Page 88 of Irish Fury
“Sorry, nothing. My mind wandered.”
Nice isn’t going to cut it.
Start acting crazy.
You’ve backed us into a corner. It’s the only way.
Make it believable, or we’re gone.
Forever.
Hannah’s eyes flared wide with panic.Make it believable…“Did the girl like the little bird?”
“What?”
“Shame its head came off.”
“Ma’am let’s get back on track. Why were you in Dublin?”
“I fed the cat poison. I thought its final repose had an artistic flair. Did she?”
“Who isshe? Are you speaking about a girl from Dublin?”
“The girl with the nine lives. I hope they’ve run out.”
forty-eight
COLL
“Alright, Ms. Todd—we’ll play,”Detective Scott said, his tone flat and edged with something grim.
The detective sat across from the crazy woman at the scuffed plastic-and-steel table, the kind that made every room feel colder than it already was. Coll’s men had been waiting to detain Todd as soon as she’d stepped off the bus, along with Edinburgh officers in plainclothes, only blocks from her mother’s neighborhood.
Hannah didn’t have a relationship with her mother for obvious reasons, which meant that she wasn’t visiting for social reasons. Money. It had to be.
She watched the two detectives with a strange, unsettling calm, causing the hair on the back of Coll’s neck to stand.
Coll and Thomas were being allowed to sit in the room overlooking the interrogation cell where Hannah Todd was being questioned.
Dr. Portman was being held in a cell nearby, having been arrested after admitting to forging Todd’s release papers.
Thomas had gone with the police when they surprised the doctor at the hospital with a search warrant to look through his computer and personal phone for anything non-private and patient-related.
His phone was the jackpot. Hundreds of videos of Todd and three other patients performing various sexual acts on or with the doctor. The abuse went back years. Over a decade for Todd.
He admitted that Todd had blackmailed him for money and an early release. It was a mess and one that would, unfortunately, have a negative impact on the hospital staff and doctors, even though they most likely weren’t involved and had no idea what Portman had been pulling.
A task force had already seized staff records. If anything untoward had been reported and snuffed out by anyone in administration other than Dr. Portman, it would come to light.
Dependent upon Todd’s answers, she would either be transferred to another high-security hospital or prison.
“You should know, Ms. Todd, that your mother is concerned about your mental health. You never let her know that you’d been released.”
Hannah’s face turned a brilliant, angry red at the mention of her mother. “That cunt can rot in hell. Do you know how many times my dear old mom visited me these many years?”
“How many?” the younger detective asked.
“None. Never. Not fucking once.”
