A Terrible Beauty Page 4

  "What about revenge killings, or executions?"

  "Far too soon to tell. It could have been political, it could have been criminal. We really don't know. Liam's talking to Eugene Ó Béara but I'm not especially hopeful."

  "How about Eamonn Collins?"

  "I'll talk to him myself, later today."

  "You said yourself it could have been a natural disaster-an epidemic?"

  "Patrick O'Sullivan's looking into that going back over hospital and doctors' records for the Mallow and Fermoy and Mitchelstown area. But eleven people that's a lot of people to die at once and nobody to notice it. And of course we've got these mysterious little dolls."

  "Do you have any ideas whatthey'reall about?"

  "None at all. They suggest some kind of folk ritual, don't they? But none of us have ever come across any ritual like this before."

  "Any other leads?"

  "Jimmy's been talking to some of his contacts in the Traveling community. Apparently Tómas Ó Conaill's been seen in the area."

  "Ó Conaill? That piece of work. I thought he was up north these days. Ireland 's answer to Charles Manson."

  "Well, he may be nothing to do with any of this, but I want to be sure. Apart from that, I'd like at least twenty guards so that we can make house-to-house inquiries around the Knocknadeenly area, and make a thorough search of the whole of Meagher Farm."

  "And what should I be after telling the media?"

  "You can tell them we're on top of it."

  "Well, Katie, they may want something a little more exciting than that."

  "This isn't entertainment, sir, with all due respect."

  "Katie-come on, now. Diplomacy. You know as well as I do that if you want their assistance, you'll have to give the media fellows something to keep their salivatory juices flowing. You're a story in yourself, don't forget."

  "I don't want to release anything about the dolls, not yet. Not till we know what their significance is."

  "Fair enough. But whatcanyou release?"

  "I'll tell them we're trying some secret new techniques to establish the victims' identities."

  "That's good. I like that. And what secret new techniques might these be?"

  "I don't know. That's why they're secret."

  Chief Superintendent O'Driscoll shook his head. "You're a great detective, Katie. One of the best I've ever had. But you have to understand that the job requires sometact,my love, as well as skill."

  "When I find out who dismembered eleven people and buried them on Meagher's Farm, sir, then I'll be sweetness itself."

  The briefing was short and inconclusive and full of smoke. The technical team showed pictures of the scattered skeletons, but there didn't appear to be any pattern to their disposal. All that they could usefully deduce was that the bodies must have been dismembered before they were buried, because nine femurs were located at the bottom level of the excavation, with three rib cages on top, and then dozens of assorted tibias and fibulas and scapulas, with finger bones and toe bones and skulls.

  And, of course, the legs must have been cut off so that holes could be drilled, and little rag dolls tied onto them.

  Detective Sergeant Edmond O'Leary pointed mournfully to the blown-up photographs. "There was no way of telling for certain which thighbone belonged to which pelvis; or which patella belonged to which thighbone; or which anything belonged to anything else."

  At the back of the room, Liam sang, under his breath,"The hipbone was disconnected from the thighbone! The thighbone was disconnected from the knee bone!"

  Katie turned around and gave him an exasperated frown, but he gave her a grin of apology and a wave of his hand.

  "Until we have a full pathological report, all we can say for sure is that these skeletons were probably all buried under the feed store in Meagher's Farm at the same time even though they may not have actually died or been killed at Meagher's Farm. Their remains may have been transported from another location, and we don't yet have any evidence that they died or were killed on the very same day."

  "Any footprints found?" asked Liam.

  "Only John Meagher's, and his mother's, and those of his various laborers."

  "Tire tracks?"

  "John Meagher's Land Rover Discovery, that's all. And the milk lorry from Dawn Dairies. And the young boy's bicycle."

  "Any clothing found, or shoes?" asked Katie.

  "No, nothing."

  "Any buttons, or hooks and eyes, or zippers, or fastenings of any kind?"

  "No, and that was unusual, peaty soil being such a preservative."

  "So we could be looking for clothes, as a possible clue?"

  "We could, yes. And jewelry, of course. They were all adults, by the size of them, and it would be rare to find eleven adults without a single crucifix, or wristwatch, or wedding ring between them."

  "Get onto that," Katie told Edmond O'Leary. "Ask around the jewelers' shops inCork , in particular see if they've been offered a quantity of wedding rings and other personal knickknacks. Lenihan's would be a good bet, inFrench Church Street . We pulled in Gerry Lenihan twice last year for fencing stolen rings."

  "The only other thing I can tell you so far is that the bones were probably those of young adult females, although I will obviously bow to Dr. Reidy's greater expertise in this matter if he says different."

  At that moment, Garda Maureen Dennehy came into the briefing room and handed Katie a note.Eamonn Collins: Dan Lowery's, 2:30 pm.

  "Thanks, Maureen."

  "By the way, your husband called you, too. He said he may have to go toLimerick tonight, so don't wait up for him."

  "All right," Katie nodded, thinking to herself,What the hell is Paul up to now?

  6

  She was talking to one of the airport security police when Dr. Owen Reidy came through the automatic sliding doors, impatiently pushing two young children aside. He was wearing a billowing tan trench coat that was belted too tight in the middle and a wide-brimmed trilby hat.

  "They kept us waiting on the runway atDublin for over twenty minutes," he grumbled, pushing his medical bag and his bulging overnight case at the young garda. "What do they think, we have time to waste waiting for these package holidaymakers to land fromFlorida ? They should make them circle until they run out of fuel. And crash. And burn."

  Dr. Reidy had a big, mottled face and sumptuous ginger eyebrows, and he always sported a huge spotted bow tie. He had been closely involved with Charlie Haughey, when he was Taoiseach, and theIrish Examinerhad claimed that he was "the fifth man" in a middle-aged orgy at the Grafton Hotel inDublin , which Dr. Reidy had always firmly denied. Deny it or not, he was a grand stegosaurus from the mid-1980s, when the Irish economy had begun to boom, and certain people had made a great deal of money, thanks to nods and winks and tax breaks and special favors, and he still expected to be treated like one of the great and the good.

  "Glad to see you're well, Dr. Reidy," said Katie, as they walked out into the sunshine.

  "Pphh!I was hoping for two days of golf in Killarney. Not picking over skeletons inCork ."

  "So far, we've exhumed eleven skulls, which presupposes eleven different individuals, and a corresponding collection of assorted bones."

  "Well, your people can count then, can they? That's one mercy."

  "We don't have any suspects yet. It depends very largely on the way they died, and when."

  "So-as usual-you'll be depending on me to crack your case for you."

  "You're a great pathologist, Dr. Reidy."

  "And you, Detective Superintendent, should be home minding your kids."

  Katie looked out of the car window as they were driven down the long hill toward Kinsale Roundabout, andCork . She could have said all kinds of things, in answer to that. She could have been dismissive, or bitter, or told him how she had gone to feed Seamus on that chilly January morning and found him dead, not breathing.

  Instead, she said, "We've booked you your usual room, up at the Arbutus Lodge. I'll have to wa
rn you, though it's changed hands since you were here last, and the food's not what it used to be."

  "I'll take my chances with that, Inspector."

  They drove into the city, and dropped Katie off inAnglesea Street . Dr. Reidy said, "I'll be letting you know my findings as soon as I can. I'm aiming to get at least two days' golf in, after all."

  Katie said nothing, but closed the car door and watched him being driven off, his car bouncing and swaying over the potholes. She crossed the road and walked back into the Garda headquarters, her head bowed, and when Garda Maureen Dennehy said, "Chief Superintendent O'Driscoll has been looking for you, ma'am," she didn't look up, not once.

  Eamonn "Foxy" Collins was already waiting for her when she walked into Dan Lowery's pub inMacCurtain Street . It was a small pub, its walls crowded with bottles and mirrors advertising Murphy's Stout and souvenirs and vases of dried flowers. Eamonn Collins liked it partly because of its theatrical connections (it was right next door to theEverymanPalace theater) but mainly because of its gloomy stained-glass window, which had originally come from a church in Killarney, and which made it impossible for anybody to see into the pub from the pavement outside.

  He was sitting in the small back room where he could watch both the front door and the stairs which led up to the toilets. Opposite him sat a big silent man with a blue-shaved head and protruding ears and python tattoos crawling out of the neck of his sweatshirt. Eamonn himself was lean and dapper, with russet brushed-back hair that was beginning to turn white in the front and which had earned him his nickname. He wore a beautifully tailored two-piece suit in mottled gray tweed, a black waistcoat and very shiny black oxfords.

  Katie sat down opposite him, deliberately obscuring his view of the front door.

  "Will I buy you a drink?" he asked her. They didn't need to exchange any pleasantries. His eyes were like two gray stones lying on a beach in winter.

  "A glass of water will do."

  "Jerry," said Eamonn, and the big silent man stood up and went to the bar.

  "You've been taking it very easy lately," said Katie. "Five days' fishing in Sligo two weeks' golf inSouth Carolina ."

  "It's good to know that I'm missed."

  "I miss you like a dose of hepatitis A."

  "You're the light of my life, Detective Superintendent. But a little more live-and-let-live would go a long way."

  "I don't think that drugs have anything much to do with letting people live, do you?"

  Eamonn gave a one-shouldered shrug. "What I always say is, you shouldn't let nefarious activities fall into the wrong hands; you have to keep crime clean."

  "Is that what happened up at Meagher's Farm? Somebody was keeping crime clean?"

  "I don't know what happened up at Meagher's Farm, I'm sorry to say. Things have been very peaceful here inCork in the past few months; that's why I went off on two weeks' holliers. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that it wasn't anything to do with me, or with anybody else that I know of."

  Eamonn was the only man she knew who actually pronounced his semi-colons, sticking out the tip of his tongue and making a soft little clicking sound. She had always found his fastidiousness to be the most alarming thing about him. He ran one of the most profitable drug rackets in the city, and he had been personally responsible for the brutal murders of at least five people. Yet all his clothes were handmade inDublin and he was always quoting from Yeats and Moore.

  There weren't many ofCork 's criminals who actually gave her that bristling-down-the-back-of-the neck feeling, but "Foxy" Collins did.

  "Have you eaten at all?" he asked her. "I know that you detectives are often too busy to eat, and the beef sandwiches here are particularly good. Or the Kinsale fish chowder."

  "I've had lunch already, thank you," Katie lied. "What I need to know from you is who's gone missing in the past six months. Eleven people, that's a lot of bodies. If they'reyourbodies, I'm sure that you'll be anxious to have your revenge. If they're not, then I'm sure you'll be equally anxious to make sure that one of your competitors gets what's coming to him."

  "But what ifI'mresponsible?" asked Eamonn. "I wouldn't tell you that, now would I?"

  "I don't think youareresponsible. You're more flamboyant than that. When you deal with somebody, you like the whole world to know about it. Like that time you set fire to Jacky O'Malley in the middle ofPatrick Street ."

  Eamonn came close to smiling. He took a sip of his Power's whiskey and fixed her over the rim of his glass with those stones for eyes. "You know what it looks like to me, this massacre of yours? It looks like the work of knackers. There's been some bad blood feuds between some of the families, and if I were you I'd be looking to talk to some of the Traveling folk.

  "Tómas Ó Conaill?"

  "That wouldn't surprise me. He was always a vicious bastard, and his head was always full of fairy nonsense."

  There was a long silence between them. In the front of the pub, a businessman was shouting on his mobile phone. "I will, yeah. I did, yeah. I am, yeah." Eventually Eamonn leaned forward and traced a pattern on top of the varnished table with his well-manicured fingertip.

  "The way it was done, you see. The bones all mixed up like that. The knackers do that to stop a person from being admitted to heaven. If you can't find your feet, how can you walk through the pearly gates?"

  Katie said, "I didn't know that you were such an expert on Irish superstitions."

  "I take a very keen interest in anything that's a matter of luck."

  "Well, you'll let me know, won't you, if you hear about anybody whose luck ran out up at Meagher's Farm?"

  "I will of course. It's always been my policy to cooperate with the Garda."

  "One day, Eamonn, I promise, I will break you."

  Eamonn gave her a smile. "'You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will but the scent of the roses will hang round it still.'"

  She left the pub without touching her glass of water and without saying good-bye. The big silent man with the shaved head followed her to the door and opened it for her.

  7

  Dr. Reidy called her from theUniversityHospital at 11:25 on Friday morning.

  "I'll be finishing my written report over the weekend, Detective Superintendent. But I think you ought to come over to the path lab so that I can give you some preliminary findings. Which will surprise you."

  "Surprise me? Why?" asked Katie, but he had already banged down the phone.

  Liam drove her to the hospital. It was a gray day, dry, and not particularly chilly, but with low clouds pouring endlessly over the city from the west. One of those days when you could easily imagine that you would never see the sun again, for the rest of your life.

  She didn't need an overcoat: just her prune-colored wool suit with the red speckles and a cream-colored rollneck sweater. Liam wore his new black leather jacket.

  Liam said, "There's no doubt about it, so far as I'm concerned. Whichever way you look at it, Michael Meagherhadto know that the bodies were buried under his feed store. I know that Mrs. Meagher plays down his republican connections, but it's totally possible that he never told her what he was doing, most of the time."

  "Eugene Ó Béara denied any knowledge, though, didn't he?"

  "He did, yes, but that was hardly the surprise of the century."

  They parked at the front of the hospital and Katie led the way through the double swing doors and along the corridor to the pathology laboratory. An old man in a plaid dressing gown sat in a wheelchair at the end of the corridor, and frowned at her through glasses that were so fingerprinted that they were almost opaque. He looked the spitting double of Samuel Beckett, but if you had said to him "nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" he might very well have agreed with you but he wouldn't have known that it came fromWaiting for Godot.

  Dr. Reidy was standing at the far end of the pathology laboratory wrapped in a green plastic apron. The pearly gray light from the clerestory windows lent him a halo. Eleven tre
stle tables were arranged in two lines, each table draped in a dark green sheet, and on each table lay a collection of bones, with paper labels attached to every one of them. When Katie saw them like this, she thought they looked even more vulnerable and pathetic than they had when she had first seen them up at Meagher's Farm, a family of fleshless orphans. She felt a sense of desperate sadness, not least because it was far too late to do anything to save them.