Bleed a River Deep Read Online Free PDF Page B

them, they’d had a hefty price tag.
    ‘How the hell can they afford to live here?’ I asked.
    ‘You’ll see. Wait.’
    When we arrived at the house, Karol offered to prepare the occupants before bringing me in. I sat in the car, smoking and waiting for his signal.
    I had just stubbed out my cigarette when Karol appeared at the doorway and beckoned me in.
    Once inside, I began to understand. The interior was almost empty of furnishing; seating in the kitchen took the form of an old patio set. The living area was furnished with beanbags and an old coffee table. In the corner was a battered black-and-white TV, in front of which sprawled several children of varying ages. A pot of something steamed on the cooker in the kitchen. Upstairs I could hear the wailing of a woman and the shouts of others.
    Karol led us up the uncarpeted steps. A crowd of women blocked the entrance to one of the three bedrooms. Peering between them I could discern a woman sitting on the edge of a camp bed, sobbing, while another woman comforted her.
    Karol spoke to the group, presumably in Chechen, for they began to part as we pushed through. He led us into the room and spoke again, and within a minute only we two and the girl were left.
    ‘Are they your friends?’ My question was for the woman, though I directed it to Karol.
    ‘They live here,’ he replied without speaking to the girl.
    ‘All of them?’ I asked incredulously, for there were at least a dozen I had seen, not counting the children downstairs.
    ‘Twenty-four in total,’ Karol explained. ‘Four families. One per bedroom and one for the living room.’
    The girl looked from one to the other of us, her eyes wide and red, her face drawn in an expression that was as much fear as grief.
    ‘Please don’t be afraid,’ I said, crouching before her. I produced one of the flyers I’d had made, and folded it so that the picture of her husband was visible. ‘Is this your husband?’
    She pointed to the picture and said something to Karol, then turned to me and nodded her head slowly, before breaking into fresh sobs.
    ‘Ask her when she last saw her husband.’
    The two spoke briefly. ‘Last Friday,’ Karol explained to me eventually. ‘He went out looking for work.’
    ‘I thought he worked in a chip van,’ I said.
    Another conversation ensued. While they spoke, I examined the woman’s face. Her hair was blonde and shoulder-length, though pulled back into a pony-tail that seemed to accentuate the sharpness of her features. One of her teeth, slightly crooked, bit her pale lower lip.
    Karol turned to me. ‘He was fired. He asked for more money, so his boss fired him. He’d been looking for work for a few weeks now.’
    ‘Did she know he was going to rob a bank?’ I asked.
    The word ‘bank’ must have registered for she shook her head violently and said something which sounded like ‘Naa ha’. She looked from Karol to me. ‘Naa . . . no, no,’ she said, blinking back her tears. I was unsure whether she was answering my question or vainly protesting her husband’s innocence.
    ‘Tell her I’m sorry, but we need her to identify her husband for us,’ I said. Any further questioning could be carried out in the station, after she’d had time to grieve a little for her husband. Though I couldn’t really see where the questions would lead us – the man had been living in desperate circumstances without a job and was unlucky enough to rob a bank the day half the Irish Army were standing outside.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Almurzayev,’ I said, looking her in the eyes. ‘I’m very sorry.’
    I laid my hand on hers momentarily. Her hands were cold and light, the skin calloused. She looked at me, then withdrew her hand from mine.
    As we drove to Letterkenny General to identify the body, Karol and I discussed the likely fates of the immigrants I had seen in the house. Mrs Almurzayev sat in the back of my car, looking out of the window.
    ‘I’m glad you got back to me,’ I said.