A Terrible Beauty

by Graham Masterton

  For the first time, Tómas blinked. "Of course I have."

  "Tell me, then."

  "Tell you what?"

  "Tell me about Mor-Rioghain. Who she is, what she can do for you."

  Desmond O'Keeffe tapped his ball pen on the table. "Sorry I don't see the relevance of this."

  Katie said, "You're here to protect Mr. Ó Conaill's rights, Mr. O'Keeffe, not to second-guess the lines of our inquiry."

  "All the same," Desmond O'Keeffe protested, flushing very red.

  "I don't mind answering," said Tómas Ó Conaill. "I didn't do nothing to nobody, as the witch here very well knows. Mor-Rioghain is abean-sidhe,a banshee, which means a woman of the fairy."

  "You believe in the fairies?"

  "I believe in Mor-Rioghain, and why not? Didn't I hear her myself the night before my poor father died, moaning and keening at the back door?"

  "I thought that banshees only cried for five particular families."

  "They do," he agreed, and he counted them off on his fingers. "The O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, the O'Gradys, and the Kavanaghs. But my father was an O'Grady by marriage."

  "Do you believe that Mor-Rioghain can be called up out of the fairy world if you offer her a human sacrifice?"

  Tómas Ó Conaill shrugged, and flicked ash into the overcrowded ashtray.

  "Have you heard about the eleven women's skeletons which were found up at Knocknadeenly?"

  "I have, yes. I saw it on the telly."

  "One of our experts thinks that somebody may have been trying to make a sacrifice to Mor-Rioghain. If you kill thirteen women and take the flesh off their bones, so that she can feed on it, apparently Mor-Rioghain will reward you by giving you whatever you want."

  "I know of that, yes.""

  It looks as if our 1915 murderer was interrupted before he could give her all of the sacrifices she demands. It wouldn't have occurred to you, by any chance, that if you killed just two more women, you could call on Mor-Rioghain and ask her to make you rich? Easier than winning the Lotto."

  "You shouldn't make mock of thesidhe, Detective Superintendent Witch."

  "I'm asking you straight out, Tómas. Did you kill Fiona Kelly?"

  "The answer to that is no, I didn't. And if I was minded to call on Mor-Rioghain, there's only one thing that I'd ask her for, and that's to make you blind and lame."

  "You're all heart, Tómas."

  A few minutes later, Liam knocked on the door of the interview room and beckoned Katie to come outside. "Interview suspended at 5:09A.M.," she said, and left Tómas Ó Conaill lighting yet another cigarette.

  Liam held up a note from the technical department. "They've made a preliminary check on the car. Ó Conaill's left his dabs all over the doors, the door handles, the steering wheel, the gearshift, the hand brake, the radio controls, the keys, the trunk, everywhere. There's a perfect thumbprint on the rearview mirror where he must have adjusted it to suit his driving position."

  "Anybody else's prints?"

  "Fiona Kelly's, on the passenger door handle, which backs up your witness's story that she willingly accepted a lift."

  "Nobody else's?"

  "One or two random prints around the filler cap, which probably came from a garage attendant. But nothing consistent with anybody else having driven the car, apart from Ó Conaill."

  "How about the bloodstains?"

  "O positive. Same group as Fiona Kelly. They haven't had the DNA back yet."

  "Any results from the cottage?"

  "Footprints, yes. Size ten boots the same as we found at Meagher's Farm. But fingerprints, no, and this is the odd part. They found a partial palm print on the front door handle, but none of Ó Conaill's fingerprints inside. Plenty of other prints, but not his. Not yet, anyway."

  "None at all?"

  Liam shook his head.

  "Why would he take such trouble not to leave any prints in the cottage if he was going to cover the car with them? Especially since the car still had Fiona Kelly's blood in it."

  "You surprised him, didn't you? He was probably intending to drive off and never go back there."

  "All the same it doesn't really add up, does it?"

  "There's only one way to find out, and that's to ask him."

  "What about his alibis?"

  "His family all say that he went to see this Cootie fellow on Thursday and drove to Mallow on Friday. But then they would, wouldn't they? His mother looks as if she eats blocks of prestressed concrete for breakfast. And you should see his sister. The words 'red' and 'brick' and 'shitter' came to mind, I can tell you."

  "What about their vehicles? Anything?"

  "We searched the whole lot of them, seven in all. Two brand-new Jeep Cherokees, a top-of-the-range BMW, one Winnebago Chieftain, and three caravans. We took the door trim out of the cars and we even pulled up the caravan floors. Nothing at all, except twenty-eight bottles of Paddy's and some women's designer clothing that looks as if it was lifted from Brown Thomas."

  "All right, thanks, Liam."

  She went back into the interview room. Tómas Ó Conaill didn't even raise his eyes to look at her. She sat down and laid the forensic report on the table between them.

  "I want you to tell me where you got the car from," she said.

  "I've already told you, witch. I found it in the yard in front of the house. I might have touched it but touching isn't a crime, the last I heard."

  "Your fingerprints were plastered all over it. Your fingerprints and nobody else's, except for the girl you murdered."

  "How many times do I have to tell you that I didn't murder any girl."

  "You stole the car, though, didn't you?"

  Tómas Ó Conaill was silent for a very long time. Then he took out another cigarette and lit it, and blew smoke out of his nostrils like two long tusks. "I drove it," he admitted. "But I didn't steal it. I found it, and all I did was to lend a borrow of it."

  "Youfoundit?"

  "Yes, found it."

  "Do you think that I was born yesterday?"

  He stared her dead in the eyes. "No, witch, I don't think you were. You may look young and you may look pretty but you have the hag's face on you."

  "So where did youfindthis car, Tómas?"

  "It was halfway in a ditch by the side of the road about a mile north of Curraghnalaght crossroads. Not locked, with the keys still in it."

  "Parked, in other words?"

  "Not parked, dumped. Obviously dumped. There was nobody for miles."

  "When exactly was this?"

  "Yesterday evening around nine I'd say."

  "Why didn't you report it to the Garda?"

  Tómas said nothing, but gave her an amused shake of his serpentine hair.

  "So you found this car abandoned and you decided to steal it?"

  "Not steal, I told you, borrow. My own car had gearbox trouble and I needed to get over to Cork for some spares."

  "You were simply going to use this dumped car to drive to Coachford and then take it back?"

  "That was my first intention, yes."

  "All right," said Katie. "Supposing I believe this fantastical story, which I don't for a minute. What were you doing in the cottage up at Sheehan's Nursery? It's not exactly on the way from Curraghnalaght to Cork, is it? In fact, that track doesn't go anywhere at all."

  "I found a piece of paper in the glove box and it had the name of Sheehan's Nursery on it, and a bit of a map."

  "Oh, really? Do you still have this piece of paper in your possession?"

  "I don't know." He poked in his pockets, but all he could find was a packet of Rizla cigarette papers. "No. I probably dropped it somewhere."

  "Very convenient."

  "I thought that if I went up to Sheehan's Nursery, I might be able to find out who the car belonged to, and maybe there might be a reward in it for taking it back."

  "Oh, I believe you, Tómas, I really do."

  "You don't have any cause not to. I swear to God it's the truth."

&n
bsp; "I don't think so. I think the truth is that you used a false name and address to rent that Mercedes, and then you used it to pick up the first innocent girl you could find. You took her up to Sheehan's Nursery, where you tied her up to the bed and you coldbloodedly mutilated, tortured, and killed her. Then you drove her poor butchered remains to Meagher's Farm and arranged them in the field, as a sacrifice to Mor-Rioghain."

  Tómas Ó Conaill shook his head and kept on shaking it. "You're a witch, Detective Superintendent Witch. You're nothing better than abean-nighe;you're death's own washerwoman, washing the blood out of dying people's clothing. I'm innocent of any murder and that's my final word."

  Katie leaned forward and looked directly into his deep-set eyes. "I will see you locked up for this, Tómas. And long after I'm retired, and I'm sitting at home in the evening, by the fire, I want to have the warm, satisfying feeling of knowing that you're still inside the Bridewell, and that you'll stay inside until the day you breathe your very last breath."

  32

  Siobhan was in such a rush to catch the bus that she forgot to pick up her fashion folder with all her preparatory sketches in it. She was halfway down Wellington Road when she realized that she had left it behind and she had to run back to the house, her big knitted bag swinging from her shoulder. She unlocked the front door and panted up the stairs to her bedsit, snatching her folder from the table, and clattering downstairs again.

  By the time she reached St. Luke's Cross, the bus was just leaving. She frantically waved at the driver, but he pulled away from the curb in front of the news agent's without even seeing her, and the bus was off down Summerhill in a big black cloud of diesel smoke, leaving her behind. There was no use running after it. She was going to be late for her design class now, and Mrs. Griffin would greet her with her usual sarcasm, and make a show of her in front of the rest of the students, because she was almost always late, and even if she managed to finish her project, she would still feel hot and humiliated.

  One arm swinging, she started to walk at a furious pace down the long steep gradient toward Cork, past the gray Victorian spire of St. Luke's Church, and the higgledy-piggledy tenement buildings that were stacked up on either side of Summerhill with their damp walled gardens and their rusting cast-iron gates. The low November sun shone into her eyes like a migraine. At this time of the morning, traffic was teeming into the city from the north side and the noise was deafening.

  Siobhan had furiously flaming hair, wavy and almost uncontrollable, which she brushed back every morning and tied with a knotted scarf. She was pretty in a pre-Raphaelite way, like her mother, and like her mother she had deathly white skin and sapphire-blue eyes and whenever she was embarrassed her cheeks caught alight.

  Ever since she was a little girl she had wanted to design dresses. In nursery school she had drawn pictures of ladies in glittering ballgowns, and when she was eleven she had won anEvening Echocompetition for the best party dress design for teenagers. Her father had always been skeptical, and told her to think about training for a "proper job," like working on the checkout at Dunnes Stores, but her mother had encouraged her and protected her and believed in her. She was old enough now to realize that her mother saw her as the girl thatshehad always wanted to be-talented, free, independent, and acknowledged-not pregnant at seventeen and exhausted at twenty-three.

  She was less than halfway down Summerhill when a large white car drew into the curb beside her and the passenger window came down.

  "Hallo, there! You look like you could use a lift."

  Siobhan bent down and peered into the darkness of the car's interior. She could see a man's silhouette, a man with tiny dark-lensed sunglasses. There was a strong smell of leather upholstery and expensive aftershave.

  "No, you're grand. I don't have far to go."

  "You look as if you're in a hurry, that's all."

  "It's all right, thanks."

  "Suit yourself. I've got a few minutes to spare before my first appointment, that's all. I can take you anywhere you need to go."

  She hesitated. She had never accepted a lift from anyone she didn't know, but it wasn't as if this was two o'clock in the morning, with nobody else around. The pavements were crowded with walkers just like her, making their way down the hill to the city, and the roads were full of buses and cars.

  "All right," she said, climbing into the passenger seat and tucking her portfolio down beside her. "I'm going to the Crawford College of Art and Design. Do you know where that is?"

  "Oh, yes," said the man, and smoothly pulled out into the traffic. "I thought you might be an art student, from that colorful red coat of yours."

  "I designed it myself. I'm studying fashion."

  They stopped at the traffic lights at the bottom of Summerhill. The man turned to her and she could see her own white face reflected in his sunglasses. "Such extraordinary hair," he remarked. "The true Celtic fire."

  "I used to hate it."

  "How could you? It's like acohullen druith."

  Siobhan gave him an awkward smile. She didn't have the faintest idea what acohullen druithwas.

  "It's a scarlet cap, made of feathers," said the man, as if he knew what she was thinking. "It's worn by the Irish mermaids, the merrows, to help them swim through the water. The merrows are strikingly beautiful, like you, and very promiscuous in their relations with mortal men. Not that I'm suggesting, of course-" He paused in what he was saying as he released the parking brake and drove away from the lights.

  They crossed the river and drove along Merchants' Quay. When they reached the next set of traffic lights the man said, "The merrows have to take off their caps when they come on land, and hide them. Any man who happens to find one has complete power over her, because she can't return to the sea without it."

  "I think we learned something about that at school," said Siobhan. She was beginning to feel very uneasy. The man had stopped in the right-hand lane, as if he intended to double back across the river, over Patrick's Bridge, instead of straight ahead toward Sharman Crawford Street, where she wanted to go.

  "I could walk from here," she told him.

  "I wouldn't dream of it."

  "It isn't far now, honestly."

  The man turned to her and grinned, showing his teeth. "What's your name?" he asked her.

  "Siobhan, why?"

  "Let me tell you something, Siobhan, every journey is an adventure. When you take that first step out of your house in the morning, you never know where fate is going to take you."

  "I think I can walk from here," she told him, in sudden urgency, and tugged at the door handle. The lights changed to green and the man turned right, over the river, and up to MacCurtain Street, which would take them back eastward.

  "Please, stop. I want to get out."

  "Impossible, I'm afraid. This is one of those journeys that, once begun, has to continue right to the very end. No dawdling, no diversions. Keep right on to the end of the road, as the song goes."

  "Really, stop, please. I want to get out."

  The man ignored her. Already flustered, Siobhan began to hyperventilate. They had to stop at the pedestrian crossing just outside the Everyman Theater, and she beat on the window with her fists, trying to attract the attention of the van driver who had drawn up next to them.

  "Help me!" she screamed. "Help me!"

  But the van driver was talking on his cell phone, and he obviously thought that Siobhan was simply fooling around. He gave her a wink and a nod of his head, and then the lights changed and they were off again, past Summerhill, past the railway station, and out along the road which ran close beside the wide glassy waters of the River Lee.

  The man drove very fast, with only one hand on the wheel. Siobhan wrestled with the door handle again, but he reached across and snatched her wrist, gripping it painfully tight. "You can't getout, Siobhan, so I wouldn't even attempt it. Sit back and enjoy the rollercoaster. This is an adventure, darling much more exciting than going to college and designing coats! Y
ou can design a coat any day. A coat, for Christ's sake! But how often do you come face-to-face with fate?"

  "Let me out!" she shrieked. She kicked and struggled and her cheeks were hectic with panic. "Let me out! Let me out!"

  The man wrenched the steering wheel first to one side and then the other. The car slewed across the road, narrowly missing an oncoming truck. There was a shrill chorus of protesting tires and a cacophony of car horns.

  "You want to die so soon?" the man demanded, and there was an extraordinary note of triumph in his voice.