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

Matty had said.
    The dog.
    It
was
a mean animal. An Alsatian, yes, but trained to be a mean. I’d bet a week’s pay that it was primarily a guard dog. As Matty pointed out, on a sheep farm you’d want a Border Collie, but Martin McAlpine’s herd was so small he didn’t need that much help with the round up and so he’d got himself a good watch dog instead.
    â€œStop the car,” I said to Matty.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œStop the bloody car!”
    He put in the clutch and brake and we squelched to a halt.
    â€œTurn us around, drive us back to the McAlpines.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œJust do it.”
    â€œOkay.”
    He put the Rover in first gear and drove us back down the lane. When we reached the stone wall, Matty killed the engine and we got out of the Rover and walked across the muddy farmyard again.
    I knocked on her door and she opened it promptly.
    She had changed into jeans and a mustard-coloured jumper. She had tied her hair back into a pony tail.
    â€œSorry to bother you again, Mrs McAlpine,” I said.
    â€œNo bother, Inspector. What else was I going to do today? Wash the windows a second time?”
    â€œI wanted to ask you a question about Cora? Is that the name of your dog?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you say your husband was going up to bring the yearlings in, is that right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd did he normally take Cora with him?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo she wasn’t tied up?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHmmm,” I said, and rubbed my chin.
    â€œWhat are you getting at?” she asked.
    â€œWas Cora always this bad-tempered or is this just since your husband was shot?”
    â€œShe’s never liked strangers.”
    â€œAnd you say the gunmen were waiting just behind the stone wall, right out there beyond the farmyard?”
    â€œThey must have been, because Martin didn’t see them until it was too late.”
    â€œYou say they shot him in the chest?”
    â€œChest and neck.”
    â€œDid you hear the shot?”
    â€œOh, yes. I knew what it was immediately. A shotgun. I’ve heard plenty of them in my time.”
    â€œOne shot?” Matty asked.
    â€œBoth barrels at the same time.”
    â€œAnd when you came out your husband was down on the ground and the gunmen were riding off on a motorbike?”
    â€œThat they were.”
    â€œAnd you couldn’t ID them?”
    â€œIt was a blue motorbike, that’s all I saw. Why all the questions, Detective?”
    â€œWho investigated your husband’s murder?”
    â€œLarne RUC.”
    â€œAnd they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd the IRA claimed responsibility?”
    â€œThat very night. What’s in your mind, Inspector Duffy?
    â€œYour husband was armed?” I asked.
    â€œHe always carried his sidearm with him, but he didn’t even get a chance to get it out of his pocket.”
    â€œAnd you ran out and found him where?”
    â€œIn the yard.”
    â€œWhereabouts? Can you show me?”
    â€œThere, where the rooster is,” she said, pointing about half the way across the farmyard, about twenty yards from the house and twenty from the stone wall. Not an impossible shot with a shotgun by any means, but then again, surely you’d want to get a lot closer than twenty yards and if you got closer, wouldn’t that have given Captain McAlpine plenty of time to get his own gun out of his pocket?
    â€œMrs McAlpine, if you’ll bear with me for just another moment … Let me get this clear in my mind. Your husband’s walking out to the fields, with Cora beside him, and two guys come out from behind the stone wall and shoot him down from twenty yards away. Cora, who was for taking my head off, doesn’t run at the men, and he can’t get his gun out in time?”
    Her eyes were looking at me with a sort of hostility