He must keep his temper though. This is the first proper job he’s had in months. Finally able to bring a bit of bacon home for Sally and the wains. It was rough going there for a while. What with being on the dole and the embarrassment of going in to sign on every Tuesday. Nodding to people he would know to see. The same disgruntled face of the woman he always seemed to get landed with when he pledged that yes, he was, in fact, actively looking for work. Her raised brow and pursed lips as she handed him over his envelope with a curt nod that was the unspoken sign for: ‘I’ll see you again next week.’
After doing a paint job for Mrs McGlinchey down the street, he heard, or rather eavesdropped through the open window, from her son, Greg, who had popped in for his lunch, that the council were looking for other workmen to help with the development of the new road between Belfast and Derry. When the son had stepped out again to go back to work, he nearly walked straight into Seamus on the doorstep, who begged for him to put in a good word for him with his boss, Trev. Now, it’s two months later and it seems like they’re no closer to finishing this road. And the winter months are coming. With the wind and rain and sleet and snow, his temper will worsen, surely. He’s even been checking the job search websites when perched in the portaloo on his breaks.
He’s just after knocking down the fourth wall of the lonely garage out the back of the, now demolished, house when he sees Greg waving his arms at him from his rear-view mirror. What the hell does he want? Pulling up the handbrake, he sticks a head out of the door and scrunches up his eyes at him, but he still can’t hear what he’s shouting about or see what he’s pointing at. Growling and hopping out of the vehicle, he trudges through the muck and wreckage he’s just recently created and comes to within spitting distance of Greg.
“Wha?”
Greg’s face is sheet white, and before he can continue, he doubles over and vomits. Exhaling in disgust, Seamus turns to head back, intent on finishing off clearing the mess so he can go home before Greg splutters after him again.
“You on the pish last night, or wha?”
“A body,” Greg spits chunks of Christ knows what out of his mouth as a layer of vomit or drool slides down his chin and onto his hi-vis, “I found a body.”
“Awk… Your arse,” Seamus stutters unconfidently, “where are you lookin’?”
Pointing over towards the rubble he had been clearing in a neighbouring dozer, Greg looks up to Trev’s booming voice, demanding to know why all work had stopped on this side of the plan. Walking cautiously towards the wreckage Seamus himself had tumbled not ten minutes ago, he glances about through the bricks and grass to see what Greg could conceive to be a body.
And that’s when he sees them. Four long skeletal-like fingers leaking out from a filthy navy suit jacket. Creeping over, he kicks a few more bits of ruins away before gasping, his hand flying to his mouth too late as the disgusting sandwich he had barely managed earlier escapes from his throat. Turning away, he empties his stomach at the side of the scene. When there is nothing else left to come up, he wipes his chin and glares over again. A black leather shoe sticks out behind some plasterboard, with the suit trousers still managing to hide the majority of themselves beneath the debris. A, once crisp, white shirt darkened by the dirt follows, with a smudged red tie leading up to a skull with blackened teeth smiling up at him, the skin so translucent it looks like a light breeze would blow it off. It has to be fake, right? Some kind of Halloween prop the family forgot to take with them or throw out, kept in the garage every other month of the year… But something deep in Seamus’s twisting gut tells him that it isn’t. That it’s real.
“What the-“
Swaying beside him is a sickly pale Trev, his eyes bulging at the site.
“You know whose house this was, don’t you?” Greg stands behind them, out of sight but his words still strike them as they all stare at the skeleton, almost laughable and cartoonish dressed in a smart man’s suit. “This was that politician who went missing’s house. His body was never found… That’s him… That’s fuckin’ him.”
Chapter Five:
Drumming his hands on the steering wheel impatiently, DI McNally still can’t get over the security standards and procedures adhered to by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, or the PSNI for short, he needs to get used to saying that again. Massive stone walls with fireproof metal gates shelter the police from the people of the city who they ultimately put their lives at risk to protect. The irony and obscenity of it all still tickles him, as the large gates open to let him sneak through, Chloe giving him a courteous nod as he passes her booth.
Parking up the station’s car, he grabs his phone and his keys from the glove department and slams the door shut, making his way up towards the main building stretched in front of him. Strand Road Police Station isn’t the biggest station he’s ever worked for, but it sure as hell beats the dive he worked at in Rong
