Flesh And Blood Read Online Free PDF

expelled; eyes wild, one hand to his mouth, the other rubbing at his crotch.
    ‘Shane,’ Maddy Birch said gently, ‘why don’t you sit back down?’
    ‘She is dead, Shane, you know that, don’t you?’
    Not looking at Elder, at anyone, Donald slowly nodded his head.
    ‘And if you didn’t kill her, somebody else did.’
    It was quiet in the room, quiet enough to hear the running of the tapes, the slightly asthmatic wheeze of the solicitor’s breath. Elder thought he could smell peppermint, peppermint and sweat.
    ‘Tell us about it, Shane,’ Elder said. ‘Tell us how she died.’
    Donald jerked back his head, chewed on the remnants of a nail.
    ‘Shane,’ said Maddy Birch. ‘You don’t need to be afraid.’
    Tears welled up in Donald’s eyes.
    ‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ Elder said. ‘I think you were fooling around, the three of you. You, Lucy and Alan. Drinking, having a laugh. A spliff or two maybe, I don’t know. You were excited, all of you, and then – I don’t know, Shane, and this is where you’ve got to help us – somehow it all got out of hand. Somebody got hurt. Lucy got hurt.’
    Donald closed his eyes.
    ‘And you liked her, didn’t you? Lucy. You said so. You didn’t want that to happen.’
    Donald’s eyes flickered open, focused on Elder for a moment, then away.
    ‘You see, Shane, I think you got yourself mixed up in something you weren’t happy with. Something you thought was wrong, but you were afraid to say. Alan was older, you looked up to him. He liked you, too. But what happened with Lucy… what he did… Shane, I don’t think it’s right if you take all the blame, do you? Murder, Shane, that’s what it was, what it became. Murder.’
    Elder reached out and, for a moment, took hold of one of Donald’s hands.
    ‘Help us, Shane. Help yourself. Tell us the truth.’
    When it was over, twenty or so minutes later, they had a version – broken, repetitive, littered with gaps – of what had happened inside the caravan. McKeirnan having sex with Lucy, then persuading her to do the same with Donald before joining in. Then, later, after a few pills, some smoke, McKeirnan again, the music turned up loud to drown his laughter, her screams. His fist. A bottle. The handle of a broom. McKeirnan looking over his shoulder at Donald’s face. Lucy’s fingers scratching at his eyes, trying to escape. McKeirnan’s anger. Rage. Then blood. The knife. McKeirnan cursing her for what he’d done.
    In the interrogation room the silence held.
    Elder knew they would get nothing more, not then. He got up, stretched, walked around the table, placed both hands on Donald’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘Good. You’ve done well. Now we’ll try to help you. If we can.’
    A sob broke from Donald’s throat.
    Elder’s eyes, looking back across the table towards Maddy Birch, clear and hard as polished stone.
    ‘See he gets something to drink,’ Elder said, stepping away. ‘To eat. A rest before we talk to him again.’
    ♦
    ‘You know he’s talking his way out of it, don’t you?’ Maddy Birch said. They were standing at the rear of the building, Birch smoking, Elder with a mug of dishwater coffee barely touched.
    ‘You think so?’
    ‘You’ve read Vicky Rawls’s statement, heard the tape. He hit her with – what was it? – a piece of rubber hose.’
    ‘Because McKeirnan told him to. Threatened him.’
    ‘He did it just the same. That and more.’
    ‘I know.’
    Birch stubbed out her cigarette beneath the sole of her shoe. ‘They killed her, Frank. Between them. That’s what I think.’
    ‘I expect you’re right. In law, if nothing else. But if we need Donald to give us McKeirnan…’
    ‘We have to go along with his lies?’
    ‘We may have to buy his version of events for now, at least.’ Not a man who noticed these things as much as, perhaps, he might, Elder was aware of the green of Maddy Birch’s eyes.
    ‘Are you going to finish that?’ she asked, nodding towards the