Adrian McKinty - The Cold Cold Ground

He was married now, though, to a twenty-two-year-old from the same Free Presbyterian sect and she was already pregnant with twins. Doubtless they were planning to sire an entire clan.

“He? You’re thinking solo? One guy?” I asked him.

He nodded. “If they’re topping an informer it’s going to be a team of hit men from the UVF or UDA, but if it’s some pervert I reckon he’s a loner.”

He was dead right about that.

Double acts were rare in this kind of case.

The three of us talked evidence, ran theories and got nowhere.

We waited for the fingerprint data or ballistics or any good ideas.

Nothing.

“Do either of you know anything about women?” I asked them as I made a fresh pot of tea.

“I’m the expert,” Matty claimed.

Without mentioning Laura’s name I told him how I’d been turfed out this morning.

“You underperformed, mate. Simple as that. They say it’s all about having a good sense of humour and a nice smile and all that bollocks but when push comes to shove it’s all about what you do upstairs. Some of us have it, Sean, some of us don’t. You clearly don’t,” Matty said.

Crabbie rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, Sean, he hasn’t had a girlfriend since he took Veronica Bingly to The Muppet Movie .”

The rioting at Frankie Hughes’s funeral began exactly at twelve and we could see black smoke from hijacked buses five miles across the lough in the centre of Belfast.

“My treat for lunch,” I said and took the lads to the Golden Fortune on High Street. We ate your typical low spice Irish-Chinese chips, noodles and spare ribs. We were the only customers.

I got us a trio of brandies and we milked the lunch hour well past two o’clock.

On the way back to the barracks I sent the boys on and I stopped off at Carrick Library.

There was a preacher outside who tried to give me something as I went in. It was a pamphlet about the imminent “Second Coming”. He was young and had the insolent air of the recently converted. I refused the pamphlet and went straight to see Mrs McCawley. She was wearing a yellow polka-dot dress that I hadn’t seen before. You don’t expect old folks to go swanning around in polka-dot dresses, yellow or otherwise, but somehow Mrs McCawley pulled it off. She’d been a beauty in her day and had run away to America after the war with some GI, only returning after his heart attack in the ‘70s.

I told her she looked nice and then my problem.

“Dewey 780–782,” she said right off the top of her head.

I got the score of La Boheme from 782 but The Grove Dictionary of Music was missing from the reference shelf. I was about to go back to Mrs McCawley and complain but who should I spot reading it in the Quiet Area? None other than Dr Laura Cathcart.

I sat next to her. “Good afternoon,” I said.

She gasped, surprised, and then she smiled. She slid the dictionary entry across to me.

She was looking at the entry on La Boheme . “How did you figure that out?” I asked.

“How did you?”

“I had to ask someone,” I said.

“I had a pretty good idea. At St Brigid’s we did a musical and an opera every year.”

“You were in La Boheme ?”

“No, I auditioned for Mimi and didn’t get it. Still, I recognized it.”

“You should have said something yesterday.”

“I didn’t want to until I was completely sure.”

She bit her lip. She seemed pale and she looked like she’d been crying. I remembered her appointment at the coroner’s office. “Did you go up to Belfast?”

“Nah. They called it off until tomorrow. Nobody could get into town because of the funeral.”

“Makes sense.”

She put her hand on mine. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“About what?”

“You know. Us.” She made a dramatic face and put her hand on her forehead like a silent-movie actress: “What might have been!”

“What still could be.”

She shook her head firmly. “No, definitely not. I just can’t. I went out with Paul for two and a half years. It’s a long time.”

“Of course.”

“He went to London. He wanted me to go with him. I said no.”

“You don’t have to explain,” I said.

She cleared her throat and slipped her hand from mine.

“You can get on with your wee thing if you want,” she said.

“Wee thing! It’s police work, darling, serious police work.”

I read the libretto for La Boheme but there were no more obvious clues. I passed it over to her.

I watched her face while she read.

Her lips were moving. She read the Italian and the English silently to herself. She enjoyed the sound the Italian words made in her mind. I was digging on that when my pager started beeping.

“Excuse me,” I said.

I asked Mrs McCawley if I could use her phone.

I dialled the station.

It was McCrabban.

“Another one,” he said.

“Jesus! Another body?”

“Aye. Sounds like it’s our boy from the mystery hand.”

“You’re joking. Where?”

“Boneybefore.”

“Where’s that?”

“Out near Eden Village.”

“Assemble the gear, sign out a Land Rover.”

“And there’s been another press call for you. This time from the Carrick Advertiser , they were asking about the body in the Barn Field.”

“Bollocks. What did you tell them?” I said.

“Nothing. But they’ll keep calling until you give them something,” Crabbie muttered.

“Tell him something like: an anonymous tip led Carrickfergus RUC to a body in an abandoned car on Taylor’s Avenue. A homicide is suspected and leads are being pursued by Carrickfergus CID. The victim was a white male in his early thirties, as yet unidentified. Police officers kindly request the public to phone in tips or information about this incident to the Confidential Telephone or Carrickfergus CID. Sound ok?”

“Aye.”

I hung up the phone and went back to the Reading Area.

She saw my face. No poker player me.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I have to go. The other shoe dropped.”

Her eyes widened. “The second victim?” she asked.

I nodded.

She got to her feet. “Walk you out?” she asked.

“I’ve no objection to that.”

Outside the library the preacher was gone and over Belfast there was a pall of heavy black smoke that looked like an evil genie emerging from a lamp.

“Listen, I’m at a bit of a loose end today. I’ll walk you out the Quarter too, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.”

We walked past a funeral home, half a dozen houses for sale and a boarded-up ice cream shop. I thought she was going to talk but she had nothing to say.

I offered some remarks about the weather and such but she wasn’t biting on those either.

“Hey, you said you were at a loose end. You wanna come? We could do with your expertise,” I suggested and that was the hook she was looking for.

“To the murder scene?” she asked. “Am I allowed?”

“Of course you’re allowed. I’m the big Gorgonzola in these parts. Although fair warning, it might be on the grim side.”

“You don’t know grim, pal, trust me … Still, I’m not really dressed for it,” she said.

She was wearing a wool coat, slacks, heels, and a white blouse.

“Go home, get changed.”

“All right,” she said, perking up. “It’ll take my mind off things. Meet me at the flat in fifteen minutes?”

“Ok.”

She turned and walked briskly in the other direction.

It’s all on/off off/on with that lass, I thought.

I went inside the barracks. Matty had the Land Rover out of its parking spot and Crabbie was standing next to it raring to go.