A Terrible Beauty

by Graham Masterton

  Lucy said, "From a mythological point of view, this spot is very important. Every doorway to the Invisible Kingdom is hidden beneath a copse, or a small wood. This is because the roots of the trees wriggle deep into the ground and the branches reach high into the sky, so that they form a natural connection between the real world and the world of the fairies."

  "They call this Iollan's Wood," said Katie.

  "Well, yes, that fits in. Iollan was one of the greatest of the Fianna, the ancient warriors who could visit the Invisible Kingdom whenever they wanted to. Iollan even had a fairy mistress, called Fair Breast, and a very jealous mistress she was, too."

  "I hate to put a damper on this," Mr. Kelly interrupted, "but my daughter died here. I don't think I really want to hear about fairies."

  Lucy took off her sunglasses. "When the Irish speak of 'fairies,' Mr Kelly, most people think of cheerful little leprechauns out ofFinian's Rainbow. But Irish fairies are something different altogether. They strangle babies in the middle of the night. They can turn men into dogs. They'll dance in the road in front of you when you're driving, so that you don't see that bridge parapet or that on-coming truck, and when you do, it's far too late."

  "My daughter was killed by a psychopath, Professor Quinn, not a fairy."

  "Are you a religious man, Mr. Kelly?" Lucy asked him.

  "Yes, I am."

  "Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "So you subscribe to the idea that there's another world, beyond this one?"

  "Yes, in that sense, I guess I do."

  Lucy walked around him, and in an unexpectedly intimate gesture, began to rub his shoulders. "You need to relax more, Mr. Kelly. You should open your mind to other realities. If you believe in heaven and hell, why can't you believe in the Invisible Kingdom?"

  Mrs. Kelly looked anxious, and took hold of her husband's hand.

  Lucy said, "The answer to your daughter's death lies right here. She was sacrificed to the witch Mor-Rioghain by somebody who thought that they could summon the witch from the land of the fairies and ask her for anything their heart desired. Somebody who truly believed that it was possible."

  "Whoever it was-they must have been out of their mind."

  "Do you think you're out of your mind, because you get down on your knees every Sunday and pray to a divine being that you've never heard, and never seen, and for whose existence you have absolutely no proof whatsoever?"

  Mr. Kelly pulled Lucy's hands away from his shoulders. "I came here to mourn my daughter, Professor Quinn. I didn't expect to have a lecture on comparative mythology."

  "I'm sorry," said Lucy. "I'm really sorry. I just thought that I could help you to understand why your daughter died. It wasn't a meaningless act of sadism. It was done for a purpose, no matter how cruel and inexplicable that purpose might seem."

  "I think you could leave us alone for a while, if you don't mind."

  "Of course. I'm really sorry."

  Mr. Kelly turned away. Katie took Lucy's arm and led her back down the field, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Kelly standing in the rain on the angled, plowed ridge where Fiona's body had been discovered. As they neared the farmyard, Lucy said, "I hope I didn't upset them too much. I only wanted them to understand that Fiona didn't die for no reason at all."

  "I don't think they're very receptive to ancient Celtic rituals at the moment," said Katie.

  Inside the farmhouse, John Meagher was waiting for them. "Can I offer you a cup of tea?" he asked them. "My mother's baked some fresh scones if you're hungry."

  He took their raincoats and hung them up on pegs in the hallway. In the kitchen, Katie could hear his mother coughing and clattering plates. They went through to the living room where a turf fire was sullenly smoldering in the grate. "Please, sit down."

  Katie sat on the sofa and John sat quite close to her. She could smell peaty soil and aftershave on his sweater. Lucy sat close to the fire, holding her hands out and rubbing them briskly. "I never knew that there was anyplace socold, and sodamp."

  "You came to Ireland specifically to look into these murders?" John asked her.

  "Oh, yes. My department head was really enthusiastic when I told him about it, and the university has given me very generous expenses. You don't very often get the chance to investigate a ritual sacrifice in the flesh, if you know what I mean. Most of the time you're dealing with illegible medieval inscriptions or crumbling old sixteenth-century documents. This is totally different. This is living, breathing mythology."

  John turned to Katie and said, "I saw you on television this afternoon. You've made an arrest."

  "That's right. The evidence is pretty convincing all right."

  "So I'm not a suspect any longer?"

  Katie laughed. "Did I ever say you were?"

  "It's your job, isn't it, to suspect everybody?"

  "I never suspectedyou."

  "Why not? It's my farm, isn't it? Who else would have found it easier to lay that poor girl's body out in the field like that?"

  She looked at him very hard. He needed a haircut and a shave. His black hair was curling over his collar, the stubble on his chin was like coal dust. His cornflower-blue eyes seemed to be telling her things, telling her secrets. She willed him to look away but he wouldn't look away and in the end Lucy said, "Well " as if she had interrupted a deeply intimate moment.

  Katie said, "We're still waiting for the results of some of our forensic tests, but I'm ninety-nine percent certain that we've got the right man."

  Mr. and Mrs. Kelly came into the farmhouse and John cleared a heap of newspapers off the sofa for them. His mother came coughing out of the kitchen with a tea tray and platefuls of scones and slices of rich fruit brack. Mrs. Kelly said, "I wish you'd known Fiona. She was such an interesting girl. So romantic, soadventurous. She was never afraid of anything."

  Mr. Kelly said, "This Tómas Ó Conaill character does he have any kind of record?"

  "I'm afraid yes. We've only ever managed to have him convicted for theft and intimidation, but he's extremely violent. He almost killed a girl last year and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he was responsible for a few other murders that we don't even know about. He's a Traveler, you see, and it's extremely difficult to get other Travelers to give evidence against him, even though most of them detest him. There's also the problem of correct identification. We know him as Tómas but his real name might not be. Even the Traveler children call themselves by all kinds of different names. It's a defense system."

  "But you seriously think Tómas Ó Conaill killed Fiona because he believes in this-witch?"

  Katie nodded. "That's why experts like Professor Quinn can be so useful to us. They can give us an insight into what his motive was. Otherwise, her death looks completely inexplicable."

  "How long before he goes on trial?"

  "Not for months yet. We still have to finish our investigation and send a book of evidence to the prosecutor's office. But I'll keep in touch with you, and let you know when he's going to go to court. In my experience it's a very important part of the grieving process, seeing a murderer convicted for what he did."

  Mr. Kelly said, "I want to thank you for what you're doing. I'm sorry if I lost my temper back there. You've been very understanding, both of you."

  Katie took hold of his hand. "I'm going to make sure that Ó Conaill is punished for what he did to your daughter, Mr. Kelly. I'm not just determined, I'm passionate about it."

  They talked for a little while longer. They finished their tea but the scones remained untouched. As they left the farmhouse, John came up to Katie and said, "Do you think we could talk? I don't mean now, but maybe tomorrow or the day after."

  "What is it?" she asked him.

  "Nothing special. It's just that-well, I think I need somebody to talk to."

  She hesitated for a moment. The rain fell softly between them, as if they were being draped in fine wet veils. "All right," she said at last
. "I'll be at home tomorrow, lunchtime, in Cobh. Look, here's my address. Call me before you come. It'll only be leek-and-potato soup and soda bread, if you don't mind that."

  "Thanks. I don't mean to be a pain the rear end, but-"

  "Everybody needs somebody to talk to, once in a while," she told him, and walked back to join Lucy Quinn and the Kellys by the car.

  40

  Katie dropped Mr. and Mrs. Kelly off at the Country Club Hotel, a sprawling custard-yellow collection of buildings on the high cliffs that overlooked the river.

  "I'll send a car for you tomorrow morning," she told them. "You can come into my office and I'll be able to show you exactly how much progress we've been able to make."

  "Thank you again for everything," said Mr. Kelly. His voice was harsh with grief. Katie was tempted to tell him that she knew how agonizing it was to lose your only child, but she decided that it wouldn't help. The Kellys had enough pain to deal with, without having to feel sorry forher,too.

  "You want me to run you back to your hotel?" she asked Lucy.

  "I was hoping we could maybe have a drink. There's one or two things I wouldn't mind discussing with you."

  "All right. But I can't be very long."

  She drove up the steep slope of Military Hill until they reached the Ambassador Hotel. It was a fine Victorian building in pale orange brick, with cast-iron pillars and arches, overlooking the higgledy-piggledy nineteenth-century houses that clustered on the hills of north Cork, with all their hundreds and hundreds of chimney pots.

  "Some building," said Lucy, as she climbed out of the car.

  "This used to be a British army hospital," Katie explained. "And these streets around here-this is where they filmed a lot ofAngela's Ashes.Apparently they thought that Cork looked more like Limerick than Limerick."

  "Sounds like indisputable Irish logic to me."

  They went inside the hushed, deeply carpeted bar. Lucy ordered a vodka tonic while Katie kept to a sparkling Ballygowan water. They sat together on one of the floral couches. Lucy tried to wipe some of the mud off her boots with a paper coaster. "I should have invested in a pair of rubbers, shouldn't I?"

  "You've seen the murder scene, anyway," said Katie. "Are you convinced now that Tómas Ó Conaill was trying to raise Mor-Rioghain?"

  "Absolutely. One hundred percent. That locale has everything that the sacrificial ritual requires."

  "God, it's such a sad waste of life."

  "Not if you believe in Mor-Rioghain it isn't."

  "Youdon't believe in her?"

  "Who knows? There are so many powers in this world that we don't understand. So many unexplained mysteries."

  "I just want to solve this one."

  Lucy crossed her long, long legs and leaned closer. Her teeth were almost perfect and there was a small beauty spot on her left cheekbone. "This really means a whole lot to you, this case, doesn't it? Not just Fiona Kelly. The other women, too."

  "Yes. They were all killed and forgotten and they never even got a Christian burial. Even when a murderer's dead I don't think that he should be allowed to get away with it."

  "I didn't realize-"

  "What?"

  Lucy's eyes were very bright. "I've never met anybody so passionate about anything before, that's all."

  Katie didn't know what to say. She had never met anybody like Lucy before-a woman who seemed to be so friendly and open, and yet who gave her the feeling that she was hiding the Lucy that she really was, and hiding her very deeply. All the same, she found her easy to be with, and she enjoyed her sexiness. Jimmy the barman had walked past their couch more than half a dozen times since they had first sat down, and given them a wink.

  Katie's cell phone warbled. "Detective Superintendent Maguire."

  "Katie! Thank Christ! It's Paul! I'm glad I caught you, pet! Listen, my car won't start and I'm supposed to be having a lunch meeting at South's in twenty minutes with the fellow from the bank, regarding this building development. I called for a hackney but they can't get here in less than half an hour. I was wondering "

  Katie looked at her watch. "You want a lift? All right. I just have to run Professor Quinn back to Jury's Inn."

  Lucy said, "Is everything okay?"

  "It is, of course. My husband's car won't start so I'll have to drive out to Cobh and pick him up. Perhaps we can have that drink later."

  "I could come with you. We can talk on the way."

  "If you really don't mind-"

  "Of course I don't mind. I'm a stranger in a strange land, and I could use some company, apart from anything else."

  • • •

  They drove eastward on the wide dual carriageway toward Cobh, the windshield wipers intermittently clearing away the misty rain.

  Lucy said, "If I'm really excited about this case, I hope you don't think that I'm being ghoulish. This is only the second time I've come across a contemporary ritual sacrifice."

  "What was the first?"

  "The first?"

  "The first ritual sacrifice. Before this one."

  "That-oh,that. A farmer in Minnesota sacrificed his whole family to the Wendigo. That's a kind of weird creature that's supposed to live in the woods. It's similar to the Irish banshee because it only appears when people are about to die."

  "What did the farmer do?"

  "You really want to know? He threw his wife and their three children one by one into the grinding machine that he used for pig food. Alive. The coroner reckoned that they were still conscious even when they were minced right up to their waist. His defense tried to plead insanity but I was brought in as an expert witness, and I showed that everything he had done was in strict accordance with Native American stories about the Wendigo. You're insane when you kill people for no reason whatsoever. But you're not insane if you're scrupulously observing some specific mythological ritual with the express intention of gaining some advantage out of it. In this case, the farmer was almost bankrupt and he believed that the Wendigo would kill his creditors for him. Wacky? For sure. Disturbed, yes. But not clinically insane. He was convicted on murder two and given life imprisonment."

  "So you don't think that Tómas Ó Conaill is insane?"

  "Hard to tell for sure, without meeting him. But it took a whole lot of pretty obscure mythological knowledge to do what he did, as well as determination, and physical stamina, too. Think how hard it must have been to scrape the flesh off the legs and arms of a living girl, then completely dismember her, and drive her out to the middle of a field so that you can spread her out in the special pattern that Mor-Rioghain is supposed to insist on. Your perpetrator is completely rational, if you ask me, Katie. He's calm and methodical and the only thing that makes him different from any other calm and methodical person is that he's an absolute believer in Celtic mythology. He wastotallyconvinced that Mor-Rioghain would reappear and give him everything that he deserves."

  Katie left the dual carriageway and drove up the ramp toward Cobh, overtaking a tractor. "What do you think about John Meagher?" she wanted to know.

  "John Meagher? I'm not entirely sure. He's your typical depressed farmer but have you ever met a farmer whowasn'tdepressed? It kind of goes with the territory, doesn't it? The hours, the weather, the isolation. But there's something else about John Meagher. Another dimension."

  Katie said, "He inherited the farm when his father died. He says that he feels responsible for carrying on the family business, but if you ask me he's not cut out for it at all. He's practically bankrupt."

  "Was he ever a suspect?"

  "Not really. He was working on the farm when Fiona Kelly went missing. His dairy girl testified to that."

  "Well it's quite possible that the man who abducted Fiona Kelly may not have been the same man who murdered her. Quite a few ritual killers work with partners, or in groups. You know, like witches' covens, or pedophile rings."

  "I can't see a cultured man like John Meagher working in partnership with a scumbag like Tómas Ó Conaill."

  "
All the same, if his farm is failing "

  "You mean he might have wanted to ask Mor-Rioghain to save his business?"

  "I don't know. I'm only speculating. But I definitely think there's something creepy about him, him and that mother of his. He reminds me of Norman Bates."

  "Oh, stop. I think he's charming."

  "I know what I'm talking about, Katie. I've interviewed hundreds of people who believe in everything from UFOs to giant monsters. They're always the same-charming, rational, you name it-but after a while you gradually begin to understand that there's a very important screw loose."

  They crossed the stone bridge that took them onto Great Island, past a bleak ruined keep with crows flapping around it. It looked like the landscape on an ill-starred Tarot card. Katie said, "I think that John is simply an ordinary decent man who's trying extremely hard to take care of his widowed mother and to keep up his family honor. If he's guilty of anything, it's biting off more than he could chew."