Blood Sisters Page 3
‘Sorry, ma’am. They were in the sale in Schuh and they only had the one pair my size.’
Once she had managed to climb down to the beach, Katie turned around and looked at the tangled heaps of dead horses. The tide was out now, almost as far as it would go, and their bodies were draped with stinking strands of dark-green seaweed. Gulls were screaming overhead, angry at being disturbed from their pickings.
Without moving them, it was almost impossible to count exactly how many horses were lying there because their legs and their heads and their ribcages were so intertwined, and some of them had rotted and collapsed into the carcasses of the horses lying underneath them. Closer to the foot of the cliff, though, the bodies were not so seriously decomposed and three or four of them looked almost as if they might suddenly stir and clamber on to their feet at any moment.
Two technicians were carefully high-stepping between them, taking photographs, and the intermittent flashes seemed to make them twitch, even those grinning skeletons that looked like horses out of a nightmare.
Those that had still had eyes were staring at Katie balefully. What am I doing here, lying on this beach, stiff and dead and broken-legged?
‘That’s one thing they always get wrong in the films,’ said Tadhg Meaney looking down sadly at a large bay gelding with a hugely bloated stomach. ‘When a horse dies in the films, its eyes close. They only do that because it’s sentimental. When a real horse dies, it carries on looking at you. And as you know yourself, superintendent, quite a few humans do that, too.’
‘Do you think that the horses were still alive when they were thrown off the cliff?’ asked Katie.
‘The one I had to put down was still alive, of course. About the rest of them I can’t really tell you for sure – not until I’ve carried out a full autopsy. Even then it might be difficult, except if they were euthanized beforehand or if they’d already fallen from some sickness or other. Equine flu, maybe, or encephalopathy, or Cushing’s disease. Or if they’ve eaten something poisonous, like foxgloves, or buttercups.’
‘How old are they? Is it possible that they’re past their best and somebody just wanted to get rid of them without having to pay for a licensed knacker’s?’
‘Yes, that’s perfectly possible. I don’t know how much Fitzgerald’s are charging these days, but it must be close to a hundred and fifty euros. Multiply that by all of these carcasses and that comes to a fair expense.’
Detective Dooley said, ‘Maybe somebody is charging horse owners the knackery fee but simply dumping the animals here and pocketing the proceeds.’
‘I’ll lay money it was knackers,’ Detective Horgan put in. ‘I think we should take a trip up to Knackeragua and ask them a few pertinent questions in Gammon.’
‘Travellers,’ Katie corrected him, sharply. Secretly, though, she couldn’t totally dismiss his suggestion that these horses might have been illegally disposed of by somebody from the Pavee community. Prejudiced or not, it had been almost the first thought that had come into her head.
‘I’m surprised they didn’t sell them for horsemeat,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘They could have made a fair bit of grade by doing that, couldn’t they? How much does an edible horse go for these days?’
‘Not these animals,’ said Tadhg. ‘Even if they were healthy and not pumped full of pentobarbitone. Whoever disposed of them would have had to show their passports to the meat processors, to prove that they weren’t officially excluded from the human food chain. Apart from that, there’s hardly any meat on them. So far as I can make out, they were all race-fit thoroughbreds.’
‘You’re codding,’ said Detective Horgan. ‘These are all racehorses?’
Tadhg bent down and grasped the rigid fetlock of the gelding that was lying beside him so that he could lever up its hoof and show them its shoe. ‘See that? That’s a level-grip racing plate. It’s made of aluminium to save weight. And look at this one over here.’ He held up the hoof of a horse that was so decayed that its tan-coloured hide tore like rotten sacking when he twisted its leg. ‘This one’s a front jar calk plate, aluminium again, for lightness, but with a steel toe grab inserted in it so that it gives the horse better grip in very soggy going.’
‘So these are not just unwanted animals from riding stables?’ Katie asked him. ‘Or sulky trotters that have run out of trot?’
‘Not at all,’ said Tadhg. ‘Every year in County Cork we collect over two hundred stray or injured or unwanted horses, and there’s no doubt at all that the problem’s getting worse. Ordinary middle-class folks can’t afford to keep horses for their kids any more, like they used to, and often they just drive them out to a field somewhere and abandon them. Then there’s the Travellers, like you say. They claim to love their horses but they don’t have the first idea how to look after them properly. We were trying to start a horse-training course for them but the funding was pulled.’
‘It’s not all down to Travellers, though, is it?’ said Katie. ‘It’s a massacre in the racing business – even for horses that don’t get thrown off cliffs.’
‘Well, you’re absolutely right. The sheer inhumanity of it. Too many Irish stables are still breeding a ridiculous surfeit of horses every year. I mean, they do that so that these multimillionaire owners have more of a choice of the bestest and the fastest. But that still means that hundreds of unwanted thoroughbreds are being put down. And the older horses are sent to the knacker’s, too. They might have had their moment of glory, but these days nobody can afford the expense of looking after them once they’re past it. It’s off to France to make salami.’
He pointed to three chestnut foals, lying almost on top of each other, as if they had huddled together for protection in the last seconds of their lives.
‘There’s the young ones, too. Look at them. If they don’t survive forty-eight hours after they’re born, a breeder doesn’t have to pay the stud fee for having their mares covered, and some of the fees are extortionate.’
‘What’s the average stud fee these days?’ asked Katie.
‘Some studs used to be asking a quarter of a million euros as a nomination fee, but that was when things were booming. They can’t demand so much now, after the recession, but it can still be tens of thousands, and if the price of bloodstock drops sharply enough during the eleven months that it takes a foal to gestate, then that foal is pretty much doomed. It will either be aborted or else it will meet with an “accident” shortly after birth.
‘These days a breeder will be lucky to get a few hundred for a foal at auction, and if they can’t cover their costs, some breeders simply abandon them at the auction house. So what else are you supposed to do with them then? After one auction recently eighteen foals were sent off for slaughter. Eighteen!’
He paused, surveying the beach with its piles of dead horses. Some of their manes and tails were waving in the wind, like the tattered flags and torn uniforms at the end of a bloody battle.
‘I just can’t understand why the people who threw these horses over the cliff didn’t contact us first,’ he said. ‘They could have done it anonymously. I think it’s well enough known that we only put down horses as a last resort and that we do everything we can to find them a shelter. So why this? You have it absolutely, superintendent. This is nothing short of a massacre.’
‘But I assume they’ve all been microchipped – apart from the foals. You should be able to tell who their owners were.’
‘Hopefully. I was talking to your technical fellow and we’ll arrange to have the bodies transported to Dromsligo. We have an empty shed there, where we can lay them out decent-like and carry out a proper post-mortem.’
* * *
They all climbed back up the cliff. By the time she reached the top, Katie was panting for breath and her stomach muscles felt tight. Detective Horgan gave her his hand to help her up the last few feet between the rocks.
‘Thanks a million,’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t think I was going to make that.’
Another two
patrol cars had arrived and she could see four reporters standing around the Land Cruiser smoking and talking to the gardaí, including Dan Keane from the Examiner and Jean Mulligan from the Echo, although the RTÉ van still hadn’t showed up and neither had Fionnuala Sweeney from the Nine o’Clock News. Before she went to talk to the press, however, Katie walked back to her car. She climbed into the passenger seat and reached over to switch on the engine to warm herself up. Then she took her chicken sandwich out of the glovebox and sat there steadily chewing it, even though she was sure she could still taste seaweed and rotting horse in the back of her throat.
She opened the bottle of apple and blackcurrant Jafsun she had brought with her and took a swallow, and then for no reason at all that she could think of she started to cry. She glanced over towards the small crowd of officers and technicians and reporters gathered by the edge of the cliff and was relieved that none of them were looking in her direction. She wiped her eyes with a tissue, but she still felt a lump in her throat and she couldn’t eat any more of her sandwich. She crinkled it up in its kitchen-foil wrapper and put it back into the glovebox.
* * *
Dan Keane from the Examiner was the first one to approach her as she walked back towards the cliff edge. He took a quick last puff at his cigarette and then nipped it out and tucked it behind his ear. Jean Mulligan came close behind. She was a fiftyish woman with pouchy cheeks and wiry grey hair, an experienced journalist who had recently returned to write for the Echo after her husband had died.
‘Morning, superintendent!’ Dan called out. He had to shout because of the buffeting noise of the wind and the thin, high whistling of the grass – like a thousand schoolboys all around them whistling between their teeth. He yanked his notebook out of his raincoat pocket, but then he quickly had to clamp his hand on to his brown trilby hat to stop it from blowing away. Jean Mulligan produced a digital voice recorder, but she, too, had to hold down the left-hand lapel of her coat so that it wouldn’t keep slapping her in her face.
‘Your man from the ISPCA said he’s counted twenty-three dead horses down on the beach there.’
‘There may be more,’ said Katie. ‘We’ll only know for sure when we’ve separated them and lifted them all up to the cliff top. Some of them are very badly decomposed, so it’s not easy to give you a final body count, not just yet.’
‘They weren’t washed ashore, were they, superintendent?’ asked Jean. ‘I mean, they weren’t driven into the water from a beach further along the coast? Or deliberately thrown into the sea from a ship? Or being ferried on a boat that sank? Perhaps the tide brought them here.’
‘No, Jean, the ISPCA officer was quite sure from the state of their injuries that they were either thrown or driven off the top of the cliff. Almost all their legs are shattered and some of them have broken necks. Not only that, they weren’t all thrown or driven over at the same time. Judging by their varying states of decomposition, some of them must have been lying there for some considerable time, possibly as long as two months. Others are comparatively recent.’
‘One of them was still alive, right, when they were discovered?’ asked Kenny Byrne. He was a young freelance who supplied news stories to the Corkman in Mallow and the Southern Star in Skibbereen, as well as Cork’s 96 and Red FM. He had tight blond curls and acne, and Katie always thought that he was far too young to be a reporter – although two or three times he had given tips to the Garda that had helped them locate runaway teenagers and arrest ecstasy dealers in local clubs.
‘Yes, Kenny, one horse was still alive, although it was gravely injured and the officer had to put it down.’
‘Can you tell us who found the horses in the first place?’ asked Jean.
‘I can’t, no. All I can say is that they were two innocent people out walking. They prefer not to have their names published, and we can fully understand their concern. The way these poor creatures have been disposed of is clearly a criminal act, although it’s far too early for me to say what its full implications are.’
‘You’ll allow our photographer down on the beach to take a few pictures?’ said Dan Keane, although it was more of a statement than a question.
‘Of course, yes. The more coverage you can give this, the better. Even if it wasn’t done all at once, throwing nearly two dozen horses off an eighty-metre cliff top is not exactly what you’d call an inconspicuous activity. Somebody must have seen something that can give us a useful lead.’
‘Do you have any idea at all where the horses might have come from?’ asked Jean.
Katie knew that it was no use trying to hold back the information that the horses were all thoroughbreds. Dan Keane was a racing man and would recognize them for at once for what they were, even though many of them were so decomposed, and in any case their shoes would give the game away immediately.
‘We don’t yet know if they came from one particular stable, or several different stables, but as far as we can ascertain they’re all race-trained thoroughbreds.’
‘Racehorses? All twenty-three of them?’ asked Johnny Byrne.
‘Look, as I told you, we haven’t had the opportunity yet to examine them all, but every one that we’ve seen so far appears to fit into that category.’
‘But who’s going to throw twenty-three racehorses off a cliff? Like, what for, like?’
‘Somebody who doesn’t want to pay for their legitimate disposal, I would say,’ Dan Keane put in. ‘Or somebody who doesn’t want it known that those particular animals are dead.’
‘Well – those are both possibilities that we’ll be looking into,’ said Katie. ‘They should all have been microchipped, of course, so that should help us to trace their owners.’
‘Oh, this is going to be an interesting one all right,’ said Dan Keane. ‘Think of all the reasons why you wouldn’t want it known that a racehorse was dead. Whatever it is, you can bet one hundred to one that there’s money behind it, and big money, too.’
‘It’s much too soon to say,’ Katie told him. ‘I’m not going to start making accusations of any kind, not until we have some credible evidence about where they came from and who might have disposed of them, and why. Obviously, though, we’d like to hear from anyone who has any information that might lead us to understand what happened here. Did anybody see dead horses being carried on the back of a pick-up truck? Or horseboxes being driven along the farm tracks towards Nohaval Cove? It’s the usual Garda confidential number – 1800 666 111 – and you can rest assured that nobody will know that you called us.’
‘How are you going to get the horses off the beach?’ asked Johnny.
‘As of now, I have absolutely no idea at all,’ said Katie. ‘I expect we’ll have to call in a crane or something like that. We’re going to transport the bodies to the equine centre at Dromsligo for a full post-mortem. Once I have more information, I’ll be discussing it with the ISPCA and Weatherbys and the Department of Agriculture, as well as the Department of Transport, Tourism, and Sports, and also with the county council.’
‘What about Horse Racing Ireland?’
‘Well, of course, them too. But there’s nothing more I can tell you just yet – not only for operational reasons but simply because I don’t know any more.’
‘Well, I’ll say one thing for you, superintendent,’ said Dan Keane, tucking away his notebook and then snatching at his hat as it flew off his head. ‘You’re never afraid to tell the truth, are you?’
5
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán turned into the gates of the Bon Sauveur Convent and drove up between the high stone walls to the steeply angled car park. It was starting to rain again as she walked up to the arched front porch and tugged the wrought-iron bell-handle.
The convent was grey and gothic, and it looked even drearier in the drizzle. There was a hexagonal chapel at the far end, with a fan-shaped stained-glass window, and a three-storey dormitory wing with a sloping slate roof. The gardens were dark with dripping yew bushes, like a crowd of hunchbacks.
A minute passed and nobody came to answer the door so Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán tugged the handle again. She couldn’t hear a bell ringing so there was no way for her to tell if anybody had heard her or not.
She was about to tug the handle a third time when she heard the quick scuffling of soft-soled shoes and the door was unbolted and opened just wide enough for a pale young woman’s face to appear. She was wearing a white nun’s habit with a white veil and a white scapular, so that in the gloomy interior of the convent hallway she appeared almost ghostly.
‘How are you doing there?’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán, holding up her ID. ‘I’m from the Garda and I’d like to have a few words with your superior, if I could.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the young nun, with a lisp. ‘It’s our meditation hour.’
‘Well, I hate to interrupt her, like, but this is quite urgent. Do you think you can call her for me?’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t disturb her.’ The young nun glanced behind her as if she was already worried that her superior was coming up behind her to give her the seven shows of Cork for opening the door and chatting to strangers when she was supposed to be silently communing with God.
‘Tell her that a former member of your order has been murdered. Sister Bridget Healy. She was resident at the Mount Hill Nursing Home.’
‘No? Serious?’ The young nun pressed her hand to her mouth and her brown eyes widened. She wore no make-up, of course, and her eyebrows were unplucked, but Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán thought she was still quite attractive. Too pretty to be a nun, anyway.
‘Please, sister,’ she said. ‘It’s critical that we find out who killed her. If it was somebody who has a grudge against your particular congregation, or nuns in general, it could very well be that other sisters are at risk. It could very well be that you’re at risk.’
‘You’d better come in,’ said the young nun. ‘I’ll take you through to Mother O’Dwyer’s office and then I’ll see if I can catch her attention.’