Someone You Know by Brian McGilloway Read Free Book Online

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Chapter Nine
    T ara was waiting for her in the corridor outside the room when Lucy came out.
    â€˜Schmoozing with the boss?’ she asked, a little petulantly.
    â€˜He’s not
my
boss,’ Lucy commented. ‘I wanted to check up on something.’
    Tara waved away the explanation. ‘Sorry. It’s bloody Mickey Sinclair. He’s the blue-eyed boy since he got DS. He gets to run down leads in the school, and I’m struck tracing thieved metal. This whole bloody unit is all politics. You’re lucky you ended up in PPU.’
    Lucy grunted by way of offering sympathies for Tara’s complaint. ‘If you do find anything, I’d be interested in knowing,’ she said. ‘About the stolen metal.’
    Tara frowned. ‘Why?’
    â€˜Someone stole the metal railings off the grave of a friend.’
    â€˜Scumbags. I’ll let you know what I hear. We’ve targeted a scrap merchant called Finn out in Ballyarnet. Apparently he’d been shipping metal with Smart dye on it from electric cabling. Whoever’s stealing is selling through him. He’s going to let us know when they bring the next load down to him to sell.’ She considered a moment, then added, ‘He’s a fence.’
    Lucy smiled at the joke. ‘So you don’t like Burns then?’
    â€˜He’s OK. Hard to impress. Mind you, do you know why he got where he got?’ she added, warming to her gossip.
    Being based in the centre of town, Tara seemed to glean all the station gossip. Lucy, on the other hand, sharing a unit with Tom Fleming out at Maydown, heard nothing.
    â€˜Why?
    â€˜The ACC!’
    â€˜What?’
    Tara nodded, smiling. ‘Apparently. The two of them were spotted out having dinner in Eglinton.’
    â€˜Said who?’
    â€˜The community team was doing a drink-driving campaign, going around the local pubs. I know one of the fellas who spotted them.’
    Lucy smiled, trying to remember the name of the man she’d met the one time she’d visited her mother’s house. Peter? Paul? She’d obviously moved on.
    â€˜At least that explains his meteoric rise to the top,’ Tara said. ‘Eh?’
    â€˜Mmm,’ Lucy agreed. Not for the first time, she felt awkward with Tara. By rights she should have told her about the ACC being her mother. But each time they discussed her, it was generally Tara being critical. To admit to the relationship would just make things awkward. Lucy knew though that whatever time the information became common knowledge, Tara’s seeming proximity to the grapevine would result in her being one of the first to know. How that would change their friendship remained to be seen.
    â€˜That’s not all they saw,’ Tara went on. ‘Your man was spotted too.’
    â€˜
My
man?’
    â€˜Tom Fleming. He’s back on the sauce. Not that I blame him, mind you, the shit you have to deal with. Being an alco seems to be a survival technique.’
    Like self-harming, Lucy reflected.
    A fter stopping to pick up lunch of a sandwich and a packet of crisps from the supermarket along the Strand Road, Lucy headed back to Maydown to see if Tom Fleming had arrived in. At first, his office looked empty. Then Lucy noticed his keys lying on the desk and heard, a moment later, the flushing of the toilet behind the kitchenette. Because of the nature of their work, theirs was one of the few blocks in the station to have access to their own kitchen where juice and biscuits were kept for interviewees.
    Lucy headed across to the kitchenette, just as Fleming came out of the toilet. He looked as though he had just arrived indoors, his face flushed, his breathing quick and shallow.
    â€˜Afternoon,’ she said.
    Fleming grunted. ‘I missed your calls.’
    â€˜We had a meeting with Superintendent Burns earlier,’ Lucy explained.
    â€˜Was he asking for me?’
    â€˜I told him you had a few things to follow