Belfast Noir by Adrian McKinty

Author:Adrian McKinty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2014-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

A Belfast woman committed suicide yesterday. She was found by her sister. Police are making no further enquiries.

The clippings added corroborative force to Mickey’s evidence. Mr. O’Neill and I had done all that we could. Fozzy did his best to catch Mickey in a lie during cross-examination, but his evidence remained consistent because it was the truth.

Closing speeches were short, and the jury took less than an hour to bring in a verdict of not guilty.

Mickey turned in the dock, desperately seeking out his wife, but Agnes had gone.

Within ten minutes of the verdict I put a pint of Guinness and a shot of whiskey in front of Mr. O’Neill and Mickey respectively, as we took our seats in Rumpole’s just a couple of hundred yards from the courthouse. The pub no longer bore that name, but for me it remained Rumpole’s. Its clientele consisted exclusively of hard men from the markets, lawyers, and judges, whom would all frequently join forces to throw the police out of the bar whenever they attempted to evacuate the area because of a bomb scare.

Mickey sniffed and supped his Powers, his head low despite the acquittal.

“I’ve lost her,” he said.

“She’ll come round, it was thirty years ago,” said Mr. O’Neill. Technically, he was correct, but Mickey and I both knew that for Agnes, the betrayal was fresh, public, and brutal.

Blood dripped onto my beer coaster. I’d opened the cut on my finger.

“If you keep fuckin’ pickin’ at that cut it’ll never heal,” said Mickey.

Glancing through the window, I sucked at the fresh blood. At that moment, snow began falling on the city, covering everything in a clean, white veil.

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