Death in Dublin - Peter McGarr 16 Read Free

the city to being necessarily blind to its changes and nuances. Save those, of course, that concerned his family, who had been reduced to his daughter, Maddie, and his mother-in-law, Nuala. She now cared for the child while he worked.
    Trinity, which he was now approaching, was a case in point, he realized. Back when he’d been a student, the bastion of Protestantism and privilege had been d e clared off limits to Catholics by the bishop of Dublin. Of course, as the seventh of nine children of a Gui n ness brewery worker, it was no place he could have had hopes of attending, anyhow.
    And yet in his own way, McGarr had coveted Tri n ity’s complex of mainly Georgian and Victorian buil d ings that walled off traffi?c and noise and provided a quiet haven of wide lawns, cobbled footpaths, and c i vility in the heart of the city. It was a gem of a place, a kind of urban diadem. But for the nearly twenty years of his marriage, he had associated the college with Noreen, who had studied there.
    The arched entranceway was crowded with retur n ing students, and across a wide courtyard, he could see uniformed police cordoning off the Old Library. In front of the barrier stood press and television crews— details that he’d sooner forget, if he could.
    But Peter McGarr was chief superintendent of the Serious Crimes Unit of the Garda Siochana, the Irish police, and since the tragedy, his work had become the sole sustaining element in his life, the one constant a c tivity that helped him forget.
    Also, there was the chance—however slight—that he might discover who exactly had murdered his pe o ple. And why.
    At the corner of the Old Library, McGarr paused for a few tugs on a cigarette before running the gauntlet in front of the police line, even though he’d promised his daughter he’d quit.
    More guilt. How could he have failed to recognize the danger that his occupation posed to his family? How could he have allowed the tragedy to occur?
    Feeling as he did most waking hours—that his life was effectively over in his fi?fty-fi?fth year—McGarr dropped the butt into a storm drain and stepped toward the reporters.
    A somewhat short man with gray eyes and an aqu i line nose bent slightly to one side, he still presented a rather formidable appearance with wide, well-muscled shoulders and little paunch.
    Courtesy of Nuala, who had taken charge of his a p pearance, he was well turned out in a heather-colored tweed overcoat, razor creases in his tan trousers and cordovan half-cut boots polished to a high gloss.
    “You’ve got to get a grip on yourself and get on with life, Peter,” she had told him going out the door. “If only for Maddie. And forget the bastards what done it. They’re a sly and craven lot, not at all like your co m mon run of criminal, and more than a few, I’m thin k ing. And if they thought you were onto them...”
    Unless, of course, they didn’t know he was before he struck. The niceties of the law being dispensed with. Revenge was what McGarr sought, not justice.
    As he waded through the clutch of reporters, whose questions McGarr fended off with his eyes, all that hinted at his inner turmoil was a certain drawn look and his deep red hair that tufted out under the brim of his fedora. He’d been too distracted for barbers.
    While waiting for the door to the gift shop to be u n locked, McGarr glanced up at a sky freighted with clouds moving in from the east. Although it was only early October, the wind carried an edge. The fair weather would not hold much longer, he could tell.
    Bernie McKeon—McGarr’s chief of staff—had a l ready arrived, along with a pathologist and several members of the Tech Squad.
    A man and a woman, who McGarr supposed were library offi?cials, were standing off from the others.
    McKeon handed McGarr the notes he’d taken since arriving.
    “You’ve heard of squab under glass. It’s served at the fi?nest restaurants, I’m told. And duck too. But blue-d uniform security cop is