Read The White Gallows for Free Online Page B

you feeling?’ he asked.
    ‘Fine. I feel a bit like a sumo, and it’s only five months, but I’m grand otherwise.’
    Once the baby arrived McEvoy wasn’t really sure what would happen with the babysitting. Maybe Gemma could help out. As twelve-year-olds go she was sensible and responsible. Whilst still often childlike, she’d become old beyond her years since the death of her mother. Somehow she was morphing into her. It was strange to witness.
    ‘If you feel like a sumo now, just wait a couple of months.’ He winced as he said it.
    ‘Oh, God, don’t! I always remember what mam said to you once – “giving birth to you was like passing a ten pin bowling ball through a ten pence slot.” It put me off starting a family for years!’ she laughed. ‘I’m hoping it’s going to be more like a marble. At the most a tennis ball. But, I doubt it somehow. I just hope that when I scream for the drugs, they give them to me! Look, Gemma’s hovering. Here you go.’
    ‘Hello, Dad?’ Gemma said cheerily.
    ‘Hiya, pumpkin. How’re things?’
    ‘They’re okay. We’re going to watch a DVD . You’re not getting back until late?’
    ‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure what time I’ll be there to pick you up. I imagine you’ll be asleep.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Who are you investigating – the Lithuanian or the billionaire?’
    ‘Both of them; we’re short staffed.’
    ‘So you’re going to be away for a while then?’
    ‘No, no. I’ll be coming home each night, but I’m going to be busy. You’ll be okay at Caroline’s?’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, half my stuff’s here now.’
    ‘Just make sure it’s tidy, okay. Not like your room at home.’ He glanced at his watch again. ‘Look, Gemma, I’m sorry, but I have to go.’ It was always a pleasure to hear his daughter’s voice whilst he was working, but it constantly jarred with the mood of the investigation – a rarefied chink of innocence creeping into a dark world. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’ he muttered regretfully.
    ‘Remember to drink and eat,’ she warned. ‘You know what you’re like!’
    ‘I will, I will,’ he said, realising that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had barely had anything to drink either. He got so wrapped up in things he simply forgot to sustain himself. ‘I love you, okay. I’ll see you later,’ he repeated and ended the call.
    He pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out slowly. After a moment he pulled up Jim Whelan’s phone number and pressed call.
    ‘Whelan.’
    ‘Jim, how’s it going?’
    ‘Nowhere.’
    ‘Do you know who he is yet?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘How about piecing together what happened last night? Who he was with? Where he went?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘And forensics?’
    ‘Hopeless.’
    McEvoy rolled his eyes and stared out at the lime tree silhouettes, frustrated at Whelan’s one word answers. ‘Ring me if you hear anything, okay,’ he snapped and ended the call immediately pulling up Johnny Cronin’s number, the inspector in charge of the laundering suicide.
    ‘Yeah?’ Cronin answered distractedly.
    ‘Johnny, it’s Colm.’
    ‘What? No, no, over there. There. Sorry, hello?’
    ‘It’s Colm. How’s it going?’
    ‘Usual shite with the locals, but otherwise okay. It’s the same guy – same description and pick-up routine. He talks to someone at the bar, pump primes them for information about themselves and the other people in the pub. Then he heads over to the one he thinks is the best bet with a little proposition for them – “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours; it’s not exactly above board, but it’s easy money and no one gets hurt. What do you think?” It looks as if the guy knows the person at the bar, he certainly knows all about them, so he seems pretty kosher.
    ‘He took the old man for thirty grand. He’d borrowed almost all of it from two of his brothers. He’s a bachelor farmer in his sixties; one of the last of the old school. Lives in a shit heap