‘Well, these poor gowls certainly didn’t.’
The three Fidelios were lying between the scaffolds, their faces blackened, their white robes covered with elaborate brown curlicues like Hebrew lettering, as if they had been sent a written message from God. Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.
Inspector Fennessy bent over them, one after the other. Then he said, ‘Serious, do you think it was God?’
48
The following afternoon Katie drove up to Knocknadeenly to see John. It had been raining for most of the morning, but now the sun was shining and the road ahead of her was blinding.
When she reached Meagher’s farm, Aoife, his collie, came running across the farmyard to greet her, and in the back of Katie’s car, Barney barked and jumped around and threw himself against the windows in excitement.
John came out wiping his hands with a cloth. He hadn’t shaved, but she always liked it when he didn’t shave. He was wearing a pale blue checked shirt and jeans, and a tan leather belt with a silver buckle in the shape of a longhorn steer.
‘You’re looking very western,’ she said. She came up to him and he took her in his arms and kissed her.
‘I’ve just been cleaning up,’ he told her. ‘I’m all packed and I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.’
They went inside the farmhouse, and through to the kitchen, which was very clean and bare and empty. No spice jars, no saucepans hanging on the wall, no geranium pots on the windowsill. A strong smell of Dettol.
‘I saw the news,’ said John. ‘That was truly freaky, wasn’t it? RITUAL PRIEST KILLERS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. Jesus. But they didn’t mention you.’
‘There’s a lot they didn’t mention, and there’s a lot they never will. Like Bishop Kerrigan still being alive, for instance. And what was really going on there.’
‘At least you weren’t hurt, sweetheart. And at least this goddamned priest killing thing is all wrapped up. You couldn’t have timed it better.’
Katie put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and kissed him again.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ she whispered.
He kissed her back, first on the forehead and then on the lips.
‘Why?’ he smiled. ‘Are you tired, girl?’
They made love with the sun shining through the bedroom window. All of the pictures had been taken down, so there was a pattern of faded rectangles on the wallpaper. No room so empty as a room that no longer has pictures in it, thought Katie. When the pictures are gone, that means that you will never be coming back.
Halfway through lovemaking, she reached down with one hand and took him out of her. Then she immediately turned over so that she was lying on her stomach, with her face turned away from him.
‘Katie?’
At first she didn’t answer, so he leaned over her and said, ‘Katie? What’s wrong, sweetheart?’
‘Hurt me,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You heard. Hurt me.’
She opened her legs, reached behind her and grasped his penis. She positioned it between the cheeks of her bottom and said, ‘Go on. You know you want to.’
‘Katie – what’s this all about?’
‘I want you to hurt me, that’s what.’
‘What the hell for? I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’
‘Not even if I said I wasn’t coming with you?’
There was a very long pause. Then John said, ‘You’re not coming with me? You mean like you’re not coming with me now, or ever?’
‘I can’t. Not ever.’
‘You don’t love me, is that it?’
She twisted around and her eyes were crowded with tears. ‘Of course I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anybody else. But I can’t come with you, it’s impossible. All of my life is here and all of my family is here and how can I just abandon them?’
‘Katie. Oh, Katie. Oh, Katie.’ John put his arms around her and they held each other tight as if the tighter they held on to each other the slower the time would pass by, or even stop altogether, so that they could hold on to each other forever.
49
The next morning at 11 a.m. they held a media conference at Anglesea Street, and Katie gave the press the full story of what had happened at Dripsey. Or at least the story that she and Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll had devised in collaboration with Bishop Mahoney’s office. They had agreed that there was no good to be done to anybody by releasing all of the details of St Joseph’s Orphanage Choir, and Bishop Kerrigan’s deluded dream of heavenly glory.
Katie was leaving the building with Detective O’Donovan when she heard somebody call out, ‘Katie!’
She looked around. As she did so, all of the crows rose up from the roof of the car park opposite, silently, and flapped away. It was Paul McKeown, rather more smartly dressed than when she had first met him, in a grey blazer and black trousers and shiny black shoes.
‘I was hoping to see you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Denis Sweeney and the Phelan twins. My God – I can hardly believe they got struck by lightning.’
Katie looked at her watch. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ve got half an hour. Why don’t we go for a coffee and I can tell you all about it. Patrick – I’ll see you this afternoon, about two if that’s okay. We need to go over the evidence in that Ringaskiddy drugs fiasco.’
‘Fine by me, ma’am,’ said Detective O’Donovan, and walked away.
Katie took Paul McKeown back into the station and upstairs to the canteen. It was deserted, except for a single garda in his shirtsleeves, eating a late breakfast of bacon and eggs and reading the Sun. Katie went to the counter for two cups of coffee and then she and Paul McKeown sat by the window.
‘Now,’ said Katie. ‘You want all the grisly details, I suppose.’
But Paul McKeown was looking at her with a frown on his face like a sympathetic doctor. He said, ‘Before that, tell me what’s wrong.’
‘I’m sorry? It’s all over, apart from collating all of the evidence, of course, and writing my report.’
‘No, I meant what’s wrong with you.’
‘Come here to me? I don’t know what you mean. There’s nothing wrong.’
Paul McKeown reached across the Formica-topped table and took hold of her hands, and for some reason she couldn’t really understand, she allowed him to.
‘Katie,’ he said, ‘I’ve been running the Cork Survivors’ Society for long enough to know when somebody’s hurting.’
‘Oh, I see. And you can tell that how, exactly?’
‘What – apart from the fact that you’ve been crying?’
Katie was about to tell him not to be so ridiculous. Not only ridiculous but incredibly personal, especially since he hardly knew her. But she suddenly found that her throat was so tight that she was unable to speak, and that her eyes were brimming with tears.
‘You don’t have to tell me about it,’ said Paul McKeown. ‘Whatever it is, Katie, it’s your business. But if it’ll help.’
She still couldn’t speak. All she could do was sit there holding Paul McKeown’s hands, with tears running down her cheeks, because she had lost little Seamus after his first and only birthday, and she had lost Paul, no matter how much of a chancer he had been, and she had lost Jimmy O’Rourke, and she had seen Dr Collins killed, and now she had lost John, too.
Paul McKeown handed her a paper napkin and she dabbed at her eyes. After a while, in short, choked-up bursts, she was able to tell him why she was so upset. He listened to her with a serious expression, not interrupting once.
When she had finished, however, he said, ‘Let me tell you this, Katie. If you lose too many people, you’re in real danger of losing yourself, too. I’ve seen it happen far too often. Don’t let it happen to you.’
50
At 3.30 p.m. they announced that it was time for passengers to board Aer Lingus flight 722 to San Francisco, via London and New York.
John finished his beer, picked up his hand baggage and his lapt
op, and walked out of the airport bar. He went down the escalator to the main concourse and stood in line, waiting for customs and security. The woman in front of him was talking loudly on her mobile phone. ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll be back by Thursday and then I’ll give him a reefing, I can tell you, the gowl.’
Rather bitter-sweetly, it occurred to him that he would never have to speak Corkinese ever again. No more ‘how’s it hangin’, boy?’ or ‘goin’ for the messages’ or ‘he was readin’ the hole off your wan’.
He had almost reached the customs desk when somebody laid a hand on his shoulder, very gently, almost as if they had touched him by accident.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
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About this Book
They walked together to the edge of the Blackwater, and the breeze whispered softly in the long shiny grass. As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows.
It is the bloated body of Father Heaney. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the marks of garrotting wire. Worse still, he has been castrated.
When a second priest is found murdered, his body bruised and beaten and the same savage wound hidden beneath his soutane, Detective Inspector Katie Maguire finds evidence of a sinister cover-up at St Joseph’s Orphanage.
But the Catholic diocese still wields considerable power here, and the Garda are under pressure to close the case. Katie has to work alone if she is to catch the killer in time – but first she must shatter a wall of silence that for decades has hidden a terrible secret.
A secret that is beyond belief…
Reviews
“One of the most original and frightening storytellers of our time.” —Peter James
‘One of the few true masters.’ —James Herbert
‘Graham Masterton’s best book yet, and that’s as good as they come!’ —John Farris
‘His setting is unique, his killer is gruesomely fascinating, and his storyteller is visceral and graphic.’ —Booklist
‘A superlative writer.’ —Philadelphia Inquirer
‘The living inheritor to the realm of Edgar Allen Poe.’ —San Francisco Chronicle
‘[Masterton] moves from the familiar and credible to the fanciful and disturbing. The drama is tense, the writing superb.’ —Sunday Times
‘Multifaceted and fascinating.’ —Los Angeles Times
‘A mesmerizing storyteller whose fascination with the finer points of human weakness and deft touch keep the pages turning.’ —Publishers Weekly
‘Graham Masterton is a natural storyteller with a unique gift for turning the mundane into the terrifyingly real... Compulsive reading.’ —New York Journal of Books
About this Series
KATIE MAGUIRE
1. White Bones
One wet, windswept November morning, a field on Meagher’s farm gives up the dismembered bones of eleven women…
Their skeletons bear the marks of a meticulous butcher. The bodies date back to 1915. All were likely skinned alive.
But then a young woman goes missing, and her remains, the bones carefully stripped and arranged in an arcane pattern, are discovered on the same farm.
With the crimes of the past echoing in the present, D.S. Katie Maguire must solve a decades-old murder steeped in ancient legend... before this terrifying killer strikes again.
White Bones is available here.
2. Broken Angels
They walked together to the edge of the Blackwater, and the breeze whispered softly in the long shiny grass. As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows.
It is the bloated body of Father Heaney. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the marks of garrotting wire. Worse still, he has been castrated.
When a second priest is found murdered, his body bruised and beaten and the same savage wound hidden beneath his soutane, Detective Inspector Katie Maguire finds evidence of a sinister cover-up at St Joseph’s Orphanage.
But the Catholic diocese still wields considerable power here, and the Garda are under pressure to close the case. Katie has to work alone if she is to catch the killer in time – but first she must shatter a wall of silence that for decades has hidden a terrible secret.
A secret that is beyond belief…
Broken Angels is available here.
About the Author
GRAHAM MASTERTON was a bestselling horror writer for many years before he turned his talent to crime. His most recent book, White Bones, was an Ebook hit, selling 100,000 copies in a single month. He lived in Cork for five years, an experience that inspired the Katie Maguire series.
A Letter from the Publisher
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HeadofZeusBooks
Dedicated to great storytelling
First published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Graham Masterton, 2011
The moral right of Graham Masterton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781781851180
ISBN (TPB) 9781781851197
ISBN (E) 9781781852194
Head of Zeus Ltd
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Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter
49
Chapter 50
About this Book
Reviews
About this Series
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) Page 35