Free Blood Sisters by Graham Masterton

turned up at the Garda Ombudsman’s office in Dublin, complete with some heavyweight lawyers in tow. I haven’t been sent the full details yet, but it appears that he’s lodging a formal complaint against you and several other officers here at Anglesea Street.’
    ‘What for?’ Katie demanded. ‘If anybody should be lodging a formal complaint against anybody, it should be me against him .’
    ‘Well, he says that he was the victim of constant harassment and insubordination from your junior officers, which was actively encouraged by you, and that you personally made a number of false and slanderous accusations against him. This led to him suffering from a nervous collapse and having to quit his position as Acting Chief Superintendent.’
    ‘ False and slanderous accusations ?’ said Katie, in utter disbelief. ‘Bryan Molloy paid a gunman to kill one of the most high-profile gang leaders in Limerick so that he wouldn’t have to go to the bother of arresting him! He accepted hundreds of thousands of euros in bribes to let some of the worst criminals in the district escape prosecution!’
    She was so angry that she had to stand up and pace up and down her office. ‘It’s pure incredible ! I only have in my possession the actual gun that he supplied to Donie Quaid to shoot Niall Duggan! And witnesses, too! And as for persecuting him, Mother of God! He only spent every minute of every day trying to belittle me and undermine me. He had me suspended!’
    ‘Well, I know all that, Katie,’ said Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin, with a sniff and a mournful sigh. ‘I came only to warn you. I think he wants to get his own back on you, and damages. But more than anything else, I’d say he wants his pension restored, and I think he’ll do anything and say anything for that.’
    ‘Have you told Jimmy O’Reilly yet?’
    ‘I have, yes. I don’t think he was all that surprised, to tell you the truth.’
    ‘Of course he wasn’t surprised. Jimmy O’Reilly and Bryan Molloy are as thick as thieves. He’s probably known where Molloy was hiding himself ever since he went missing. They’ve probably been texting each other twenty times a day like a couple of giggly teenagers.’
    ‘Now, then, Katie,’ Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin cautioned her. ‘Careful what you’re saying. You need to be doggie wide with this one. I know that certain accusations were made against Bryan Molloy and Jimmy O’Reilly. But you know as well as I do that you need cast-iron proof of what they were accused of, especially when it comes to those two. They have friends in high places. They have friends in low places, too, who are even more dangerous.’
    ‘Nervous collapse!’ said Katie scornfully, shaking her head. ‘That man doesn’t have a single nerve in his entire body!’
    Chief Superintendent MacCostagáin stood up. ‘I’ll let you know if and when I receive any further information,’ he told her. ‘It may very well be that the GSOC turn him down. He’s no fool, that Simon O’Brien. But all the same, Bryan Molloy can be very convincing, and you can’t question his record against the gangs in Limerick. Well, I know you do, but everybody else still believes that he was the boy.’
    When he had gone, Katie sat down again. Bryan Molloy . She could hardly believe it. She had assumed that she had seen and heard the last of him. Still, she knew what a bully he was, and how vengeful, and it must have really rankled that his corruption had been uncovered by a woman officer. He had probably felt like a jihadist who discovers that he has been bombed by a female pilot.
    She was making notes on her tablet about the Gerrety prosecution when her phone rang. It was Detective Horgan, sounding weary.
    ‘Just to let you know that all the horses have been hoisted off the beach, ma’am. They’ve been shipped to an old tractor shed near the Equine Rescue Centre at Dromsligo. That fellow from the ISPCA will be starting tests on them in the