Free Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) by Graham Masterton Page B

very disturbing.’
    He stood close beside her as she unlocked her front door. ‘Talking of disturbing, the reason I’ve come over is to apologize for all the racket we were making last night, Sorcha and me. Sorcha was having one of her episodes.’
    Katie stepped into the hallway and Barney followed her. David stayed in the porch as she hung up her raincoat.
    ‘Has she been back to her doctor?’ she said.
    ‘Several doctors. None of them seem able to make her any better.’
    ‘Come in. I have to go to work in half an hour, but I was going to make myself a cup of coffee, if you’d like one.’
    David came into the house and closed the front door behind him.
    ‘Here, take off your coat,’ said Katie.
    ‘Are you sure? I feel like I’m imposing on you.’
    ‘That’s what I do for a living, David. It’s my job to be imposed upon.’
    ‘Yes, but by criminals. Not by your next-door neighbour.’
    ‘My father used to be a Garda inspector. He always told me that some people are destined to take care of everybody else, whether they like it or not. “We’re born to wipe the tears of the world,” he used to say.’
    ‘Oh, well, if you put it like that.’
    They went through to the kitchen. Katie put on the kettle and spooned some ground espresso into her cafetière. While they waited for the kettle to boil, David sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and dry-washed his face with his hands.
    ‘Have you thought of taking her to a psychotherapist?’ asked Katie. ‘We have a very good one who helps us when we interview suspects who have some kind of mental disturbance, Dr Gillian Murphy. She has a practice in Wilton.’
    ‘She saw one psychiatrist in Dublin, but he was worse than useless. He put her on lithium and told her to watch comedy films if ever she felt badly depressed. Can you believe it? Comedy films!’
    ‘You’re going to have do something, David. You can’t let things go on the way they are.’
    ‘Well, no, you’re absolutely right,’ he said, watching as Katie poured him a mug of coffee. ‘I’ll try this psychotherapist of yours in Wilton if you can give me her number.’
    He paused, and then he said, ‘You have no idea what I would give, though, Katie, for a normal evening out with a normal woman. Just to go to a restaurant and not be constantly on a knife-edge in case she bursts into tears or starts screaming at the waiter or throwing her food all over the place. Just to have a few hours of inconsequential conversation about this and that and the other, if you know what I mean, and a bit of a laugh. I’m not trying to do Sorcha down, but she’s wearing me out.’
    Katie sat down opposite him. ‘I don’t know that there’s anything more I can do to help you, David. Maybe I could have a talk with Sorcha myself. I have a lot of experience in dealing with depressive women. In fact, more than half of the women we arrest for violent crimes are suffering from what we used to call manic depression – most of it brought on by the men they’ve been living with, I might add.’
    David shook his head. ‘I can’t see that it would make much difference. And if you started to give Sorcha sympathy she’d be ringing at your doorbell to bother you night and day. No – I’m only talking about a night off, to remind me that a relationship with a woman doesn’t have to be non-stop tension and breaking plates.’
    Katie knew what was coming next. It couldn’t have been more obvious than the yellow-fronted 10.35 train slowly approaching Cork station from Dublin Heuston. David had been working up to this from the moment he had first appeared on her doorstep, especially with his flirtatious plámás . All the same, she said nothing and waited for him to come out with it.
    ‘I understand, of course, that you must have very little free time, Katie. But I really enjoy talking to you and I was wondering if maybe I could take you out to dinner sometime soon. Even tonight, if you can make it. No strings