The Drowned Read Free Page A

tomorrow, he would tell him his shelf-stacking days were over.
    Next, they drove around to all of the boys’ houses to talk to their brothers and sisters. The schools had all broken up the Wednesday before for the Easter break, so most of them were at home, or round at their friends’ houses, or playing in the field at the end of Lotamore Park, so they weren’t too difficult to find. Tadgh’s three brothers and Aidan’s two sulky sisters weren’t too happy about talking to the law, but Darragh’s twelve-year-old brother told them there was no question where Darragh had been going the last time he saw him – to Barnavara Crescent to score some Es.
    It was beginning to grow dark as they turned off the Banduff Road into Barnavara Crescent and the street lights were flickering on. They parked and climbed out and walked across the wet grass to the alley, where seven or eight young people were already gathered. It was still raining, but only softly now, more of a persistent mist. The young people were all wearing waterproof jackets with their hoods pulled up, and at least five of them were smoking. There was a pungent smell of marijuana in the air, like a smouldering compost heap.
    The young people eyed Detectives Ó Doibhilin and Scanlan as they came closer, but they made no attempt to flick away their joints. The two detectives were wearing windcheaters and jeans and they both looked much younger than they actually were, so they could simply have been a local couple walking along the alley on their way home.
    They stopped, however, when they reached the young people and Detective Scanlan said, very clearly, ‘We’re looking for some friends of yours.’
    At first, none of the young people spoke, but continued to smoke and stare at them.
    Detective Scanlan turned from one to the other. There were two girls there, and five boys. All of them had very pale faces, as if they lived on a diet of chips and marijuana and Monster energy drink. One of the girls was painfully thin, with skinny black tights and wedge-heeled ankle-boots. The other was plump and blonde and bosomy with a splodge of carnation-red lipstick and a silver ring through her nose.
    When none of them responded, Detective Ó Doibhilin took out his notebook, flipped it open and read out the missing boys’ names. ‘Conor and Stevey Martin, Darragh O’Connor, Tadgh Buckley and Aidan O’Reilly. When was the last time you saw them?’
    ‘Who wants to know?’ demanded one of the boys, bigger and older-looking than the rest. He had stubble on his chin and two tattooed teardrops beneath his left eye. ‘Don’t fecking tell me you’re pigs.’
    ‘You can call us whatever you like, sham,’ said Detective Ó Dobihilin. ‘But five of your pals have been missing now for nearly two days and we’re concerned for their welfare. As you should be, too.’
    ‘I didn’t know they was missing, did I?’ said the stubble-chinned boy. ‘How in the name of feck was I supposed to know they was missing?’
    ‘Well, you know now,’ said Detective Ó Doibhilin. ‘So what we’re asking you is, when was the last time you saw them?’
    ‘They was all here Tuesday night,’ said the skinny girl, putting up her hand as if she were answering a question in class.
    ‘Shut your bake, Maeve,’ said the stubble-chinned boy. ‘For all we know, they’re in trouble and these two pigs have come here to lift them.’
    ‘Jesus, be serious, will you?’ Detective Ó Doibhilin retorted. ‘We wouldn’t be coming here to arrest five people when there’s only the two of us, would we?’
    The stubble-chinned boy stood up from the breeze-block garden wall he was sitting on and made a show of shading his eyes with his hand and looking around.
    ‘For all we know you might have twenty two-bulbs parked around the corner.’
    ‘Oh, get over yourself, will you?’ said Detective Scanlan. ‘Their mums and dads came down to the Garda station in Anglesea Street to report them missing.