White Bones (42 page)

“So… what do you think we tell the media?”

“I don’t think it’s going to pay to complicate things, sir. Let’s say that a disturbed individual tried to copy the ritual murders from 1915 and 1916, and killed himself to escape being arrested and charged.”

“Killed
him
self? Or
her
self?”

“We don’t know yet, sir. We know that she wasn’t Professor Lucy Quinn. She’s a seventy-six-year-old living in retirement in Mill Valley, just outside San Francisco. But quite
who
she was we’re still not sure. Not everybody in this world has an identity, do they? I think that was Lucy’s problem. She was neither a man nor a woman, and from the way she talked, she had never had anybody to help her come to terms with it. Not even God. That’s why she went looking for somebody magical like Mor-Rioghain.”

“And poor old Gerard O’Brien found out about her, and suffered the consequences?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s John Meagher?”

“He’ll live, but he won’t be singing opera for a while. And I don’t think he’ll ever be farming again, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Horrible case, Katie. Gives me the shudders. Do you think you can play it down, when you talk to the press? You know, forget about the witch bit?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As for Tómas Ó Conaill… well, I think we can forget about any charges against him. Never pays to upset the Travelers’ support people.”

“No, sir.”

Katie left Dermot’s office and walked along the corridor. Jimmy O’Rourke was waiting for her, with his hands behind his back, looking serious.

“You saved my life, Jimmy. You don’t have to look quite so miserable.”

“I’ve given up smoking. It’s playing havoc with my equilibrium.”

She went into her office and sat down. “Was there anything special?” she asked. “I’ve got a hell of a lot to do.”

From behind his back, Jimmy produced Gerard’s notebook. “I should have put this in as evidence, but I had a bit of a think about it and I decided not to. Not right away, like. There’s things in here that could possibly cause some very bad blood, and in my opinion there’s enough bad blood in the world already. If you think I’m wrong, then I’m ready to be reprimanded. I know gardaí aren’t supposed to think. Well, not to philosophize, anyway. But I thought you ought to have the chance to read it first. Seeing as I respect your opinion, like.”

Katie looked at him, not smiling, but feeling that she might at last have made some kind of breakthrough.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” she said, and took the notebook, and put it down in front of her.

“Well, then,” he said, obviously embarrassed. “I just wanted to say that I’m glad I saved your life. Otherwise, you know, you’d be dead, like.”

She put a hold on her calls and took twenty minutes to read Gerard’s notebook and then read it a second time. After the second reading she sat at her desk in silence. Then she put the notebook into her handbag, and closed it. Jimmy was right. Even if “Crackers” Corcoran had been nothing but a wild theorist, there was enough bad blood in the world already.

At eleven-thirty the following morning she met Eugene Ó Béara and Jack Devitt in The Red Setter, a cramped triangular pub up at Dillon’s Cross. During the whole of her time there, the rest of the clientele stared at her balefully, as if she were a nun who had walked in with dogshit on her shoe.

They sat in a small booth in the corner. The smoke was so thick it was surprising that nobody called the fire brigade. Even Jack Devitt’s wolfhound was snuffling and coughing.

Katie said, “We’ve found intelligence records in London that conclusively show that the man who abducted those fifteen women in 1915 and 1916 wasn’t a British soldier at all. He was almost certainly a German from Münster in Westphalia known as Dieter Hartmann, and he wore a British uniform as a disguise. We’re still searching for more information from the German government, and we’ll let you know if we find out any more. I just want you to know that we also have evidence that the Crown Forces in Cork went to extraordinary lengths to find him and arrest him. Once they almost had him, but he managed to escape and after that he was never heard from again.”

“We can examine this evidence?” asked Jack Devitt, solemnly.

“Of course, once we’ve finished with it. But you have my word that it’s genuine.”

“Very well, then, Superintendent Maguire. I knew your father well, and if you give me your word that it’s genuine, then I accept it. Although I have to admit to a certain sense of anticlimax.”

Katie gave him a tight smile. “Keeping the peace is a
neve
r
-ending
anticlimax.”

Eugene Ó Béara suddenly let out a loud, staccato laugh, and then – just as abruptly – stopped. “You’re a good woman, Katie Maguire, for a cop.”

Just before one o’clock, she met Eamonn Collins in his usual seat at Dan Lowery’s. His minder Jerry was having a séance at the opposite table with a bowl of fish chowder.

“Hallo, Eamonn.”

“Hallo yourself, Detective Superintendent Maguire. You look very fetching today. I always say that black always becomes a woman, nuns and widows especially.”

Katie said, “I thought I’d let you know that I’ve decided not to press any charges against you relating to the abduction of Dave MacSweeny. Lack of evidence, as well as the fact that my principal witness is lying on a slab in St Patrick’s Morgue.”

Eamonn took out a very white handkerchief and blew his nose. “Not to mention the minor embarrassment that it might have caused yourself, of course?”

“Let’s just say that Dave MacSweeny deserved everything that ever happened to him, and more besides.”

“So we’re friends again, are we, Katie? Just remember, if you ever need another favor, at any time, you know who to call on.”

“Actually, I would rather sell my soul to the Devil.”

“Oh, come now! You know how much you need decent upstanding criminals like me. God knows what state this city would be in, otherwise.”

Katie stood up. “I’ll have you one day, Eamonn, I swear it, you jumped-up Knocknaheeny gobdaw.”

Eamonn raised his whiskey-glass, and sang to Katie in a low, husky voice. “‘Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, which I gaze on so fondly today… were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms, like fairy gifts fading away!’”

She left Dan Lowery’s and was crossing MacCurtain Street when her cellphone rang. It was Sister O’Flynn from the Regional.

“Mrs Maguire?” It was the first time that anybody had called her “Mrs Maguire” in a very long time. She knew then that it was bad news.

She pushed open the door of Isaac’s restaurant. John Meagher was waiting in the back, self-consciously holding a large bouquet of lilies. He stood up when he saw her, and pulled out a chair.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay for lunch. I’ve just heard from the Regional that Paul died about fifteen minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry, Katie. I really am.”

She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Well… I suppose it’s for the best. He wouldn’t have wanted to spend the rest of his life like a cabbage.”

“Why don’t I give you a lift to the hospital?”

“Would you? I’d like that. I can’t say I really feel like driving.”

The waitress came up with their menus. “Do you want to know what the specials are?”

Katie stood up and managed a lopsided smile. “Not today. Some other time.”

They walked back along MacCurtain Street to John’s Land Rover. The sun was shining but it was raining again, so that the wet pavements were almost blinding.

“Oh,” said John. “I have something to show you. I was going to wait until after lunch, but – ”

He opened the Land Rover’s tailgate. In the back there were coils of rope and shovels and blankets. There was also a circular wicker basket, in which, fast asleep with its tongue lolling out, lay a glossy young Irish setter.

“He’s yours. His name’s Barney.”

Katie stood in the rain and the sunshine, her fingers tightly pressed against her lips because she was trying not to cry. Behind her, over the tall gray spire of the Evangelical Church, a rainbow appeared, and brightened, and faded, and brightened again.

On May 1, 1915, in the second summer of the First World War, the luxury Cunard liner
Lusitania
set sail from New York bound for Liverpool, England. By this stage of the war, a considerable number of British merchant ships had already been sunk by German submarines, and the German authorities had published warnings in US newspapers on the very morning of the
Lusitania
’s departure. However, it was thought that her superior speed would enable her to outrun any U-boat attack.

Six days later, as she approached the coast of south-west Ireland, Captain William Turner was warned that there was U-boat activity in the area and that three British ships had already been sunk in the waters through which he intended to sail. However, he maintained his course and even – inexplicably – slowed down.

As the
Lusitania
approached Queenstown harbor (now called Cobh) she was sighted by the submarine U-20 under the command of Kapitanleutnant Walther Schwieger. He fired a single torpedo which penetrated the
Lusitania
just below the waterline. The first explosion set off a devastating second blast, and the huge liner sank in 18 minutes, with the loss of 1,195 of her passengers – men, women and children – including 123 Americans.

President Wilson and the American public were outraged, but in a note to her embassy in Washington on May 10, Germany gave no satisfactory explanation for the sinking, and eventually even struck a medal to commemorate U-20’s successful action. More than any other single event, the loss of the
Lusitania
turned public opinion and led to the United States entering the First World War.

Many unanswered questions still surround the disaster. At the time, there were claims that the huge secondary explosion was set off by contraband American munitions hidden in the liner’s hold. But recent dives on the wreck revealed lumps of coal scattered widely over the seabed – suggesting that the most likely cause was a detonation of coal-dust and oxygen in her almost-empty bunkers.

Captain William Turner was washed from the bridge when the ship went down, and survived. But he was never able to give a satisfactory explanation as to why he was sailing so close to the shore, and why he was taking no evasive action. He claimed that he had slowed down because of patchy fog, yet the danger to the
Lusitania
from U-boats was obviously far greater than the risk of collision.

A memorial to all those who died on the
Lusitania
stands today in the center of Cobh, the figure of a sorrowing angel.

Corkonians have a very distinctive accent of their own, which sounds very different from the Dublin brogue which is usually presented as “Irish” in movies and television. They also have their own local slang vocabulary, although many of their expressions are used throughout the Republic.

Men and women of any age commonly address each other as “boy” and “girl.” Even a temporary departure will elicit the remark, “Are ye going away?” followed by the reassurance that “I’ll see ye after.”