The Death of an Irish Lover Read Online Free Page A

jealousy. Look what he’s got. But it’s how he carries himself that’s off-putting, always playing the backslapping hail-fellow with the rousing laugh to a fault. Goes fishing and shooting with the guests, stands the odd round of drinks, remembers names and sends greeting cards at Christmas with no more meaning to them than the cash in his till.
    “That said, what Tallon and the wife have done with this building that was a near ruin when they bought it, has spilled out into the town. Any number of shops—fishing gear, gifts, the garage, the chemist—have bumped up their trade. And it’s a steady increase with the same faces coming back year after year with new people in tow.
    “Which makes this…”—Riley’s hand flicked out at the bed—“even more of an enormity than it appears. For everybody.”
    They could hear footsteps approaching the door.
    McGarr lowered his voice. “I want you to listen closely to everything that’s said. Later, we’ll talk.”
    The door opened, and Tallon appeared; there was a woman behind him, who looked as though she had been crying.
    “What’s this?” Indignant, with brow furrowed, Tallon pointed at Riley. “Why’s he here? I thought we were going to keep this matter under wraps?”
    Tired of Tallon’s carry-on, McGarr pulled back the first of the two tall chairs that he had placed near the bed. “Close the door, and sit down.”
    “Well—I object. You and I were agreed. We had a definite understanding that you’d—”
    “Look,” McGarr cut in, “the only understanding that can be allowed in this room is that we have two dead people—officers of the law—who were murdered, and you either help us here or down at the barracks.”
    “Then it’s plain you don’t care about us, Peter.” Tallon wagged his head, his face suddenly a tragic mask. “Nor this village. You’re going to let this…thing”—he flourished a hand at the bed—“what we had nothing to do with, what was done by some outsiders, ruin our lives.
    “Peter, I implore you. I beseech you. Don’t let it happen!”
    There was a histrionic element to Tallon’s personality that was both curious and distressing and McGarr tried to remember if he’d always been that way. But the truth was—McGarr had had as little to do with Tallon as possible, and that little had been ugly.
    “Peter, I appeal to you. Weren’t we children together? Word of a thing like this”—again the hand gestured at the bed, as though trying to erase it—“why, we might lose the entire season.
    “Declan,” Tallon turned to the sergeant, “you tell him.”
    “I’ll not tell him a thing,” Riley said in a low voice. “I’ll tell you, Tallon—sit your arse down and shut your bloody gob.”
    “What did I tell you, Peter? The man has it in for me.”
    McGarr was surprised by his own hand. As though in reflex, it shot out and seized Tallon by the arm, digging into the pressure point just above the elbow.
    Tallon yelped, as McGarr walked him to the door.
    “Christ—me arm!”
    McGarr shoved him out the door.
    “It’s ruined altogether. I’m ringing up my solicitor this minute. I’m not without friends, you know. My father—”
    McGarr shut the door, and the woman took a chair.
    At the bed McGarr turned the second chair so that it was facing her.
    “May I have your full name.”
    “Sylvie…Tallon, I call myself. Though”—her dark eyes, swollen from crying, flickered up at McGarr—“we were never married. Formally. My last name is Zeebruge.” Late thirties maybe early forties, she was a pretty woman with wavy dark hair, high cheekbones and a wide mouth. Large even teeth made her lips look protrusive and pouty.
    “How long have you been a couple?”
    “Six years, ever since we bought this place.”
    “Why are you crying? Did you know these people?”
    Her brimming eyes flashed up at him. “Why do you think? Because I’m not an animal. Because they were two human beings.”
    “You knew them?”
    She