Raw Bone Read Online Free

tidy.”
    MacNeice enjoyed the brogue. “How long have you been here?”
    “You mean here at BTB, in Dundurn or Canada?”
    “All three.”
    Byrne cracked open the case beside him and pulled out a tall, slim can of Guinness stout. “You want one, or you can’t, I suppose, ’cause yer on duty.”
    “Correct.”
    He popped the can. “I’ve been in Canada since 2006. I sold the family farm when me ma died, twelve hectares near Dublin. Made a small fortune … well, not in North American terms, no.” He took a long swig of the dark liquid and licked the caramel foam off his lip. MacNeice noticed the downturned lines on either side of his mouth, how they contrasted with the laugh lines heading toward his temples. “Truth be told, I was had by a developer who wanted to do a working-class housing estate. But then, call it the ‘luck of,’ I got out just at the right time, ’cause the economy tanked. The developer decamped to Majorca just ahead of a lynching by the buyers he’d defaulted on.”
    “So why here?” MacNeice asked, as he continued to study the man. Judging by the yellow stains on the inside of his middle and forefingers, he was a right-handed heavy smoker—which would explain why he’d been standing on the porch without a jacket, even though there was a red down-filled coat on the back of the door. Shorter than medium height, he was too slender forhis own good, with the pinkish complexion of someone whose body was close to mutiny due to decades of abuse. If his body wasn’t speaking to him, Byrne’s eyes should have—the whites were almost yellow and that wasn’t a trick of the lighting.
    “Well, I could have gone to America or Australia, but to my mind they’re both full of macho men or fundamentalist Christians. So I chose Canada.” He said he landed in Dundurn and then bought the bar, which was a dump. But he’d been slowly investing in it, hoping that the rumour of Dundurn’s turnaround would soon come true. He took another drink, wiping his mouth with his hand. Then he leaned to tap the edge of the envelope. “Okay, your turn, detective.”
    “Fair enough.” MacNeice picked up the envelope. “The woman whose photo I’m about to show you died, we believe, about three months ago, in late November or early to mid-December. I want to know if she may have been to your bar, or possibly rented a room upstairs.”
    “You sayin’ she was a tramp and this is a flophouse?” He squared his shoulders in mock offence.
    MacNeice put the photocopy on the desk in front of Byrne. “Not at all. I believe she may have been passing through, off a ship or off the highway.”
    Byrne’s shoulders relaxed and he picked the photo up, studying it closely. “She’s pretty—well, she was pretty,” he said, meeting MacNeice’s eyes. “What happened to her?”
    “All I’m prepared to say at the moment is that her death is suspicious.”
    Byrne put the photocopy on the desk and ran the fingers of his right hand tenderly over her face.
    “So you do recognize her.”
    “Me, ah, no, I can’t say I’ve ever seen her before. No. She was pretty, that’s all. It’s ashame.” He cleared his throat, then cleared it again and looked at MacNeice. “Anything else I can do for you?”
    “Yes, you can give me the desk register for the rooms upstairs for November and December of last year. I assume you do keep records?”
    “Yeah, well of course, I gotta keep records like I gotta keep the kitchen clean.” He put his hands on both thighs as if he was about to stand, but then didn’t.
    MacNeice picked up the photograph and held it in front of Byrne again. “You’re quite sure you’ve never seen this woman?”
    “I haven’t seen her before.” He picked up the can of stout.
    “I’ll need your written consent to remove the records from the premises, or I can come back with a warrant for them.”
    Byrne began shoving papers around on the desk and then opened the drawers before he stood to look about