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

heard?’ asked Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘They didn’t even ring you and tell you that it wasn’t enough?’
    ‘They never rang me again. I didn’t know what to do. I shut up the shop and when anybody called for Micky I just told them that he was visiting his mother in Galway.’
    She let go of Katie’s hands and wiped her eyes again. ‘Can I see him?’ she asked.
    Katie looked across at Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallan. How was she going to tell Mary Crounan that all they had retrieved of her husband’s body so far was his head, and that had been discovered in a wedding cake? Not only that, his head could only have reached such an advanced stage of decomposition if his abductors had killed him days ago. They had probably done it soon after he had last talked to her on the phone. No matter how much money she might have been able to raise, she would never have seen him alive again.
    ‘I’m afraid the state pathologist will have to conduct a post-mortem first,’ said Katie. ‘But as soon as that’s over …’
    ‘What are you not telling me?’ Mary Crounan demanded. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’
    ‘Please, Mary. When somebody is murdered, we have to examine their remains very thoroughly, to see if we can establish the cause of death, and if there’s any chance of working out who might have done it.’
    ‘His body’s in a state, isn’t it? What did they do to him?’
    ‘We simply don’t know yet, and that’s the truth.’
    Mary Crounan stood up. ‘You really can protect us? You swear it?’
    Katie said, ‘We can find you somewhere to stay far away from here, where nobody will know who you are, and you’ll have officers to keep an eye on you twenty-four hours a day.’
    Mary Crounan turned round and stared at herself in the mirror for almost twenty seconds, saying nothing. It looked as if she were consulting her mirror image about what she should do.
    ‘You see that woman there?’ she said to Katie, nodding at her reflection. ‘She’s a widow.’
    Katie didn’t answer, but waited for what she was going to say next.
    ‘The fellow who spoke to me and demanded the money said that he was one of the High Kings of Erin. Don’t ask me what he meant by that. He said that the High Kings of Erin had taken Micky because he was one of the businessmen who have brought ruin and shame on Ireland, and he had to be punished.’
    ‘The High Kings of Erin? Was that all? They didn’t give you any other names?’
    ‘No,’ said Mary Crounan. ‘The High Kings of Erin. That was all. I hope they end up in hell.’
    ***
    They stayed with Mary Crounan for over two hours while Katie comforted her and Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán called the station to arrange for transport. There was a house in Redwood Park in Clonakilty which the Garda frequently used for witness protection; it was small and private and screened from the road, and nobody could approach it without being seen.
    Once that had been arranged, Mary Crounan packed two suitcases for herself and the children and waited in her overcoat by the living-room window for the unmarked people carrier to arrive to take them away.
    ‘Who could have imagined this, only a week ago?’ she said. ‘Our whole lives broken into pieces.’
    ‘I’m so sorry for you,’ said Katie.
    ‘You will let me know as soon as I can see Micky, won’t you? I have to set eyes on him just once more, before he’s laid to rest.’
    Katie nodded. She didn’t know what she could say. Just then, though, Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán came in from the hallway and said, ‘They’re here. I’ll give you a hand with your cases.’
    Mary Crounan held both of Katie’s hands tight. ‘You’ll catch them, won’t you? Promise me you’ll catch them. I want to spit in their faces.’
    On their way back to Anglesea Street, Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán said, ‘The High Kings of Erin? Strange thing to call themselves. We learned a bit about the High Kings