The Broken Shore by Catriona King Page A

along the front called ‘The Magic Box’. It sells those scented candles and girly stuff.”
    “I like scented candles, hey.”
    “Aye well, that figures. You probably light them on the nights you wear your pleather.”
    A loud laugh ran through the group attracting the glance of a waitress nearby. She’d overheard and was stifling a laugh. Liam restarted, gratified by her amusement.
    “Lissy worked there on Thursday and Friday evenings and all day Saturday. It closes at six o’clock on Saturdays. The twenty-seventh would have been her last day working there before she died.”
    “Who else works there?”
    “Don’t know yet. It’s shut on Sundays. I’ll call there today and canvas the promenade, but my guess is it’s mostly tourists down there during the week, although maybe some locals shop there on Saturdays.”
    “I’ll help Liam with that, hey.”
    Craig nodded, thinking. “Has Davy had any joy on her phone and e-mail accounts yet, Liam? We need to know is she was meeting anyone last weekend.”
    Liam shook his head and dropped a piece of bacon into his mouth, chewing as he talked. “Give him a chance, boss. The lad’s good, but even he needs time off on a Sunday.”
    Craig startled suddenly, realising that it was only Monday morning. “God, you’re right. Sorry. I’ve lost track of the days.”
    Liam sniffed. “You need to watch that, boss. Next thing you’ll be wearing odd socks like the Doc.”
    They all stared down at John’s feet, including him. Liam was right! He was wearing one brown sock and one black.
    “Do I do that often, Marc?”
    “Ask Liam, I hadn’t even noticed.”
    “Once a week at least and more often on a Monday. Anyway, I’ll chase Davy today and hopefully Lissy had some phone calls that tell us where she was between the Friday the neighbours saw her and the Thursday she was found. I’ll see if she socialised with anyone from the shop that weekend.”
    “Good. Anything else, anyone? Before I start?”
    There was silence while Craig took a drink of cold coffee, screwing up his face. John beckoned the waitress over to top them up and Craig started. He updated them on their meeting with Mulvenna while Andy chipped in, then he stared at them all so intently they knew that whatever he was going to say next would rattle everyone’s cage.
    “OK. Here’s my take on the murder in ‘83. Jonno Mulvenna didn’t do it.” Liam went to interject but Craig stilled him with a glance. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s a murdering bastard no matter how he tries to hide it behind ‘the cause’. And strangely he’s not complaining about being banged-up, says he deserved the years he did, and more. But there was something that didn’t fit.”
    Andy nodded in agreement.
    “I’ve seen men like him before, they’re lovers not fighters and if they do fight it’s always for some romantic cause. Their own personal crusade. Mulvenna justifies what he did in The Troubles by saying that it was a war. Now we might think that’s crap but it’s his take on life. And it’s a take that doesn’t allow for him killing a woman.” He turned to Liam.
    “Liam, were any of the police or army he killed, female?”
    Liam thought for a moment and then shook his head. “But that was by good luck, not judgement, boss.”
    “I’m not so sure. You should have seen his house. Paintings all over the walls, and every one of them something of beauty.”
    “He probably nicked them.”
    Craig laughed, conceding it would have been true of many criminals he knew, but it wasn’t true this time. “He painted them himself and they’re bloody good. He has an exhibition coming up.”
    Andy looked surprised. “He didn’t say anything about that.”
    “No, he didn’t, but I noticed a flyer on the coffee table. It’s tomorrow night, at a gallery on the Lisburn Road.”
    “He must be good, Marc. Those galleries are pretty fussy.”
    “He is. But that’s irrelevant except that it underlines his approach to