Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

former victims get the idea of attacking the priests who abused them. It’s a complete turnaround, though. When Father Heaney was first accused of abuse, in 2005, the diocese defended him to the hilt. They went so far as to claim that all of his accusers were fantasists.’
    ‘Well, times have changed, haven’t they?’ said Dr Collins. ‘It’s all abject apologies and breast-beating these days, isn’t it? Mea culpa, mea culpa – the hypocrites.’ She took out her handkerchief again and unfolded it. ‘I don’t really see how this concerns my autopsy.’
    Katie drove around the Kinsale Road roundabout and headed into the city. ‘It might not have any bearing on it at all. I simply wanted you to be aware of it, in case you come across some piece of forensic evidence that doesn’t look like much on the surface of it, but which might explain why the church is so keen to suggest that Father Heaney was a predatory paedophile who got what was coming to him.’
    As Katie turned into the entrance to the University Hospital, Dr Collins finished wiping her nose and looked at her sharply. ‘You suspect that he might have done something much worse, don’t you?’

9
    Sergeant O’Rourke and Detective O’Donovan were waiting for her when she arrived at Anglesea Street. She put down her plastic cup of cappuccino on her desk, hung up her raincoat, and asked, ‘What’s the form, then? Have we found any witnesses yet?’
    ‘Two, so far,’ said Sergeant O’Rourke. ‘One of them’s the Ballyhooly postie. The other’s an auld girl who was taking her dog for a walk.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘The postie had made his delivery to the Grindell farm about 7.20 in the morning when a black van overtook him and nearly forced him into the ditch. He reckons the van was doing at least forty and you saw for yourself how narrow that road is.’
    ‘I don’t suppose he made a note of its number.’
    ‘No, but he says it was a Cork plate right enough. And he did notice one thing about it, there was a white question mark stuck on to one of the back windows.’
    ‘Well... that should make it relatively easy to find. You’ll put out that description, won’t you?’
    ‘Have already, ma’am.’
    ‘What about the other witness? The old woman with the dog?’
    ‘She was crossing the bridge between Bloomfield and Ballyhooly just after seven o’clock, she thinks it was. She says it was misty then, so she couldn’t see too clearly. But she saw a black van parked down by the riverbank, with its back doors wide open, and a fellow dragging something through the water.’
    ‘Did she say what this something was?’
    ‘No, the mist was too thick. But she said it must have been heavy, like, because of the way that he was dragging it. I asked her to guess what it might have been and she said a sack of coal.’
    ‘Could she describe the man at all?’
    ‘Big, she said. Fat, in fact, and round-shouldered. He was wearing a grey raincoat and wellingtons, but what really caught her attention was his hat. She said it was tall and pointed, like a dunce’s cap.’
    ‘That’s odd. Who wears hats like that?’
    ‘Search me. Dunces, I suppose. Most of the time he had his back to her, but when her dog kept on barking he turned around for a split second and she glimpsed his face.’
    ‘So? What did he look like?’
    ‘Like I say, she only caught a glimpse, and she didn’t have the best powers of description. Fat, she said, but she did make a point of saying that he wasn’t ugly. Fat like a cherub, that’s what she said, rather than fat like a pig.’
    ‘Fat like a cherub? Okay... I think I’d like to talk to her myself, to see if she can describe him a little more precisely.’
    ‘I could take you to see her this afternoon, ma’am,’ said Detective O’Donovan. ‘There are still four or five more houses I have to knock at where there was nobody in this morning, so I was going back up to Ballyhooly in any case.’
    ‘Good,’ said Katie. ‘At