Bloodland: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

mightn’t have seen the dots straightaway, mightn’t have wanted to see them.
    Ruth leans forward. ‘You sure?’
    But he sees them now, sees where they connect.
    ‘Yeah,’ he says, and reaches up to open a cupboard. ‘I just … I need to take something for this damn headache.’
    *   *   *
    Jimmy spots her straightaway, and it’s the weirdest thing: she’s unmistakably Susie Monaghan’s sister – same posture, same shape, same bone structure even … but she …
    What is it?
    She didn’t get that extra little shuffle of the genetic deck that Susie obviously got. There’s nothing wrong with her. You just wouldn’t put her on the cover of a glossy magazine.
    Is that unfair?
    Jimmy doesn’t mean it to be.
    No one would put him on the cover of a magazine, glossy or otherwise.
    He moves away from the revolving doors and starts crossing the lobby. Maria is on the far side of it, standing by a large potted palm tree. She’s wearing a conservative business suit – navy jacket, skirt, flat shoes – conservative but also very stylish and expensive-looking. Her hair is dark and short. She’s glancing around, and doesn’t seem very comfortable.
    Jimmy approaches her with his hand outstretched.
    ‘Maria? Jimmy Gilroy.’
    She turns and looks at him. She shakes his hand. ‘Maria Monaghan.’
    The next few minutes are awkward. They find a table in the lounge and as they are getting settled a bar girl appears.
    Jimmy orders a coffee, Maria a glass of white wine.
    The bar girl moves away.
    ‘So,’ Jimmy says. And waits.
    Sitting on the edge of her chair, eyes down, Maria smoothes out a wrinkle in her navy skirt. ‘OK,’ she says eventually, eyes still down. ‘Let me make one thing clear. I’ve agreed to meet you, but I haven’t agreed to anything else. I haven’t agreed to co-operate, whatever that might involve, or to go on the record. I’m just meeting you because you’ve been so bloody persistent.’
    ‘Yes. Sorry about that.’
    She looks at him. ‘Sure you are.’
    He holds up his hands. ‘How else would you have agreed to meet me?’
    ‘I wouldn’t.’
    ‘See? But that doesn’t have to mean I’m hustling you, does it? The thing is, if I do this book I want to do it right. I want to be fair.’
    She leans forward slightly. ‘That’s easy to say, but what does it mean?’
    ‘It means I want to tell your sister’s story as truthfully as I possibly can.’
    ‘Right,’ she says, and nods. ‘So where the hell were you three years ago?’
    Jimmy hesitates. He doesn’t have an answer. He sits back in his chair.
    The media had a field day when it came to poor Susie. They were having one already before the accident, but afterwards it was extreme. In the previous few months, they’d crawled over every aspect of her life, like maggots, and now they had her actual corpse, twisted and torn, to gorge on.
    They .
    Jimmy sits up. ‘We didn’t exactly cover ourselves in glory, did we?’
    Maria snorts, but doesn’t say anything.
    ‘For what it’s worth,’ Jimmy goes on, ‘I was little more than a trainee at the time. I didn’t even –’
    ‘For what it’s worth , Jimmy,’ Maria interrupts, ‘little Susie Monaghan loved every minute of it. Right up to, and possibly including, the very end.’
    Jimmy nods.
    What did she just say?
    The bar girl arrives and as she’s transferring the coffee things and glass of wine from her tray to the table, Jimmy studies Maria closely. He remembers reading that she was two years older than Susie, which would make her twenty-eight now, or twenty-nine.
    His age, give or take.
    Though she seems older in a way, more serious.
    Maria picks up her glass of wine and takes a sip from it. Jimmy pours milk into his coffee.
    What was that, up to and including ? He wants to ask her to explain this, but he needs to pace himself. He doesn’t want to scare her off. What he says instead is, ‘What do you do, Maria?’
    ‘I’m an administrator. At the Fairleigh