A Terrible Beauty

by Graham Masterton

  Liam said, "I put a message in, yes."

  Katie walked slowly around the excavation, trying to make sense of all the bones that were lying there, jumbled up like pick-a-sticks as if somebody had tossed them up into the air and let them scatter at random. She could make out at least three pelvises, two breastbones, and innumerable vertebrae.

  She was used to dead bodies-three or four bluey-green floaters were fished out of the River Lee every week, and then there were the blackened and bloated druggies they regularly found in Lower Shandon Street, and the maroon-faced winos crouched in shop doorways in Maylor Street, their hearts stopped by Paddy's whiskey and hypothermia.

  But this was different. This was wholesale butchery. She could almost smell the dread of what had happened here, along with the peaty reek of the rain-soaked soil.

  Sergeant O'Rourke came up to her. He was a short, sandy-haired man with a rough-hewn block of a head, like an unfinished sculpture. "What do you think, Jimmy?" she asked him.

  "I never saw nothing like it, ma'am, except in a picture on Father Francis's wall, at St. Michael's, which had heaven at the top and hell at the bottom, you know, and this is what hell looked like. All skeletons, all in a heap."

  Katie said, "This is John Meagher, is it?"

  "That's right. John-this is Detective Superintendent Kathleen Maguire. She's in charge of this investigation."

  John held out his hand. "Oh, I see. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that-"

  "That's all right, John," said Katie. "An Garda Síochána is an equal opportunity employer, and occasionally they bend over backward to beveryequal."

  "It looks so far like there could be six skeletons, or even seven," said Sergeant O'Rourke. "Kevin's counted thirteen ankle bones so far."

  "Do you have any idea at all how these remains might have come to be buried here?" Katie asked John.

  John shook his head. "None at all. Absolutely none. I've been running the farm for fourteen months now so nobody could have buried them here after I took over."

  "What aboutbeforeyou took over?"

  "Meagher's Farm has been in my family since 1935. I can't see my father burying any bodies here. Why would he? Nor my grandfather, either."

  Katie nodded. "Does anybody else have access to your property here? Like tenant farmers, anybody like that? Or holidaymakers? Or Travelers?"

  "There's nobody here but me and Gabriel and the Ryan brothers, Denis and Bryan. They do the general laboring, and Maureen O'Donovan helps me to run the creamery."

  "I'll be wanting to talk to them, too."

  "Sure, absolutely. But this is a total mystery, so far as I'm concerned. I'm no expert, but it looks to me as if these people have been dead for a heck of a long time."

  Katie said nothing, but stood looking at the bones with her hand pressed over her mouth.

  John waited until Katie had walked around to the other side of the excavation before he said to Sergeant O'Rourke, "Kind ofintense, isn't she?"

  "Oh, not usually. But she's very humorless when it comes to homicide, Superintendent Maguire. Doesn't see the funny side of it, if you know what I mean."

  John watched her as she circled around the bones. A very striking woman, he thought, not more than five feet five inches, just turned forty maybe, with cropped coppery hair and sage-green eyes and sharply chiseled cheekbones. She had that Irish-elfin look of being related to the fairy folk, ten generations removed. The sort of woman you find yourself looking at a second time, and then again. But then she glanced up and caught him looking at her and he found himself immediately turning away, as if he had something to be guilty about. God knows how she would make him feel if he actually knew how these skeletons had come to be buried here.

  Eventually she came back over. The raindrops were sparkling in her hair. "You haven't heard any local stories about anybody going missing? Not necessarily recent stories. Something that might give us a rough idea when these people died."

  "I don't have too much time for local gossip, I'm afraid. I go down to Ballyvolane once in a while and have a couple of drinks at the Fox and Hounds. But I'm still a foreigner, as far as the locals are concerned. Not surprising, really. I still can't understand the Cork accent and up until I came here I thought that hurling was something you did after drinking too much Guinness."

  "All right, John," said Katie. "You won't be going anywhere, will you? Once we've had the chance to clear this site properly, and the state pathologist has examined the remains, there'll be quite a few more questions that are going to need answering."

  "Listen, whatever I can do."

  Katie went over to her car and picked up her mobile phone. "Paul? It's me. I'm up at Knocknadeenly. Yes, somebody's found some remains. Yes, I know. Listen, it doesn't look as if I'm going to be home until late. There's a Marks & Spencer chicken pie in the freezer. You put it in a preheated oven at gas mark eight. Yes. Well, you know how to peel a potato, don't you? All right, go to the pub if you like, it's up to you, but eat something decent. I'll call you later."

  A white Garda van was coming up the driveway. The technical bureau. Katie walked back to the excavation and waited for them to kit up in their Tyvek suits and their rubber boots. She looked down at the heap of bones and wondered who on earth they had belonged to. Normally, when she attended a death scene, it was immediately obvious who had done what to whom, and why. Bloody carving knives in the kitchen sink. Babies, gray-faced from suffocation. Girls lying facedown and muddy-thighed in a ditch somewhere, strangled with their own scarves.

  But this was something very different, and until she knew how long these people had been lying here it was futile for her to try and guess who might have killed them, or why. All that was immediately apparent was that none of the skulls had a bullet hole in the back. That would have been very strong evidence that they were the victims of a political execution, or maybe a revenge killing by one of the local gangs.

  Although she was going to inform Operation Trace about these skeletons as a matter of protocol, she didn't think that they were connected with Superintendent O'Connell's investigation. The girls he was looking for had disappeared one by one over nearly a decade-the last one in July, 1998-and Katie's immediate impression was that these bodies had been buried all at once.

  Liam came up to her and offered her an extra-strong mint. "What do you think? Could have been Meagher's father who did it, possibly?"

  "We won't know that until we find out who all these people were, and when they were killed, and why."

  "You're not looking for a motive? Look around you-a godforsaken place like this. Struggling from dawn to dusk to scrape a half-decent living and nobody to take out your economic and sexual frustrations on, except the livestock, or the occasional passing cyclist, looking for somewhere to spend the night. Remember that bed-and-breakfast business, down in Crosshaven? Three of them, stuffed in an airing cupboard?"

  Katie lifted her hand to shield her eyes against the rain. "I don't know. I don't get that kind of a feeling. I wouldn't totally rule it out, but there's something very dark about this. The way the different skeletons are all tangled up it's like they were all taken apart before they were buried."

  A series of lightning-bright flashes illuminated the blue plastic screens. The photographer was getting to work, and now the forensic retrieval team were waddling around in their protective suits, marking out the positions of skulls and rib cages.

  One of them picked up a thighbone which appeared to have something dangling from the end of it. Then he bent over and picked up another, and another. He examined them for a while and then he came over to Katie and said, "Superintendent? Have a sconce at these."

  Katie tugged on a tight plastic glove and accepted one of the bones. It had been pierced at the upper end, where it would have fitted into the hip socket, and a short length of greasy twine had been tied through the hole. On the end of the twine dangled a small doll-like figure, apparently fashioned out of twisted gray rags, with six or seven rusted nails and hooks pus
hed into it. Every thighbone had been pierced in the same way, and every one had a tiny rag doll tied onto it.

  "What do you make of this, Liam?" Katie asked him. "Ever see anything like this before?"

  Liam peered at the little figure closely, and shook his head. "Never. It looks like one of your voodoo effigies, doesn't it, the ones you stick pins in to get your revenge on people."

  "Voodoo? In Knocknadeenly?"

  The scene-of-crimes officer took the thighbone and went back to work. Katie said, "I don't know what happened here, Liam, but it was seriously strange."

  At that moment, John came over and said, "What about a drink, Superintendent?"

  She would have done anything for a double vodka, but she said, "Tea, thank you. No milk, no sugar."

  "And you, Inspector?"

  "Three sugars, please. And unstirred, if you don't mind. I'm very partial to the sludge at the bottom."

  Gradually, the weather began to clear from the west, and the farm was illuminated by a watery gray sunlight. Katie went into the house to talk to John's mother. She was sitting in the living room with a pond-green cardigan draped around her shoulders, watching Fair City and stroking the dog. A large photograph of a white-haired man who looked almost exactly like an older John was standing on the table next to her, along with an empty teacup and a crowded ashtray.

  "I'm going to have to ask you some questions, Mrs. Meagher."

  "Oh, yes?" said John's mother, without taking her eyes off the television.

  "Do you mind if I sit down?"

  "You'll be after taking off your raincoat."

  "I will, of course." Katie took off her coat and folded it over the back of a wooden chair that was standing behind the door. Underneath she wore a smart gray suit and a coppery-colored blouse that almost matched her hair. She sat down opposite Mrs. Meagher but Mrs. Meagher still kept her attention focused on her soap opera. The living room smelled of damp and food and lavender furniture polish.

  "So far we've discovered the remains of eight people, and it looks as though there may be more."

  "God rest their souls."

  "You wouldn't have any idea who might have buried them there?"

  "Well, it must have been somebody, mustn't it? They weren't after burying themselves."

  "No, Mrs. Meagher, I'd be very surprised if they did. But I'd be interested to know if you were ever aware that your late husband was doing any work in the old feed store."

  "He was always in and out of there. The cattle needed feeding, didn't they?"

  "Of course. But what I meant was-were you ever aware that he was doing anything unusual in there? Like construction work, or digging?"

  "Sacred heart of Jesus, you're not suggesting for a moment that my Michael buried these poor folk, are you?"

  "I'm just trying to get some idea of how they got there, and when."

  "I'm sure I don't have a clue. It would have taken a lot of work, wouldn't it, to bury so many people, and Michael would never have had the time for anything like that. He always said that he worked harder than two horses and a brown donkey."

  "Did he take any interest in politics?"

  "I know what you're saying. He read An Phoblacht but he never had the time for anything like that, either. Not the meetings. It was all I could do to get him to mass on Sunday."

  "Did he have any special friends that you know of?"

  "One or two fellows he met in The Roundy House in Ballyhooly. He used to play the accordion with them sometimes, on a Thursday night. That was the only time he was ever away from the farm, on a Thursday night. But it was feeble old fellows they were, couldn't have killed a fly, let alone find the strength to bury the poor creature afterward."

  "Did anybody strange ever come to visit him? Anybody you didn't know yourself?"

  Mrs. Meagher shook her head. "Michael liked his family around him but he wasn't one for entertaining. Whenever that fat good-for-nothing priest Father Morrissey came visiting and I gave him a piece of cake or a ham sandwich, Michael used to say that he felt like cutting his belly open to get it back, to think of all the hard work that every mouthful had cost him."

  "I see. Was he a difficult man, Michael, would you say? I don't mean to speak ill of him."

  Mrs. Meagher sniffed sharply. "He had his opinions and he didn't care for eejits. But, no-tut-he wasn't any more difficult than any other man," she said, as if all men were quite impossible.

  "Did he ever have any long-running arguments with anybody?"

  "What? He hardly spoke a single word to anyone from one day's end to the next, leave alone argue."

  "One more thing. Did you ever hear any stories about people going missing anywhere in the area? Not necessarily recently, but at any time?"

  "People going missing?" Mrs. Meagher took her attention away from the television for the first time. "No, I never heard of anybody going missing. Of course when I was a girl my mother was always telling us tales about folk who had been taken by the fairies, off to the Invisible Kingdom, but that was just to frighten us into eating our potatoes."

  Katie smiled and nodded. Then she said, "One more thing. Have you ever seen anything like this before?" She reached into her pocket and took out a sealed plastic evidence bag, with one of the little gray rag dolls in it.

  "What's that, then?"

  "You've never seen anything like it before?"

  "That's not a very good toy for a child, now, is it? Full of hooks and all."

  "I don't think it's a toy, Mrs. Meagher. To be quite honest with you, I don't know what it is. But I'd prefer it if you didn't mention it to anyone."

  "Why should I?"

  "Well, just in case anybody asks. Anybody from the newspapers or the TV."

  Mrs. Meagher picked up a half-empty pack of Carroll's cigarettes, and offered one to Katie. "No? Well, I shouldn't either, with my chest. The doctor says I've got a shadow on my lung."

  "Why don't you give them up?"

  She lit her cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. "Give them up? Why in God's name would I try to do something when I know for sure that I'd never be able to do it?"

  3

  By the time it grew dark, the technical team had uncovered eleven human skulls and most of the skeletons that went with them-as well as nineteen thighbones pierced and hung with little gray dolls. The excavation had been photographed at every stage, and the position of every bone precisely marked with little white flags and logged on computer. At first light tomorrow, they would begin the careful process of bagging and removing the remains and taking them to the pathology department at Cork University Hospital . There they would be examined by Dr. Owen Reidy, the state pathologist, who was flying down from Dublin bringing his black bag and his famous bad temper.

  Liam came over as Katie left the house. "Well?" he asked her, chafing his hands together.

  "Nothing. It's hard to believe that John Meagher's father had anything to do with this. But someone managed to excavate a hole in the floor of his feed store and bury eleven skeletons in it, not to mention drilling their thigh bones and decorating them with little dollies, and how they did that without Michael Meagher being aware of it, I can't imagine. As Mrs. Meagher says, he was in and out of there every single day, fetching and carrying feed."

  "So, it stands to reason. He must have known what was going on."

  "And what do we deduce from that? That he conspired with an execution squad?"

  "I don't think these were executions," said Liam. "With executions it's almost always phutt! in the back of the head, after all. And what about all these dollies? What execution squad would bother to dismember their victims and drill holes in their thighbones? They'd have the graves dug and the bodies thrown in and they'd be off. But even if this was an execution, and John's father did bury the bodies, we can't necessarily assume that he did it willingly. He might have been warned to keep his mouth shut or else the same thing would happen to him."

  Katie took out a handkerchief and wiped her nose. "I do
n't know. I think we're going to have to look somewhere else for the answer to this."

  "Well, let's keep an open mind about our Michael Meagher. Like I said, there's something about these out-of-the-way farms that puts me in mind of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The rain, the mud, and nobody to tell your woes to but the pigs and the cows. It's not good for a man's sanity to be speaking nothing but Piggish and Cattleonian all day."

  Katie checked her watch. "We've done all we can for tonight. General briefing at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, sharp. Meanwhile, can you get Patrick started on a comprehensive check of missing persons in the North Cork District for the past ten years? Tell him to pay special attention to people who went missing in groups, and anybody who was cycling or hitchhiking or backpacking. They're always the most vulnerable.