Crowe tensed as she approached her car; the radio, muffled, was crackling intensely. As she opened the door she caught words between the noise and the shouts.
Shooting . . . Multiple injuries . . . MacBride Road . . . All units.
She rammed the keys into the ignition and pulled away. She threw the dashmaster up against the windscreen and plugged it into the cigarette lighter socket. The blue lights flashed out to other motorists. The radio kept spluttering out a call to all units to descend on MacBride Road. Crowe sucked in air as she heard the words ‘member shot’. Her body shook with raw adrenaline. She held her concentration and whipped around bends and roundabouts, her stomach swishing at the sensations, her mind fighting off blurred images of horror.
The five minutes it took to get to MacBride Road seemed like an hour. She could hear the blare of sirens. She dumped her car up on a kerb. Her eyes, squinting in the strong sun, strained to see through the trees as she ran around a corner, her Sig pulling at her side.
An ambulance sped away; another was parked in the middle of the road ahead. But it was the stance of the uniformed officers and detectives that squeezed her heart. Some stood stationary with their hands up to their mouths, others paced the road randomly, their heads bowed.
A patrol car stood out from the other vehicles as it was parked up neatly, half on the footpath and half on the road. Ahead, there was a shape on the path, crudely covered over with sheets. Crowe halted, as if she had walked into a pane of glass. A man walked towards her. It was Tyrell, his face drained of colour.
Christ, what is it?
She ignored petals from a blossom tree landing on her face. She stepped towards the body, but Tyrell closed her off.
‘You don’t want to . . .’ he said.
‘Who?’
Tyrell put his hand on her shoulder. The caws of seagulls over the canal cut the silence.
‘Peters has suffered severe back injuries,’ Tyrell said. ‘He’s just been taken to hospital.’
Crowe’s mind raced.
Peters? Grant was going out on patrol with him. Oh my God. It must be her.
She looked up at Tyrell.
‘Grant?’
Tyrell looked into her eyes, then nodded.
Grant’s smiley, carefree face popped into her mind. Crowe looked again at the sheet on the ground.
She couldn’t be under there. Not Grant.
Movement on the far side of the Luas tracks, along the canal path, intruded. She glanced over.
‘A bullet hit a girl on the path,’ Tyrell said. ‘She’s been taken to hospital too, but it doesn’t look good.’
Crowe’s mind was swirling.
‘What?’ she asked, beseeching him. ‘What happened?’
‘We don’t know,’ Tyrell said. ‘Grant and Peters must have pulled in a car. There’s tyre marks over there,’ he said, pointing towards the body. ‘Witnesses said they heard a shot. It hit the girl.’
She held onto Tyrell’s outstretched arm as her stomach bent. As she contorted, Lynn Bolger’s warning, that ‘something awful’ was going to happen soon, slipped into her mind.
Crowe straightened up and let go of Tyrell’s arm. She looked around.
Tyrell seemed to read her mind. ‘It’s all derelict buildings and closed factories on this side.’
‘Cameras?’ she asked.
‘The Luas stops have cameras, but they just look down on the stops, not out on to the road. There are cameras down at the junction, which we’ll have to get. A Luas may have passed around the time, so we’ll put out an appeal. We’ll organise the jobs at the conference in a couple of hours.’
Crowe tried to take it all in, but images of Grant swaying in the station, beaming at her, ebbed and flowed in her mind.
‘Jesus, if she wasn’t doing a double, this wouldn’t have happened to her,’ she said, holding her hand to her mouth. ‘Just so she could go to the festival, with her boyfriend.’
She looked into Tyrell’s face for some solution, explanation even, for the madness, but all he could do was hold her gaze.
Crowe watched as scenes of crime officers arrived and began erecting a blue tent and a tarpaulin around the sheets covering Grant. She couldn’t believe it. Her head was spinning. She felt Tyrell’s strong hand clasp her shoulder.
‘You okay?’
She nodded.
‘Any witnesses?’ she asked, clearing her throat.
‘Reports of a car with a couple of men inside. Some description of a BMW. Command and Control have sent out the alerts. They’re trying to cordon off the area now. We’ve spoken with some of the witnesses. There’s another at the hospital. That’s where I’m heading now.’
‘Me too.’