Free Eye for an Eye by Graham Masterton Page A

suffered a bit of an accident in her garden, and when we arrived there she wouldn’t speak to us or tell us what had happened. She said she couldn’t because she was mortally afraid of the enemy, whoever “the enemy” is.’
    ‘“The enemy”?’ said Katie. ‘Well – it might not be relevant, but ‘the enemy’ is what Pope Benedict called the Devil,’ She stood up, and said, ‘Do the media know about this yet?’
    ‘Not yet. After I’d seen you I was going down to the press office to tell Mathew McElvey, but I’ll hold off on that if you want to tell him yourself.’
    ‘I imagine you’ve alerted Bill Phinner.’
    ‘Of course. He’s sending a technical team out there now, if they haven’t left already.’
    ‘Mother of God, I hate any case that involves the church,’ said Katie, irritably. ‘All you ever get is sealed lips and doors slammed in your face. They never lie to you, but they never tell you the whole truth, either. Then there’s their lawyers. Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll used to say that dealing with the diocesan legal advisers was worse than trying to untangle your Christmas tree lights.’
    ‘Tell me about it,’ said Sergeant O’Malley. ‘One of the first cases I ever worked on was that abuse case at Saint Vincent’s. I couldn’t get a straight word out of any of them, do you know what I mean? Like, “I don’t understand what you’re accusing me of, and even if I did, I didn’t do it, and even if I did do it, I don’t recall doing it, and if anybody else recalls me doing it, they’re grievously mistaken.”’
    Katie went to the window and looked out. The clouds were low and grey and it was drizzling. ‘I’d best go up to White’s Cross myself. Are you going back there? I can see this taking some handling.’
    *
    Katie and Detective O’Donovan drove northwards from Cork City up to White’s Cross, following Sergeant O’Malley’s patrol car. As they did so, the sky grew even darker, and by the time they had parked outside Mary O’Donnell’s bungalow it was lashing with rain. Katie was wearing her long purple raincoat with a purple bucket rain hat to match. Detective O’Donovan’s grey quilted jacket made him look even bulkier than he actually was, and he had put on some weight lately. Too many Bigfoot sausages from the chipper on his way home from the station.
    The bungalow was painted pale green, with damp patches on it, and it was set back from the main road behind a yew hedge that was badly in need of trimming. The asphalt driveway was already crowded with two Garda patrol cars, a van from the Technical Bureau, and three other unmarked cars. Sergeant O’Malley was waiting in the porch, and Katie and Detective O’Donovan followed him in through the open front door and into the narrow hallway.
    Inside the gloomy little living room, Katie could see Mary O’Donnell sitting on a chintz sofa with a young female garda sitting beside her, talking to her. She was a tiny woman, with long greasy grey hair that was clipped back with a brown plastic click-clack. She had a beak of a nose and enormous glasses, and she was very round-shouldered. She was holding a cup of tea in both hands, with the spoon still in it, and it didn’t look as if she were actually drinking it but simply holding it to keep her wrinkled hands warm.
    The young female garda looked up, but Katie pointed towards the back of the bungalow to indicate that she was going to take a look at the dead priest before she came and talked to Mary O’Donnell. An overfed ginger tom was lying by the fireplace, where a peat fire was smouldering, and he, too, looked up, as if he deeply resented all of this toing and froing in his domain, and the fact that he had no power to tell everybody to get out and leave him and his mistress alone.
    Katie went through the kitchen and stepped out into the back garden, which was just as untidy and neglected as the front. The technical experts had already erected a blue vinyl tent