The Rising by Brian McGilloway

that time too. By 2.15 a.m., the car had gone and a white Transit van was there instead.
    By 4 a.m., the barn was burning, with Kielty’s body inside, soaked in accelerant. The thought reminded me that I had to chase up the Forensics report from Patterson.
    Burgess was holding his usual spot at the front desk, a paperback novel sitting in front of him, its spine bent backwards, and a sloppily filled mug of coffee adding to the collection of coffee rings on the desk.
    ‘Good afternoon, Inspector,’ Burgess said when I came in. ‘Nice of you to join us.’
    ‘Always a pleasure to see you, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘Learning to read, I see.’
    Burgess snorted. ‘That part-timer, Black, wants to know, should he go back out to that house again? He sat outside it for most of his shift yesterday helping the Forensics.’
    I’d forgotten that I’d asked him to go out to assist. ‘Where is he?’ I asked, eager to find out what, if anything, Forensics had uncovered.
    ‘He’s doing a border checkpoint. Superintendent Patterson asked for “increased Gardai visibility”. For the benefit of the press, what with this whole thing with The Rising going on.’
    Paul Black was standing at the end of Lifford bridge, his squad car parked in the middle of the road, while he waved through car after car. I parked outside the old customs post and watched him for a moment and noticed that the only vehicles he stopped were those being driven by young, attractive women. I supposed he was showing some initiative. I parped the car horn a few times and he reluctantly pulled himself away from the small Tigra he had stopped and ran over to join me.
    ‘You’re doing good work there, Paul. So long as all our drug dealers are good-looking young women, the streets of Lifford are safe with you.’
    ‘What?’ He looked at me blankly.
    ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘How did it go yesterday, Paul?’
    ‘Fine,’ he replied, though I notice his leg had started jittering up and down. ‘The Forensics team were there for most of the day.’
    ‘What did they find?’
    ‘The murder weapon – a kitchen knife.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In the shed, close to where the body was. The blade had been cleaned. The handle was plastic and had melted in the fire.’
    ‘Anything of use from it?’
    ‘It was taken from Kielty’s house.’
    I nodded. I remembered that one had been missing from the set in the kitchen of the cottage. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘A lot of fingerprints. A couple of hundred apparently. They’re going to have to run through them to cross reference them or whatever you call it.’
    ‘Any of them useable?’
    ‘I dunno,’ he said.
    ‘Any bullet casings? I was called out because of reports of gunfire.’
    He shook his head.
    ‘What else did they find?’ I asked with growing exasperation.
    ‘Someone started the fire deliberately. They found traces of accelerant near the back of the barn, and a few melted plastic bags with traces of dope and stuff. And they found a few melted containers they said might have had petrol in them.’
    The presence of an accelerant was in keeping with what Dr Long had said following the post-mortem. The containers exploding would probably also have accounted for the reports of gunfire.
    ‘Though they said there wasn’t much,’ he added, his jittering becoming more exaggerated.
    ‘Much what?’
    ‘Drugs. They found traces just. Lots of bags, but only traces of coke, like he’s had his stash there at one stage. They reckoned the coke was high purity though – really good stuff. If you like that kind of thing.’ He squeezed his two hands between his legs as he spoke.
    ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘I need a slash and I’m the only one on the border,’ he said.
    ‘Jesus, go into the Customs post and go. It’ll not matter if you’re off the checkpoint for five minutes.’
    ‘I just thought – the Super sent me out. I thought it was important.’
    ‘I’ll keep an eye,’ I said, rolling down my window and