arm was, as if they can force it to grow back again by willpower.’
‘I can understand that, yes, after talking to John,’ said Katie. ‘I don’t think he’s finding it at all easy to deal with.’
Bridie was struggling to reach behind her hips and fasten her apron. ‘He has you , at least. You know how much he’s relying on you, don’t you?’
Katie didn’t answer that but said, ‘Here,’ and tied up the strings for her. ‘Tell John I’ll try to get back home as early as I can.’
‘I will of course.’
*
It was raining as she drove into the city on the N25 – not torrentially, but fine silvery cloaks of drizzle that drifted across the city like a procession of ghosts, and softly rattled against the side windows of her car as if they were trying to attract her attention. Don’t you remember us, Katie? We remember you.
She had received at least a dozen messages, and she listened to them as she drove. Detective O’Donovan needed to talk to her about a District Court case against a Romanian pimp which had collapsed for lack of credible witnesses, and Detective Ó Doibhilin had traced the origin of one of the porn fraud sites. Inspector O’Brien from Bandon said that he had a possible ID on the ‘feller’ with whom Cleona Cassidy had been having an affair, and Detective Dooley thought that he might have a lead on two of the most valuable dogs that had been stolen from Sceolan Boarding Kennels.
The last message surprised her most of all, though. It was delivered in the dry, emotionless tones of Assistant Commissioner Jimmy O’Reilly.
‘Katie, if you would be so good as to come by my office as soon as you get in, there’s a matter I have to discuss with you. Something pure confidential.’
Katie was so taken aback by this message that she played it again, twice. The relationship between her and Jimmy O’Reilly had always been unpleasantly abrasive, right from the very start. He was one of the old-school golf-playing stonecutters, and he had made no secret of his annoyance when Katie had been promoted over the heads of several senior male inspectors, even though she was equally experienced and – in some instances – much more qualified. Her appointment as detective superintendent had been part of An Garda Siochána’s drive to show that they gave just as much opportunity to women officers as they did to men, but Jimmy O’Reilly had seemed to consider her promotion a personal affront. As far as he was concerned, female gardaí were good only for making tea and comforting battered wives and seeing primary school children across the road.
What had finally brought him to the point where he would barely even speak to Katie was her discovery that he had been passing confidential Garda information to a Cork thug called Bobby Quilty, in return for substantial unsecured loans. He had been borrowing the money to give to one of his young personal assistants, James Elvin, to pay off his gambling debts. James Elvin was not only his personal assistant, but his lover.
So what was this ‘pure confidential’ matter that Jimmy O’Reilly wanted to discuss with her? Katie had found out that he had been tipping off Bobby Quilty about imminent Garda raids on his properties, but she had still failed to come up with enough incriminating evidence to take to the Commissioner and the Garda Ombudsman, and finish his career. That was why the last few months between them had been characterised by such a hostile deadlock.
After she had hung up her plum-coloured raincoat in her own office she put her head around the door and said good morning to Moirin, her new assistant. Moirin was small and chubby with a pale heart-shaped face and red heart-shaped lips and black bouffant hair, like Disney’s Snow White. If Katie hadn’t known that she was twenty-six years old and a single mother, she would have guessed that she had only just left secondary school.
‘Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly was asking after you,
‘I can understand that, yes, after talking to John,’ said Katie. ‘I don’t think he’s finding it at all easy to deal with.’
Bridie was struggling to reach behind her hips and fasten her apron. ‘He has you , at least. You know how much he’s relying on you, don’t you?’
Katie didn’t answer that but said, ‘Here,’ and tied up the strings for her. ‘Tell John I’ll try to get back home as early as I can.’
‘I will of course.’
*
It was raining as she drove into the city on the N25 – not torrentially, but fine silvery cloaks of drizzle that drifted across the city like a procession of ghosts, and softly rattled against the side windows of her car as if they were trying to attract her attention. Don’t you remember us, Katie? We remember you.
She had received at least a dozen messages, and she listened to them as she drove. Detective O’Donovan needed to talk to her about a District Court case against a Romanian pimp which had collapsed for lack of credible witnesses, and Detective Ó Doibhilin had traced the origin of one of the porn fraud sites. Inspector O’Brien from Bandon said that he had a possible ID on the ‘feller’ with whom Cleona Cassidy had been having an affair, and Detective Dooley thought that he might have a lead on two of the most valuable dogs that had been stolen from Sceolan Boarding Kennels.
The last message surprised her most of all, though. It was delivered in the dry, emotionless tones of Assistant Commissioner Jimmy O’Reilly.
‘Katie, if you would be so good as to come by my office as soon as you get in, there’s a matter I have to discuss with you. Something pure confidential.’
Katie was so taken aback by this message that she played it again, twice. The relationship between her and Jimmy O’Reilly had always been unpleasantly abrasive, right from the very start. He was one of the old-school golf-playing stonecutters, and he had made no secret of his annoyance when Katie had been promoted over the heads of several senior male inspectors, even though she was equally experienced and – in some instances – much more qualified. Her appointment as detective superintendent had been part of An Garda Siochána’s drive to show that they gave just as much opportunity to women officers as they did to men, but Jimmy O’Reilly had seemed to consider her promotion a personal affront. As far as he was concerned, female gardaí were good only for making tea and comforting battered wives and seeing primary school children across the road.
What had finally brought him to the point where he would barely even speak to Katie was her discovery that he had been passing confidential Garda information to a Cork thug called Bobby Quilty, in return for substantial unsecured loans. He had been borrowing the money to give to one of his young personal assistants, James Elvin, to pay off his gambling debts. James Elvin was not only his personal assistant, but his lover.
So what was this ‘pure confidential’ matter that Jimmy O’Reilly wanted to discuss with her? Katie had found out that he had been tipping off Bobby Quilty about imminent Garda raids on his properties, but she had still failed to come up with enough incriminating evidence to take to the Commissioner and the Garda Ombudsman, and finish his career. That was why the last few months between them had been characterised by such a hostile deadlock.
After she had hung up her plum-coloured raincoat in her own office she put her head around the door and said good morning to Moirin, her new assistant. Moirin was small and chubby with a pale heart-shaped face and red heart-shaped lips and black bouffant hair, like Disney’s Snow White. If Katie hadn’t known that she was twenty-six years old and a single mother, she would have guessed that she had only just left secondary school.
‘Assistant Commissioner O’Reilly was asking after you,
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