Read Online Games of the Hangman by Victor O'Reilly - Free Book Online

Günther.
    Günther
shrugged.   "Poor girl," he
said.   "What else can one say?   It sounds like a classic copycat suicide.   One suicide in a group has a tendency to
spark off others.   Many coroners think
that's one good reason why suicides shouldn't be reported."
    Kilmara gave a
shudder.   "Ugh," he said.   "This is gloomy stuff.   Until our green lieutenant came in with the
tidings, I was geared to go home early and bathe the twins."
    "And
now?" said Günther.
    Kilmara waited
a beat and grinned.   "I'm going to
go home early and bathe the twins," he said.   He put on his coat, checked his personal
weapons, and slid down the specially installed fireman's pole to the
underground garage.   He'd tell Fitzduane
about this second hanging tomorrow.   Hugo
would have to get by on one hanging this night.
    He was
unmercifully splashed by the twins.

     
    *           *           *           *           *

     
    The city of
Cork
,
Ireland
's
second largest, had been sacked, burned, pillaged, looted, and destroyed so
often since its foundation in the sixth century by St. Finbar that it now
seemed laid out with the primary objective of stopping any invader in his
tracks.
    Its traffic
problem was impressive in its turgid complexity, and on a dark, wet March
evening it had reached a pinnacle of congestion that was a tribute to the
ingenuity of its corporation's planning committee.
    Fitzduane had
a manic private theory that the reason the city's population had expanded was
that none of the inhabitants could get out, and so they stayed and became
traders or lawyers or pregnant or both and conversed in a strange singsong that
sounded to the uninitiated like a form of Chinese but was, in fact, the Cork
accent.
    Fitzduane
actually quite liked Cork, but he could never understand how a city that stood
astride only one river could have so many bridges — all, apparently, going the
wrong way.   In addition, there seemed to
be more bridges than during his last visit, and some seemed to be in different
locations.   Maybe they were designed to
move secretly in the dead of night.   Maybe the reason the British had burned the city — yet again — in 1921 was just to find a parking space.
    He was
agreeably surprised when the
South
Infirmary
Hospital
loomed through the sleet.

     
    *           *           *           *           *

     
    Fitzduane
transferred the slides of the hanging to the circular magazine of a Kodak
Carousel projector and switched it on.
    The screen was
suddenly brilliant white in the small office.   He pressed the advance button.   There was a click and a whir and a click.   The white of the screen was replaced by a
blur of color.   He adjusted the zoom lens
and the focus, and the face of the hanged boy, much enlarged, came sharply into
view.
    Buckley held
an illuminated pointer in his hand, and from time to time, as the slides
clicked and whirred and clicked, he would point out a feature with the small arrow
of light.
    "Of
course," said the pathologist, "I didn't see the locus —the place it
actually happened — so these slides of yours help.   They should really have been handed in to me
before the inquest, but no matter.
    "Now,
under our system, the decision as to whether the pathologist sees the deceased
at the locus depends on the police.   If
they have any reason to be suspicious, the body is not disturbed in any way
until the fullest investigations are carried out.   In this particular case the sergeant used his
judgment.   A youth was involved, and his
death occurred on the grounds of his own college.   A very fraught situation, and the sight of a victim of hanging can be quite traumatic, as you know.   There were no signs of foul play, and the
sergeant knew that hanging almost invariably means suicide.   There was also the matter of determining that
the lad was actually dead.   All these
factors encouraged the sergeant to