowd’s, and another one at Marian’s house. The name Carrie King was written inside the book I found at the farmhouse.’

She watched Bernie jump off the countertop and walk up and down. ‘Seeds. Herbal stuff. Now I see.’

‘What do you see?’

‘I think it was my mother who started Johnny-Joe growing seeds in the asylum. Tessa brought me the book. I gave it to Marian. A peace offering.’

‘But I found two copies.’

‘Maybe she gave one to O’Dowd too. How the hell would I know? Does it even matter?’

‘In the larger scheme of things, Bernie, no it doesn’t.’

‘They said Carrie was mad, but the real mad one was that Kitty Belfield bitch. She abandoned her daughter so that she could marry a wealthy man. And disowned Carrie over and over again by not acknowledging her children. That is the worst sin of all. Abandonment.’ She paused. Lottie felt the heat of her fiery stare. ‘You said you have children. Are they safe? Do you watch out for them? Care for them? Nurture them? Kitty Belfield didn’t. She felt only shame. She did nothing for her daughter or her grandchildren. She disowned them all.’

‘How do you know so much about the family?’

‘I knew a little through Marian, but I got to read some files here. The first day I called. I must look like Carrie, because it was as if Kitty recognised a ghost from the past. I frightened her so much, she showed them to me. She said they’d supposedly been taken in a burglary. She eventually told me that Stan and Tessa orchestrated it so that no one would ever lay eyes on the files. I can’t understand why they didn’t burn them. Oh shit, I should have asked the old bag that before I suffocated her. I suppose I’ll never know now. But who cares? I don’t.’

Lottie tightened her grip on the can behind her back, gritted her teeth. She couldn’t afford to say the wrong thing, but she probably would. Bide your time, Parker. Once her children had reported her missing, Boyd would find her. He was diligent, and if he studied the land maps, wouldn’t something resonate with him? Maybe. Maybe not.

She kept watch as Bernie continued her silent march up and down the confined cellar. And silently prayed for the knowledge to know when to strike.