I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty Read Free Book Online

checked that window – there was no address card in there. No one would be that much of an eejit.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought too, but I cut it open and I noticed a wee sliver of card scrunched up in the bottom of the window. You couldn’t possibly have seen it unless you cut open the plastic and shone a torch down into the gap.”
    â€œShite.”
    â€œShite is right, mate.”
    â€œIt was an old address card?”
    â€œI got a pair of tweezers, pulled it out, unscrunched it and lo and behold I’ve only gone and got the name and address of the person who owned the suitcase!”
    â€œWho was it?”
    â€œSomebody local. A bloke called Martin McAlpine, Red Hall Cottage, The Mill Bay Road, Ballyharry, Islandmagee. What do you think about that?”
    â€œSo it wasn’t the dead American’s suitcase, then?”
    â€œDoesn’t look like it, does it? It’s like you always say, Sean, the concept of the master criminal is a myth. Most crooks are bloody eejits.”
    â€œYou’re a star, Matty, my lad.”
    â€œAn underappreciated star. What’s our next move, boss?”
    â€œI think, Matty, that you and me will be paying Mr McAlpine a wee visit first thing in the morning.”
    â€œTomorrow? It’s a Saturday.”
    â€œSo?”
    He groaned.
    â€œNothing. Sounds like a plan.”
    â€œSee you at the barracks. Seven sharp.”
    â€œCan’t we go later?”
    â€œCan’t go later, mate. I’m having me portrait done by Lucian Freud and then I’m off to Anfield, playing centre back for Liverpool on account of Alan Hansen’s injury.”
    â€œCome on, Sean, I like to sleep in on a Saturday.”
    â€œNah, mate, we’ll go early, get the drop on him. It’ll be fun.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œAnd well done again, pal. You did good.”
    I hung up the phone. Funny how things turned out. Just like that, very quickly indeed, this potentially tricky investigation was breaking wide open.

4: MACHINE GUN SILHOUETTE
    The alarm was set to
Sports Talk
on Downtown Radio which was a nice non-threatening way to start the day. The conversation this morning was about Northern Ireland’s chances in the 1982 World Cup. The topic, as usual, had gotten round to George Best and whether the thirty-five-year-old had any game left in him. The last I had heard of Best was his notorious stint playing with Hibernian when he was more famous for out-drinking the entire French rugby team and seducing the reigning Misses World and Universe in the same weekend.
    I turned off the radio, made coffee, dressed in a black polo neck sweater, jeans and DM shoes, went outside. I checked under the BMW for any mercury tilt explosives but didn’t find any. Right about now seven thousand RUC men and women were all doing the same thing. One or two of them would find a bomb and after shitting their pants they’d be on the phone to the bomb squad, thanking their lucky stars that they’d kept to their morning routine.
    I stuck on the radio and listened to Brian Eno on the short drive to the barracks. Wasn’t a big fan of Eno but it was either that or the news and I couldn’t listen to the news. Who could, apart from those longing for the end times.
    I thought about Laura. I didn’t know what to do. Was I in love with her? What did
that
feel like? If she went away it would hurt, it would ache. Was that love? How come I was thirty-twoand I didn’t know? Was that bloody normal? “Jesus,” I said to myself. Thirty-two years old and I had the emotional depth of a teenager.
    Maybe it was the situation, maybe Northern Ireland kept you paralysed, infantilised, backward … Aye, blame that.
    I nodded to Ray at the guard house and pulled into the police station.
    As usual Matty was late and before we could get rolling Sergeant Burke told me that Newtownabbey RUC needed urgent assistance dealing with a riot in