Free I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty

now.
    â€œI’m only telling you what the police told me. I didn’t get there until it was all over.”
    â€œBut Cora was definitely loose?”
    â€œYes, she was.”
    â€œWhy didn’t the IRA men shoot her? She must have been all over them.”
    â€œI don’t know … Maybe she was frightened.”
    â€œShe doesn’t seem like a dog easily cowed to me.”
    Mrs McAlpine shrugged and said nothing.
    â€œAnd why didn’t your husband pull his gun? They come out from behind the wall with shotguns. He must have seen them.”
    â€œI don’t know, Inspector, I just don’t know,” Mrs McAlpine said in a tired monotone.
    â€œNot if his back was turned,” Matty added.
    â€œBut Cora would have smelt them, no? She would have been going bonkers. They’re going to see a slavering Alsatian running at them. Wouldn’t that have given him a second or two to go for his gun?”
    â€œEvidently not,” she said.
    She reached into her jeans, took out a battered packet of SilkCut and lit one.
    She was pale and wan. Not just tired, something else …
weary
. Aye, that was it.
    â€œThey killed him. What difference does it make how they bloody did it?” she said at last.
    I nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. “Nothing important … Anyway, I’ve taken up more than enough of your time.”
    â€œOh, don’t worry about that. These days all I’ve got is time,” she said, looking searchingly into my face, but I was the master of the blank expression – training from all those years of interrogation.
    She puffed lightly on her fag.
    â€œMaybe we should be heading, boss, before the rain bogs us down,” Matty said.
    â€œOne final question, if you don’t mind, Mrs McAlpine. I noticed some of the farm buildings back there, but I didn’t see a greenhouse. You wouldn’t have one at all, would you?”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA greenhouse. For plants, fruits, you know.”
    She blew out a line of smoke. “Aye, we have a greenhouse.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t mind if I took a wee look.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œI’m afraid I can’t say, but it will only take a minute.”
    â€œIf it’s drugs you’re after, you won’t find any.”
    â€œCan I take a look?”
    She shrugged. “Be my guest.”
    She walked me through the house to the muddy farmyard out the back. A smell of slurry and chicken feed. A few more harassed-looking hens sitting on a rusting Massey Ferguson tractor.
    â€œOver there,” she said, pointing to a squalid little greenhouse near a barn.
    I squelched through the mud to the greenhouse and wentinside. Several panes had fallen in and rain and cold had turned a neat series of plum bushes into a blighted mess. There was mould on the floor and mushrooms were growing in an otherwise empty trough of black soil. There were no exotic plants or indeed any other plants apart from the withered plums.
    I rummaged in the trough where the wild mushrooms now thrived, looking for the roots of a plant that might once have been there, but I came up empty – if Martin had been growing anything interesting here all traces of it had been removed.
    I nodded and walked back across the farmyard, cleaned my shoes on the mud rack.
    â€œDid you find what you were after?” she asked.
    â€œDid you ever hear of a plant called rosary pea?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œA plant called the rosary pea? Did you ever hear of it?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œIt’s also called crab’s eye, Indian liquorice, jumbie bead?”
    â€œNever heard of it in my life.”
    I nodded. “Sorry to have taken up so much of your time, thank you very much, Mrs McAlpine. Good morning,” I said and walked to the Rover.
    â€œWhat was that all about?” Matty asked as we climbed back inside.
    â€œThis thing