Buried Page 10

  ‘I know,’ said Kyna, almost sadly.

  Katie didn’t embrace Kyna as they parted on the pavement outside, although she would have liked to. It was still raining and there was nobody around, but she didn’t want to risk anybody seeing them. As it turned out, there was a white-faced young man watching her from the window of Ladbroke’s betting office as she returned to her car. She wondered what he would say if she went in and asked him to give her the odds on John surviving.

  Twelve

  Katie headed directly to Blarney. Dr Kelley had arranged to meet her at Millstream Row rather than going into the city centre first and then having to come all the way out again. Because she had needed to bring so much specialist equipment with her, she had driven from Dublin with one of her assistants instead of taking the train. That would have taken her nearly three hours, especially in this weather, and she had told Katie that she was anxious to get started as soon as possible.

  When she arrived, Katie found that Millstream Row been completely cordoned off and a diversion had been set up around Sunberry Heights for what little traffic there was. A wet and miserable-looking garda unhooked the crime-scene tape for her so that she could park behind the two patrol cars that were already there, as well as two vans and an estate car from the Technical Bureau and a large blue Transit van which was probably Dr Kelley’s.

  She found Dr Kelley inside the living room, which was lit so brightly with forensic lamps that she had to raise her hand to shield her eyes. Dr Kelley was kneeling on the floor on the opposite side of the room, cutting samples of hair from the head of the mummified man. She was a small, tubby woman, who looked even tubbier in her Tyvek suit. She had a round face with a double chin and round glasses and bushy, mannish eyebrows. In spite of that, Katie thought that if she had plucked her eyebrows and applied a little blusher and lipstick, she could have made herself looked quite sweet and appealing, like a child’s doll that had unexpectedly grown to adulthood.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked. Bill Phinner was there, too, standing next to Dr Kelley, and he patted Dr Kelley on the shoulder so that she looked up and saw Katie standing by the door.

  ‘I’ll be with you in – two seconds,’ said Dr Kelley, carefully dropping the hair sample into a clear plastic envelope. Then she stood up and edged her way around the room, tugging off her latex glove and shaking Katie’s hand.

  ‘Mary Kelley,’ she said, in a brisk, enthusiastic voice. ‘I saw you last April, at that forensic symposium at Dublin University. I so much wanted to talk to you about the bog woman in Mayfield, but I’d been buttonholed by some terminally boring Nigerian biochemist and by the time he’d finished regaling me with his anecdotes about Ebola you’d disappeared.’

  ‘You could have called me any time.’

  ‘Well, time is what I never have. It would be a blessing, I can tell you, if so many people in Ireland would stop dying in unusual or unexplained circumstances and give my head some peace once in a while. And now we have this unfortunate family and they passed away before anybody in this room was even born.’

  ‘My guess is the early 1920s,’ said Katie. ‘The problem is, we have some uncertainty about who they actually are. The records show that in 1921 a family called the Langtrys were living here and that they suddenly vanished without telling anyone they were leaving. A few months later, though, they started sending letters and postcards from America, somewhere in New York State, so maybe they’d just done a moonlight flit. If that was the case, though, who are these people, and who shot them, and why?’

  Bill Phinner said, ‘We should have the results of the DNA tests sometime tomorrow morning, so at least we’ll be able to see if they were related to the Langtrys in Dripsey.’

  ‘We’ll be moving the bodies, too, first thing tomorrow morning,’ said Dr Kelley. ‘Once I have them in the morgue I’ll be able to carry out comprehensive tests to find out exactly how old they actually are, and how they became desiccated like this, as well as what diseases they might have been suffering from and what their last meal was.’

  ‘Once Mary has retrieved them we’ll be testing the bullets, too,’ Bill Phinner put in. ‘That may give us an idea of what kind of gun was used to kill them – but of course the chances of finding that weapon today are infinitesimal.’

  Dr Kelley turned to her assistant, who was a slight young woman who looked as if she were half-Chinese. ‘Have you all the photographs you need, Annie? Then we can start on the X-rays.’

  Annie went outside to the van and came back after a few minutes carrying a grey handheld MINI Z X-ray machine and the tablet viewing screen that went with it. Katie had seen one of these handheld scanners being demonstrated but had never seen it in use at a real crime scene. It used backscatter technology to detect not only metal and bone but organic material such as drugs and explosives, or even plastic guns that had been made with 3-D printers.

  ‘It’s X-ray, all right, but the radiation level is so low we don’t have to shield it,’ said Dr Kelley. ‘I have to tell you, I’ve been finding it a boon, an absolute boon, but it wasn’t cheap. Fifty thousand euros, which is why Dr Reidy wouldn’t let me take it on the train. He knows me and trains, and what I leave on them. I left a fifteen-hundred-year-old skull on the ten past three from Ballinasloe and it went all the way to Tullamore on its own.’

  Katie said, ‘What will you do once you’ve finished the X-rays?’

  ‘We’ll be wrapping each of the bodies in polythene and constructing a frame around it to keep it in position so that we do as little damage as possible. Once we have them in the morgue and properly laid out we’ll be able to undress them and do full CGI scans and radiocarbon testing.’

  ‘I’ll let you crack on, then,’ said Katie. ‘You have my number, so call me if you need anything at all. You’re staying at the Clarion tonight, aren’t you? Their restaurant’s good, if you like Asian. I’d join you for dinner, but I’m afraid I’ve a rake of paperwork to catch up on.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Dr Kelley. ‘Annie’s very good company. I chose the Clarion specially because I knew she’d like the food.’

  In reality, Katie had almost finished her paperwork, but she and John had eaten in the Kudos restaurant at the Clarion several times and she knew she wouldn’t have the appetite for it, or for any other restaurant.

  She stayed for a while to watch Annie carefully scanning the body of the little girl, then she gave a salute to Bill Phinner and walked out of the house into the rain. She was only halfway back to her car, however, when she saw an RTÉ outside broadcast van parked further along the terrace, and then she saw Fionnuala Sweeney from the Nine o’Clock News standing by the crime-scene tape, holding up her microphone as if she were carrying the Olympic torch.

  ‘Detective superintendent!’ she called out. ‘Detective Superintendent Maguire! Can you spare me a minute?’

  Katie waved her hand from side to side to indicate that she was too busy and opened the door of her car. Before she could climb in, however, Fionnuala shouted out, ‘Langtrys!’

  Katie closed her car door and walked over to the tape. Fionnuala was gingery and white-skinned, but she would have been attractive to men who liked mermaids, especially with the rain sparkling in her hair. Her cameraman was standing close behind her left shoulder and as Katie approached he pinched out his cigarette and tucked it behind his ear.

  ‘I hear that some bodies have been found underneath the floorboards of that house they’re doing up.’

  ‘I can’t comment at the moment, Fionnuala.’

  ‘I’m given to understand that they’re a family called the Langtrys, who disappeared in 1921. Father, mother, two small children and even the family dogs.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I’m sorry, detective superintendent, I can’t reveal my sources. But it is the Langtrys, isn’t it, and they’ve all been shot?’

  ‘Did that Mrs O’Neill tell you that?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Like I say, I can’t reveal my sources
.’

  Katie took a deep breath and looked away. She didn’t want to antagonize Fionnuala because she needed RTÉ’s support so often in broadcasting appeals for information about robberies or news of missing children, or eyewitness accounts of fatal traffic accidents. On the other hand, she had felt right from the very beginning that the discovery of these bodies needed to be handled with extreme sensitivity. An entire family wouldn’t have been shot for no reason at all, especially in 1921, and before she made a media announcement she really wanted to know what that reason had been.

  Maybe she was being over-cautious, but she knew from experience that historic grudges could very quickly get out of hand, even if they were nothing more than old family feuds. She had dealt with a case only three weeks ago when a farmer in Curraheen had come close to being killed by his neighbour over a sixty-year-old argument about fifteen and a half metres of scrubby turf.

  She turned back to Fionnuala and said, ‘All I can tell you now is that several human bodies were discovered during the renovation of one of the houses here on Millstream Row. Currently, they’re being examined by the Acting Deputy Pathologist, Dr Mary Kelley, who specializes in historic forensics. That is because our immediate impression was that the bodies had been hidden on the property for some considerable period of time.’

  ‘A family called the Langtrys suddenly disappeared from Millstream Row in 1921. Is it them?’

  ‘We’ve taken DNA samples, but so far we haven’t made a positive identification. We can’t yet be sure who they are or when they died or how. As soon as I have more information I will, of course, let you know.’

  ‘It could be the Langtrys, though?’ Fionnuala persisted.

  ‘As I’ve just told you, Fionnuala, we can’t yet be sure.’

  ‘But they were shot?’

  ‘I can’t comment until Dr Kelley has completed her full examination of the bodies.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’

  ‘It will take as long as it takes. That’s all I have to say at the moment.’

  ‘Was Radha Langtry having an affair with a British soldier? Do you think that the family might have been shot because of that?’

  Katie could have stalked straight to Nora O’Neill’s house and taken hold of her by her withered neck and shaken her until she was sick. Instead she said, ‘I have absolutely nothing to say about that, Fionnuala. This family have not yet been identified and I am certainly not going to start inventing wild theories about how and why they died until I have all the facts. It’s going to be a long and painstaking business, and we may never know the whole truth, but I can promise you that as soon as I know any more, so will you.’

  Thirteen

  Hours went by, although John could only guess how many because his abductors had pulled off his wristwatch, as well as the Ardagh bracelet that Katie had given him. Eventually he eased himself over on to his side, wincing with pain, and then stood up. He swayed for a moment before taking a single lurching step towards the window. First he held on to the footboard at the end of the bed, and next he reached out for the knobs on the chest of drawers. The top drawer unexpectedly slid open and he almost fell backwards, but there was something inside the drawer that jammed it halfway. He paused, breathing with quick little sniffs, then managed to stagger to the window and hold on to the sill.

  When he had first woken up it had already been gloomy outside because of the rain, but now he lifted up the cheap purple blind and saw that it was dark and the street lights were shining. He was in a first-floor room overlooking a small walled yard with green wheelie bins and a bicycle in it. The window handle was stiff, but he managed to wrench it upwards and push the window open, though it had a safety cable fixed to it and would only open about twenty centimetres.

  Up on the skyline, only about half a kilometre away, John could make out the spires of St Mary and St Anne’s Cathedral. He craned his neck sideways and pressed his head against the glass, even though the lump was still so tender that he gritted his teeth and whispered, ‘Ow, shit. Ow!’ When he did this, he could just see Shandon Bells Tower with its clock faces and pepperpot dome, and its salmon-shaped weathervane. That meant this house was somewhere in Blackpool, on the north-east side of the city centre – maybe on Leitrim Street or Pine Street. If he could get out of here, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to find help. He might even be able to walk to Anglesea Street – or hobble there, anyway – and find Katie.

  He peered down into the yard. Although the bedroom was on the first floor, there was a lean-to roof directly below the window, probably a toilet or wash-house. Whatever it was, John reckoned that if he could remove the safety cable from the window he would probably be able to clamber down to the yard below. He was badly bruised and his head was pounding with every beat of his heart, but he was still strong and reasonably fit. After he had given up working on his late father’s farm he had accompanied Katie to her kick-boxing sessions whenever he could, and after he had walked out on her and moved back to Knocknadeenly he had kept up his running. It was while he was out running last week, under a low grey sky, with only the crows on the telephone wires for company, that he had suddenly realized how much he missed Katie. He knew that he had hurt her. That had been the whole point of his walking out. But standing between the hedgerows on that empty road, panting and sweaty, he saw that he had probably suffered much more pain from his jealousy than she had. She wasn’t as tough as most people thought she was, but she knew how to put the past behind her.

  He let the blind drop and made his way back to the bed. He sat there for a while, listening. He could hear the muffled sound of a television downstairs, but couldn’t hear any voices. With any luck, he could climb out of the window without making too much noise and be out and away before Bobby Quilty and Chisel realized he had gone.

  He stood up again, crossed the room, and pressed his ear against the door. He could hear the closing music of Fair City, so it must be 8.30. He thought he heard Bobby Quilty barking something and then letting out a harsh, abrasive laugh, but all he could hear after that was the blurting of one TV channel after another as if somebody was using the remote to see if there was anything they wanted to watch.

  Okay, he told himself, if you don’t go now, you may never get another chance, especially if Katie doesn’t give a damn what happens to you – and who could blame her?

  He crept back towards the window, steadying himself on the end of the bed again and then holding on to the chest of drawers. Looking into the half-open drawer he could see now what had caused it to jam. It was filled with a whole heap of assorted junk – ballpoint pens, Christmas-tree lights, suitcase keys and rolls of Sellotape, as well as a pair of sunglasses with only one lens and a diary for 1996. But what had caused it to stick was a red-handled screwdriver that had tilted upwards and dug its point into the underside of the frame.

  John jiggled the drawer and forced it back in. Then he slid his hand in and lifted out the screwdriver. Exactly what I need to open this window. There is a God. Or at least a patron saint of those whose lives are in danger because they don’t have the right tools on them.

  He raised the blind, opened the window as far as it would go and started to unscrew one end of the safety cable. The screws were crossheads and the screwdriver was slightly too large for them, so he had to hold it at an angle. Eventually, though, he managed to loosen both screws to the point where he could twist them out between finger and thumb. With the safety cable hanging loose, he could open the window as far as it would go. It was still raining, but John could smell fresh air, and river, and traffic fumes, and freedom.

  He took hold of the window frame and heaved himself up, but as he did so he whinnied in pain and almost bit off the tip of his tongue. When his chest was pressed against the edge of the sill, he realized that Bobby Quilty’s men must have broken at least two of his ribs, and he was in agony. He hung there, unable to breathe because the pain was so intense, his mouth filling up with saliva and blood, and for a moment he was
tempted to let himself drop back to the floor and give up any attempt to escape.

  I can’t do it. I can’t take it. It hurts too much. But then he thought: If this is what they’ve done to you already, John, what do you think they’re going to do to you if Katie keeps after them? You heard what Bobby Quilty threatened to do, he threatened to blind you. And that was just for beginners.

  He didn’t know how long he stayed there, with his head and shoulders sticking halfway out of the window, blinking at the rain that was spitting into his eyes. At last, however, he summoned up the will to pull himself up even further. The pain in his chest was unbearable, greater than any pain he had ever experienced before, and he could feel his ribs crunching. He began to weep like a small boy and he couldn’t help thinking of his mother and the way she used to comfort him when he was little and he had tripped over and scraped his knees on the cinder path. He could almost hear her soft voice cooing at him and smell her perfume as she hugged him better. But his mother was in a home now, with dementia, and he was here, halfway out of this window, and nothing could turn time back.

  You’re not giving up. Pain is imaginary. Pain is only your body’s way of protecting itself, but your body doesn’t know what Bobby Quilty is going to do to you, and that will cause you infinitely more pain than the pain you’re suffering now.

  He tried to lift up his right leg so that he could perch his knee on the windowsill. That would give him the leverage he needed to lift up his left leg, too, and then he would be able to climb or tumble out of the window – tumble, more likely. If he fell, though, he fell. At least he would have escaped.

  The first time he tried to lift his leg he simply couldn’t summon up sufficient strength for his knee to reach the edge of the sill. He gripped both sides of the frame even tighter and heaved himself a few more inches out of the window.