Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) (45 page)

The next morning at 11 a.m. they held a media conference at Anglesea Street, and Katie gave the press the full story of what had happened at Dripsey. Or at least the story that she and Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll had devised in collaboration with Bishop Mahoney’s office. They had agreed that there was no good to be done to anybody by releasing all of the details of St Joseph’s Orphanage Choir, and Bishop Kerrigan’s deluded dream of heavenly glory.

Katie was leaving the building with Detective O’Donovan when she heard somebody call out, ‘Katie!’

She looked around. As she did so, all of the crows rose up from the roof of the car park opposite, silently, and flapped away. It was Paul McKeown, rather more smartly dressed than when she had first met him, in a grey blazer and black trousers and shiny black shoes.

‘I was hoping to see you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Denis Sweeney and the Phelan twins. My God – I can hardly believe they got struck by lightning.’

Katie looked at her watch. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ve got half an hour. Why don’t we go for a coffee and I can tell you all about it. Patrick – I’ll see you this afternoon, about two if that’s okay. We need to go over the evidence in that Ringaskiddy drugs fiasco.’

‘Fine by me, ma’am,’ said Detective O’Donovan, and walked away.

Katie took Paul McKeown back into the station and upstairs to the canteen. It was deserted, except for a single garda in his shirtsleeves, eating a late breakfast of bacon and eggs and reading the
Sun
. Katie went to the counter for two cups of coffee and then she and Paul McKeown sat by the window.

‘Now,’ said Katie. ‘You want all the grisly details, I suppose.’

But Paul McKeown was looking at her with a frown on his face like a sympathetic doctor. He said, ‘Before that, tell me what’s wrong.’

‘I’m sorry? It’s all over, apart from collating all of the evidence, of course, and writing my report.’

‘No, I meant what’s wrong with you.’

‘Come here to me? I don’t know what you mean. There’s nothing wrong.’

Paul McKeown reached across the Formica-topped table and took hold of her hands, and for some reason she couldn’t really understand, she allowed him to.

‘Katie,’ he said, ‘I’ve been running the Cork Survivors’ Society for long enough to know when somebody’s hurting.’

‘Oh, I see. And you can tell that how, exactly?’

‘What – apart from the fact that you’ve been crying?’

Katie was about to tell him not to be so ridiculous. Not only ridiculous but incredibly personal, especially since he hardly knew her. But she suddenly found that her throat was so tight that she was unable to speak, and that her eyes were brimming with tears.

‘You don’t have to tell me about it,’ said Paul McKeown. ‘Whatever it is, Katie, it’s your business. But if it’ll help.’

She still couldn’t speak. All she could do was sit there holding Paul McKeown’s hands, with tears running down her cheeks, because she had lost little Seamus after his first and only birthday, and she had lost Paul, no matter how much of a chancer he had been, and she had lost Jimmy O’Rourke, and she had seen Dr Collins killed, and now she had lost John, too.

Paul McKeown handed her a paper napkin and she dabbed at her eyes. After a while, in short, choked-up bursts, she was able to tell him why she was so upset. He listened to her with a serious expression, not interrupting once.

When she had finished, however, he said, ‘Let me tell you this, Katie. If you lose too many people, you’re in real danger of losing yourself, too. I’ve seen it happen far too often. Don’t let it happen to you.’

At 3.30 p.m. they announced that it was time for passengers to board Aer Lingus flight 722 to San Francisco, via London and New York.

John finished his beer, picked up his hand baggage and his laptop, and walked out of the airport bar. He went down the escalator to the main concourse and stood in line, waiting for customs and security. The woman in front of him was talking loudly on her mobile phone. ‘Don’t you worry, I’ll be back by Thursday and then I’ll give him a reefing, I can tell you, the gowl.’

Rather bitter-sweetly, it occurred to him that he would never have to speak Corkinese ever again. No more ‘how’s it hangin’, boy?’ or ‘goin’ for the messages’ or ‘he was readin’ the hole off your wan’.

He had almost reached the customs desk when somebody laid a hand on his shoulder, very gently, almost as if they had touched him by accident.

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They walked together to the edge of the Blackwater, and the breeze whispered softly in the long shiny grass. As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows.

It is the bloated body of Father Heaney. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the marks of garrotting wire. Worse still, he has been castrated.

When a second priest is found murdered, his body bruised and beaten and the same savage wound hidden beneath his soutane, Detective Inspector Katie Maguire finds evidence of a sinister cover-up at St Joseph’s Orphanage.

But the Catholic diocese still wields considerable power here, and the Garda are under pressure to close the case. Katie has to work alone if she is to catch the killer in time – but first she must shatter a wall of silence that for decades has hidden a terrible secret.

A secret that is beyond belief…

“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 is a natural storyteller with a unique gift for turning the mundane into the terrifyingly real... Compulsive reading.’ —
New York Journal of Books

KATIE MAGUIRE

1.
White Bones

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
.

2.
Broken Angels

They walked together to the edge of the Blackwater, and the breeze whispered softly in the long shiny grass. As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows.

It is the bloated body of Father Heaney. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the marks of garrotting wire. Worse still, he has been castrated.

When a second priest is found murdered, his body bruised and beaten and the same savage wound hidden beneath his soutane, Detective Inspector Katie Maguire finds evidence of a sinister cover-up at St Joseph’s Orphanage.

But the Catholic diocese still wields considerable power here, and the Garda are under pressure to close the case. Katie has to work alone if she is to catch the killer in time – but first she must shatter a wall of silence that for decades has hidden a terrible secret.

A secret that is beyond belief…

Broken Angels
is available
here
.

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.

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