Read Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) for Free Online Page A

him.’
    ‘You must have tried ringing him yourself,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán.
    ‘I did, of course. But his phone was switched off. I couldn’t understand it. He never switched his phone off, ever.’
    ‘So when did they call and tell you what had happened to him?’
    Katie stayed quiet while Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán questioned Mary. Kyna had such a quiet, persuasive voice, and a natural instinct for what people needed to say, even when they were reluctant to talk. She was taking Mary Crounan back in her mind to relive the moment when she had been told that her husband had been kidnapped.
    ‘They said he was safe but they wanted a hundred thousand euros to let him go.’
    ‘Did they let you talk to him?’
    Mary Crounan nodded again, and fresh tears welled up in her eyes. ‘He said that everything was grand and I shouldn’t worry. But I shouldn’t tell anybody, and not the cops most of all. If I did, they would hurt him.’
    ‘How long did they give you to get the money together?’ asked Katie.
    ‘Three days, they said. A hundred thousand euros, in cash.’
    ‘So where were you going to get that from? Business hasn’t been going too well, has it? Come to that, it hasn’t been going too well for anybody in Cork these days, except for the pay-day moneylenders.’
    ‘Business has been a disaster for the past three years,’ said Mary Crounan. ‘Micky kept on smiling but we’ve been getting deeper and deeper in debt. We had to take Keela out of Regina Mundi and if Micky’s father hadn’t died and left us an inheritance I don’t know what we would have done. Micky always used to make a joke about him being a baker and starving while everybody else was eating his bread. “Let me eat cake,” he used to say. But it wasn’t too far from the truth.’
    ‘Did you raise the hundred thousand?’
    ‘I managed to raise eighty-seven six hundred. I went down to the Patrick’s Quay car park and found Micky’s Mercedes and sold it. I sold all of my jewellery, too, even my eternity ring. We didn’t have any savings left, and I couldn’t cash in any more of Micky’s pension.’
    ‘Did you hand the money over?’ Katie asked her.
    Mary Crounan whispered, ‘Yes.’
    ‘Where? And who did you hand it to?’
    ‘I shouldn’t tell you. They promised that all kinds of terrible things would happen to me and my children if I told you.’
    ‘Mary, your husband has been murdered. We have to catch the people who did it. Until we do, we can protect you. I mean that. We can make absolutely sure that you and your children are safe. But you have to help us. We can’t let killers and extortionists go free.’
    At that moment, the living-room door opened and Mary Crounan’s daughter put her head around it and said, ‘Ma? Is everything all right?’
    ‘Yes, darling. I won’t be very long and then I’ll make you some lunch.’
    ‘Can me and Donny have a biscuit?’
    ‘Yes, of course you can. Take two each, if you want to.’
    The door closed again and Mary Crounan looked at Katie with such an expression of grief that Katie went over and sat on the couch next to her and took hold of her hands. There was nothing she could say that would comfort her. Katie had experienced grief herself, more than once, and she knew that the pain was too great to be shared by anybody else.
    Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán turned away from the window and said, ‘You left the money somewhere? Is that it?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Mary Crounan. ‘I wrapped it in a shopping bag and left it under one of the settles in the Blair Inn at Cloghroe, on the way to Blarney. They had told me to buy myself a drink and sit there for ten minutes, so I wouldn’t look suspicious to the bar staff. When I’d finished my drink I went directly back home and waited for a call, but it never came.’
    ‘You didn’t see anybody outside when you left the pub?’
    ‘Only three or four cars parked there, that’s all.’
    ‘And that was the last you