The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty Read Free Book Online

I said and put my coat on.
    Crabbie cleared his throat. “If I could make an observation before you head off, Sean,” he said.
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œVery unusual this for these parts. No prints on anything? Believe me, I know these local hoods and no one in the CarrickUVF or the Carrick UDA is this careful. It gives ya pause for thought,” McCrabban said.
    â€œAye, it does,” Matty agreed.
    â€œAnd no ‘thirty pieces of silver’ either,” I said. “They usually love that shit.”
    Brennan saw me on the way out and dragged me to the Royal Oak public house next door.
    He ordered two Guinnesses and two Bushmills.
    â€œThat’s some lunch. I’ll have the same,” I told him. He smiled and we took the drinks to the snug.
    My pager was going like the clappers and under Brennan’s withering look I turned it off.
    â€œWhat news, kemosabe?” he asked when we’d drunk our chasers.
    â€œDrawing a blank so far, skipper, but I still have the patho to see and the victim’s prints are up in Belfast getting run through the database as we speak.”
    â€œThought I told you last night to handle this ourselves,” Brennan muttered with a scowl.
    â€œNot the leg work too, surely? Besides, them boys in records have nothing better to do. If I sent Matty up there to do it manually it would take him two hours just to drive through the police road blocks.”
    Brennan nodded. He fixed me with his Viking peepers. “And I heard you authorised ‘additional photography’?”
    â€œYes sir, but I’ll pay for that,” I replied.
    â€œSee that you do. I have to account for every penny.”
    â€œThere was some thought among the lads that we could go on the BBC and put our mystery man’s face on the telly, but Crabbie has crushed my show-business dreams by saying that’s not your policy? Sir?”
    Brennan pointed heavenwards. “No. Let’s keep this nice and discreet. Once
they
start breathing down your neck …”
    â€œOk to authorise flyers and a poster of our poor unfortunateon the board outside the station?”
    â€œOne poster and don’t make it grim, let’s not upset the natives.”
    Sergeants Burke and McCallister spotted us and joined us at the table, but I had things to do and couldn’t afford a lunch-time session with them boys. After I finished my Guinness, I went back in the cop shop and got my car. Carrick Hospital was a small Victorian building on the Barn Road, only about three hundred yards from the police station as the crow flew, but the crow could juke over a railway line, a stream and Carrick Rangers FC so it took me ten minutes to get there in the Beemer.
    The waiting room was full of people with runny noses, colds and other complaints. A child was vomiting into a bag. A teenage hood stinking of petrol was holding a singed hand. A man with a face caked with dried blood was wearing a T-shirt that said “No Pope Here”. Considering his present condition, the Pope could consider himself lucky. There were, however, no young men lying on gurneys with their kneecaps shot off, which you always saw in the bigger Belfast hospitals.
    I walked to the reception desk.
    The nurse behind the counter was channelling Hattie Jacques from the
Carry On
films. She was fidgety, scary and enormous.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you?” she asked in one of those oldtimey upper-crust English accents.
    â€œI’d like to see Dr Cathcart,” I said with what I hoped was a winning smile.
    â€œThis is not one of her days.”
    â€œIt’s not? Oh? Where is she?”
    â€œShe’s doing an autopsy, if you must know.”
    â€œThat’s what I wanted to see her about,” I said pulling out my warrant card.
    â€œYou’re Sergeant Duffy? She’s been trying to reach you for the last hour.”
    â€œI was busy.”
    â€œWe’re all busy.”
    She showed