Free The Midnight Choir by Gene Kerrigan

taking.’
    The ‘position’ had yet to be fully explained to Synnott, but the very real prospect that he might soon be stepping away from the mess of his garda career had lit a small, hopeful light somewhere inside him.
    All he knew about the job on offer came from a similar lunch appointment with O’Keefe two weeks earlier, a lunch of ham sandwiches from the canteen, eaten at the assistant commissioner’s desk.
    ‘The Minister makes the final decision,’ O’Keefe had told him, ‘but I’m headhunting and all I need to know is if you’re in the market?’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘Can’t say. But it’s not a small move, and it’s very different. No point going any further if you’re happy as you are.’
    Happy as I am.
    Now O’Keefe looked at him from across his desk and said, ‘To be honest, Harry – I think you’d be mad to say no, but I know how much it means to you, being at the coalface.’
    A desk job, then.
    Or continue as I am – wondering how long it’ll be before there’s another stretch of turbulence and everyone decides it’s best if I move on again.
    Synnott tried not to let the disappointment show on his face.
    Happy as I am.

11
    Two days after the funeral of Garda Maura Sheelin, Garda Harry Synnott, aged twenty-three, was on duty at Cheeverstown garda station. What happened that day would define Synnott as a policeman and shape his career over the next two decades.
    He was fifty minutes into his shift when he was ordered, along with another garda, to take a prisoner from the cells and bring him to Interview Room 3, where two detectives would question him. The station had been buzzing since the prisoner, Conal Crotty, had been brought in that morning.
    ‘He’s one of them.’
    They hadn’t got their hands on the other bank robber – he was said to have left the country – but this little shit was the one who’d pulled the trigger. The intelligence lads had thrown their weight around, squeezed their Provo touts, and come up with Crotty. He was pulled in under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, so they had him for twenty-four hours, and they could renew the detention for another twenty-four. During that time, with no lawyer to get in the way, teams of detectives could take turns breaking down his denials.
    The prisoner was a weedy little shit, with a sparse moustache and thinning hair. Little beads of sweat stood out across his face. He was wearing a red sweatshirt and black jeans. Harry Synnott was told to stay and guard the prisoner. The second uniformed garda left the room.
    ‘I’ve done nothing.’
    There was a tremor in Crotty’s voice. Synnott didn’t answer.
    After a few minutes, two detectives arrived, neither of them from the Cheeverstown station. Detective Sergeant Joyce and Detective Garda Buckley.
    ‘Hello, Conal.’
    Buckley stood in front of the prisoner, looking down at him. When the silence got to him, Crotty pushed back his chair and stood up. The defiance in his face was struggling to control his fear.
    With one hand, Buckley took hold of the front of the Provo’s red sweatshirt and with the other he slapped his cheek. The prisoner made a noise that might have been an obscenity and Buckley backhanded him, then slapped him again, twice, three times around the ears, the man shouting, ‘Hey! Hey! ’ and trying to back away.
    Buckley twisted the Provo’s sweatshirt around his hand, pulled him forward and spat in his face.
    Sergeant Joyce grabbed Buckley by the shoulder. ‘Hey, wait now,’ he said. ‘Hold on a minute.’
    Buckley turned and looked at Sergeant Joyce, then looked back at the Provo and made a disgusted noise. He let go of the sweatshirt and stood back.
    The Provo, spittle on his cheek, scowled at Joyce and said, ‘Yeah.’
    Crotty’s face was reddened where he’d been slapped. He used the sleeve of his sweatshirt to wipe his lips. ‘Good cop, bad cop, right?’
    Sergeant Joyce straightened the man’s sweatshirt. ‘Something like