A Giant Killing by G R Jordan

Author:G R Jordan [Jordan, G R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Declan announced the next day he’d contacted his uncle on the phone, and they would meet him in a ten-pin bowling alley. Declan had booked a game for Kylie and himself and would drive Siobhan over to let her chat with his uncle as two older people watching them. Siobhan shook her head at the fabricated situation, but she didn’t complain.

The day had turned to rain and Siobhan felt a coldness in the air. It was close to winter, after all, and the trees had a gorgeous goldenness about them. You saw the occasional green, the touch of yellow on those leaves, but the others were a fiery brown, the reddishness coming through. You also saw the bare gnarled trunk of the trees, the top of them having no leaves and giving a spiky crown. Autumn was beautiful, as long as you were well wrapped up.

The rain was still on and off when they got out of the car at Dundonald. There were many distractions for children here and as they entered the bowling alley, they found it to be extremely busy. Declan went up to the front desk, telling Kylie to come and get her shoes. Siobhan thought he was less interested in what his uncle would say and more about taking Kylie bowling. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, though. She could talk to this uncle, interrogate him properly, not be worried about offending Declan.

‘Where is he?’ asked Siobhan, staring around the room. Before Declan could answer, she knew who it was. There was a man sitting half sprawled in one of the plastic chairs at a table. He looked decidedly the worse for wear. He had a shirt with a tie that was pulled half off his neck, some stains down the front of it, but still had a suit jacket. If you were looking for an old-time traditional hack, you would have to look no further. Did he still have a job, looking like that?

‘Shall I introduce you?’ asked Declan.

‘Don’t,’ said Siobhan. ‘Take Kylie bowling. I’ll get the biz.’

‘The what?’

‘Biz. The information,’ said Siobhan. Surely, she wasn’t that old. ‘I mean, the biz.’ She shook her head. Siobhan wandered over and sat down on the plastic chair beside the sprawled individual. Her leg touched his because he was over on her side of the seating and he hauled himself back up into a fairly upright shape.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Siobhan Duffy. Your nephew said we should talk.’

The man stopped for a moment, looking her up and down.

‘Indeed,’ said the man. ‘He said you weren’t bad for an old bird.’

Siobhan raised her eyebrows.

‘Though you’re not that old, are you? That’s the trouble with the kids. They think everybody’s old. He’s not far wrong with the looks, though.’

Siobhan wasn’t sure whether to be offended or to take a compliment. She didn’t need one. She had a confidence in the way she looked. Yes, she didn’t have Kylie’s flush of youth, and she’d had the odd battering over the years in the Service.

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