Read Online I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty - Free Book Online

him in the chest. He never knew a thing about it, or so they say.”
    Matty winced.
    Yes, we had really ballsed this one up and no mistake.
    â€œI’m very sorry. We should have checked the name before we came out here,” I said pathetically.
    The Ulster Defence Regiment was a locally recruited regiment of the British Army. They conducted foot patrols and joint patrols with the police and as such they were a vital part of the British government’s anti-terrorist strategy. There were about five thousand UDR men and women in Northern Ireland. The IRA assassinated between fifty and a hundred of them every year, most in attacks like the one that had killed Mrs McAlpine’s husband: mercury tilt switch bombs under cars, rural ambushes and the like.
    As coppers, though, we looked down on UDR men. We saw ourselves as elite professionals and them as, well … fucking wasters for the most part. Sure, they were brave and put their lives on the line, but who didn’t in this day and age?
    There was also the fact that many of the hated disbanded BSpecials had joined the UDR and that occasionally guns from their depots would find their way into the hands of the paramilitaries. I mean, I’m sure ninety-five per cent of the UDR soldiers were decent, hardworking people, but there were definitely more bad apples in the regiment than in the RUC.
    Not that any of that mattered now. We should have known about the death of a security forces comrade and we didn’t.
    â€œHold on there, that tea’s too wet. I’ll get some biscuits,” Mrs McAlpine said.
    When she had gone Matty put up his hands defensively.
    â€œDon’t blame me, this was your responsibility, boss,” he said. “You just asked for an address. You didn’t tell me to check the births and deaths …”
    â€œI know, I know. It can’t be helped.”
    â€œWe’ve made right arses of ourselves. In front of a good-looking woman, too,” Matty said.
    â€œI’m surprised the name didn’t ring a bell.”
    â€œDecember of last year was a bad time, the IRA were killing someone every day, we can’t remember all of them,” Matty protested.
    It was true. Last November/December there’d been a lot of IRA murders including the notorious assassination of a fairly moderate Unionist MP, the Reverend Robert Bradford, which had absorbed most of the headlines; for one reason and another the IRA tended not to target local politicians but when they did it got the ink pots flowing.
    The widow McAlpine came back in with a tray of biscuits.
    She was still wearing the dressing gown but she’d taken the towel off her head. Her hair was chestnut red, curly, long. Somehow it made her look much older. Late twenties, maybe thirty. And she would age fast out here in the boglands on a scrabble sheep farm with no husband and no help.
    â€œThis is lovely, thanks,” Matty said, helping himself to a chocolate digestive.
    â€œSo what’s this all about?” she asked.
    I told her about the body in the suitcase and the name tag that we’d found inside the case.
    â€œI gave that suitcase away just before Christmas with all of Martin’s stuff. I couldn’t bear to have any of his gear around me any more and I thought that somebody might have the use of it.”
    â€œCan you tell us where you left it?” I asked.
    â€œYes. The Carrickfergus Salvation Army.”
    â€œAnd this was just before Christmas?”
    â€œAbout a week before.”
    â€œOkay, we’ll check it out.”
    We finished our tea and stared at the peat logs crackling in the fireplace. Matty, the cheeky skitter, finished the entire plate of chocolate digestives.
    â€œWell, we should be heading on,” I said, stood and pulled Matty up before he scoffed the poor woman out of house and home.
    â€œWe’re really sorry to have bothered you, Mrs McAlpine.”
    â€œNot at all. It chills the blood