White Bones Read online

  “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.”

  8

  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.”
r />   “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.

  He sat where he was for two or three minutes, breathing heavily. “Shit,” he said, under his breath. Then he started up the car again, backed it off the verge, and continued to drive down the lane. Fiona sat next to him, joggling limply as he drove over lumps and potholes. Every now and then he glanced across at her and shook his head in annoyance. He wasn’t used to girls who twigged so quickly that he was trying to take them away. Usually they were still smiling right up to the moment when he produced the ropes – and, sometimes, even after he’d tied them up.

  He turned left up a steep, winding hill, where the nettles and the brown-seeded foxgloves crowded even closer. At the top of the hill there was a sagging five-bar gate, every bar still bejeweled with raindrops, and beyond that stood a damp-looking cottage, with one side thickly shrouded in creeper. He drove the Mercedes all the way around the cottage to the back garden, so that it couldn’t be seen from the lane, and parked it beside the overgrown vegetable patch. As he climbed out of the car he saw dozens of hooded crows perched on the telephone-lines above his head. He clapped his hands and shouted, “Hoi!” but they stayed where they were, all facing south-west, into the wind.

  Opening the passenger door, he dragged Fiona out of the car and across the yard, her heels bumping on the broken concrete. She was still unconscious, but her nose had stopped bleeding, and she had a congealed black moustache. He propped her up against the side of the porch as he searched in his pocket for his keys.

  “Shit,” he repeated, like a litany.

  He managed to turn the key in the green-painted cottage door, and nudge it open with his shoulder. Winding Fiona’s arm around his neck, he shuffled her inside, and across the hallway, and into the gloomy, damp-smelling living-room. He dropped her onto the worn-out couch, with its mustard-colored throw, and then he went back to close the front door, and lock it.

  “Now,” he said to himself. He crossed the living-room and drew the cheap yellow cotton drapes. Then he shrugged off his coat and tossed it across the back of one of the armchairs, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Couldn’t be nice, could you? Couldn’t be agreeable. Had to put up a fight.”

  The clock on the mantelpiece chimed four. Fiona, on the couch, started to stir, and groan. Immediately, and very quickly, he unlaced her boots, and pulled them off her feet, and let them tumble onto the floor. Then her thick red hiking-socks.

  She groaned again, and tried to lift her arm. He leaned over her and said, “Shush, shush, everything’s fine. You’re going to be fine in a minute.” He unbuckled her belt, opened up her jeans, and wrenched them halfway down her thighs. He was surprised and mildly aroused to find that she wasn’t wearing any panties. Then he pulled off her denim jacket, and her red ribbed sweater. She mumbled, “Mom… what’s happening, mom? Don’t want to go to bed.”

  “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Mom, my head hurts.”

  “It’s okay… I’ll bring you some aspirin. Just lie still.”

  He took off her jeans and threw them into the corner of the room. He lifted her up, so that she was sitting, and then he knelt in front of her and tilted her over his shoulder. Panting with effort, he stood up, and carried her into the hallway, her arms dangling down his back, and into the bedroom next door. She was a big girl, well-nourished, and by the time he managed to lower her onto the bed he was trembling with the strain.

  “Shit,” he said.

  The bed had a green cast-iron frame and no mattress or blankets, but several thicknesses of newspaper had been spread on the floor underneath it. Its springs creaked and complained as he tied her wrists with cords, and then her ankles. She opened her eyes for a moment and said, “What… what’s happening?” but then she closed them again and started to breathe thickly through her open mouth.

  He stood up and looked at her. His expression was completely impassive, although he was gripping his genitals through his black corduroy pants, and systematically squeezing them. After a while he went through to the kitchen and came back with a pair of orange-handled scissors. He cut through the front of her bra, and then the straps, and took the pieces away.

  “Mom?” she said.

  He reached out and stroked her forehead, and the crusted blood on her upper lip. He didn’t know why victimhood made girls so appealing, but it always did. It made them so much more feminine and vulnerable, no matter how strong and self-confident they had acted when he first met them. Stop the car and let me out! It was such a futile, arrogant demand that it made him smile to think about it.

  Eventually he went back into the kitchen and came back with the coil of thin nylon cord. He looped it around the top of her left thigh, and knotted it, and pulled it as tight as he could, one foot braced against the bed-frame. It cut deep into her suntanned flesh, so deep that it almost disappeared. She suddenly blinked her eyes and started to struggle.

  “Oh God, that hurts! What are you doing to me? What are you doing?”

  He leaned over her and touched his finger against her lips. “Don’t shout, nobody can hear you. You’re miles and miles from anywhere.”

  “God, you’re hurting my leg, you’re hurting my leg!”

  “That’s necessary, I’m afraid. You wouldn’t want to bleed to death, would you?”

  Her eyes flicked wildly from side to side. “What do you mean? What are you talking about? Where am I?”

  “You’re alone with me, that’s all you need to know. You’re alone with me and Morgan.”

  “Listen, you creep, you’d better let me go. My father’s president of CalForce Electronics.”

  “Oh, CalForce Electronics? Never heard of them, I’m sorry to say.”

  “You’re really, really hurting my leg.”

  “I know, my sweet. I’m sorry. But, as I say, it’s necessary for your survival.”

  “What do you want? What are you going to do to me? My father can pay you money.”

  “I expect he can. But I’m not interested in money. No
t in the slightest.”

  “Then what? What do you want? Are you going to rape me, or what?”

  “Rape you? Of course not. You don’t think I look like a rapist, do you?”

  “I don’t know. But please take this cord off my leg. It’s so tight.”

  “I know. It’s supposed to be.”

  “For what reason? What are you going to do? Look at my leg, it’s turning blue.”

  “That’s a very good sign. Shows that I’ve restricted your circulation.”

  “Please,” begged Fiona. “If anything happens to me, my parents are going to be devastated.”

  “Well, that’s very selfless of you. But I’m afraid that you have a destiny which far supersedes any consideration for your parents.”

  “What do you mean? Please… if you let me go, I won’t tell anybody what happened here. I’ll go right back home and I won’t mention any of this to anybody.”

  He nodded, almost ruefully. “Of course you won’t, because you’ll be dead.”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “It’s a regrettable but inevitable part of the ritual.”

  “Please. I’m twenty-two years old.”

  “Yes?”

  Tears suddenly started to drip down her cheeks. “I’m twenty-two years old and I haven’t lived any kind of life yet. I’ve seen Ireland, and that’s about all. I want to do so much more. I want to be a teacher, and teach little kids.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Fiona nodded, still snuffling. “His name’s Richard. I’ve known him since I was fourteen.”

  “Um. He’s going to miss you, then.”

  “Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything.”

  “Now, then. Don’t be too hasty in what you wish for. By the time tomorrow morning comes, you’ll be pleading with me to have it done with, believe me.”

  “Please.”

  He looked at his watch and gave a little negative shake of his head. “I’m going to have to leave you for a while. Only about half-an-hour… but you took me by surprise, you see. I wasn’t expecting to come across somebody so suitable so soon. I have to make a few purchases, to see us through the next few days.”