Controlled Explosions Read Online Free PDF Page B

moving down. ‘How old is it? How old a body?’
    ‘Not long,’ shouted the officer from inside the shed, his voice strained. ‘There’s flies … God – she’s … she’s rotting.’
    ‘She?’ said PJ.
    If it hadn’t been so hot, if the sun wasn’t dazzling in his eyes, Bob might have been faster to stop him. ‘DC Maguire … PJ –
no
…’
    Too late. Always too late. His partner – his ex-partner – was running down the hill, his legs windmilling under him on the parched earth.
    Bob couldn’t move when it happened. Even when PJ fell, sliding down the hill, and the crack of the gunshot was followed closely by the crack of his leg breaking, and his blood began to feed the thirsty ground, even then Bob couldn’t do a thing.
    PJ was making a noise he’d never heard come out of a person before, not even during the fire that time, not even on the day Robinson died, and a different figure was running out of the grove of trees behind them. Too far away, running too fast, there was no way to catch them … her. Because Bob could now see it was a young girl, probably still at school, clutching a very old shotgun and with her hair wild about her head. He recognised the uniform she had on – it was the same school PJ’s own daughter went to. The sun seemed to flame in her fair hair. As if she was on fire, too.
    ‘Sir?’ The officer was beside him, urgent, panicked. ‘Sir, what do we do? It’s your call, sir.’ A good lad, that. Bob really should learn his name. But was there any point if he was getting put out soon? His mind stretched ahead, a prison guard uniform, back at the bottom of the heap, the pay cut …
    Very slowly, Bob reached for his radio. ‘Back-up requested to Richhill Farm – we have female remains, two fleeing suspects, possibly underage, and an officer shot.’ He paused for a minute, and on the hill, PJ had gone silent, and that was somehow worse than the screaming. ‘As quick as possible, please.’
    From the front of the farm, there was the sound of an engine starting up.
    ‘Catriona,’ said Aidan, flicking his cigarette. ‘Her da’s in the Ra, aye?’ They were trailing through the town in the heat, the waves of it rolling up from the tarmac. Paula was walking as slowly as she could. She hoped some of those bitches from school would see her. Aidan was quite the heartthrob at St Clare’s, not that he’d ever gone steady with anyone.
    ‘Supposed to be, yeah.’
    ‘Red Hugh, they call him. Red Hugh O’Keeffe.’
    ‘Do they?’
    ‘Aye. And your da put him away three years ago. He’s in the Maze, so he is.’
    ‘Did he?’ Paula never knew anything about what her father did all day. He’d made sure of it. How did Aidan find these things out?
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘What are you, like, Sherlock Holmes?’
    Aidan flicked back his hair so she could see the pale underneath of his wrist, just for a second. She imagined how it would feel, the pulse of the blood beating there. ‘They let me hang out at the paper, like. In the office.’
    She didn’t know what to say to that. John O’Hara had been shot in that office, when Aidan was only seven. He’d been there to see it, watch his dad die in front of him. Someone else was editor now but they never had the heart to send him away. Aidan was going off to do journalism in Dublin, never wanted anything else out of life. She still had no idea what she might do. She liked Sociology, but only the crime bits, and English and Biology, but they didn’t let you do that combination. Saoirse knew she would be a doctor, was going to do all the A-levels you needed for that. Everyone knew where they were going to end up – except Paula. She couldn’t imagine what her life would be like when she grew up.
    ‘So. That’s probably why she’s being such a bitch to you.’ Aidan tapped away his cigarette ash.
    ‘But why’s she started now? I mean, she was always a bitch, but she used to leave me alone before this.’
    ‘I dunno, Maguire.’
    That name