Free Unti Lucy Black Novel #3 by Brian McGilloway Page A

as Fiona was concerned, her work was as a fitness instructor.
    â€œIt’s a warm down,” she said, smiling. She pulled off her tracksuit bottoms.
    â€œOh,” Jenny said. “That’s a nasty cut.”
    The comment, though clearly directed at the shaving cut on Lucy’s leg, below which a stream of blood had crusted, elicited an instant reaction from Fiona who grabbed her towel and clasped it in front of her, causing both Lucy and Jenny to turn and stare at her. Lucy could see her redden with embarrassment.
    â€œI made a bit of a mess, all right,” Lucy said quickly, keen to save Fiona further scrutiny. “Shall we go?”
    T HE POOL WAS relatively quiet. A few kids splashed around at the shallow end, while toward the deep end, two earnest swimmers pounded back and forth, parallel to each other, completing length after length.
    Lucy eased her way in, then did two breaststroke lengths at an easy pace. She hadn’t been swimming for a while; after work she was normally so knackered, she stopped at the café, then fell asleep on the sofa.
    She turned onto her back and kicked a length, keeping her arms still by her side, then flipped and did a final few lengths using the front crawl. She felt the muscles across her chest and back tightening against the stroke, felt the tension knot across her shoulders.
    Finally, she stopped along the pool’s edge to rest. Fiona was completing a breaststroke length. Jenny was in the deep end, crossing back and forth with a furious front crawl, which seemed more splash than swim.
    Fiona paddled over to where Lucy sat, treading water.
    â€œI wouldn’t want to be whoever she’s using that water as a substitute for,” Lucy said, nodding toward Jenny’s thrashing.
    Fiona laughed. “Probably her kids. I don’t know how she does it.”
    Lucy nodded, keen not to get too involved in the conversation lest she reveal not only not knowing the children’s names, but even not being sure of their age. She glanced across toward the seated area at the edge of the pool. A man, perhaps in his thirties, was sitting alone at one of the tables. For a moment, Lucy assumed that he was the father of the children in the shallow end but, glancing across, she saw that their father was with them. The man sitting at the table was drinking from a Coke can as he returned her stare.
    â€œVoyeur at six o’clock,” Lucy said to Fiona. “Dodgy bloke with Coke.”
    Fiona twisted her head to see, pulling her goggles up onto her forehead. She turned suddenly, her face ablaze.
    â€œDo you know him?” Lucy asked, suddenly regretting the “dodgy bloke” comment.
    â€œHe’s my partner,” Fiona managed.
    â€œJesus, sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t mean anything.”
    Fiona shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said, pulling on her goggles again, as if to resume swimming.
    â€œDid you know that he was here?” Lucy asked.
    The girl tossed her head lightly, as if flicking her hair from her face. “I wasn’t . . . he must have come afterwards.”
    It was such a strange syntactical construction; Lucy guessed she was hiding her embarrassment.
    â€œDoes he not trust you to go swimming with your sister?”
    Fiona turned suddenly. “He doesn’t like being on his own. He feels safe with me around.”
    â€œAnd how do you feel?”
    Fiona dipped her head beneath water then stood. “What about you? Have you a boyfriend?”
    â€œKind of,” Lucy said. “On and off. It’s complicated.”
    â€œIs he married? That kind of complicated?”
    The blown-­up-­in-­a-­car-­bomb-­intended-­for-­me kind of complicated, Lucy thought. Instead, she said, “Something like that. I don’t like being hemmed in. Controlled. That’s not me.”
    Jenny pushed in beside them, the wake of water moving between them.