BooksBarbecue
Back Homesickness
Chapters (16)
  1. Homesickness
  2. Also by Colin Barrett
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. For
  6. Contents
  7. A SHOOTING IN RATHREEDANE
  8. THE WAYS
  9. THE ALPS
  10. WHOEVER IS THERE, COME ON THROUGH
  11. THE SILVER COAST
  12. ANHEDONIA, HERE I COME
  13. THE LOW, SHIMMERING BLACK DRONE
  14. THE 10
  15. Acknowledgements
  16. Back Cover

‘I’ll live. Are you OK?’

Noonan took off her cap. Navy, with the gold badge of the Garda crest set into the black band above the peak. Noonan rotated the cap in her hands and placed it back on her head.

‘It’s been a long weekend,’ she said.

Crean was gazing off down the field.

‘They’re very presentable all the same, aren’t they?’ he said, nodding at the Ox Mountains.

‘They are.’

‘That’s the thing about Mayo. I find it’s very present­able from a distance. It’s only up close it lets you down.’

Noonan managed a smile.

‘The family will need to be told,’ Crean said. ‘Can you handle that?’

Noonan nodded.

Crean studied her for a moment, rooted out a pack of disposable tissues and offered the pack to her. He tapped his temple.

‘Your forehead,’ he said. ‘You can’t be showing up to the family’s door with that poor fucker’s blood all over your face.’

The forensics team arrived, as did Inspectors Burke and McElroy over from Castlebar. Crean and the inspectors escorted the Creedon men to Ballina station. Noonan and Swift detoured back to the station so that Noonan could clean up, change shirts and ­double-­check the address they had on file. Noonan rang the listed number for Amy Mullally but got no answer and decided against leaving a message. She rang home, told Trevor she would be late.

‘How are you now?’ Noonan asked Swift as they idled in traffic in the town centre.

‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘I mean, you know.’

He did not complete the thought, smiling dumbly and gazing out at the streets of Ballina as if he weren’t quite sure they were there. It was darker now, the street lights throwing down their harsh yellow dazzle.

‘That the first death you seen on the job?’ Noonan asked him.

‘It’s not been called yet.’

‘No. But was it?’

‘There was that young lad topped himself in the shed in Easky last Christmas.’

‘I mean a killing.’

‘There was a couple of gangland shootings up in Dublin, after I’d just got out of Templemore. Only saw the aftermaths, though. Never saw a fella dying in front of me like that. You?’

Noonan shook her head.