Page 127 of The Guilty Girl

‘Anyone under eighteen.’

‘You think Lucy was an innocent kid?’

‘Wasn’t she?’

‘Maybe.’ He tried a nonchalant shrug, but he knew she wasn’t buying it.

‘Do you see what I’m getting at, Cormac? About the DNA evidence?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ He did see, and he didn’t like what he saw coming next. The panic built in his chest and he wished he had his inhaler. ‘The lab might have mixed up a test or something.’ He fought the growing nausea constricting his stomach into a knot.

‘Believe me, the lab technicians did everything correctly. Drink your coffee. You have to make a new statement. I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it in no time at all.’

‘I … I can’t go now, I have to meet someone.’ He didn’t like the way she was smiling, like a fucking cheetah about to pounce.

‘Text them. Say you’ll be late. Very late. Maybe twenty years late?’ Her insincere smile mocked him.

This was bad, so fucking bad. ‘Should I look for a solicitor?’

The smile died on her lips. ‘That would be a very good idea, Cormac.’

Maybe the time for lies was over.

60

Sharon Flood found it difficult to breathe as she ran. She had sat by the harbour for ages, thinking of her big brother. She wondered what exactly had happened to him. Coming to the conclusion that it was all her fault, she’d got up and started to run. Now she stopped and leaned over with her hands on her knees, trying to get some normality into her breathing. In and out. In and out. And then she was running again, her shoe without the lace flopping. She was in danger of losing it.

On reaching the main gate of the old army barracks, she scooted inside without meeting anyone.

As she moved along the interior perimeter wall with the large courtyard to her left, she glanced up at the buildings to her right. The office blocks rose four storeys high. She’d overheard Jake mention the barracks on his phone when she’d been listening outside his bedroom door. She’d often earwigged. He’d even caught her once and given out to her. She’d hated him then. Not really hated, she reminded herself. And now she was the reason he was dead.

She headed down to the building at the end of the courtyard and stared at the weather-beaten door in front of her. She put a hand to it, but it seemed to be either locked or stuck. She gave it a shove with both hands and it moved inwards.

Stepping over the threshold, she retched at the awful smell. Scattered around her feet she could see lots of rotting rubbish. She froze, hand to her mouth. Were some of the fast-food wrappers and cartons actually moving? Or was it from the breeze behind her? That was what she hoped anyhow, and she turned to shut the door.

With her eyes partially shuttered to the state of the place, a hand to her nose to block the vile odours, she glanced into the rooms on the ground floor. All empty. Hadn’t she heard Jake mention something about their den being here somewhere? It had to be upstairs.

She ran upwards on her tippy-toes so as not to make too much noise. It seemed like no one was around, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

She must find the person Jake had been storing the drugs for. She had the coins from her money box wrapped up tightly in a Haribo bag in her knickers. Five euros and fifty-five cents. She hoped it was enough to keep herself and her mam from being murdered like Jake.

The building seemed to be empty. She felt her heart grow heavy. At the end of the corridor she noticed a narrower wooden staircase. Up she went to the third floor. Nothing. Sinking to her knees on the roughly hewn floorboards, her body flooded with disappointment. Then she heard a sound.

A noise downstairs?

She dared not breathe.

A door banged. A breeze fluttered up the stairs, rattling the wires hanging from the ceiling. Sharon wondered if it was the person she wanted to talk to. The person who could tell her why her big brother was dead and why he had had a bag of liquid drugs hidden in his bedroom. Whoever it was, she needed them to know the guards now had the drugs, so they would leave her and her mother alone.

She moved over to the window, the glass panes cracked and shattered.

Waited.

Something whistling through the door behind her caused her to turn around.

A shadow spread across the opening. An ominous shadow.

She clasped a hand to her mouth, stilling the fear that was rising at speed from the pit of her stomach. The menacing shadow was followed by a hand holding something glinting in the thin light from the window.