John Brennan - Dead And Buried

You can bury a body, but you can’t bury the past.

Sometimes, doing the right thing can change your life forever. When vet Conor Maguire agreed to dispose of a corpse for his wife’s desperate brother, Patrick, he prayed that would be the end of the matter. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Now Conor is returning to Belfast after five years self-imposed exile. He wants to rebuild his shattered life with the family he left behind, but the past won’t leave him alone. Patrick has risen through the ranks of gangland criminality, and wants Conor’s help once more. This time he isn’t asking nicely.

Dead and Buried

John Brennan

Copyright Copyright Author Bio 1992 Present Day 1993 Present Day 1994 Present Day 1995 Present Day 1996 Present Day 1997 Present Day 1998 Present Day 1999 Present Day 2002 Present Day 2002 Present Day 2004 Present Day One Year Later Extract Endpages About the Publisher

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © John Brennan 2015

John Brennan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474030762

Version date: 2018-09-20

JOHN BRENNAN

was born in Edinburgh in 1974, and relocated to London to work in advertising in 2001. He is married with three children.

Contents

Cover

Blurb You can bury a body, but you can’t bury the past. Sometimes, doing the right thing can change your life forever. When vet Conor Maguire agreed to dispose of a corpse for his wife’s desperate brother, Patrick, he prayed that would be the end of the matter. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Now Conor is returning to Belfast after five years self-imposed exile. He wants to rebuild his shattered life with the family he left behind, but the past won’t leave him alone. Patrick has risen through the ranks of gangland criminality, and wants Conor’s help once more. This time he isn’t asking nicely.

Title Page Dead and Buried John Brennan

Copyright Copyright Copyright Author Bio 1992 Present Day 1993 Present Day 1994 Present Day 1995 Present Day 1996 Present Day 1997 Present Day 1998 Present Day 1999 Present Day 2002 Present Day 2002 Present Day 2004 Present Day One Year Later Extract Endpages About the Publisher HQ An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015 Copyright © John Brennan 2015 John Brennan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474030762 Version date: 2018-09-20

Author Bio JOHN BRENNAN was born in Edinburgh in 1974, and relocated to London to work in advertising in 2001. He is married with three children.

1992

Present Day

1993

Present Day

1994

Present Day

1995

Present Day

1996

Present Day

1997

Present Day

1998

Present Day

1999

Present Day

2002

Present Day

2002

Present Day

2004

Present Day

One Year Later

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

1992

WHAT had woken him? A voice?

No – there was no voice – only the strident double-tone of the phone, and then, from under the covers, Christine sleepily asking, ‘What time is it?’

The bedside clock told 3.12.

As Conor reached for the receiver, the cold air of the bedroom raised goose flesh on his arms and chest.

A thoroughbred with a torsioned colon up at the McGill stables. A sheep hit by a lorry out on one of the high roads. A cow that can’t calve in some godforsaken byre down Ballycullen way. That’d be it. Conor turned over the possibilities in his head: breech birth, prolapsed uterus, dead calf…

‘Conor – fucking hell.’

This wasn’t any Ballycullen farmer. He half-recognised the voice through the layers of panic. ‘Patrick?’

‘Fuckin’ hell, Conor, man – you have to help me.’

Patrick Cameron – Christine’s little brother. Conor swallowed; kept his voice level.

‘What’s up?’

‘I’ve done something…something stupid.’ On ‘stupid’ Patrick’s voice broke into a strangled sob. Pissed again, Conor supposed. Patrick liked a drink, no question. Hadn’t he done for the best part of a bottle of Bushmill’s at Conor and Christine’s wedding in the summer and made a twat of himself on the dance floor?

How many have you had? Conor wanted to ask. But with Christine listening he couldn’t ask that. So instead: ‘What’s the problem?’

‘I think I’ve killed somebody.’

Jesus. Conor thought his heart had stopped. He cleared his throat.

‘Say again?’ he managed. Calm, professional, just another late-night call-out…

But Patrick only sobbed into the phone. Then he said, ‘Come out, Con. I’m outside. Come outside.’

It was a freezing night, black and cold and hard as iron.

Conor, closing the front door quietly behind him, made out Patrick jogging back from the callbox at the end of the road. Right down the middle of the empty street, between parked cars, his feet a soft crunch and skidding in the frost. As he passed under the streetlamps, he saw the bloodstains. On his tracksuit bottoms, on his face and hands. He was only a rag of a lad, Paddy Cameron. Twenty-two years of age but could’ve passed for eighteen. A scallywag, to hear Christine tell it – a sharp-edged little scanger, to hear anyone else.

He approached slowly, hands shoved deep in his pockets like he was searching for a lost bit of change. ‘What’d you tell Chris?’ he whispered.