Page 69 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“Tanya,” he says.

“What about Tanya?”

“She was found dead today.”

My mind races to Tanya outside Liam’s mansion. Was I there when she died?

“How?” I ask swallowing hard

“Not in a good way.”

I close my eyes, my fake eyelashes fluttering against my cheeks. I want to rip them off the same way I want to rip whoever killed Tanya to the smallest pieces until there form is unidentifiable. I wanted to set fire to their teeth so that even their loved ones can’t claim their body through dental records.

“I’ve got to go,” I say to Kieran. I sprint back down the corridor, grab my bag and coat, kick my heels off and pull on my sneakers before darting up the stairs.

“Watch where you’re going!” says one drunk, stumbling in the queue. I turn to him and, with all my might, launch my head at his.

“Get back in there and take your clothes off!” calls the man I’d head-butted clutching his bleeding nose. They’re laughing, drinking cans of beer, their shoes wobbling in between the cracks of the cobblestones.

Sergei pulls me back by the arms. “Did he touch you?” he asks, looking down my body.

I shake Sergei loose and run down the steps past wolf whistles

Once I’m safely out of earshot, I pull out my phone and call Fergus.

“I need the morgue where a girl called Tanya O’Hanlon is being kept.”

“We don’t have anyone by that name, just three Jane Doe’s that I know about today.”

My mind skips over the fact that three women have been found murdered in Dublin and their identities are unknown.

“She’s blonde, early 20s, dresses like a Barbie doll, probably carrying a Dolce and Gabbana handbag.”

I hear Fergus tapping. “She’s at Everson morgue.”

I jump on my bike racing through wondering whether this is Liam’s work. He had no reason to kill Tanya. Maybe this was a pattern. If she was killed with a rock to the back of the head, then I’d slept with a serial killer that also claimed my sister’s life.

I don’t have any ID to flash, so I’ve asked Fergus to tell them I’m coming, and that I need to see the body.

I arrive at the back of the morgue. I buzz to be let in. A young, tall, lean man with black-rimmed glasses and freckles comes to the door.

“May I help you?” he asks.

“My colleague, Fergus Oman. He phoned earlier, he said I was coming. I’m Ciara.”

“Come in,” he says, looking left and right, closing the door quickly behind us.

The white washed long corridor is hemmed in by grey tiles. It stinks of bleach.

“I was surprised when he said one of the guards wants to see her. She’s not in good shape, I’m afraid.”

“What happened?”

“It looks like she was tied up and run over multiple times. There are rope marks on her arms which indicate restraints.”

My breath catches in the back of my throat. This kind of death was torturous. I can’t imagine what she’d suffered. I heave forward as if someone had heated a pokerand driven through my heart.

This way, he says guiding me down a long corridor lit by cheap overhead fluorescent lights as I try hard to breathe through my mouth to avoid the smell of congealed blood.

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