Read Hurt (DS Lucy Black) for Free Online Page B

Mary were killed. The baby, Joe, survived.’
    ‘I remember reviewing the file before I started here,’ Burns said. ‘My recollection is that it hit the three-month flag without progress and was relegated. This Cunningham character went over the border, is that right?’
    Lucy nodded. ‘To Donegal initially.’
    ‘I’ve a feeling I read there was intelligence on the ground that he’d settled in Limerick, but we asked the Guards to follow it up and they got nothing. The inquiries here hit a dead end, too. There was a suggestion that Cunningham was being protected. His family were well known Republicans.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I knew the girl who died. She’d come to our attention in the days before her death. She called me on the night she died, but I didn’t get the call until ... until after.’
    ‘I see,’ Burns repeated.
    ‘I was just wondering if any progress had been made.’
    ‘None, I’m afraid,’ Burns said. ‘Nor will there be any until Cunningham comes back over the border, or makes a public appearance in the south so that the Guards can get to him. But I’ll double check for you. As I say, I just reviewed the more recent open files. I might have missed something.’
    Somehow, Lucy doubted it.

Chapter Nine
    Tara was waiting for her in the corridor outside the room when Lucy came out.
    ‘Schmoozing with the boss?’ she asked, a little petulantly.
    ‘He’s not
my
boss,’ Lucy commented. ‘I wanted to check up on something.’
    Tara waved away the explanation. ‘Sorry. It’s bloody Mickey Sinclair. He’s the blue-eyed boy since he got DS. He gets to run down leads in the school, and I’m struck tracing thieved metal. This whole bloody unit is all politics. You’re lucky you ended up in PPU.’
    Lucy grunted by way of offering sympathies for Tara’s complaint. ‘If you do find anything, I’d be interested in knowing,’ she said. ‘About the stolen metal.’
    Tara frowned. ‘Why?’
    ‘Someone stole the metal railings off the grave of a friend.’
    ‘Scumbags. I’ll let you know what I hear. We’ve targeted a scrap merchant called Finn out in Ballyarnet. Apparently he’d been shipping metal with Smart dye on it from electric cabling. Whoever’s stealing is selling through him. He’s going to let us know when they bring the next load down to him to sell.’ She considered a moment, then added, ‘He’s a fence.’
    Lucy smiled at the joke. ‘So you don’t like Burns then?’
    ‘He’s OK. Hard to impress. Mind you, do you know why he got where he got?’ she added, warming to her gossip.
    Being based in the centre of town, Tara seemed to glean all the station gossip. Lucy, on the other hand, sharing a unit with Tom Fleming out at Maydown, heard nothing.
    ‘Why?
    ‘The ACC!’
    ‘What?’
    Tara nodded, smiling. ‘Apparently. The two of them were spotted out having dinner in Eglinton.’
    ‘Said who?’
    ‘The community team was doing a drink-driving campaign, going around the local pubs. I know one of the fellas who spotted them.’
    Lucy smiled, trying to remember the name of the man she’d met the one time she’d visited her mother’s house. Peter? Paul? She’d obviously moved on.
    ‘At least that explains his meteoric rise to the top,’ Tara said. ‘Eh?’
    ‘Mmm,’ Lucy agreed. Not for the first time, she felt awkward with Tara. By rights she should have told her about the ACC being her mother. But each time they discussed her, it was generally Tara being critical. To admit to the relationship would just make things awkward. Lucy knew though that whatever time the information became common knowledge, Tara’s seeming proximity to the grapevine would result in her being one of the first to know. How that would change their friendship remained to be seen.
    ‘That’s not all they saw,’ Tara went on. ‘Your man was spotted too.’
    ‘
My
man?’
    ‘Tom Fleming. He’s back on the sauce. Not that I blame him, mind you, the shit you have to deal