Katie followed him into the living room. Branna was sitting on one of the couches, still crying, while Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán had her arm around her and was trying to calm her down.
‘All right,’ said Katie. ‘We’ll leave you in peace for now. There’ll be some technicians up here shortly to lift fingerprints and scuff marks from the balcony, if there are any. Otherwise, Mr Gerrety, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.’
Michael Gerrety was still dabbing at his nose. Before she left, Katie leaned close to him and said, very quietly, so that nobody else could hear her, ‘Actually, you’re right, Michael. I am obsessed. I’m obsessed with finding you guilty of every disgusting deed you’ve ever done and showing you up in public for what a revolting louse of a man you really are.’
She smiled at Carole Gerrety, who smiled back at her, and then she turned around to Detective O’Donovan and said, ‘Let’s go, Patrick. I need to pay my respects to Obioma.’
‘Your respects, ma’am?’ said Detective O’Donovan, as they went down in the lift.
‘Well, not exactly respects. But I killed her and I need to see her. She may have been a murderer, but I could understand her anger.’
As they reached the ground floor she looked upwards. ‘She didn’t get her revenge against Michael Gerrety, but I will, I swear to God.’
Out in Eglington Street, Katie made her way through the crowd that was beginning to gather. She didn’t push, just gently touched people’s arms and said, ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ until she reached Obioma’s body.
Obioma was lying on her side, almost as if she had simply decided that she was tired and needed to have a sleep on the pavement. Her eyes were open and she looked puzzled, but still beautiful. Her arms and legs, however, were all at impossible angles, and the back of her skull was smashed so that blood and brains were sprayed all the way across to the kerb. She must have fallen from the balcony head first, and it was over seventy metres to the ground.
Katie knelt down beside her. The garda who was already crouching there said nothing, but looked across at her in anticipation, almost as if he expected her to say a few words of benediction – In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti – but all Katie said was, ‘I’m sorry,’ and carefully reached out to close Obioma’s eyes.
Forty-four
She stayed in the city all night – first at the Elysian Tower, until the technicians had finished measuring and photographing Obioma’s body, then at Anglesea Street, writing out a preliminary report on the shooting and then briefing the media.
She didn’t manage to return home until 10.35 a.m., without having slept at all. Even so, she would only have time for a shower and a change of clothes and a sandwich before she would have to return to the station to interview Michael Gerrety. She had provisionally arranged with his lawyer, James Moody, that they would meet at 3.30 p.m. She had warned Mr Moody that if Michael Gerrety failed to appear he would be arrested.
James Moody had said, very haughtily, ‘My client quite understands his civic responsibilities, detective superintendent. You don’t have to threaten.’
John was waiting for her when she came through the door. He was wearing a light gabardine windcheater and khaki chinos and his blue Samsonite suitcase was standing in the hallway.
‘Hell’s bells,’ he said. ‘Look at your eye.’
‘How can I look at it?’ she said. ‘I can hardly see out of it.’
She hung up her jacket. Her revolver had been taken away from her at the station as a matter of procedure, but it would be returned to her once the shooting had been thoroughly investigated.
John said, ‘Are you okay? You look terrible, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘I know I do. But that gives you one more reason for going, doesn’t it?’
‘Katie—’
‘Oh, no,’ said Katie. ‘Who could possibly blame you for leaving a wet miserable country full of priests and prejudice and pigs’ trotters when the only person who’s keeping you here is a terrible-looking red-haired detective who never comes home at night?’
John tried to hold her but she pushed him away.
‘Katie—’
‘Just go,’ she said. ‘We’ve said everything to each other that we’re ever going to say. There’s no point in going over it all again.’
She sat down in the living room that John had been going to redecorate and Barney came up and sat in front of her, cocking his head to one side as if he were asking her what was wrong.
John stood in the doorway, saying nothing.
‘What time’s your plane?’ Katie asked him.
‘Three-thirty.’
‘Oh. That’s when I’ll be questioning Michael Gerrety.’
John said, ‘You shot that woman? That Obioma?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s it like? I mean, what does it feel like, when you have to do that? Like, kill them.’
‘Don’t ask me that, John. I’ve had enough of dying. And just at this moment, I feel like I’m dying myself.’
John waited a little longer, one hand on the door frame, looking at her sadly. Then he laid his keys down on the table in the hall and picked up his suitcase and left, closing the front door very quietly behind him.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
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About this Book
Somewhere in the city of Cork, a woman’s cry echoes through the rainy streets. The two men who find her see something that will haunt them forever.
On a bloodstained mattress, a burly man lies dead. Gunshots have shattered his face, and, where his hands used to be are two bloody stumps. A terrified girl kneels over his body. She is half-naked, starving, screaming. She has been trapped here for three days.
It doesn’t take DS Katie Maguire long to identify the murder victim. He is someone she has been trying to convict for years – a cruel and powerful pimp who terrorised the girls who worked for him. Has one of his rivals caught up with him? Or did one of his girls finally snap?
Should she allow the killer to strike again?
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
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.
Find out more on Graham’s website, www.grahammasterton.co.uk or connect with him on Twitter, @GrahamMast
erton
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
As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows …
One cold spring morning in County Cork, two fishermen find a body floating in the Blackwater River: the mutilated corpse of a retired music teacher. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the mark of a garrotting wire.
The Garda want to wrap this case up before the press get hold of it. But when a second man is found murdered, the body bears all the same marks as the first. And Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire fears this case carries the hallmark of a serial murderer …
Broken Angels is available here.
3) Red Light
On a bloodstained mattress, a burly man lies dead. Gunshots have shattered his face, and, where his hands used to be are two bloody stumps. A terrified girl kneels over his body. She is half-naked, starving, screaming. She has been trapped here for three days.
It doesn’t take DS Katie Maguire long to identify the murder victim. He is someone she has been trying to convict for years – a cruel and powerful pimp who terrorised the girls who worked for him. Has one of his rivals caught up with him? Or did one of his girls finally snap?
It’s Katie’s job to catch the killer. But with men like this dead, the city is safer – and so are the young women who are trafficked into Cork and forced to sell their bodies to strangers. When a second pimp is horrifically murdered, Katie must decide. Should she do her job, or follow her conscience?
Should she allow the killer to strike again?
Red Light is available here.
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The story starts here
First published in the UK in 2014 by Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Graham Masterton, 2014
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.
Hardback ISBN: 9781781856765
Trade paperback ISBN: 9781781856772
eBook ISBN: 9781781856758
eBook converted by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Head of Zeus Ltd
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Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Display Options Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
About this Book
Reviews
About the Author
About this Series
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright