Disappeared by Anthony Quinn Read Free Book Online Page A

himself. Bad food, maybe, and some bad people, but the peace process was beginning to undo a lot of the harm of the past forty years.
    The shingle beach gave way to a deep bed of reeds, and he shivered. The murder had been an unusually cruel one, and he feared the investigation might be long and difficult. The killers had taken risks, secure in the knowledge they would not be disturbed on this uninhabited island. Had they lured their victim here or arranged a rendezvous?
    He noticed a track of broken reeds and freshly disturbed mud leading into the reed bed. As he approached, a flock of ducks clattered from their nesting positions. They were swift, elusive creatures, their bodies adapted for the quick getaway.
    In the heart of the reed bed, he came across a bird hide. It was a lot less drafty and more sophisticated than the ones he remembered as a boy. Inside it, he found a pair of binoculars. Bird hides were really human hides, he thought, designed to conceal the idiotic behavior of ornithologists and duck hunters. The binoculars were surprisingly powerful, not the antiquated set he was expecting. Through them, he scanned the shoreline. He didn’t have a pad or a pencil to record the creatures in his sights, but then a spot of bird-watching wasn’t on his to-do list. His gaze rested on a rundown cottage, half hidden in the trees, the back door slightly ajar. Other than the dwelling there appeared to be no signs of human life along the shore.
    Daly blinked. The memory of the dead man’s face was so barbed he could see its outline transposed onto the shadowy trees. He put the binoculars down. He wasn’t even sure what he should be looking for. He might as well have been searching a fairy-tale forest for the traces of an evil monster.
    He stepped out of the hide and followed the path back through the reeds. A bedraggled, bloodstained object caught his eye. He pushed it with his boot, thinking it was a dead bird. But instead it was the first clue that might identify the attackers. He lifted what looked to be a bloody diving glove and dropped it into a forensic bag. Perhaps the wearer had removed it for a better grip. The attack had been meticulously planned and laborious to implement, he realized. He wondered how long it had taken for the victim to die.
    By the time the fisherman returned Daly to the mainland it was late afternoon and lights were beginning to twinkle in the cottages. A cloud of midges greeted them as they stepped ashore. The fisherman told him they weren’t as bad as the summer variety. These ones had only one set of teeth.

6
    A throng of white-suited scene-of-crime officers was pressing through gaps in the blackthorn hedge as Daly drove up the lane to the remote cottage. He exchanged almost invisible nods of recognition with the uniformed men who lined the driveway, and caught a glimpse of Det. Derek Irwin giving a rusted wheelbarrow a bored kick.
    The cottage belonged to Joseph Devine, and Irwin had been marshaling the SOC officers since seven that morning.
    “I thought you’d left us in the lurch,” Irwin greeted Daly. He had not visited the murder scene, so its shadows were absent from his lively features. In fact, a ripe tantrum was about to burst inside him.
    “This is great. I thought you were in a hurry to get started this morning. After your phone call I left without getting a bite of breakfast.”
    In the glare of his petulance, Daly’s profile was a lump of blunt granite. He barely spared Irwin’s outburst the space of an eye blink.
    “No need to panic,” he said. “Devine’s murderers haven’t just slipped out the back door with minutes to spare. No crime in real life is ever that easy.”
    Irwin scowled and brandished his mobile phone, which had started ringing. “Social call,” he declared, tilting his long curly head, and then with the tiredness and irritability vanishing from his voice: “Poppy, hi. Hey, hope I didn’t wake you getting in last night. It took ages to get a