Bloodland: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

meeting with Maria Monaghan.
    Jimmy gets off the stool and gathers up his stuff from the bar – keys, phone and change. They go in various pockets. The newspaper he takes in his hand. He looks at it for a moment, then leaves it on the stool.
    He nods at the barman on his way out.
    *   *   *
    Conway moves away from the window, head still pounding. He walks over to the doorway, hears voices and follows them. In the kitchen Danny is drawing quietly at the table and Jack is playing on the floor. Corinne is cooking something in a wok. Molly is beside her, looking up, her nose wrinkled in distaste.
    ‘I don’t like that.’
    ‘But sweetheart, you don’t even know what it is.’
    ‘I don’t like it.’
    Conway stands for a while by the fridge, observing the scene. He is about to make a comment when he hears a key in the front door.
    Everyone turns around.
    ‘ MOMMY .’
    A few moments later, Ruth walks into the kitchen. Within seconds she is being harangued, pulled at, climbed on.
    ‘MOMMY, MOMMY, LOOK AT THIS! MOMMY!’
    ‘I’m looking,’ Ruth says. ‘I’m looking .’
    ‘She took my Woody,’ Danny says, ‘and hid him in the washing machine.’
    ‘I didn’t hide him there,’ Molly says, stopping short of adding your Honour , ‘I put him there.’
    Conway starts massaging his temples.
    Ruth catches his eye.
    ‘You OK?’
    He nods yes , but it’s not very convincing.
    ‘ MOMMY. ’
    Raising her arms over Danny in exasperation, Ruth says, ‘Please, chicken, quiet for a second, Mommy needs to talk to Daddy.’
    Corinne intervenes. ‘OK, guys, dinner is ready. Time to wash hands.’
    She herds them off.
    In the sudden calm that follows, Ruth looks at Conway. ‘So, did you go to the doctor?’
    He nods another unconvincing yes .
    ‘And?’
    ‘Nothing. He said it was tension.’
    ‘I could have told you that. I did tell you that.’ She takes a grape from a bowl on the counter. ‘You worry too much.’
    He doesn’t say anything. It’s not an argument he can win without getting into areas he doesn’t want to get into.
    He watches as she breaks another grape off and pops it in her mouth.
    Ruth is a redhead, with green eyes and pale, freckled skin. After three kids, she’s heavier than she used to be – but then again, and without her perfectly reasonable excuse, so is he. She’s still good-looking though, gorgeous in fact, curvier than before and therefore, as far as Conway is concerned, sexier … a perception these days, it must be said, that is filtered through the alienating prism of extreme and permanent exhaustion.
    ‘Did you get to talk to Larry Bolger?’
    ‘Yeah, this afternoon. Finally. ’
    They’d been playing phone tag for a couple of days.
    ‘What did he want?’
    ‘I’m not sure really. I’m meeting him tomorrow.’
    ‘He didn’t say?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Strange.’ She reaches across the counter for a bottle of Evian. ‘I wonder what he’s up to these days. He probably just wants to talk. Rake over old times. Revisit old grievances.’ She opens the bottle of water and takes a sip from it. ‘Summon up old ghosts.’
    Conway stares at her.
    Shit.
    Of course.
    That’s precisely what the old bastard wants to do. He must have heard the same thing Phil Sweeney heard.
    Susie Monaghan.
    Old ghosts …
    Ruth returns his stare. ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’ Conway shakes his head. ‘I’ve just … remembered something.’
    Realised something.
    The headache. He’s had it since the other night, since around the time he first heard Bolger had phoned looking for him. Which means it really is tension – but not because of the banks, or Tara Meadows, or his kids, or some stupid crush he might have on the au pair.
    It’s because of …
    ‘Honey,’ Ruth says. ‘What’s wrong?’
    … a very different convergence …
    ‘You’ve gone pale.’
    … of very different pulses …
    He shakes his head again.
    … of anxiety.
    ‘No,’ he says, ‘I’m … I’m fine.’
    Conway