Red Light (48 page)
Authors: Graham Masterton
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.
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.
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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?
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?
‘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
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,
@GrahamMasterton
KATIE MAGUIRE
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
.
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
.
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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