Chapters (16)
‘I’m getting to that right now,’ she said, waving the cafetière at him.
Crean stood back so that Noonan could access the counter. He watched her refill the kettle, rinse out the cafetière and dump in a couple of spoonfuls of instant coffee.
‘You know there’s bags of beans you can get for that thing,’ he said. ‘Ground, whole, vanilla, real fancy stuff.’
‘I know. I see them every time I’m at Tesco.’
‘And you never bother with them?’
Noonan considered the cafetière, its chipped silver handle and scratched glass body. It was Trevor had bought it for her years ago, under the characteristically generous misapprehension it might inspire in her an enthusiasm for something more than the cheapest of cheap coffee.
‘I just never got around to it. Every time I see the fancy stuff in the supermarket I think, ah, next time, and the next time I think the same.’
‘Word came back from the hospital,’ Crean said.
‘OK,’ Noonan said.
‘Judge was just out of surgery when I spoke to them. Doctors said it’ll be touch and go the next couple of days, but it’s looking like he might pull through.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘I am not.’
The kettle came to a boil. Noonan placed her tailbone against the lip of the counter.
‘The fucker,’ she said, relieved and appalled. ‘Oh, the rotten little fucker.’
‘I reckon you might just have saved that rotten little fucker’s life.’
‘Stop,’ Noonan groaned. ‘When we were over at the girlfriend’s house, giving her the low-down, the whole time in the back of my head I kept thinking how Judge had just about done her the favour of her life, getting the guts shot out of himself.’
‘My condolences on his survival.’
‘Only I was sure he was a goner.’
‘So was I when I saw the state he was in. But as of right now, Dylan Judge remains in the land of the living, thanks to you.’
‘Thanks to me,’ Noonan said with a shake of her head.
She filled the cafetière with hot water and brought it back to her desk. She knew the report would take her some time. She had a method, more time-consuming than strictly necessary, but it allowed her to be thorough. First she would get down, by hand, the most crucial details in order of their occurrence then she would go back and flesh those details out on the computer. She sat down and opened her notebook, reread the litter of harried notes she’d jotted down over the course of Bertie Creedon initial phone call.
shoot
1 man
berty creedn
rathrdn
mlls trn
3 left
yello h
’92 fiat
son
1 shot
dbl brrl
bleed
She poured a coffee, turned her notebook to a clean page and began to write.