Contents (48)
- PAST LIFE
- David Mark
- PART ONE
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- PART TWO
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Pharaoh bends down. Takes Roisin’s hands in hers. Gives her a little smile. ‘Yeah? And he’s Aector Fucking McAvoy. I know who my money’s on.’
‘But …’
Pharaoh takes a cigarette from her pocket. Takes another for Roisin. Puts both in her mouth and lights them. Puts one between Roisin’s lips. They sit in a cloud of smoke, eyeing each other like cats.
‘Now,’ says Pharaoh, at last. ‘Let’s go save our daughters from each other, yes? And on the way, you can tell me all you remember about the day Eva-Jayne died.’
Roisin nods. Her eyes shine through the smoke like crystals in firelight.
One hundred and sixty miles away, in a quiet little office at the end of a long corridor, Helen Tremberg looks at the notes she has scribbled down. Checks that the recording is clear. Replays a few snippets of the conversation she has spent the last half hour listening to. Saves the file to her laptop. Takes a handful of Minstrels from the open bag on her desk, and drains her bottle of Fanta. Finally, she opens up the database. Cross-checks the information that she has just been party to, against times, dates, and unsolved crimes.
Ten minutes later, a warning sign appears in the centre of the screen. She has accessed a confidential file, linked to an ongoing multi-agency operation. The point of contact listed for all further enquiries, is a senior Gardai officer, and an extension number for a secure line at the Home Office.
‘Oh Aector,’ whispers Tremberg, shaking her head. She thinks of Fin. Of the boy she met, seven years before, in Hull’s Holy Trinity Square. He’s been a brave boy. Sweet, and clever and too good to be true. She glances at the photo of her own daughter, Penelope, in a silver frame on her desk. Thinks of Roisin, and all she has endured. Thinks of Aector McAvoy, and the day he saved her life. Chews on her cheek. Picks up the phone.
‘Sir,’ she says, in her most ingratiating voice. ‘Sir, you know that favour you owe me …’
THIRTY-THREE
Twelve years ago
‘… So just the men now, so. Ladies … no, if you could just leave that be … excuse me, aye, son, no … just the men … put that back … no, no of course I don’t want to fight you, you’re ten …’
McAvoy feels more than a little sympathy for the photographer. Trying to get the wedding party to follow instructions is proving near Biblical in its level of suffering. It’s only a small wedding, but half the guests are children and the others are Pavee men and women with hard-wired aversion to doing as asked. The drink has been flowing merrily, and there’s a decent buffet going cold on the table. None were keen to leave their velour seats or take their fists off the golden tablecloths. It has taken almost an hour to get everybody to assemble in the little wooded glade at the back of the hotel. The photographer – a pot-bellied man with scabby red hair over a flaky scalp and an air of the recently alcoholic – is losing his mind.