A Terrible Beauty

by Graham Masterton

  "I only have one eyewitness and I wouldn't call him particularly reliable."

  "Eyewitness reports never are. You remember that triple shooting in Togher? One man said that the gunman was short with red hair, another said that he was tall with a heavy moustache, and a third swore blind that he was a woman. But between the three of them I got enough evidence to find out who did it."

  Katie said, "Fiona Kelly was last seen climbing into a dark-colored Mercedes outside The Angler's Rest on the way to Blarney. A dark-colored Mercedes with only one headlight. Only one man saw this happen-a drinker in the pub's front bar-and he'd had a fair few pints. It was a very gloomy afternoon and the rear of the vehicle was heavily coated in mud so that he couldn't see the registration plate."

  "He didn't see the driver at all?"

  Katie shook her head. "The car pulled in about twenty-five meters diagonally opposite the pub window, so the witness could only see a three-quarter rear view of it."

  "Draw it for me."

  "What?"

  "Here use the telephone pad. Show me where the pub stands, show me where the car stopped, show me where the girl was."

  "What good will that do?"

  "Trust me, just do it."

  Katie drew a square to represent The Angler's Rest, then two lines going off at forty-five degrees to the north-east, to represent the road to Blarney. Opposite The Angler's Rest she penciled a small black rectangle, which was the car, and finished off with a small stick figure, Fiona Kelly.

  Her father studied it for a while, and then he said, "This is more or less accurate, yes?"

  "As near as I can get it."

  "So where was your witness sitting?"

  "Here, at the left-hand window, with a diagonal view across the road."

  "Near enough to be able to identify the make of car?"

  "I would say so, yes."

  "But how did he know it had only one headlight?"

  "What?"

  "The car would have driven past the front of the pub without your witness being able to see the front of it. And then it stopped to pick up your victim, just far enough up the road so that he could only see the rear end of it, and very quickly drove off northeastward. So how did he know it had only one headlight?"

  "I don't know. But why would he say there was only one headlight if there wasn't? He must have been able to see it."

  "Remember what they taught you at Templemore. There's no such thing as 'must have been' in any good detective's vocabulary. Either the front of the Mercedes was visible from the pub window or it wasn't, and from what you've just told me, I think it would be worth going to have another word with this eyewitness of yours. You may be wasting your time but, I don't know. I have a feeling about it."

  "And you're tellingmenot to rely on hunches?"

  Although it was already growing dark, she drove out to The Angler's Rest again. There were only five people in the bar, four men and a middle-aged woman with crow-black hair and a screaming laugh, but it was warm and welcoming and there was a good strong fire burning in the grate.

  Ricky Looney was sitting on his usual stool with a half-finished pint in front of him.

  "Buy you a drink, Ricky?" Katie asked him.

  "Beamish, if you don't mind. But I can't tell you anything more than what I told you already."

  "That's all right. I just wanted to see if you could picture what happened in your mind's eye."

  "Picture it, like? You mean draw it? I was never any good at the drawing."

  "No, you don't have to draw it. All you have to do is close your eyes and try toseeit, as if you were watching a film."

  Ricky Looney looked hesitant, but when she urged him, "Go on, give it a try," he squeezed his eyes tight shut and clenched his face into a concentrated grimace.

  "You can see the girl standing by the side of the road, hitching a lift?"

  He nodded vigorously.

  "She's got long blond hair, hasn't she? But what's she wearing? Jeans, perhaps."

  "That's right, jeans. And a coat with like green patches on it, you know? And she's carrying a rucksack."

  "That's her. Well done, Ricky. Now, can you remember which way the car drove off? Did it go off to the left, or straight on, or did it branch off right toward Blarney?"

  "It goes off to the right. No doubt about it. I can see it now, in me head, clear as day."

  "That's very good. Is there anything else you can see?"

  "It's getting dark. It's starting to rain, like. It's hard to see anything very clear."

  "You can't make out the license plate?"

  "The license plate, no. It's much too muddy. The whole back of the car, it's thick brown with mud."

  "Now, tell me about the headlights. Which one isn't working, left or right?"

  "Sure I don't know. I can't see it from here."

  "I don't understand. Didn't you tell me before that it had only one headlight?"

  "It does, yeah. But I can't see it this time. I can only see it when it comes back."

  "It cameback?"

  Ricky cautiously opened his eyes. "That's right. About twenty minutes later, like."

  "You're sure? You're sure it was the same car?"

  "It was right outside the window there. I wouldn't have noticed it but old Joe was pulling out of the car park rather slow, like, and the Merc was coming down the road here and he blew his horn at him, like he was really in a hurry, you know?"

  "And that's when you saw that one of the headlights was out?"

  "The offside, that's right."

  "You still didn't see the driver?"

  "No. I'd be lying to you if I did, and I wouldn't want to lie to you just for the sake of pleasing you."

  "But you're absolutely certain that it was the same car?"

  "I wouldn't swear my mother's life on it, but it looked like the same car, and in any case my mother died three years ago, God rest her soul."

  She drove slowly along the winding road toward Blarney. It was dark now, and the wind had risen, so that blizzards of leaves danced in front of her headlights. She turned down every side road and entrance, following it as far as it went, looking for a muddy track with an isolated cottage or a barn at the end of it.

  If Ricky Looney had been right, and the same car had driven back past The Angler's Rest only twenty minutes after Fiona had been picked up, then she couldn't have been held very far away from here. The driver would have had to reach his destination, overpower her, take her out of the car, and restrain her. That wouldn't have left him more than four or five minutes to drive from The Angler's Rest to wherever he had hidden her.

  One track about two miles along the road began to look promising. It twisted and turned, up and downhill, and the mud was so thick that she could hear it drumming against her wheel arches. When she reached the end, however, she found nothing more than a dilapidated shed, heaped in ivy, with its doors and windows missing. She took her flashlight and walked around it, but there was nothing inside it except a kitchen chair, entangled with creeper. She stood still and listened. The evening was almost totally silent, except for the discontented stirring of the fallen leaves, and the surreptitious pattering of rain.

  She drove back to the main road and tried the next entrance, but this led only to a large house with heavily chained gates, which looked as if it had been closed down for the winter. She went farther still, and found a narrow metalled road that led her up a steep hill and then down again. She imagined that if she followed it all the way, it would eventually connect up with the main Kanturk Road, off to the west. Driving very slowly, she followed it for nearly three quarters of a mile, while it shrank narrower and narrower, and its edges began to crumble.

  Suddenly her headlights caught something tilting and wavering right in front of her. She jammed on her brakes and the Mondeo crunched into the gravel at the side of the road. She heard a hectic clattering sound, and a cry of"shite!"followed by silence.

  She climbed out. She had almost collided with a skinn
y old cyclist in a brown tweed coat. He had fallen off his push-bike into the middle of the road, and he was crouched in front of her car on his hands and knees.

  "Oh God, I'm so sorry," she said, helping him up. "You're not hurt, are you?"

  "What do you think you're doing,whooshingaround like that?" he asked her, more perplexed than angry. "Look at the condition of me, mud all over. You could have killed me,whooshingaround like that."

  "I'm sorry, but you'd be very much safer if you bought some lights."

  "What? What would I be needing lights for? I know the way."

  "Well, that's more than I do. I think I'm lost. Does this lead to the Kanturk Road?"

  "No."

  "Where does it lead then?"

  "Nowhere at all. It's a dead end. You've missed the turning for Sheehan's Nurseries, but it's been closed down for months now."

  "I see. So the place is empty now, is it?"

  "Sheehan's not there anymore, no."

  "Isanybodythere?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. I saw a car up there not five minutes ago."

  "Oh, yes? What kind of car?"

  "Wouldn't know that, couldn't see it proper through the hedge."

  "All right, thanks. You're not hurt, are you?"

  "I rolled, like. I'm a bit besmirched but I'll live."

  "I'm sorry about that. Here's my card. If there's any damage to your bicycle, get in touch. Or, you know, if your coat needs cleaning."

  "Oh, it's only an old thing, like me."

  Katie returned to her car. She carefully backed up, her transmission whinnying, and it was only then that she saw the narrow, overgrown lane that led off to the left, into total darkness.

  She backed up a few feet farther, and turned the car so that its headlights shone directly up the lane. She could see several fresh tire tracks glistening. The lane wasn't used regularly-she could tell that by the way the grass and weeds had overwhelmed the verges. But it had been used quite recently, and several times.

  She drove up the lane, trying to keep well to the left so that she wouldn't completely obliterate any of the existing tire tracks. The lane was rutted and rough and full of potholes, and several times the suspension on her Mondeo gave a loud, brutish bang. At last, however, she saw the silhouette of a large tree on the horizon ahead of her, and next to the tree she saw a cottage roof, and a chimney. As she drove nearer, she could see car sidelights, too, glimmering through a hawthorn hedge. She cut her own lights in case she was seen.

  She steered the Mondeo into the side of the lane, almost up on the bank, and turned off the engine. She sat still for a while, watching the cottage and the car parked outside it. After three or four minutes, she saw a muted light flicker in one of the cottage windows, as if somebody were searching around inside it with a torch. She was tempted to call for backup, but then she couldn't yet be certain that she had come across anything suspicious, and the last thing she wanted to do was waste police time.

  She climbed out of the car and closed the door quietly. The cottage was right on top of the hill, and the chilly wind fluffed and blustered in her ears. She walked across the lane until she reached the entrance to the cottage grounds. The gate was open, and the car outside the cottage had been turned around, so that it was ready to be driven out. She hesitated for a moment, and then she went in, staying close to the laurel bushes on the left-hand side. Now that she was closer, she could see that the car was a Mercedes 320E.

  The torchlight flickered in the window again, and then she heard the clatter of somebody knocking a chair over. She edged her way across the yard until she reached the front porch. Then she drew her gun out of its belt holster and cocked it.

  The front door of the cottage was half open. She approached it cautiously, making sure that she wasn't silhouetted against the sky. She had almost reached it when it suddenly opened wide, and a man stepped out, carrying a torch.

  "Freeze!"she screamed at him. "Armed garda!"

  The man said, "Jesus! You scared the fucking life out of me!" He shone the torch toward her, but Katie stepped sideways, and shouted,"Drop the torch! Drop it!"

  Immediately, he dropped it, and raised his hands.

  "Are you on your own?" Katie demanded.

  "What does it look like? Jesus."

  Katie said, "Step back." He did as he was told, and she quickly bent down and picked up the fallen torch. She shone it in his face and she recognized him at once. He was very tall, nearly six feet four, with long black dreadlocks like a headful of snakes, and his long, narrow chin was dark with stubble. His eyes were so deep-set that it looked as if he didn't have any eyes at all. He wore a long black overcoat with muddy tails, and muddy black leather riding boots.

  "Tómas Ó Conaill," she said. "I haven't seenyouin a very long time."

  "Who's that?" he asked, in a hoarse, whispery voice. "That looks like Detective Sergeant Katie Maguire."

  "Detective Superintendent these days. You should read the papers."

  "Papers, you say? A fellow like me never has the time to read the papers. You know how hard I have to work to make ends meet."

  "This your car?"

  He turned his head and frowned at it in mock surprise. "Never seen it before in my life."

  Katie took two steps backward and opened the Mercedes's door. It chimed softly at her to remind her that the sidelights were still on. "The keys are still in it," she said. "You don't expect me to believe that somebody just left it here."

  "It's a bit of a mystery to me, too. I was just strolling along the track here when I saw the car stood in the yard with its lights on."

  Katie switched the Mercedes's main beams on. She walked around to the front of the car and saw that the offside headlight wasn't working.

  "What were you doing inside the house?" she asked.

  "I came into the yard and saw that the door was open. There wasn't a sign of anybody so I knocked to see if everything was all right."

  "Very public-spirited of you, I'm sure. Do you want to explain where you were going?"

  "I was taking a walk, that's all."

  "Just taking a walk, were you? In the dark, up a track that doesn't go to anywhere at all?"

  "There's no law against a fellow taking a walk, is there?"

  "There's a law against stealing cars and there's a law against breaking and entering other people's property."

  "I didn't take anything. I've been leading the life of a saint these days, Katie, I can swear to that."

  "Detective Superintendent Maguire to you, Tómas," Katie retorted. She switched on her personal radio. "Charlie Six to Charlie Alpha. I need urgent backup at Sheehan's Nurseries. That's about a mile and a half up thefifthturning on the left on the Blarney road, past The Angler's Rest. I have one male suspect to bring in."

  "Suspect, is it?" said Tómas Ó Conaill. "Can you kindly tell me what I'm suspected of?"

  "I don't know yet, Tómas. Perhaps you can tell me."

  "I haven't took nothing and I haven't laid a finger on nobody, God be my witness."

  "You won't mind answering a few questions, though, will you?"

  "I've got nothing to say, Katie. I'm as innocent as a newborn child."

  It was almost twenty minutes before she saw Jimmy O'Rourke's headlights dipping and bouncing along the track, followed by a squad car. All the time that they were waiting, Tómas Ó Conaill talked loquaciously to Katie about where he and his family had been traveling over the past three years, all the way around Roscommon and Longford and Sligo, and how he had been making money from buying and selling horses and secondhand cars, as well as laying tarmac and mending old ladies' leaky roofs. "All good honest work these days, Katie, I can promise you that."

  "Detective Superintendent Maguire."

  "Oh, come on now, Katie. I'm just trying to be sociable. We've known each other long enough, haven't we?"

  "Yes, ever since you cut the baby out of that poor young girl in Mayfield."

  "I was acquitted of that, you'll remember."

/>   "Nobody was brave enough to give evidence, you mean. ButIknow you did it andyouknow you did it and that's good enough for me."

  "That baby was a child of the devil and if itwasme that did it, which I can assure you it wasn't, then I would have been doing the world the greatest favor since Jesus Christ."

  "Oh, yes. The spawn of Satan. A very colorful defense, I seem to remember."