The Drowned Read Online Free PDF Page B

were there?’
    Ruarí smirked and counted on his fingers. ‘Me and Dermot and James and some other fellers we met at Havana Brown’s.’
    ‘How many other fellers?’ asked Katie.
    ‘Well, five altogether.’
    ‘So that makes eight. Eight boys and two girls. And you all went away satisfied?’
    ‘It’s that Niamh, isn’t it? She was loving it, I swear to God. She was loving every minute of it. Screaming the place down, she was. Good thing that Davcon Court has the concrete walls.’
    ‘These five fellers you met at Havana Brown’s,’ said Kyna. ‘Had you met them before?’
    Ruarí sensed a trap in this question. What if Kyna had already interviewed one or all of them and they had admitted that they had already known Ruarí and his two student friends before the night of the party?
    ‘Yeah. We’d bumped into them two or three times.’
    ‘And on those other occasions when you bumped into them, did you have similar parties then?’
    Ruarí’s pale blue eyes blinked, although he kept looking at Kyna directly. Katie guessed what he was doing. He had probably heard that liars always look up and off to the right because they’re supposed to be checking the creative lobe of their brain for an answer. But she knew from experience that was a myth. What was really giving Ruarí away was his hesitations and his exaggerated hand gestures and his strenuous efforts to appear nonchalant, even when a muscle in his cheek was twitching to indicate that he was grinding his teeth.
    ‘So what have they told you?’ he asked. It was becoming obvious to Katie that he hadn’t seen any of the appeals for the missing boys on the television or in the newspapers. He had probably been too busy catching up on his studies for his MEngSc.
    ‘It doesn’t matter what they told us,’ said Kyna. ‘We want to hear your version.’
    ‘We did have parties, yeah,’ said Ruarí. ‘Three altogether. Two at Davcon Court and one at Abbeyville.’
    ‘The same kind of parties? With girls?’
    ‘They haven’t complained, have they? I mean, like, none of them’s come to you and said we mistreated them or nothing? Not before Niamh. And like I say, Niamh was really up for it, whatever she’s been telling you now.’
    ‘The girls at your other three parties, where did they come from? Were they students, too?’
    ‘The girls at two of them were. The other one we picked up at Rearden’s.’
    ‘Am I hearing you right?’ said Kyna. ‘You had one of your parties with just one girl? Eight of you?’
    Ruarí smirked again and threw up his hands and said, ‘She loved it. Every minute of it. When we were all finished she wanted more. Inexhaustible, that’s what she was. We treated her good, though. We even paid for her taxi home afterwards.’
    Katie said, ‘These other five lads, do you know where they came from?’
    Ruarí was plainly relieved to change the subject. ‘Mayfield, they said.’
    ‘Do you know their names?’
    ‘No. Never asked. I’m shite at remembering names anyway.’
    ‘After that last party, did any of these lads give you the idea that they might all be going off somewhere together? Taking a few days’ holliers, maybe?’
    ‘No,’ said Ruarí, and now he was growing uneasy.
    Katie opened up the manila folder she had brought down with her, and passed it over so that Ruarí could see the photographs in it.
    ‘Are these your five party friends?’ she asked him.
    Ruarí bent forward and looked at the photographs closely. ‘They are, yeah,’ he said. Then, ‘What? How did you—?’
    ‘You obviously haven’t been watching the news,’ said Katie. ‘These five lads have been missing without trace for the past three days. We thought you might have some idea where they are.’
    ‘Why should I? We only met up now and again. What do you mean, they’re missing? What, like – all of them?’
    Katie took back the folder and stood up. ‘That’s it for now, Ruarí. However, I have to advise you that I will be wanting