Silent Night: An absolutely gripping crime thriller by Geraldine Hogan

Author:Geraldine Hogan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786819093
Publisher: Bookouture

Chapter Eighteen

Iris shivered. The cold feeling that had overtaken her in Kilgee was still chewing laconically on her bones and she knew that there was no coat warm enough to cover the chill. She would be glad when this day had closed in on her and she could convince herself that they were moving nearer to some real answers.

Alan Gains’s office had all the trappings of fading wealth, a Victorian three storey, tastefully converted. In the outer reception rooms the furniture was antique and polished to a shine, the rugs were old, but still sumptuous. The receptionist was young and quietly glamorous. When Locke looked around, she figured the cleaner probably didn’t call as often as she once had, perhaps the heating was a little lower and the waiting room less packed. Maybe the admin staff spent more time now searching through accounts for bills that might yet be paid and less lodging documents with the Department of Land Registry. Sign of the times – people remembered the recession, if you were lucky enough to survive in business, austerity still seemed like the wiser path. The man himself showed similar tell-tale signs of the learning curve of property crash and looming Brexit. His suit had been expensive a decade earlier, but now it looked crumpled and worn. His hand was steady though and when he spoke, he searched her face constantly with his own owl-like brown eyes, magnified by glasses that needed wiping. Alan Gains’s eyes were intelligent and arresting, and probably his best feature. They sat in an oily face with a flat nose and mouth – too many years of expensive restaurant food and not enough exercise had wrecked his shape, so there’d be no going back.

‘Are you any nearer to finding out who did this?’ he asked when Locke and McGonagle were sitting with coffee in his well-appointed office. Last time round, Iris reckoned he was well shook and upset by the whole business. He was composed today, though, so that, to Iris’s mind at least, gave less reason to suspect a guilty conscience.

‘We’re following a number of lines of enquiry at the moment.’ Iris kept it brief.

‘Well, it wasn’t anyone who knew her anyway, that’s for certain.’ He blew out a resigned sigh.

‘I’m afraid we don’t know that yet,’ McGonagle admitted quietly.

‘Well, in that case, what can I do for you?’ He joined his hands prayer-like across his desk, looked down as though inspecting them for a moment. It seemed to Iris that he was lost in thought. The coffee had been placed on a table to the side, but no one made a move towards it yet.

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Gains said. ‘I’ve made a living, a good living, for the most part out of the law, and yet, when it comes to something like this, after all this time, it seems useless.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘None of this,’ he spread his arms out, a net catching the trappings he’d worked so astutely for, ‘none of this, not the district court, or the high court, will bring them back.

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