Deadly Intent by Anna Sweeney

Author:Anna Sweeney [Anna Sweeney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2014-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Saturday 26 September, 11.10 a.m.

Dominic stood at the bar and ordered a drink. The place was quiet, as most of Cork’s Saturday shoppers had not yet earned a break from their labours. Two men dressed in dark suits came in from the street, and nodded to each other when they saw Dominic.

In the mirror along the back of the bar, his eye caught their movement. He spoke hurriedly to the barman, took another quick look in the mirror and walked off. He almost knocked over a low stool in his haste to reach the double doors at the end of the bar, which led further into the hotel.

‘So what’s burning your heels then, you blaggard?’ Conor Fitzmaurice muttered curses under his breath while he and Redmond Joyce followed Dominic through the inner doors. They found themselves in a wide corridor, adorned with small windows in which local craft and cosmetic products were displayed for the benefit of tourists. They spotted Dominic heading for the main stairway at the end of the corridor, and the lifts to the upper floors of the hotel.

Sergeant Fitzmaurice called out to Dominic just as a group of people exited one of the two lifts, laughing boisterously. It took a few minutes for the gardai to get past the group, by which time the lift door had shut and their quarry had eluded them.

Redmond signalled that he would take the stairs while Conor awaited the second lift. They had glimpsed Dominic pressing the up button, but there was no sign of him at the first- or second-floor landings, and Redmond was almost out of breath as he paused at the next set of stairs. As well as several floors of bedrooms, he remembered that the hotel had a basement car park. There was nothing to stop Dominic changing course midway, and driving off into the city streets in his car.

Redmond turned back quickly and saw that the lights over the lift doors showed Dominic’s lift arriving at the floor above him. He hurried up the stairs two steps at a time, reminding himself that he had not been to the gym in the previous week. As he rounded the corner of the third landing, he heard his colleague’s unmistakeable Kerry voice.

‘Now, my buckeroo, you’d better whisht awhile and listen to me.’ Redmond guessed that Dominic had tried to confuse his pursuers by changing lifts, only to be confronted by Conor when he stepped into the second one. The sergeant was holding the door open with his foot, while blocking Dominic’s retreat back on to the landing.

‘Get away from me, you bastard, you’re way out of line. I’ve already complained to my solicitor about your harassment!’

Redmond decided to play the soft cop. They had no arrest warrant and Dominic was entirely within his rights to refuse to cooperate.

‘Take it easy, Dominic,’ he said quietly. ‘We’d just like your assistance with a small detail. We tried to phone you last night, and when we got no reply, we figured we could drop by at your hotel, on our way to Malden’s funeral.

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