Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) Read Online Free PDF Page B

any financial reward whatsoever for turning a blind eye to anybody’s misdemeanours.’
    ‘So you’ve done it as a favour, for free?’
    ‘You’re walking much too close to the edge now, girl. I don’t know what you’ve heard, or what anybody’s told you, but I have never taken a bribe of any kind, and if you continue to suggest that I have, or if any of your detectives continue to make inquiries into my personal affairs, then I shall lodge an official complaint against you.’
    ‘Please do,’ said Katie. ‘That will give me a golden opportunity to present all of the evidence I have about you.’
    ‘What evidence? You don’t have any evidence. Evidence of what?’
    Katie stood up, closing the folder of photographs of Micky Crounan. ‘Lodge your official complaint, Bryan. Then you’ll find out.’
    Bryan Molloy stood up, too, his neck swelling in his tight white collar. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ he demanded.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘I’m not a mind-reader, and if I wanted to read your mind I’d probably need to learn Braille.’
    ‘You’re threatening me, aren’t you? You’ve been trying to undermine my authority ever since I arrived here, and you’re threatening me.’
    Katie looked at him steadily. Her heart was beating very fast underneath her sweater, but she wasn’t going to allow Bryan Molloy to frighten her.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am. In the same way that you’re trying to hinder me from carrying out my duty and you’re threatening me . Look at the state of you. You look like you’re going to explode at any moment.’
    With that, she tucked the folder under her arm and walked towards the door.
    ‘ Katie ,’ said Bryan Molloy, as she put her hand on the door handle. She paused, and waited to hear what he had to say.
    ‘You’re going to regret this, Katie. I can tell you that for nothing.’
    ‘Oh, that’s good,’ she replied, without turning around. ‘At least I won’t have to pay you for it, like everybody else has to.’
    ***
    Before she reached her office, her iPhone played the first few bars of ‘Banks of the Roses’. It was a cheerful folk tune, but she had chosen it because of the words at the end of the first verse: ‘O Johnny, lovely Johnny, would you leave me?’
    It was Garda Brenda McCracken calling her. ‘It’s Mary Crounan. She just came home, with two children and a dog.’
    ‘Thanks a million,’ said Katie. ‘I’ll be up there in ten minutes, tops. If she leaves before I get there, follow her.’
    She went up to the squad room and found Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, who was busily typing with two fingers on her computer keyboard. She was frowning at the screen as if her words were coming out in a language that she didn’t understand, and she didn’t look up when Katie came in.
    ‘Kyna,’ said Katie. ‘You can leave that for now. Come on, quick as you can. Mary Crounan’s home, and we have to give her the news about Micky.’
    ‘Oh God,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, lifting down her coat. ‘Of all the jobs we have to do, this is the one I hate most of all.’

5
    The front door of the Crounan house was opened by a pale, plump girl of about eleven, with blonde pigtails and a bright blue home-knitted jumper.
    ‘Is your mother in?’ asked Katie, showing the girl her badge. ‘We’re from the Garda. It’s Detective Superintendent Maguire and Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.’
    The girl blinked at them and then lisped, ‘Just a second, please.’
    She disappeared, leaving Katie and Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán on the doorstep. They looked around the small front garden, which was showing signs of neglect. There were dead hydrangeas that needed cutting back, and weeds growing between the black and white tiles of the pathway that led to the gate.
    The house itself was looking sad and damp and in need of repair – a four-bedroom semi-detached house off Alexandra Road, once painted lemon-yellow but now