Those We Left Behind Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ballantine was a tall woman, Flanagan guessed late twenties, blonde hair, with an athletic build. Earnest and eager as Flanagan had been in her younger days, and just as full of ambition. She’d been told to take notes and keep her mouth shut, and had her pen ready as soon as she sat down.
    ‘I’m not out of here for a month yet,’ Thompson said, ‘and they’ve put me out of my office already. I’m having to share a desk with a bloody media officer. How the hell they think I’m going to be any good to anybody sitting there, I don’t know.’
    Flanagan offered him as cheery a smile as she could muster. ‘Well, you’ve got your retirement to look forward to.’
    A little more colour drained from Thompson’s grey face and his eyes grew distant.
    ‘Have you anything planned?’ she asked.
    ‘Mostly staying out of the wife’s way,’ he said. ‘Apart from that, a big long stretch of nothing. What are you, forty, forty-two?’
    Flanagan cleared her throat, smiled, and said, ‘That’s a personal question. But I’ll be forty-six in a couple of months.’
    ‘How far into your contract are you?’
    ‘Almost eighteen years. But I’m not really counting.’
    ‘So you’ve got twelve years still to serve,’ Thompson said. ‘Like a prison term, isn’t it? A fucking life sentence. Murderers get less, for Christ’s sake. No chance of an early release for us unless you get shot or get your bloody legs blown off in some booby trap. And what about you?’
    Ballantine seemed startled that a question had been sent in her direction. She blinked and looked to Flanagan.
    ‘What, you need permission to answer a question?’ Thompson asked. ‘So DCI Flanagan’s as hard as they say?’
    ‘I’m five years in,’ Ballantine said.
    ‘I see. Still fresh, then. Don’t worry, you’ll have the shit kicked out of you soon enough.’
    Ballantine turned her gaze down to the blank page of her notebook, her face taking on a faint red glow of embarrassment.
    Thompson turned his attention back to Flanagan. ‘You were on the Devine brothers case, weren’t you?’
    ‘That’s right,’ Flanagan said.
    ‘I hear he’s up for release. Makes you wonder why you bother, doesn’t it? Wee bastard like that, hardly inside long enough to get his coat off, and now they’re turning him loose. If it was up to me, scum like him and his brother would never see the light of day again.’
    Flanagan did her best to keep a friendly tone. ‘Well, the courts have to keep emotion out of—’
    ‘We had a dog one time, a wee mutt, as pleasant a thing as you ever met. Then one day it bit our youngest on the face. He was lucky, he could’ve lost an eye, but he wound up with just a bit of a scar on his cheek. Anyway, the night it happened, I took that dog, and I put it in the boot of my car along with a towel soaked in chloroform. Came back the next morning, it was dead. You think that was cruel?’
    Flanagan swallowed. ‘It’s not for me to—’
    ‘Yes, it was cruel,’ Thompson said. ‘But that dog never bit anyone again.’
    Flanagan cleared her throat and asked, ‘Shall we crack on?’ She took her notebook from her bag, opened it to the list of questions she’d drawn up, hoping she could use them to sweep up the mess Thompson was leaving behind. Now she focused on the page to avoid looking at him.
    ‘Can we start with the Milligan assault?’ She opened the file to the first photocopied A4 sheet. ‘That was, what, nine months ago? Now, I’ve got a list of interviewed witnesses – all male – who were at the bar that night. Seventeen in total. Sixteen of them said they were in the toilets when the assault happened, and they saw nothing. The seventeenth, the barman, said he was in a stockroom. And it just so happened the CCTV was switched off that night.’
    Thompson’s shoulders slumped. ‘That’s right. So?’
    ‘Well, there’s a floor plan of the bar in here. I believe the toilet is about ten feet by five, it has two urinals,