The Midnight Choir Read Online Free PDF Page B

in these circumstances, to carefully read and then sign a police officer’s notes of remarks made in—’
    ‘He’s signing nothing.’ The father stood over Synnott. ‘I know people, my friend. You screw with my family, you’ll be lucky to end up waving your arms at traffic on the Aran Islands.’
    The son, his face red from hairline to neck, pushed the notebook away. ‘I said nothing.’
    ‘Fair enough.’ Synnott wrote some more, then looked at his watch and scribbled the time in his notebook. He stood up.
    ‘And now, sir,’ he said to the younger Max, ‘I must ask you to come to the station with—’
    ‘Like fuck!’ The father’s ostentatious charm was in shreds.
    Garda Cheney came into the room, carrying a bundled evidence sack. The mother stood beside her, looking from the son to the father.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ the mother said.
    Synnott spoke to the kid. ‘Mr Hapgood, I’m arresting you under Section Four of the—’
    The father held up his mobile like it was evidence of something. ‘My solicitor—’
    ‘Tell him to go directly to Macken Road garda station and ask for Detective Inspector Harry Synnott.’
    ‘You can’t question – you have to wait until my solicitor—’
    ‘No, we don’t.’
    Max Junior looked like he might throw up all over the shiny wooden floor. Harry Synnott told him that he had a right to remain silent.
    Garda Cheney had her cuffs out, which was a cue for the mother to unloose a stream of obscenities. The cuffs were necessary. The kid seemed cowed, but he was a big lad and there was no telling what kind of panic-inducing effect the inside of a police car might have on him.
    Max Senior was leaning towards Synnott and was speaking fast in a low, angry voice.
    ‘The trouble with people like you – we give you power, and you’re supposed to useitto protect decent people. Not to throw your weight around.’
    He used his index finger a lot. He had it permanently cocked, and repeatedly used it to emphasise the importance of what he was saying.
    ‘We’re the public, smart boy. And you’re a public servant.’
    Synnott watched the finger jabbing a few inches away from his face and was tempted to take hold of it and give it a twist, just to watch the surprise on Max Senior’s face.
    ‘You know there’s no case against my son – you know that – but you push your way into this house, you drag him away on the word of some little tramp.’
    ‘You’re not a robot, are you?’ The mother didn’t point her finger like her husband did, but her voice was louder. ‘Have you no human feeling? Max did nothing , but mud sticks – this kind of thing could—’
    In the hall, Rose Cheney draped the kid’s blue jacket over the cuffs and when she opened the front door the mother’s howling stopped. Synnott reckoned she feared attracting the attention of the neighbours.
    Cheney led the kid down the garden path to the car, one hand on his elbow.
    *
    The one other time she’d been in the Joy, the screw with the bushy eyebrows had told Dixie his name but she couldn’t remember it now. ‘You OK?’ he said. ‘Jesus, Dixie, you look bloody awful.’
    ‘You’re looking fresh and well yourself.’
    ‘What’ve you done?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    He nodded. She said, ‘Any chance of a cup of coffee?’
    An hour later he came to see her and said, ‘Your blood, was it, Dixie – in the syringe?’
    She didn’t answer.
    ‘You’re not HIV, are you?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘That poor woman – she must have got an awful fright.’
    Dixie said, ‘What woman?’
    ‘The woman you stuck.’
    ‘I stuck no one. Yank bastard knocked it out of my hand.’ ‘Jesus, Dixie.’
    *
    First thing Harry Synnott did when he came into the interview room was tell Max Junior to stand up. Max had been sitting on the far side of a scarred metal table that was pushed almost up against one wall, with Rose Cheney facing him. Synnott pulled Max’s chair into the centre of the room. He pointed at the