Black Light by Michael O'Toole

Author:Michael O'Toole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maverick House

24

Lazarus hung back as Cochrane pressed the buzzer.

The distance gave him a better angle on the large Georgian house. It was a redbrick, four storeys high, with a basement. He counted 12 windows, one for each button on the intercom. The glass was dirty. One window had a long crack. Another had been smashed and repaired by cardboard. The window frames were green. Some were rotting.

Cochrane came back to him.

The overgrown garden teemed with weeds and litter. A discarded cigarette packet. A bottle of cheap German beer. A pizza box. Two black refuse bags.

‘I like what he’s done to the place,’ Lazarus said.

Cochrane laughed.

She looked up at a window. She shook her head, went back to the door and pressed the intercom again. She held her finger down on the button.

Cochrane let go of it, stepped back.

‘There are 12 of the fuckers here,’ she said.

‘It’s a halfway house for released prisoners. Two ordinary criminals, the rest are sex offenders. Four priests, an accountant, a mechanic, a doctor, a bus driver, a scout leader – surprise, surprise – and Glennon.’

Lazarus heard feet on stairs in the house.

Cochrane flipped open the lid of a small bottle and squeezed a clear liquid onto her palm. She gave him the container and then massaged the gel into her hands.

‘Sanitiser. You never know what you can catch from these dirty fuckers,’ she said.

The door eased open. Martin Glennon stood in front of them.

‘Garda Síochána,’ Cochrane said. Her northern twang turned the soft CH in Síochána into a hard K.

She flashed her ID.

Glennon looked at the ground.

‘I know who you are, Sergeant.’

‘We need a word.’

Glennon shrugged.

‘Okay.’

He turned and walked up the stairs.

As they followed him, Cochrane took out a small tin of Vaseline. She dipped her index finger into the jelly and smeared it under her nostrils. She offered the tin to Lazarus. He declined.

Glennon turned left at the landing and pushed a heavy white door.

He gestured for them to enter.

Lazarus crossed the threshold and recoiled. A rancid smell hit him in the back of his throat. It was a combination of smoke, shit, garlic and rotten food. He almost retched. He regretted not taking the Vaseline from Cochrane.

‘Fuck me, what died in here, Martin? Cochrane gasped.

‘Sorry, Miss Cochrane.’

Glennon walked over and opened a large window. Welcome cold air rushed in.

The flat was once a bedroom, now repurposed as a bedsit. It had a kitchenette at one end, a bed at the other and living space in between.

The kitchenette had a microwave and dirty hob. Two pots simmered on it. There was a small fridge. Its handle was broken. The floor was dark orange lino, littered with holes. There was a tattered grey sofa in the living area, an armchair of the same colour and a television. The walls were yellow, with rising damp in the corners. At the back of the room there was an open door to a small toilet and shower, where the worst of the smell came from.

Lazarus examined Glennon. He had changed since the prison mugshot.

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