Controlled Explosions by Claire McGowan Read Free Book Online Page B

looking at him with her mother’s eyes in her face. PJ barely acknowledged Bob sitting down.
    ‘Well, PJ. Anything you need?’
    ‘Aye, a femur that’s not banjaxed.’
    ‘I’m sorry for what happened.’
    ‘What did you do with them? Red Hugh’s weans?’
    ‘The girl’s under age, so it’ll be young offenders for her. At least they caught up to her in time … Paula OK?’
    PJ looked away. ‘She’ll be grand. She’s been through worse.’
    True. Bob paused for a moment. ‘The brother’s remanded in custody. He could be seeing his da in the Maze before too long.’
    ‘What about the – remains?’
    Bob tried to speak gently. ‘It’s their mother, we think. She’d been shot in the head. Been there a few weeks.’
    ‘And he killed her? Her own son?’
    ‘Looks that way. God knows how they’ve kept going, the girl’s only the same age as your Paula. She’s at her school.’
    PJ frowned at the mention of his girl. ‘They always said we should move house. Too dangerous, staying in the one place. I thought it’d be OK. But Paula …’ He tailed off.
    Bob heard the distant sounds of the hospital, beeps and running feet, and if you listened hard enough, crying. Hearts breaking. After the baked heat of outside, there was a chill in here that settled on your skin like mist. Bob wondered how it would be to lie in bed here with that trussed-up wean outside and wait for someone to come and shoot you. He knew exactly why PJ had never moved house, even though RUC officers were supposed to shift about every few years, for security. He was waiting in case she came back. Margaret. Bob could have told him what he knew, but he never would. He’d promised.
    ‘So what’s the craic?’ PJ scratched at his thigh. ‘You’re here with some work for me, I hope. I’m going spare.’
    ‘PJ,’ said Bob, sitting up straight in his plastic chair. The envelope was sweaty in his hand. ‘I’m very sorry. Believe me.’
    Paula lay awake on the camp bed in Saoirse’s room. On either side of her, Saoirse and her younger sister Niamh slept in single beds. Niamh’s side of the room was all boy bands, puppies, posters of the cast of
Friends
. Saoirse’s had pictures of Noah Wyle, and diagrams of the human body she’d drawn on in highlighter pen to help with her exam revision. The house was full of people, all together, all safe, all asleep. Except for Paula.
    She stared up at the ceiling, which the girls had decorated in softly glowing stars. It was hard to sleep on the camp bed, but that wasn’t what kept her awake. She was thinking of her dad, shot in the leg. How she’d nearly lost him too, really lost everything. She was thinking of Catriona, and what the other girl had been living with all this time – her mother dead in the shed, they said, killed by her brother – and now she was going to prison, they said. She was thinking of her own mother and that was dangerous; those were the kinds of thoughts that once you started you couldn’t stop and they’d pull you under sure as a strong current in the sea. She was thinking of Saoirse, sound asleep, and how she’d spent the evening trying to cheer Paula up, putting on stupid videos of
The Little Mermaid
and
Annie
and singing along like they were eight; of Pat, who’d come straight to the hospital when she heard, all tears and hugs; and Aidan … Aidan. How he’d pulled her into him when the van came round the corner and the policemen jumped out in their body armour and helmets, shouting at Catriona to get away, get back. The feel of his arms round her back, shaking. She could still feel his kiss on her mouth, as if he’d stamped it there. And the gun in Catriona’s hand. Nearly every RUC family had been attacked at one time or another, but still. This was her house. This was her family.
    In the dark, her fists were clenched. She was thinking this:
as soon as I can, I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave and I am never going to come back.
    But now there was