The Drowned Read Free

yours. If we were married, we could have beautiful red-headed daughters and you could wipe all the penalty points off my driving licence.’
    ‘Well – if we were married, I wouldn’t have far to walk to work, would I?’ Katie teased him. ‘The only trouble is, Ken, even though you’re the nicest pub landlord in Cork, I don’t actually love you.’
    ‘Jesus, Katie. You don’t have to be in love to be married. Suppressed hatred, that’s all you need.’
    As soon as she returned to her office, Detectives Ó Doibhilin and Scanlan came in to see her with their report on the missing boys.
    Detective Ó Doibhilin said, ‘We checked with Sergeant Twomey up at Mayfield and four out of the five lads had form for anti-social behaviour – vandalism, mostly, breaking windows and damaging parked cars. They’ve also been cautioned for hobbling sweets from the local shops, and Darragh O’Connor was caught carrying a knife and being in possession of a small amount of cannabis.’
    ‘In other words, they’re all typical Mayfield boys,’ said Katie. ‘Is there any indication that any of them are linked to a serious gang?’
    ‘Not so far as we’ve been able to find out,’ said Detective Scanlan. ‘And there are no notifications that any of them have been involved in any major incidents lately.’
    ‘They gave their families no suggestion that they might be planning to go off somewhere together – like a rock concert in England, maybe, or a football match in Dublin?’
    ‘Not a hint of that from any of them,’ said Detective Ó Doibhilin. ‘In fact, Tadgh had made a date to meet his girlfriend this evening, and the twins almost always go bowling on a Thursday night at the Leisureplex on MacCurtain Street.’
    ‘Then where in the name of God have they gone to?’ said Katie. ‘That Aidan looked tone, you know, as if he really cared about the way he dressed. I can’t see him going for two days without changing his sweater, let alone his undercrackers. But it’s their phones that worry me the most. All five of their phones have gone dead? And they’re still dead?’
    ‘No, you’re spot on there, ma’am,’ said Detective Ó Doibhilin. ‘Those type of lads carry their phones everywhere and only turn them off to charge them. You can see them standing in the jacks in a pub or a club. They’re straining the praties and still talking at the same time – phone in one hand, you-know-what in the other.’
    Katie said, ‘I’ll be liaising, of course, with Superintendent Pearse, but I have the strongest feeling that we need to set up a full-scale search. I want you two to go up to Mayfield and see if you can find any of their pals. Barnavara Crescent would be a good place to start. Talk to their brothers and sisters, too, if they have any. Young lads like that will often confide in their siblings when they wouldn’t dare to tell their parents.’
    ‘We’ll call into the Garda station, too,’ said Detective Ó Doibhilin. ‘They may have some idea who the lads have been hanging around with. There’s drug-dealers up there in Mayfield from the city centre sometimes and maybe they’ve got themselves on the wrong side of one of them – not paid their bill or something like that.’
    ‘None of them were involved with the Provos or the ONH?’
    ‘Again, not so far as we know. There was no hint at all from their parents that any of them are politically-minded. All they seem to be interested in is drink and uppers and girls.’
    ‘Okay, grand,’ said Katie. ‘Meanwhile I’ll have the press office put out a missing persons appeal. Five lads like that – Jesus, somebody must know where they are.’
    *
    To begin with, Detectives Ó Doibhilin and Scanlan went up to Dunnes Stores in Ballyvolane just to make sure that Darragh O’Connor hadn’t turned up for work without telling his mother. The manager solemnly shook his head and said that he hadn’t heard a word from Darragh and if he didn’t show up for work