The Midnight Choir

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Authors: Gene Kerrigan

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural

BOOK: The Midnight Choir
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About the Author
After seven non-fiction books, veteran journalist Gene Kerrigan received critical acclaim in Ireland, the UK and the USA for his first two novels,
Little Criminals
and
The Midnight Choir
. His most recent novel is
Dark Times in the City
. He lives in Dublin.
ALSO BY GENE KERRIGAN
Novels
Little Criminals
Dark Times in the City
Non-fiction
Round Up the Usual Suspects
(with Derek Dunne)
Nothing but the Truth
Goodbye to All That
(with Derek Speirs)
Hard Cases
Another Country
This Great Little Nation
(with Pat Brennan)
Never Make A Promise You Can’t Break
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781409015802
Version 1.0
  
Published by Vintage 2007
4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
Copyright © Gene Kerrigan 2005
Gene Kerrigan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Harvill Secker
Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099483762
Contents
 
This book is dedicated to Elizabeth Lordan
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
– Leonard Cohen
WEDNESDAY
1
GALWAY
It was just gone noon when Garda Joe Mills got out of the patrol car on Porter Street, looked up and saw the jumper sitting on the edge of the pub roof, his legs dangling over the side. Garda Declan Dockery was still behind the wheel, confirming to radio control that this was a live one. Looking up past the soles of the jumper’s shoes, to the pale, bored face, Joe Mills was hoping the fool would get on with it.
If you’re gonna jump, do it now.
Thing about people like that, they don’t much care who they take with them. Mills had once worked with a garda named Walsh, from Carlow, who used to be stationed in Dublin. Went into the Liffey after a would-be suicide and the guy took him under, arms around his neck. Would have killed him if Walsh hadn’t grabbed his balls until he’d let go.
The jumper was just sitting there, two storeys above the street, staring straight ahead. He looked maybe forty, give or take. The sleeveless top showing off his shoulders. Bulky but not fat. He paid no heed to the arrival of the police or the attention of anyone below. To the left of the pub there was a bookie’s, and a motor accessories shop to the right and beyond that a branch of a building society, all with a trickle of customers. Passers-by slowed and some stopped. An audience was building. As Mills watched, several pre-lunch drinkers came out of the pub to see what was going on. Two of them were still clutching their pints.
Mills waited for Dockery to finish talking into the radio. He wasn’t going up on that roof alone.
Thing like this, edge of the roof, all it takes is he grabs hold of you at the last moment, your arm, maybe, or the front of your jacket – and your balance is gone. You reach for a handhold and you’re too far out and all you get to do is scream on the way down.
You want to jump, go ahead. Leave me out of it.
A man in his fifties, pudgy, balding and pouting, buttonholed Garda Mills. ‘I want him off there, right? And I want him arrested, OK?’
‘And you are?’
‘The manager. I want him dealt with. That kind of thing – this is a respectable pub, right?’
Mills saw that the jumper was shifting around. Maybe his arse was itchy, maybe he was working on a decision.
‘Oh, I dunno,’ Mills said. ‘Thing like this, you could have a lot of people dropping around to see where it happened. Tourists, like. Can’t be bad for business.’
The manager looked at Mills, like he was considering if there might be something in that.
‘I want him shifted, right?’
Dockery was standing at Mills’s shoulder. ‘Ambulance on the way. They’re looking for a shrink who can make it here pronto. Meantime—’
Mills was thinking, traffic in this town, by the time a shrink gets here it’ll all be over.
One way or the other.
Dockery was looking at the assembled gawkers. ‘I reckon the most important thing is we cordon off down here. We don’t want him coming down on top of someone.’
Mills nodded. That sounded like the sensible thing to do. Best of all, it was ground-level work. Dockery was already moving towards the onlookers when one of the drinkers said, ‘Oh, no.’
Mills looked up. The jumper was standing.
Shit.
Mills said, ‘We can’t wait for the shrink.’
Dockery said, ‘Wait a minute – there’s—’
Mills was moving towards the door of the pub. He took the manager by the elbow. ‘How do I get up there?’
‘Joe—’ Dockery was making an awkward gesture, caught between following Mills and moving the gawkers out of harm’s way.
The manager, grumbling all the way, took Mills up to the top floor, where a storeroom led to an exit onto the roof.
Mills was trying to remember a lecture he’d attended a couple of years back. How to approach a possible suicide.
Reluctantly.
The roof was flat tarmac, with razor-wire barriers jutting out at a forty-five-degree angle on each side. The storeroom took up a quarter of the roof space at the back and there was a two-foot-high parapet at the front. Near the centre of the roof a green plastic garden chair lay on its side, next to a stack of broken window boxes and a couple of empty old Guinness crates. At the front of the building the jumper was standing on the parapet, arms down by his sides. Mills moved towards him at an angle, stepping sideways, keeping his distance. He wasn’t going close enough to be pulled over, and he didn’t want to startle the man.
From up here, the jumper looked like he was in his early thirties. Denim jeans, trainers and the dark blue sleeveless top. Well built, serious shoulders and biceps that didn’t come from casual exercise.
Weights, probably steroids too.
What to say?
Mills couldn’t remember much from the lecture, but he knew that there was no point arguing with a jumper. Logic didn’t work. Whatever it was had got him out here it’d be so big in his mind that there wouldn’t be room in there for reasoning.

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