Free A Savage Hunger (Paula Maguire 4) by Claire McGowan Page A

their own wedding day two years back. Paula in a bridesmaid’s dress on one side, hugely pregnant, and Aidan on the other, ignoring her. And of course there were photos of Maggie on every possible surface. Maybe the only grandchild Pat would ever have, even if she wasn’t exactly . . . ‘So was there anyone?’ she asked her father. ‘You know, someone you suspected?’
    PJ was thinking. ‘I was working with Hamilton then. We were still partners. You could always try him.’
    Paula nodded. She hadn’t seen Bob Hamilton much since he’d retired two years ago, something she’d mistakenly had a hand in precipitating. She could have gone to visit, of course, but it was always there, the vague panicked feeling that Bob, who’d also been lead investigator on her mother’s case, knew more than he’d ever told her about it. And that whatever he knew, it was something that would shatter Paula and her father, bury the shoots of happiness they’d found for themselves in the rubble.
    ‘The fella who owns the land,’ said PJ, as if running through a database in his head.
    ‘Anderson Garrett? Yes, he’s odd. I think he had an alibi, though, did he not?’
    ‘He was a strange one.’ PJ tapped the paper for emphasis. ‘He’d an alibi, though, right enough – he was in his work in town all day. He couldn’t have got back to the church.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘See the date? Well, one of the IRA head honchos was killed that day. Shot in his house, here in Ballyterrin. Whole town was shut down from lunchtime on, riots, petrol bombs, you name it. I was in uniform, couldn’t get home to see if you were even OK. You were only wee, and—’ He’d come dangerously close to mentioning her mother there.
    ‘Garrett’s alibi held then?’
    ‘Aye. We checked with the other solicitor he worked with – guy called Andrew Philips, if I remember right. He backed it up – Garrett was there all day, he said, nine to seven. It’s the Garrett family’s firm, see, though I don’t know if Anderson ever did a stroke of work in it. Doesn’t need to work now, mind. Oakdale College bought the family land not long after Yvonne went missing, paid them a fortune, so he hardly needs to.’
    ‘This Andrew Philips – is he still about?’
    PJ shook his head. ‘Died in 2003, I heard. Heart attack – seemed a nervy kind of fella.’
    ‘So there’s no one who can prove it?’
    ‘Garrett’s ma backed it up as well, he’d been out all day. And Yvonne was safe at home until well after two. Garrett never made it back till near midnight, he said – roadblocks. Yvonne’s ma had already reported her gone by then. So that was that.’
    ‘That was that.’ Paula made a note anyway. Andrew Philips. All these names from the past, shut away in dull brown folders for over thirty-two years. Suddenly coming to the light, like things crawling away when you lifted up a stone. She wondered if Alice had heard. Did she know another girl had gone missing, and that her boss had been the chief suspect?

Alice
    When they come into the room, Charlotte turns off. I don’t know how she does it. It’s like flicking a switch, no light in her eyes. Charlotte is past the point of wanting to escape. It’s a battle now, them against her. They sweep in, the man and the woman. He’s in his white coat, brisk bad-Daddy air about him. I start to shake on the couch – I can’t help it. She’s all starched up, hair pulled back, steady at his elbow. Yes. No. Three bags full. It makes me sick.
    Alice , he says. To the woman, not me. She snaps my wrist, moving me to the scales. Huge things, like for cows at market. She’s rough and I stub my bare toes but I don’t make a sound. I know Charlotte will notice, and approve. I step up on the horrible wobbly things and he’s so close. I can smell the old-man breath under his aftershave. I think he drinks. He looks me over like a dog at the vet, calling out things to her, which she writes down. I refuse to hear the