Read Online Unti Lucy Black Novel #3 by Brian McGilloway - Free Book Online Page A

she reasoned, always do that afterwards, anyway. “Why not?” Lucy said. “That would be nice.” After a swim she’d have earned the ice cream, she decided.
    â€œGreat. We’re going to Lisnagelvin. Is half past seven okay?”
    Lucy glanced at the time on her phone. It was 5:45 now. That would give her just time to go home, grab a quick bite, and shave her legs before heading back out. Not enough time to leave the hour before swimming, though.
    â€œCan we make it eight instead?” Lucy asked.
    â€œNo problem. We’ll see you there, then. Thanks.”
    â€œLook, are you sure you want me to come?” Lucy added. If Jenny was attempting to repair her relationship with her sister, Fiona might not appreciate a third party being present.
    â€œNo, please. I don’t want Fiona to think I set her up. It’ll look more casual if she thinks we were planning on going anyway. You’d be doing me a big favor.”
    â€œSee you at eight, then,” Lucy said, then hung up.
    As she pulled out of the car park, her phone rang again and Lucy assumed it was Jenny with a changed arrangement. This time, though, it was the Strand Road station.
    â€œDS Black? A Mrs. Doreen Jeffries from Bready has been in contact. She’s been burgled.”
    â€œThat’s a uniform callout,” Lucy said, glancing across at the bags of groceries sliding around the footwell of the passenger seat. “I’m finished for the day.”
    â€œShe’s asked specifically for you, said she knew you. She’s in a very bad state, apparently.”

 
    Chapter Fifteen
    D OREEN J EFFRIES WAS in her late sixties and lived in a small cottage on the roadside in Bready, a village along the A5, about six miles past Prehen. It was technically in Tyrone rather than Derry, but, as Jeffries had claimed, she did know Lucy, which is why, presumably, she had called the PSNI in Derry rather than Strabane.
    Lucy had first met the woman the year previous. She volunteered in a charity shop in Derry, four days a week, sorting through donations to find anything that the shop could actually sell. She’d proudly told Lucy, the first time they met, that she was the one who’d spotted a first edition Harry Potter, which the charity had sold at auction for several thousand pounds.
    The shop in question was one of a number that had agreed to take some of the children from the Social Ser­vices Residential Unit in the Waterside as volunteers. The program had been organized by Robbie, Lucy’s boyfriend. One of the kids, a youngster called Helen Dexter, had been working with Doreen, sorting out clothes and such, in the storeroom of the shop. Doreen had begun to suspect that Helen was stealing from the shop and passed word up to the manager, who had insisted that she report it to the police, in keeping with their zero-­tolerance policy on theft. With a significant degree of reluctance, Doreen had contacted Robbie, to inform him that she would have to report Helen to the PSNI. Robbie had suggested Doreen speak with Lucy, which is how the two had eventually met.
    When Lucy met Doreen, the woman revealed that she had already spoken with Helen herself and the girl had admitted taking clothes from the storeroom. They were, she revealed, for her younger sister; her mother refused to buy clothes for the child, preferring to drink it. The stock she had taken amounted to £45. In the end, the shop manager had agreed not to press charges so long as Helen paid for all that she had taken and was removed from the volunteer program.
    The money was repaid within the day. Helen denied ever having paid it back, nor would she admit where she had gotten the additional hundred pounds with which she had bought her sister a new school uniform, but despite the considerable age difference, she and Doreen had been firm friends ever since.
    D OREEN BEGAN WEEPING the moment she saw Lucy standing at her front door. Without