White Bones (6 page)

“You’re quite welcome,” Dr Reidy replied, laying an
uncharacteristically
avuncular hand on her shoulder. “It always makes life more interesting to see something new, even if it is rather stomach-churning.”

That afternoon, she held a media conference at Anglesea Street. The conference room was dazzled by television floods and the epileptic flickering of flashlights. She held her hand up in front of her face to shield her eyes.

“Early forensic examination indicates that these skeletons were interred over eighty years ago. Until we receive more information from Dublin, we won’t have a precise date, but it looks as if they could have been victims of a some kind of ritual massacre.”

“A Celtic ritual?” asked Dermot Murphy, from the
Irish Examiner
, lifting his ballpen.

“We don’t know yet. But we’ll be talking to several experts on Irish folklore, to see if there’s any kind of religious or social precedent for killings like these.”

“You said that the bones had been cleaned by a butcher’s knife. Could this be cannibalism we’re talking about here? Or a farmer feeding human beings off to his livestock? I read a horror story about that once.”

“This is not a story, Dermot. This is reality.”

“So what can we say? Without being too sensational?”

“You can simply say that we’ll be calling in all of the qualified assistance that we can. We’re also appealing for anybody who has any knowledge of similar killings to come forward and share their information with us, no matter how inconsequential they think it may be. This is a difficult and highly unusual case, but you can rest assured that we’re making progress.”

“Is there any point in continuing a full-scale investigation?” asked Gerry O’Ryan, from the
Irish Times.
“The murderer’s more than likely dead by now, surely?”

“So far the investigation is still open,” said Katie. “I’m going to be talking to Chief Superintendent O’Driscoll tomorrow morning, and we’ll decide what action to take next. Obviously we don’t want to waste taxpayers’ money on pursuing a case that will give us no useful result.”

The media conference broke up, and the television lights were switched off, leaving the room in sudden gloom. Katie talked for a while to Jim McReady from RTÉ News, and then she walked back to her office.

She was halfway there when she heard the jingling of loose change as somebody tried to catch up with her. “Superintendent!” called a voice. It was Hugh McGarvey, a freelance journalist from Limerick, a skinny little scarecrow of a man with a withered neck and a beaky nose. “You’re right on top of this case, then, superintendent?”

“I’m doing everything I possibly can, yes.”

“Would it be impertinent of me to ask you, then, who your husband is on top of?”

“
What
?” she said, baffled.

“Your husband, Paul. I was having a few drinks with some friends at the Sarsfield Hotel in Limerick on Thursday night and lo and behold I saw your husband stepping into the lift with some dark-haired girl in a short blue dress. A fine half she was, very vivacious. And very friendly they looked, too.”

Katie suddenly felt short of breath, as if somebody had slapped her in the stomach.

Hugh McGarvey added, “There was no Paul Maguire in the hotel register that night, but then, well, you wouldn’t have expected there to be, would you?”

“Mistaken identity,” said Katie. “You should be careful of that, Hugh. A lot of people get themselves into serious trouble, pointing the finger at the wrong person.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it was him.”

“Couldn’t have been. He wasn’t even staying at the Sarsfield.”

“I was only checking, superintendent. It would make a bit of a story, wouldn’t it, if it was true?”

“Listen,” said Katie. “You were invited here for a media conference about a serious crime – even though that crime was committed over eighty years ago. That’s the story. Not me.”

“You’ll always be the story. At least you will be until another woman makes the rank of detective superintendent.”

“Your breath smells,” said Katie.

Paul said, “Nothing happened in Limerick, Katie. I was trying to buy some building supplies from Jerry O’Connell, that’s all. We had a bite to eat together, and a couple of drinks, and then I went to bed. On my own.”

“You were staying at the Sarsfield, though? You told me you were staying at Dwyer’s.”

“I was going to stay at Dwyer’s but they didn’t have a room.”

“Dwyer’s didn’t have a room?
Dwyer’s
? In the middle of the week?”

“For God’s sake, Katie. Outside of this house you’re a detective superintendent, but inside of this house you’re my wife. I don’t expect you to put me through the third degree just because some ratty reporter imagined he saw me with some fictitious woman.”

Katie said, “All right. Sorry. You’re right.”

“It’s always the same. You’re always making me feel guilty even when I haven’t done anything.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Paul. “I love you and this is what I get in return.”

Katie didn’t know whether to believe his protestations of innocence or not. If he had been one of her suspects, she wouldn’t have accepted his story for a second. Of course she could call Dwyer’s and check if he was telling the truth, and she could call the manager at Sarsfield’s, too, but what good would that do? Paul was her husband and at some point she had to trust him, not just because she felt so responsible for him, not just out of loyalty, but also because she wasn’t yet ready to face the alternative. She didn’t want to choose which CDs were hers and which were his. She didn’t want to sell the house, because The Nursery was here, and she couldn’t leave The Nursery.

Not to be able to walk into that room again, and close her eyes, and imagine that she could still smell that baby-smell of talcum-powder, and still hear that clogged, high-pitched breathing – just now, that would be more than she could bear.

Paul swallowed whiskey and said, “Hugh McGarvey’s stirring it, that’s all. He’s a scumbag. He’s probably still sore because you complained about that rubbish he wrote about police overtime.”

“Forget it, Paul. He made a mistake, that’s all.”

“Me and Jerry went through a whole bottle of whiskey between us. I couldn’t have flahed anybody if I’d wanted to.”

“I said forget it.”

He sat down on the pink-upholstered sofa next to her, and stroked her cheek. “There’s only one woman I love, Katie, and that’s you.”

“What’s wrong with you, Paul? Why can’t you tell me?”

“There’s nothing at all wrong with me, Katie. I’m just trying to find my feet again, that’s all. Can’t you ever give me a chance, for Christ’s sake?”

“I’m always giving you a chance. But what happened to the happiness, Paul?”

He was just about to say something when the phone rang. Katie picked it up and it was Liam, and he sounded as if he were standing next to a busy road-junction.

“I’ve had a call from Eugene Ó Béara. He says that there’s somebody who wants to talk to us. Three o’clock on Sunday, in Blackpool.”

“All right, then. He didn’t give you any idea what it was about?”

“No, he was being all mysterious.”

Katie put down the phone. She looked at Paul but Paul looked back at her with an expression that said nothing but:
what
? She wanted so much for him to give her some hope. She wanted him to say that he had got his self-confidence back, that everything was going to be different. But Paul took another swallow of whiskey, and tugged at Sergeant’s ears, and said, “You like that, boy, don’t you? You like that.”

By the time the two builders had dropped her off at the bridge by the Angler’s Rest, on the way to Blarney, the tarmac-gray sky grew even darker, and huge spots of rain had begun to fall across the road. The builders gave her a wave and a toot of their horn and turned off westward toward Dripsey. She crossed the road and stood with her thumb sticking out.

The breeze blew the long blonde hair that streamed out from underneath her knitted woolen cap. She was a tall,
athletic-looking
girl, with a honey-colored California suntan. She was wearing a navy blue windcheater and blue denim jeans and Timberland hiking-boots, and carrying a rucksack.

Hitch-hiking through Ireland had been magical for her. She had planned this trip for over eighteen months, sitting on the verandah of her parents’ home in Santa Barbara, poring over photographs of misty green mountains and rugged beaches and picturesque pubs with raspberry-painted frontages and bicycles propped outside. Most of those pictures had come to life, and she had stood on the rocks on the Ring of Kerry overlooking the pale turquoise sea, and tapped her feet to Gaelic music in tiny one-room bars, and walked along the banks of the Shannon and the Lee, knee-deep in wet green grass.

Now she was on her way to Blarney Castle, a few miles north-west of Cork City, to do what all conscientious tourists were obliged to do, and kiss the Blarney Stone.

She had only been thumbing for a lift for five minutes before a black Mercedes pulled into the side of the road and waited for her with its engine running. Its hood was highly-polished but its sides and trunk were thickly coated with brown mud. She ran up to it and opened the door.

“Pardon me, are you going through Blarney?”

“Blarney?” he said. “I can take you anywhere your heart desires.”

“I only need to get to Blarney.”

“Then, of course.”

She climbed into the front passenger seat. The interior of the car was immaculately clean and smelled of leather. “I’m not taking you out of your way?” she said, tossing her rucksack onto the back seat.

“Of course not. I
am
the way.”

They drove smoothly off toward Blarney. Although it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, the day grew suddenly so dark that the driver had to switch on his lights. There were no other cars in sight, and both sides of the road were overhung with shadowy green woods.

“You’re American,” he said.

“Yes, but Irish heritage. Fiona Kelly, I’m from Santa Barbara, California. My great-great-grandfather came from Cork, and he emigrated to New York in 1886.”

“So you’re rediscovering your roots?”

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t really know why. My parents have never been back here, but I saw a Discovery program about Ireland two or three years ago, and do you know, the minute I saw those mountains, and those fabulous green meadows…”

“Ah, yes. They say that if you come from Ireland, you have to come back to Ireland to say your last words.
In articulo 
vel periculo mortis
. If you’re dying, you know, your last plea for absolution can be heard by any priest at all, even if degraded or apostate, even if you’ve committed grievous sins which can normally be forgiven only by some ecclesiastical superior.”

“Well, wow. You seem to be pretty well versed. Are you a priest?”

“No,” he smiled. “I’m not a priest. But, yes, I’m pretty well versed, as you put it.”

Suddenly, it began to rain thunderously hard. The driver slowed down, but his windshield wipers were still whacking from side to side at full speed, and Fiona found it almost impossible to see where they were going.

“Maybe we should pull over,” Fiona suggested, nervously.

“Oh, no, we’re going to be fine. We’re almost there now.”

She peered through the windshield but she still couldn’t see any signs saying Blarney.

“I have to kiss the Blarney Stone. That was something my dad made me promise.”

“Well, of course. Everybody who comes to Cork has to kiss the Blarney Stone. It gives you the gift of a silver tongue.”

At last the rain began to die away, and the driver switched off the windshield wipers, and unexpectedly a pale golden sun came swimming out of the clouds. The driver remarked, “They say that we don’t have a climate here, only weather.”

He turned sharp left, and up a steep muddy road with a sign saying Sheehan’s Nurseries. The road became narrower and narrower, and eventually Fiona said, “This isn’t the way to Blarney, is it?”

“It’s a detour, that’s all. We’ll be there in a trice.”

“No, no. I really don’t think so. I want you to stop, right now, and I want to get out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s only a half-a-mile into Blarney from here.”

“In that case, I can walk it, okay? I want to get out.”

“You’re not frightened, are you?”

“No, I’m not. But I want to get out. It’s stopped raining and I can walk the rest of the way.”

“Hm,” said the driver, and suddenly put his foot down, so that the Mercedes surged forward, and its rear tires slithered on the muddy road.

“Stop, will you?” Fiona demanded. “I want to get out!”

“Sorry, Fiona Kelly. That’s not really an option.”

Fiona reached into her jeans pocket and tugged out her mobile phone. “Are you going to stop and let me out or am I going to call the police?”

Without warning, the driver wrenched the mobile phone out of her hand and then punched her on the cheek. He hit her so hard that her head banged against the window.

“Oh God!” she screamed. “Stop! Let me out!
Stop
!”

The driver slammed his foot on the brake. The car slewed sideways and stopped halfway up the verge. Fiona grappled with the door-handle but it was centrally-locked and she couldn’t open it.

“
Let me out
! Are you crazy?
Let me out
!”

The driver punched her a second time, right in the side of the nose, snapping her cartilage. The front of the car was suddenly spattered with blood. Then he seized her shoulders and hit her head against the window again and again, while she struggled and pushed and flailed her arms.

“You could have – saved me from – doing this,” he grunted, as he thumped her head against the glass, and then against the door-pillar. “You could have – sat there – and behaved yourself – like a good little – girl.”

He seized a handful of long blonde hair, pulled her head toward him, and then knocked her head so hard against the window that she slumped unconscious, with blood pouring from her nose in a thin, continuous river.