Head Shot

76

She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, staring numbly at the wal. Somewhere in the back of her consciousness, she heard the door open again. Somewhere behind her she heard two men enter the room, one of them her husband… she knew the very sound of his footfall… and the other certainly Neil Mcllhenney, for wherever Mario went in a crisis, his friend would not be far away.

But she made no move to turn; she simply sat there, on the edge of the armchair, her father's gun, and his body, at her feet.

'Oh my Lord,' Mcl henney murmured. 'Mario, here's where I disobey orders; this is for you to deal with on your own. If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen, doing something useless.'

McGuire barely heard him; instinctively, he snapped off the light and stepped into the living room. In the second before Neil turned away, she looked round and up, and he saw her face in the moonlight. Her expression made him shudder; it was that of someone he had never seen before, someone who, for al she knew, was ful y dressed and greeting a surprise visitor, not sitting naked on a chair, looking up at her husband as if nothing untoward had happened. Whoever she was, she wasn't Maggie Rose, not as he had ever known her.

'I didn't appreciate…' he heard her begin in a chil ingly calm voice

… not hers, someone else's… as he left Mario to what he had to do.

In the kitchen, he fil ed the kettle, found three mugs and dropped a tea bag into each one; he had no idea why he was doing it, other than to pass the time. He stood there and waited, trying to imagine how Pat Dewberry would embellish her story, now that no one was left alive to contradict her.

They had had no time to arrest her formal y; al they had been able to do was call two constables from the nearest patrol ing car to sit with her until DC Alice Cowan from Mcllhenney's Special Branch team could get there to relieve them.

'Neil.' McGuire's voice came from the hal. Mcllhenney stepped out and found him on the stairs, one hand on Maggie's waist as if he was steering her. He had put her bathrobe around her shoulders, but it hung loose on her and he looked away, embarrassed. Mario tossed him a car key, on its dealer fob. 'I dug that out of his pocket. His motor'll be outside; find it and run it into the driveway, as close to the house as you can get it.'

'What are we going to do?'

'I'm going to take him somewhere else. You don't need to have anything to do with it.'

'Fuck off"