Free Dark Flight by Lin Anderson

disbelief.
    He had lapsed into colloquial Irish. Rhona liked the sound. It made his voice into a sort of music.
    ‘Da was an ole bastard. A drunk with a silver tongue and a fuck of a temper. Mam tied a string across the stairs once. Hoped he would fall and break his neck. The perfect murder.’
    She was shocked. ‘You’re joking?’
    He shook his head. ‘I was eight at the time. He was on one of his binges. I saw her do it. But she took it away before he came downstairs.’
    ‘God!’
    ‘God didn’t come into it, or else he would have tied the string across the stairs himself and given us all peace.’
    It was like a funny story someone would tell in a pub after a few drinks. Only it wasn’t really funny.
    Rhona examined the deep blue eyes. ‘You’re not like him.’
    ‘No I’m not. He fathered eight children and I have none.’
    There was a note of sadness in his voice. In the midst of pain he always cracked a joke. This time was no different.
    ‘But he and I have the same sex drive.’
    Rhona lay close, her arm about him, breathing him in as he dropped into a deep sleep, McNab’s scent gone from her memory.

12
    THE WATER BEAT his face in steady drips. Stephen opened his mouth and let it dribble over his parched tongue. The oily taste met the back of his throat and he gagged, rolling sideways, coughing and spluttering. Some sick came up and he spat it out.
    This is what it’s like to be buried alive
.
    The thought frightened him so much his bladder released and pee ran hot through his shorts and down his leg.
    The sharp smell of it made him think of his gran. She didn’t cry when she had an accident. He wasn’t going to either. He closed his eyes tightly and the tears ran outwards, into his hair. He imagined Gran winking at him and popping a raspberry jelly baby in his mouth. ‘Go on, then. Give us a song. That one I like.’
    Stephen began in a small piping voice like a bird’s.
    One more step along the world I go,
One more step along the world I go,
From the old things to the new
Keep me travelling along with you
. . .
    He faltered at the sound of footsteps in the tunnel. His body began to shake uncontrollably.
    Someone was coming.

Day 3
Wednesday

13
    SEAN WAS STILL in the deep sleep of the previous night. In the morning light the bruised patches under his eyes were more obvious, as was the smell of whisky. He’d been drinking whisky in an almost continuous flow since he’d left. ‘It makes talking easier,’ he’d said. ‘Everyone talks about a death in Ireland. Too much and too often.’
    She made some strong coffee and drank it while she dressed. Day three of the investigation. Stephen had been missing for thirty-six hours. Time was crucial in a missing child case. Twelve hours was the magic number and they were well past that. Yet she carried on believing that he was still alive. Gut feeling or misguided hope? Rhona couldn’t tell which.
    The lab was empty and silent. Too early even for Chrissy. If she worked quickly there was a chance she would have something on the shorts found on the torso for the strategy meeting at ten o’clock.
    The shorts were dark blue with what looked like a foreign label, partially cut off. They had dried in dirty smears from their time in the river and on the muddy bank. She spread them out on the counter. Using a magnifying glass she went over every square centimetreof material, locating stains that proved to be blood, urine, faeces and semen.
    She set aside a sample of each of these for testing then looked more closely at the back of the shorts. The material was smudged with ground-in dirt. She removed a small portion of material and examined it under the microscope. The particles looked like a mix of mineral and organic. Unless the mix was unique it would be of little help unless they could match it to similar material on a suspect. And they didn’t have a suspect.
    Now she carefully turned the pockets inside out and concentrated on the seams. Even submerged