The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3) Read Free

corruption charges, Aidan had zero interest in sport.
    ‘See you later. Look, I’m sorry – try to understand?’
    ‘You’ve made your choice,’ he muttered. She pretended not to hear. Then she ran down the aisle in her bare feet, shoes in one hand, bag and wilted flowers in the other, her lilac dress rustling around the folds of her unwieldy body.
    Soon she was heading out of town, on her way to a small village in the shadow of the Mourne Mountains. Stone houses, Lego-green fields, the sea opaque with light. As she drove she felt her shoulders, crunched up all the way through the ceremony, gradually relax.
    Her father was married. To Aidan’s mother. Even when he’d told her about it months back – told her he planned to have her mother finally declared dead so he could marry Pat – it somehow hadn’t sunk in until now, seeing them before the altar. Everyone else was moving on, and after seventeen years you couldn’t blame them. So why could Paula not give up? Why did she have her mother’s case file in her desk at home, full of questions and blind alleys and no answers at all, after all this time?
    The car park near the forest was full of police cars and vans. Paula was beginning to realise her bridesmaid’s dress was not the most practical of garments for a crime scene. No matter. She wasn’t going to miss this.
    She parked and staggered up to the police cordon on the path leading into the forest. DC Gerard Monaghan, an ambitious Catholic recruit in his twenties, was on his mobile nearby, and burst out laughing when he saw her. ‘Jesus, Maguire. Are you lost on your way to a formal?’
    She was panting already, slick with sweat under the man-made fibres. ‘You found something.’
    ‘A walker phoned in a body in the trees. Some local uniform was first on scene.’
    ‘And how did we get in on it, if he’s dead?’ They were walking, so she tried to tuck up the hem of her dress.
    ‘Well, Corry and Brooking are on bestest terms right now.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Paula wasn’t sure how she felt about this rapprochement between DCI Helen Corry, head of Serious Crime at the regular PSNI in the area, and DI Guy Brooking, their boss at the missing persons unit, seconded in from London. At first the two had thoroughly trampled on each other’s toes, but lately Corry had been nice as pie about sharing jurisdiction. Paula wasn’t sure why.
    But none of that mattered right now. ‘Is it definitely one of the Five? Which one?’
    ‘I doubt they can tell.’ He was leading her to the cordon and nodding to the uniformed officer at the tape. ‘Here’s Cinderella, late for the ball.’ She glared at him and he laughed. ‘She’s with us, pal. Dr Maguire, forensic psychologist.’
    The officer eyed her sweaty face and bulging belly, but let them pass.
    ‘Why can’t they tell?’ Paula asked, as they trotted up the forest path. Dappled sunlight fell on them, and a warm pine scent filled the air. She knew that Gerard, six foot four in his socks, was shortening his stride for her, but even so she felt dizzy with the effort. Around them was the silence of the forest, small clicks of insects and leaves rustling.
    ‘You’ll see,’ said Gerard. ‘It’s a grim one. You don’t have to be here, you know.’
    ‘I do. I can’t get a sense of it otherwise.’
    ‘All right.’ Gerard gave an on-your-head-be-it eye roll and directed her down a small side path. She lifted her skirt to step over roots, her flimsy shoes already in flitters. This was stupid. This was, in a competitive field, one of the more stupid things she’d ever done.
    Trees parted to reveal a small gap in the woods, and a cluster of CSIs and detectives surrounding something she couldn’t quite see. Corry and Brooking had their heads together, looking at a piece of paper.
    ‘Look who turned up,’ said Gerard cheerfully.
    Helen Corry was the type of woman who, whatever they had on, you looked at it and realised – that’s exactly what I should have worn .