Shane could not walk past Anita Foley’s desk. Something clearly interesting was going on there. She and Gallagher were bent over something square, and it was not paperwork. Shane approached quietly and leaned over Evan’s shoulder.

  Anita noticed him and jumped in her chair.

  "Chief!"

  Gallagher flinched and turned his head.

  "Hey, Chief, did Hollywood finally sign you, and now you’re rehearsing for the role of a ghost?"

  "That’s enough. What’s going on here?"

  Anita slid the tablet toward him.

  "We’re checking the owners of the other houses on Mayola Street, next to our famous number six."

  "Anything clear so far?"

  "The situation is rather interesting," Gallagher said, straightening up, but he did not elaborate and left the explanation to Anita.

  Anita willingly shared the information she had gathered.

  "House number two is registered to a Finnish couple. They come for a month at most. I doubt there’s any point questioning them. Moving on. House number five. The owner is fashion designer Kaela Burke."

  "Hm. Any relation to Burke?"

  "Not funny, Chief. Kaela doesn’t live in the house. And she doesn’t rent it out. Sometimes photo shoots are held there. I called and spoke with her. She knows nothing about the O’Flahertys and has never paid attention to the neighbors. Shall I cross her off?"

  "Yes." Shane shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  "In house number nine lives the Blaze family. They’ve got basketball-playing boys. If they know anything, they’ll tell us when they return. At the moment they’re on holiday in London. Uh… House number eleven is rather amusing. According to Moira Rourke from number seven, who was quite willing to talk to me, house eleven was bought by a wealthy lady named Eileen O’Doherty."

  "O’Doherty? Aren’t those the famous doughnuts? ‘Eat O’Doherty, boost your positivity.’ Hm. Nonsense."

  Anita giggled.

  "The very same. Eileen’s husband runs the pastry business. And she brings her lovers to Coleraine. By the way, one of them later went to the lake to worship some gods. Not confirmed information, and we’re unlikely to get the lover’s name."

  "We need it. Gallagher, why don’t you seduce Mrs. O’Doherty? Find out her lover’s name."

  "I’m the only single one here? At least you don’t have kids."

  "I’m talking about pleasure, and you’re turning your nose up at it."

  Anita cleared her throat to draw their attention.

  "House number ten with the boarded-up windows. Now there’s the treasure trove."

  "Maybe you’d like to sit down?" Evan looked around for a chair.

  "I’ll stand. Go on, Anita. Don’t test my patience."

  "The house is registered under the name Dillan."

  A long pause. Shane looked at Evan as if his belief depended on him.

  "The neighbor, then."

  "Then."

  Gallagher suddenly felt like escaping. He knew Shane would send him back to Dillan’s wife. All day long you run around, and not a minute’s peace. And Evan’s children texted him every second, messages that had to be filtered for junk and answered if important. Life was a constant struggle.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  When Anita began speaking about Faye, Evan seized the moment and disappeared.

  "Faye called, Chief," Anita reported. Shane headed toward his office, and Anita hurried after him.

  "She’s not at the station?"

  "No, sir. She left in the morning. We’ve got serious calls to handle, and instead we’re solving riddles. The nursing home staff dug their heels in like a herd of sheep and refused to give information. The director wasn’t there."

  "I see." He pushed the door open. "Faye got nowhere. We have bodies, we have their names on the list of the living, and we ought to put the article in front of them and name the fine for withholding information."

  Anita sat in the leather chair to the right of the chief inspector’s desk. She wanted to reflect aloud. These thoughts had been circling in her head for a long time, but in meetings no one allowed her to speak. Now she had a good opportunity and used it.

  "Chief, in all my practice I’ve never encountered such a tangled case. The dead are simpler. What’s the use of a living victim if she can’t say anything? And why is she so drawn to that house? Have you thought about it?"

  "She lived on that property for nearly ten years. Logical," Shane replied tiredly.

  "No. She has a particular attachment to the house. Why did she choose the room under the stairs?"

  Shane did not know where Anita was heading, but he was drawn in.

  "Because in the basement she also lived under the stairs. She feels safe there. She barricaded the place so she wouldn’t freeze in winter."

  "You’ve seen the basement. That means you know there are much better places to barricade."

  "I don’t understand. What are you getting at?"

  "Perhaps in Molly’s house the choice was accidental. But in the basement, the choice of the space under the stairs was not."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She lived with the O’Flahertys. And she lived in a room under the stairs. It was as much her home as Molly’s house is."

  "Wait, Anita. We checked all possible documents. O’Flaherty had only a son. Who is this girl, then?"

  "There are many possibilities. But I wouldn’t guess. I’d start with the simplest one."

  Shane liked the constable’s reasoning. He sat up straight and gripped the armrests of his chair.

  "Well?"

  "I would check the archives at Coleraine School. If Angela was eight at the time of her imprisonment, and if we don’t rule out that she lived with the O’Flahertys, then she attended school."

  "We’ll know if a girl under the surname O’Flaherty studied there."

  "If only we knew her first name."

  "It seems you took Angela’s textbooks for examination. Didn’t she write her name in them?"

  "No, Chief," Anita sighed regretfully. "On the covers she calculated something. Judging by the number of strokes, the days of the month. Inside the books she didn’t write, only drew."

  "Did the drawings raise questions?"

  "Shall I bring you the books? You can see for yourself."

  Ten minutes later a staff member brought the books, sealed in special bags. Shane asked for coffee and began leafing through them. He approached the task with particular meticulousness. First he studied the covers. Yes, she had counted the days and sometimes even written the date, which confirmed the theory of a long stay in the basement. 2015, 2016, and she stopped at 2017. After that she simply counted. That meant that until she was ten someone told her the exact date. And if she could ask and receive an answer, then she had not been treated cruelly, Shane reasoned.

  He slowly flipped through each book from cover to cover. She had tried to understand the math problems and solved them in the margins. That was all. She wrote nothing else.

  The drawings did not look strange. Flowers, cats, dogs. Sometimes she copied a picture from the textbook. She did it well. Did she draw as well now?

  He called Molly.

  "Please ask Angela to draw something casually. It doesn’t matter when she does it. Ask her and then pretend you forgot about it."

  The woman gladly promised to help.

  How fortunate that the Daniels had settled in the house. Saintly people. How many in this world are ready not only to take in someone of unknown origin but also to cooperate with the police? The Daniels were an exception.

  The coffee was finished. Shane flipped through the textbook again, aimlessly this time. And suddenly something caught his eye. The inspector turned the pages once more, found the page, and stared at his discovery for a long time.

  "What do you think of this?"

  For Shane’s sake, Orla had to interrupt a session, which left her somewhat irritated.

  "It’s a drawing."

  "Yes. Angela’s drawing. It seems to have been made in her teenage years."

  Orla was at a loss for words. She immediately understood what was depicted. As had Shane half an hour earlier.

  "It’s a lake. A boat," she said slowly. "There’s a person in the boat. And these two in the water. They are… drowning?"

  "You’re the psychologist. I came so you would tell me that."

  Leary felt a strange pressure from Inspector O’Halloran, which only made her more nervous.

  "I assume, Inspector," she continued calmly, "that you know more than I do, because I see ordinary teenage imagination."

  "The O’Flahertys died in that lake. We found their bones, and the examination has already confirmed our suspicions. They drowned in that damned lake. Well, Orla." Shane leaned on the table with his palms and moved forward, forcing the psychologist to lean back. "Say my thought out loud."

  Leary looked at the drawing again.

  "She drew this while sitting in her basement in total darkness… Or…"

  "Yes, go on."

  "It means Angela saw them being killed?"