Eye for an Eye Read Online Free PDF

going to be acting on immediately?’
    ‘It was nothing,’ said Clodagh. ‘It was about my brother Ciaran. He’s thinking of joining the Garda.’
    ‘Oh, your brother Ciaran is thinking of joining the Garda, is he? But if that’s all you were talking about, why did Detective Superintendent Maguire tell you to say nothing to suggest that you’d spoken to her? I would have thought your brother becoming a guard would be something to be proud of – something to tell all your friends about, not keep to yourself.’
    Clodagh shrugged, at a loss for words. Redmond stood close to her for a while, looking her up and down with that cast in his eyes, which always unnerved her even when he wasn’t angry, which he was now.
    ‘You saw me, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You saw me outside with that fellow in the hood. I thought I saw you looking, but I wasn’t sure.’
    Clodagh sat down at her desk, still clutching her handbag. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Keane. I didn’t see anything. I was chasing after the postie, that’s all.’
    ‘Oh, is that right? Well, let me tell you this, Clodagh, that fellow I was talking to had nothing to do with what happened to that priest next door. He’s just a fellow who does a bit of electrical work for us now and again. He’s cheap, right, but he isn’t licensed, so I can’t have the guards knowing about him. Do you understand me?’
    Clodagh nodded.
    ‘Right, then,’ said Redmond. ‘You’d better get on with your work. That letter has to go out to the county council this morning and I still need you to find those nitrate solution prices for me from McGean’s.’
    ‘Yes, Mr Keane. I’ll get right on to it so.’
    *
    While Clodagh sat at her keyboard, typing, Redmond stood staring out of the window. It was raining outside, not heavily, but the wind was blowing ghosts of spray across the car park.
    After ten minutes or so, his mobile phone rang. He picked it up and put it to his ear, but whoever was calling him, he said nothing at all, not even ‘Hello.’ He put it down, went over to his desk and took a manila envelope out of his drawer. He approached Clodagh and held it up in front of her.
    ‘Could you take this to Dermot in the plating shop? It’s a bit of a bonus I promised him.’
    ‘I will of course,’ said Clodagh. She was just relieved that he seemed to have forgiven her for contacting Detective Superintendent Maguire. It took the pressure off her, for the moment at least.
    She picked up her folding umbrella and left Redmond’s office. As she crossed the yard she could hear the monotonous banging of the press that stamped wrenches out of red-hot metal billets. The workshop where they were polished and chromium-plated was right at the back of the factory site, close to Mary O’Donnell’s garden fence.
    When she entered the plating shop she found that Dermot was standing alone by the tank where the wrenches were lowered into chromium chloride solution, his arms folded, as if he were waiting for her. He was well over six feet tall and everything about him seemed larger than a normal human being. His head was enormous, with a bulbous nose and massive chin, and his hands were like two shovels. He was wearing the largest size of Toolmate overall, but it was still too tight for him and two of the buttons had broken off. His tangled grey hair and deep-set eyes gave him the look of an ogre from a children’s picture book
    ‘Mr Keane said to give you this,’ she said, holding out the envelope.
    Dermot took it, but didn’t take his eyes off her. She was turning to go when he said, ‘Did you ever wonder what a person would look like, you know, if they was chromium-plated?’
    ‘What?’ said Clodagh. She didn’t understand what he was saying.
    Dermot tossed the envelope on to the workbench beside him and came right up to her. He nodded towards the huge, waist-high plating tank and said, ‘Did you ever wonder what a person would look like, if they was to take a swim