Deccie Must Die (MCM Investigations #2)

by Caimh McDonnell

To be honest with you, I think we were only with each other because neither of us fitted in. Thing is, that isn’t anywhere near enough to build a relationship on. It’s why we argued all the time.

Megan mumbled something that might have been “sorry” but could also conceivably have been almost any word in any given language.

Normally, at 5:15 on a Thursday evening, finding a table in any pub in the area would have been a challenge but, luckily, the sun was out, which made Irish people feel compelled to stand out in the street and stare up at the burning ball of gas in case they never got the chance to see it again.

Welcome to the twenty-first century, where it has never been easier to keep your friends and loved ones under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

“Why is there a kid here?” asked Phil, with his trademark inability to politely say the thing everyone else was far too polite to say.

They should use him to advertise condoms. He might look angelic, but animals ran for the hills at the mere sight of him, and he’d been unofficially banned from most of the childcare facilities in Dublin.

Why do it like this? There were only two possibilities: they were dealing with either a properly crazy person or someone who was supremely confident that they were several steps ahead. Neither of those options filled Brigit with joy. She felt like Wile E. Coyote, just before he noticed that he’d run out of cliff.

Ireland didn’t get much sun, but you could never accuse the natives of letting the little they did get go to waste.

“I meant children,” said the woman without a hint of irony. “If I wanted to be surrounded by annoying ankle-biters, I’d have not spent seventy-four years keeping my legs together.” Brigit nodded and kept walking. Some statements really didn’t call for a response.

It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch.

Crazy bitch clotheslined me.” “Language,” warned Nora, who had just turned up with Dan by her side. “There are children present, ye dipshit.”

guess at some point, you just get used to failure. What happened with my parents, what things were like when I was younger – I guess I just got used to not expecting things to go well. It’s hard to be really disappointed if you never expect things to go your way in the first place. Well, it turns out, it’s a lot harder to get used to success. You always think you’ll be found out.

I spent most of my life up until now being broke. I’m a master at it. I don’t mind that bit. It’s the being-alone part that bothers me.

Burns tilted her head to one side. “Unofficially, Mr Phillips is …” “A few chimps short of a tea party?” suggested Paul. DSI Burns didn’t say anything, in a way that left nothing unsaid.

Paul knew loads of fellas who would rather chew their own leg off than talk to a copper, and yet they had bawled their eyes out at Bunny’s funeral.

Being “the victim” in an incident room was probably a lot like being the father in a delivery room. Everyone said you were important but really your bit was long over and now you were, at best, an encouragement and, at worst, a distraction.

Paul couldn’t take Deccie’s silence any longer. The last five minutes had been the longest he’d ever seen him with his mouth closed during their entire friendship, and that included time spent sleeping.

That is my decision. We have to play this by the book.” “Respectfully, again, ma’am, I don’t think the book was written with this particular situation in mind.”

He’d always been an amateur insomniac, but the last couple of months with the cast and the confinement to the apartment had really taken things to the next level.