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

– that is – this offends your forensic officer sensibilities and you feel compelled to go back to the scene of the shooting and gather shell cases, pieces of jerry can and other assorted evidence?”
    â€œBollocks to that!” Matty said and we took the A2 north again. Unfortunately the petrol bomb had burned the rubber off one of the tyres and we limped back to Carrickfergus RUC to get a replacement Rover.
    This day was destined never to get going. Brennan was in his office now with a nasty look on his once handsome face. I tried to avoid him by sneaking to the incident room while Matty was signing out a new Rover, but the bugger saw and summoned me.
    â€œHello sir, what are you doing in on a Saturday morning?” I said.
    â€œMy duty, Duffy, my duty. What progress have you made on your murder victim?” he muttered, putting his feet up on his desk. He was wearing slippers and some kind of dressing gown and he hadn’t shaved. Had he been secretly here all night? Was there trouble on the home front? Should I offer him my big empty house on Coronation Road? Before even the possibilityof an Oscar & Felix scenario formed in my brain, I reconsidered: he was a Presbyterian and no doubt he’d take my offer as some kind of insult to his pride.
    â€œA couple of promising leads, sir. We have Customs and Immigration getting us a list of names of Americans who entered Northern Ireland in the last year and we’ll cross reference that with any who are the right demographic and have served with the First Infantry Division. I’m optimistic that we should be able to ID our victim pretty soon.”
    â€œGood,” he said with a yawn. “What else?”
    â€œWe found a name in that suitcase our victim was locked up in. Matty found the name, I should say – good police work from him. It was an old address label and we’re going to follow up on that this morning.”
    â€œExcellent.”
    â€œIf you don’t mind me saying, sir, if you’re looking for a place to stay I’ve got a big empty house on Coronation Road,” I blurted out despite myself.
    Brennan looked at his slippers, took his feet off the memo pad and hid them under his desk. He was pissed off that I’d accurately deduced his home situation. He had presence, did Brennan, like a fallen actor once famous for his Old Vic Claudius now doing Harp lager commercials on UTV.
    â€œYou know what you could do for me, Duffy?”
    â€œWhat, sir?”
    â€œYou could build a fucking time machine, go back forty-five seconds and shut the fuck up after I say the word ‘excellent’, okay?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œAnd you look bloody terrible. What’s the matter with you? The flu?”
    â€œNo, sir, Matty and I were out in a Rover and someone threw a petrol bomb. I had to go out and extinguish it.”
    â€œSomeone threw a petrol bomb at ya? Did you write it up?”
    â€œNo, sir, not yet.”
    â€œSee that you do.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œHave you read the papers this morning, Sean?” he said in a less abrasive voice.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œListened to the news?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œYou have to stay abreast of current events, Inspector!”
    â€œYes, sir. Anything interesting happening?”
    â€œGeneral Galtieri has decided that his personal manifesto, like all the very best manifestos, needs to be unleashed on the world in a rainy windswept bog, filled with sheep shit.”
    â€œGeneral who? What?”
    â€œArgentina has invaded the Falkland Islands.”
    â€œThe Falkland Islands?”
    â€œThe Falkland Islands.”
    â€œI’m not really any the wiser, sir.”
    â€œThey’re in the South Atlantic. According to the
Mail
they’ve got ten thousand troops on there by now.”
    â€œShite.”
    â€œYou know what that means for us, don’t you? Thatcher’s going to have to take them back.