Death Bringer. Derek Landy

Чтение книги онлайн.

      enny sat in the interview room and tried not to fidget. He was mildly disappointed that there was no two-way mirror built into the wall, like he’d seen on cop shows. Maybe they only had two-way mirrors in America. In Ireland, the Guards probably didn’t even have one-way mirrors.

      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,” Kenny said, “I’m a journalist. He’s someone I’d interviewed a few times.”

      “About what?”

      “It’s … nothing. He is, or he was, a conspiracy nut, kind of.”

      “Conspiracies? You mean like government cover-ups, that sort of thing?”

      “No, not really. He was more …” Kenny sighed. “Listen, it’s a long story.”

      “I don’t have anywhere else to be,” said Inspector Me, and glanced back at the girl. “Do you?”

      “Yes, actually,” she said. “I have a christening to get to.”

      “Oh,” СКАЧАТЬ