Exclusive book extract from The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan

Police corruption, an investigation that ends in tragedy and the mystery of a little girl’s silence. Dervla McTiernan’s new book is fast-paced. See a sneak peek before it’s officially released.

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Peter put the handbrake on with a sigh of relief, got out, made for the boot of the car and found the powerful torch that was part of the standard kit. He flicked it on and shone it around him. The light picked out reeds and scrub, the bank of the lake uncomfortably close, just a few short metres ahead, but no sign of anyone else, no sign of Jason Kelly. The cliff he’d imagined was more like four or five feet, rather than twenty, but it was scary enough. If he’d slid off the edge his car would have plunged into the freezing cold water below. Peter took a minute to zip up his coat. It was freezing, so cold that he was already shivering. He made his way forward, closer to the water. It was nearly all granite underfoot here, but the surface was uneven, interrupted by clumps of weeds and frozen puddles. Peter shone the torch over the water. It was deep, or so it seemed to him, standing on the shore in the darkness. The water was black and choppy. Hostile. Far in the distance, on the other side of the lake, he could see the glimmer of lights, but here there was nothing but silent trees and the lap of the water.

He shone the torch beam first to the left, but that way there was no path at all, only trees and heavy undergrowth. He turned it to the right where the undergrowth was lighter, started to walk and quickly saw something that made his heart beat faster. Two clear tyre tracks leading onward.

Author Dervla McTiernan, who wrote The Good Turn.

Peter took his gun from its holster. The weight of it felt unfamiliar, awkward. He shone the flashlight in a semi-circle ahead of him, picking up nothing but more trees and the occasional insect attracted to the light. He was conscious that if Kelly was ahead of him, the flashlight did an excellent job of alerting the other man to his exact location. He considered turning it off, then thought about stumbling through the darkness, and dismissed the idea. He kept walking and moments later the flashlight dimmed suddenly, then came back strongly. Bloody hell. The batteries. Losing his light was the last thing he needed. Peter sped up, following the tyre tracks which hugged the lake’s edge. He heard something and stopped. The sound – if he hadn’t been imagining it – had been that of a car door being closed, very gently. Peter switched off the flashlight, crept forward, feeling his way in the darkness. The clouds parted, and moonlight slipped through. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust and then he could see, a little. There was a jetty now, to his left, and there in the distance, low-slung and hulking, was the boathouse.

He’d found it. And someone else was here. If he hadn’t known it from the tyre tracks and the sound he’d heard, he would have felt it. An itch between his shoulder blades, a cold hand on the back of his neck. Peter kept moving forward, focused on the boathouse. The doorway was dark and cavernous – from this distance he couldn’t tell if there was a door there, or if it gaped open. There was a single window, too small for even a child to crawl through. The sound … he had been sure that it was a car door. But now … Had he heard it? Imagined it? As the seconds slipped by, the memory of whatever he’d heard lost its clarity, became muffled by the recollection of other noises he’d called forward in an effort to compare and identify. Perhaps it had been nothing. Still. Peter chambered a round, the metallic click echoing in the quiet.

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The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan.

He was nearly at the boathouse. There was a door. Its paint was peeling but it was heavy and solid-looking and there was a keyhole. Peter reached out a hand to try the handle, and that was when the silence was broken by the roar of a car engine coming to life, then being revved and revved again. Peter stepped back, turning towards the direction of the sound and bringing his gun up. He blinked against the sudden light of powerful headlamps and the engine roared. Peter willed his eyes to adjust to the brightness. He felt trapped against the boathouse. He tried the door; it was locked. He took four steps backwards in rapid succession, gun still raised, horribly aware of the cliff’s edge somewhere behind him, and the dark water below.

‘Armed garda,’ he shouted. He kept his gun trained on the car. ‘Turn it off. Turn the lights off.’

But the engine revved one final time and then the car was hurtling towards him and there was nowhere left for him to go. Peter didn’t think. Instinct and training tightened his trigger finger and the gun fired. Once. Twice. Three times. With the engine noise and the adrenaline pounding through him and his heart thudding in his ears he barely heard the sound of the gunshots, but the kickback jerked the gun in his hands and he saw the windscreen shatter. The roar of the engine quietened and the car slowed but it kept coming and he should move, he knew he should move but his feet were so firmly planted and his body wouldn’t obey him.

‘Armed garda,’ Peter shouted again, unnecessarily. ‘Stop the car.’

But it kept rolling forward, forcing him backwards towards the cliff as his body, mercifully, woke up, and then, finally, the car slowed to a stop. The driver was a dark shape behind the wheel. Peter moved forward. His gun was up, it tracked the driver who was still as Peter moved to the door and pulled it open.

‘Turn off the engine and get out of the car,’ he shouted.

It was so dark, too dark to make out details, but the man behind the wheel was gasping for breath. It was Kelly. Jason Kelly, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth and a spreading stain on his chest where at least one bullet had entered his body. ‘Where is she?’ Peter said. His voice was shaking. ‘Where’s the little girl?’

This is an extract from The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan which will be published on 24 February 2020. To pre-order your signed copy, visit booktopia.com.au

Originally published as Exclusive book extract from The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan