taxi crawled along to another set of traffic lights and Kenny almost whimpered.
It was probably unhealthy to pin so much hope on one article that hadn’t even been commissioned, but there was really very little choice. Kenny needed a lucky break. He’d started off well, worked up to some high-profile interviews and articles, but then it all started to slide away from him. He could see it happening, but couldn’t do anything to stop it. Now he was freelance, thrown the occasional job, but his editors left it up to him to go out and find the stories himself. And that’s what he’d done.
When he’d first heard the rumours, years ago, he’d dismissed them. Of course he had. They were crazy. He wrote a few articles, noting the trend in the modern urban legend, but he’d never read more into it than that. But they persisted, these stories of strange people with strange powers doing strange things. Wonderful stuff, and not just the ravings of lunatics and paranoids and the disturbed. These stories were everywhere. They popped up occasionally on the Internet, then vanished just as fast. A few of the reports he’d followed up on had turned out to be hoaxes, with the person who reported the sighting now claiming to have no idea what he was talking about. He’d been close to forgetting the whole thing when he met Lynch. Lynch was Kenny’s link. In all his years of casual investigation, Lynch was his one solid lead – as solid a lead as a muttering homeless man could be, anyway – and Kenny had a feeling he was ready to reveal everything he knew. Kenny had spoken to him three times already, and felt he was beginning to earn his trust.
Today was the day, he knew. If only he could get there in time.
The taxi stopped again and Kenny lost patience. He paid the driver, lurched out of the car, swung his bag over his shoulder and ran.
Twenty seconds of running and he was seriously regretting this move. He hadn’t run in years. Good God, running was hard. And hot. Sweat formed on his brow. His lungs ached. He had shin splints.
He staggered to the next corner and hailed a taxi. It was the same taxi he’d just got out of.
“Didn’t go too well for you, did it?” asked the driver smugly.
Kenny just gasped and panted in the back seat.
They finally reached the park and Kenny paid the driver, again, and hurried across the grass. There were people everywhere, stretched out in the May sunshine, laughing and chatting, walking and eating ice cream. Small dogs scampered after their owners. Music played. The pond glinted.
Kenny saw Paul Lynch, sitting in the shade away from everyone, and a smile broke across his face like a wave of cool water. He wiped the sweat from his brow and walked over, taking it slower, holding up a hand in greeting. Lynch didn’t return the gesture. He just sat there, his back against the railing, shoulders slumped. He was probably in a bad mood.
If only he’d really been a psychic, then he’d have foreseen Kenny’s late arrival and there wouldn’t be a problem. Kenny’s smile turned to a grin.
“Sorry,” he said once he stepped into the shade. “The traffic, you know, and the car broke down, and I had to get a taxi.”
Lynch didn’t answer. He didn’t even raise his head.
Kenny stood there awkwardly, then shrugged and sat down. “Glorious morning, isn’t it? I swear, you can never tell how an Irish summer is going to turn out. Do you want an ice cream or something? I’d love an ice cream.”
Again, no response. Lynch’s eyes were closed.
“Paul?”
Kenny reached out and nudged his one solid lead. Nudged him again. Then he saw the blood that drenched Lynch’s shirt, and he grabbed him and shook him. Lynch’s head rolled back, revealing a throat with a long, smooth slit, like a red eye opening.
The door to his right opened, and two people entered. The man was tall and thin, dressed in a dark blue suit of impeccable tailoring. He wore a hat like a 1940s private eye. He sat on the other side of the table and took the hat off. He had dark hair and high cheekbones. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. His skin looked waxy. He wore gloves.
His companion stood against the wall behind him. She was tall and pretty and dark-haired, but she couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. She was dressed in black trousers and a tight black jacket, zipped halfway up, made of some material Kenny didn’t recognise. She didn’t look at him.
“Hi.” The man’s smile was bright. He had good teeth.
“Hi,” Kenny said.
The girl said nothing.
The man had a smooth voice, like velvet. “I’m Detective Inspector Me. Unusual name, I know. My family were incredibly narcissistic. I’m lucky I escaped with any degree of humility at all, to be honest, but then I’ve always managed to exceed expectations. You are Kenny Dunne, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Just a few questions for you, Mr Dunne. Or Kenny. Can I call you Kenny? I feel we’ve become friends these past few seconds. Can I call you Kenny?”
“Sure,” Kenny said, slightly baffled.
“Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s important you feel comfortable around me, Kenny. It’s important we build up a level of trust. That way I’ll catch you completely unprepared when I suddenly accuse you of murder.”
Kenny’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Oh dear,” said Inspector Me. “That wasn’t supposed to happen for another few minutes.”
“I didn’t kill Paul Lynch!”
“Could we go back to the nice feeling of trust we were building up?”
“Listen, I had arranged to meet him, I was going to interview him, but when I got there he was already dead.”
“You’d be surprised how often we hear the ‘he was already dead’ defence in our line of work. Or maybe you wouldn’t, I don’t know. The point is, Kenny, it’s not looking good for you. Maybe if you tell us everything you know, we can persuade our colleagues to go easy on you.”
Kenny stared at the man, then looked over at the girl. “Who are you?”
She returned his look, raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer.
“She’s here on work experience,” said Inspector Me. “Don’t you worry about her, Kenny. You just worry about yourself. What was your relationship with the corpse?”
“Uh,”
