The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3) by Claire McGowan Read Free Book Online Page B

he shouldn’t be going unless he could earn the money. You do hear all sorts of stories. Drinking and carrying on. So I says get up and change some currency if you’re going. Take it out of your post office account. His mammy’d paid for the holiday, but she was soft on him. I didn’t want him spoiled, you see. He was our only child – his mammy was near forty when she had him.
Anyway. I make him get up and go to town and I tell him to get his mammy some shopping while he’s there. She’d usually let him keep the change but I said I’ll check the receipt. He was nineteen, you see, miss. I thought he should be working. So we had words, and he went off, all sulky like. Mary went after him and she gave him a big hug at the gate. So she had that at least. I’d been fighting with him. I have to live with it.
I was working on the farm that day, painting a fence. Mary came down about one. I could see her running out of the house. She’d no shoes on, just running in the mud. Her hair all falling down. I knew something was wrong but I just went on painting. Until she got there, you see. Until she told me and it was all going to be different.
There’s been a bomb in town, she says, and her face was all wild . They’re saying on the news. Come quick, come quick.
So she runs to the house and I just put the lid back on the paint. Don’t know why I did that. And I walk. Slow like. She’s the TV on and there’s High Street and it’s all smoke. It’s like a film. Neither of us says anything. Then I goes, He’ll have been heading home by now.
He might have gone to the shops.
Sure he’s no cash of his own.
She didn’t look at me, and I knew she’d given him the money . Did you phone his mobile ? I hate those things, terrible waste of money they are, but I was right glad he had one that day .
He’s not answering . Mary’s voice was all funny .
They’ll have no reception. It’ll knock down the wires or something. Mary turns to look at me. I was well past forty when I wed her, and she was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. Danny was like her, he’d her dark hair and her eyes. I’ll never forget her blue eyes. Will you go, John, she said .
So I get in my van. I wish to God I never saw what I saw that day. A lot of the families, they stayed at home, or they didn’t hear about it till later. I went, you see. I couldn’t get in the whole way, the army was there, but there was blood running down the street. It was sort of raining blood onto your face. The petrol station was on fire and the bank had fallen down, they said. I just keep thinking he’ll be finished by now, he’ll be finished. I kept shouting, Danny, Danny ! And they’re saying, You can’t be here, sir, go to the hospital if you’ve lost someone, he might be there. There was all sirens and you could hear people screaming – you’ve seen the video, aye? It was like that, but it was worse. Alarms going off everywhere. You could smell it. The oil, and the blood, you know. Sir, they said, you have to go, and they’re in their masks and suits, and I look up and there’s the tree and in it somebody’s arm. A woman’s. The watch still on it .
Anyway, I went to the hospital, but I couldn’t get in for traffic so I just got out and left the van there in the road and walked in.
Yes, I found him there. He was – well, he was still alive at that point. But I told his mother he wasn’t. I told her he was at peace. Sometimes you have to lie to people if you care for them.
     

Chapter Six
     
    Although Paula hadn’t known Maeve Cooley for long, she’d already started to think of her as a friend and colleague. But both Maeve and she had been distinctly cool for the past few months – Facebook messages long unanswered, no kisses at the end of text messages. For Paula’s part, which she knew was irrational – he hadn’t been her boyfriend since she was eighteen – it had been finding Aidan half-naked in Maeve’s bedroom that day in Dublin. For Maeve’s