Blood Sisters

by Graham Masterton

  Katie looked carefully at the photographs, one by one. If their eyes hadn’t turned milky and their lips weren’t folded back in such a snarl, she could have believed that some of the horses were still alive.

  Tadhg said, ‘The list also shows what chemicals remained in their systems, if any. Most of them exhibited some traces of chemicals, not all of them illegal, although it was hard to detect any pharmacological activity in those animals that were the most decomposed. We call this “no effect”.

  ‘All the same, we did find some evidence of acepromazine, which is usually used to slow a racehorse’s heart rate and can actually make it run more slowly, depending on how much you dose them up with. We also found Ritalin, which is a stimulant, and etorphine, which is another stimulant, highly controversial, and ractopamine, which is a muscle-builder usually used in pig farming to give you meatier bacon.

  ‘I’ll tell you, before I trained in veterinary medicine, I never realized just how many drugs we’re eating and drinking and riding around on every day. It’s amazing that humans and animals aren’t all permanently stoned out of their minds. You buy a ham sandwich for your lunch and it’s like you’re eating two slices of bread and half of Phelan’s Pharmacy.’

  ‘Did you manage to determine if they were dead when they went over the cliff or still alive?’

  ‘From our point of view, as veterinarians, we guessed that they were probably still alive. That was because of the high proportion of broken legs amongst them. They were probably driven to the edge, and jumped, and tried to land on their feet, but the impact, of course, would have shattered their bones.

  ‘Your technical experts agreed with us, because of the distance from the foot of the cliff that their bodies were lying. If they had been dead already and simply tipped over the edge, they would have landed much closer. The tide had dragged some of the bodies out and then washed them back in again, so they weren’t all positioned exactly where they first fell, but quite a few of them were impacted on the rocks and hadn’t shifted at all.’

  ‘Some people,’ said Katie, shaking her head. ‘They have no humanity at all, do they?’

  ‘This isn’t the worst case of cruelty to horses I’ve ever had to deal with, not by a long chalk,’ said Tadhg. ‘In terms of scale, though, it’s the biggest, and until we completed our final tests we thought it was the most pointless. Throwing the poor creatures off the cliff instead of taking them to a knackery would have saved the offender a fair amount of money, but that didn’t explain why they their owner wanted to be rid of them in the first place – owner, or owners plural, we’re not sure which – but the indications are that they all came from the same stables.’

  ‘But you have found out why they wanted to be rid of them?’ Katie asked him.

  ‘Let’s just say that we believe we have a good idea. When we were testing for drugs we took hair samples from each of them, like you do when you test humans for drug use, especially if you suspect that they’ve stopped taking them for a while to avoid detection.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And all of the horses except for the foals showed indications of hair dye.’

  ‘Hair dye? You mean that their owners had been trying to disguise them or pass them off as other horses? Like, ringers? We thought they might have been, didn’t we, right from the beginning?’

  ‘Well, there are several reasons why horses have their hair dyed,’ said Tadhg. ‘The most innocuous is to cover up grey or white patches that might have appeared through sickness or age, so you can still show them off at dressage events. But of course horse thieves dye stolen horses to disguise them, and unscrupulous racehorse trainers dye horses to pass them off as other horses and fix the betting. Ringers, yes, in other words.’

  ‘And what makes you think they all came from the same stables?’ asked Katie.

  ‘There’s all kinds of indications. The majority of their racing plates all came from the same forge – Chinese, believe it or not.’ He frowned at his notebook and said, ‘The Qingdao Guanglongfa Precision Mould Forging Company in Beijing. They’re cheaper than most of the Irish plates but they’re very high quality.

  ‘On top of that, most of the animals still had undigested food in their stomachs, and apart from the foals all of them had been fed on Gain Racehorse Mix, which wasn’t really a surprise because that particular feed is used by dozens of Irish trainers. It’s the dye that convinced us, more than anything. Their hair had all been coloured with varying shades of the same brand of dye.’

  ‘Is there a special make of dye for horses?’

  ‘There’s no need. Horses’ hair is no different from human hair. The only difference between dyeing a horse’s hair and dyeing your own hair is the quantity you need. For a horse, of course, you need a bucketful. All the horses whose hair had been coloured had been dyed with Clairol.’

  ‘I think I need to get Detective Inspector O’Rourke in on this,’ said Katie. ‘Detective Dooley, too. If you can hold a minute.’

  She rang Detective Inspector O’Rourke, but Detective Dooley wasn’t at his desk and when she contacted him on his iPhone he told her he was out in Mayfield, interviewing a witness, and that he wouldn’t be back at Anglesea Street for at least half an hour.

  Detective Inspector O’Rourke came into her office wearing a pond-green sweater that was half a size too tight for him. Katie asked Tadhg to bring him up to date on his post-mortem examination of the horses from Nohaval Cove and then she said, ‘What do you think, Francis?’

  ‘It certainly sounds to me like there’s been some race-fixing going on,’ said Detective Inspector O’Rourke. ‘What with this exchange betting these days, there’s a fortune to be made in ringing if you can get away with it. You can bet on a horse to win, but equally you can bet on a horse to come last, and if you paint up some clapped-out no-hoper to look like the best runner in your stable, it’s ker-ching! you’ve made yourself a tidy little heap of euros.

  ‘From what you’ve told me, it looks like there’s one particular trainer who’s been doing it big-time but wanted to dispose of the evidence. Unfortunately he made the mistake of hiring Paddy Fearon to do it for him.’

  ‘Is it conceivable this same trainer might have planted the bomb in Paddy Fearon’s caravan?’ asked Katie. ‘If there really is so much money at stake and he’d found out we were going to bring Paddy Fearon in and question him...’

  ‘I’d be cautious about that,’ said Detective Inspector O’Rourke. ‘I know at least five Travellers who were more than happy out when they heard that Paddy Fearon had gone to meet his maker. One of them asked me who had done it because he wanted to shake them by the hand for saving him the bother. There’s plenty of other scummers that Fearon upset, too, not just Travellers. He got on the wrong side of Lochian ó Bron once over some drugs business, and you never want to upset the Provos if you prefer to stay physically intact, like.’

  ‘It’s urgent in any case that we find out who this trainer is,’ said Katie. ‘If he was using buckets of Clairol, he must have been making unusually large purchases of it, so if you can initiate checks on who supplies Clairol wholesale and also who supplies it online. I’ll ask Superintendent Pearse to have his officers make enquiries in all of the shops in Cork where you can buy Clairol, as well as all the hairdressers.

  ‘At the same time, we need to do some subtle mingling with the racing community. We can have a quiet chat with that reporter from the Racing Post, can’t we? What’s his name? Peter Driscoll. And Declan O’Donoghue from the Sun. Don’t tell me that one of them hasn’t caught a whiff of this and has at least some idea who’s been doing it.’

  ‘Charlie O’Reilly from the Ennisbrook Stud, he’s an old pal of mine,’ said Detective Inspector O’Rourke. ‘Him and me play golf together now and again. He knows just about everybody who’s anybody in the racing game. They’re very tight, though. They look after each other. It won’t be easy to get any of them to make a direct accusation.’

  ‘Well, let’s try all the same,�
�� said Katie. ‘Meanwhile, thank you, Tadhg. You’ve done a fantastic job. What are we doing with the horses’ bodies? I don’t want them cremated until this investigation is completed.’

  ‘I can arrange to have them stored in refrigeration trucks for now,’ said Tadhg. ‘That’s if the Garda can meet the expense.’

  ‘No bother, I’ll sign that off,’ said Katie. ‘Good luck to you so.’

  Tadhg Meaney gathered up his photographs, shook Katie’s hand, and left. However, Detective Inspector O’Rourke stayed behind.

  ‘I heard all about you being shot at last night,’ he told her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But as you can see, they missed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t find that very amusing myself. It does sound like there’s somebody out to get you. They’re having a triple funeral on Friday, for Horgan and those two young gardaí who got blown up. We don’t want a quadruple funeral, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Francis, I have two armed protection officers posted outside my house and they’re going to stay there, twenty-four hours a day, until we’re satisfied that the threat of my being shot at again is over.’

  ‘You need to be doggy wide, though. They may not shoot at your house next time. They may try to pick you off while you’re shopping, or sitting in a café, or anywhere at all.’

  Katie went over and patted his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Francis. I appreciate your concern, believe me. But I can take care of myself. Really. In fact, it’s my job to take care of you.’

  39

  Riona ushered Sister Aibrean across the stable yard, with the rain drumming on the large black umbrella that she held high over their heads. Sister Aibrean hesitated two or three times, but each time Riona pressed her hand against the small of her back and pushed her forward.

  ‘You shouldn’t do anything you’re going to regret when you have to account for yourself to Saint Peter,’ said Sister Aibrean.

  ‘That’s something that you and your sisters should have thought about when you were running Saint Margaret’s,’ Riona retorted.

  ‘We never knew that you felt so hard done by. Why didn’t you say anything at the time?’

  ‘Because if any of us ever tried to complain, we’d get a hard slap, that’s why, or have to go without our supper.’

  They had reached the stable door now. Top and bottom were bolted together, but it was slightly ajar and Riona went to push it open wider.

  ‘Isn’t there some way that I can make amends to you?’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘I’m an old woman now, Riona. I’m not the same woman I was forty years ago. I know that I have never been perfect. I have never pretended to be. But if I did you such a grievous wrong, I am deeply penitent, believe me, and I will go to church as soon as I get back home and confess to it and beg for the Lord’s forgiveness.’

  ‘The Lord may forgive you, Sister Aibrean, but I don’t and that’s the difference. Anyway, you won’t be going back home ever again, and you’ll never be setting foot in a church again, either.’

  Dermot must have heard them talking because he came to the stable door and opened it up wider.

  ‘All ready for firing up,’ he grinned and gave Riona the thumbs up.

  Sister Aibrean leaned over to one side so that she could see past him. The stable was brightly illuminated by two fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, which gave it a flat, unnatural appearance, as if it were a stage set for a school Nativity play. On the brick wall at the back hung a metal hay feeder, still half filled with straggly hay, and the floor was spread with straw. A training saddle and other tack hung from the walls at the sides.

  But Sister Aibrean’s attention was caught most of all by the shining stainless-steel machine that was standing in the centre of the stable. It looked like a metal coffin on four legs with wheels. Its raised cover was in two hinged halves, with an oval glass window in each of them, and these had been opened and folded down on each side. Standing on the floor next to it, and connected to it by an orange hose, was a large red cylinder of propane gas.

  ‘Come and take a look,’ said Riona, pushing Sister Aibrean further forward. ‘It’s not a brazen bull, I’m afraid. You can’t find anybody these days who hires out brazen bulls.’

  Sister Aibrean approached the metal coffin and stared at it with mounting dread. Inside there was a long rectangular tray, which had recently been polished into shining semicircles with a scouring pad.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘What is it for?’

  She knew very well what it was. She had seen different versions of it several times before, at weddings and church picnics. She was asking only because she wanted to hear Riona say that Dermot had set it up today for a different purpose altogether.

  ‘It’s a hog tray-roaster,’ said Riona. ‘I rented it from O’Malley’s Barbecues in Macroom. Some people say that the tray-roasters can cook a hog much better than a spit, much more even, with better crackling. The most important thing about it, though, is that you can roast a much bigger beast on it than you can with most spits. Ninety kilos. What do you weigh, Sister Aibrean? Not as much as ninety kilos. Only half that, I’d say.’

  Sister Aibrean turned to face her. ‘If your intention was to frighten me, Riona, then you’ve succeeded. You’ve frightened me very much indeed. Now, why don’t you please ask your man Dermot here to drive me back home and we’ll forget any of this ever happened? I could make a complaint about you to the guards, but I won’t.’

  ‘You still don’t have me, do you?’ said Riona. ‘You’re going nowhere at all. You’re going to suffer as I suffered – only you can thank that God of yours that your suffering isn’t going to last a fraction as long as mine has.’

  Sister Aibrean stared at her, with her lip quivering. She was about to say something in return, but she was so terrified now that she couldn’t manage to speak. She sank slowly to her knees and had to grip the side of the hog roaster to ease herself down. She knelt on the straw-strewn floor of the stable with her head bent and closed her eyes, and clasped her hands together in prayer.

  ‘If I were you, I would ask for some guidance from your precious Saint Eustace,’ said Riona. ‘If anybody understands what you’re about to go through, then he does. That’s if he’s in heaven, which he doesn’t deserve to be. What kind of a man allows his wife and children to be roasted alive because of his beliefs?’

  She looked across at Dermot and nodded, and Dermot depressed and twisted the two gas-control knobs so that the burner bars that ran along each side of the roaster popped into life, two rows of small blue flames. Sister Aibrean felt the heat rising out of the open roaster immediately.

  ‘Will you undress yourself or shall I?’ asked Riona.

  Sister Aibrean opened her eyes. ‘What? You expect me to undress?’

  ‘Oh, come on, girl,’ said Dermot. ‘Did you ever see a hog that was roasted in a nun’s habit? “I’ll have a bit of crackling, please, boy, and a slice of that scapular.”’

  Sister Aibrean tried to climb to her feet, but she was too weak to manage it unaided and when she reached out to the hog roaster to ease herself up it was already too hot for her to put her hand on it. She let out a peculiar moan of despair and looked wildly around the stable, as if she were expecting some miracle to occur to save her – like the hog roaster being magically transformed into a harmless wooden table, or an angel with a fiery sword walking through the wall to strike the heads off Riona and Dermot and carry her away in his arms.

  Riona, however, was growing impatient. She stood behind Sister Aibrean and wrenched off her raincoat, first one sleeve and then the other. Sister Aibrean struggled and grunted as her narrow shoulder blades were folded back. Riona, however, was far too strong and angry for her, and as she was yanking off the second sleeve Dermot came over and gripped Sister Aibrean’s upper arms so that she couldn’t fight back or pitch herself forwards or sideways on to the floor.

  ‘You can’t! You can’t! You must not!’ panted Sister Airbrean, but Riona ignored her and pulled off
her scarf and her cowl, revealing her short, tufty grey hair, with all its bald patches. Then she dragged her long black scapular over her head, threw it aside, and reached down to untie her woollen belt.

  ‘Help me! Help me! Oh, God in Heaven, will nobody help me?’

  ‘You’re absolutely right there, Sister,’ said Dermot. ‘Nobody will help you. There’s only us and the horses here at the moment and the horses don’t give a monkey’s.’

  Riona pulled up Sister Aibrean’s habit, almost suffocating her as she tried to wrestle it over her head. After that, with Dermot holding her ankles to stop her from kicking, she forced her on to her back and took down her underskirts.

  ‘No! Oh God, no!’ wept Sister Airbrean, as Riona tugged down her large white Primark drawers. She couldn’t reach down to cover herself because Dermot was holding her wrists. ‘No man has ever seen me undressed, ever! Please, Riona! Please! I beg you, as a woman!’

  ‘Chill the beans, would you, darling?’ said Dermot. He looked down at her bony body with its wrinkly, fawn-coloured skin, dotted with moles and patterned with spidery red veins. ‘I wouldn’t climb on you to hang wallpaper.’

  Riona went over to the bridles and reins and stirrups hanging on the wall and came back with two lengths of blue nylon cord. Grim-faced, she tied Sister Aibrean’s ankles together, and then her wrists. She tied them so tightly that she clenched her teeth while she was doing it.

  ‘I beg you, I beg you, I beg you,’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘Please, I beg you, don’t do this. Please, think again. I will pray for you, I promise. I will pray for your forgiveness for sixty minutes of every waking hour. Don’t think what you are doing to me, think what you are doing to your own immortal soul. I may burn here, yes, for a few terrible minutes, but you will burn in hell fire for ever.’

  Riona bent over her and looked her directly in the face, unblinking. ‘I don’t believe in hell, Sister, any more than I believe in heaven. How could I, after the way that you and all your sisters treated me? You were the living proof that there is no merciful God.’