Buried

by Graham Masterton

  ‘The problem is, Chiz, you didn’t scrub hard enough. See, there was a bloodstain left on the bedroom carpet.’

  ‘I know that, Bobby. I saw it, and we scrubbed it. That bloodstain, we even scrubbed it with the bleach. You never would have known it was a bloodstain by the time we finished with it.’

  Bobby Quilty pulled a face. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t have known that it looked like a bloodstain, but the polls knew. They took a sample and they checked the DNA and now they have all the evidence they need that John Meagher was here, no matter how much you swore that he wasn’t.’

  ‘I couldn’t help that, Bobby! Me and Sorsh, we did everything we could to make sure that the place was spotless. I don’t even know what D and A look like, otherwise we would have scrubbed them off, too.’

  ‘It’s DNA and it doesn’t fecking look like anything, you tube! It’s micro-fecking-scopic! You should have lifted up the whole fecking carpet and taken it down to the dump!’

  ‘I didn’t realize that, Bobby. Honest to God, cross my heart, if I’d have known that there was anything microscopic there at all, I would have taken the carpet down along with the bed. I would have thrown away the whole fecking bedroom if I could have.’

  ‘Do you know something, Chiz? You astound me sometimes,’ said Bobby Quilty. ‘If you didn’t exist, I think they’d have to invent you, just to prove how fecking stupid it’s possible for one man to be.’

  ‘Away on, big man,’ said Chisel, with a sheepish smile. He was beginning to think that Bobby Quilty had come around simply to give him a telling-off and that was all. But Bobby Quilty kept his hand resting on Chisel’s shoulder and abruptly his expression turned very grave, as if he had been keeping the bad news until last.

  ‘The reason that this is a problem, Chiz, is that the polls will be knocking on your door here tomorrow morning bright and early and they’ll be pulling you in for questioning.’

  ‘I won’t tell them anything, Bobby! You know that! I won’t say a word! Jesus, I’ve never been a tout and never will be!’

  ‘Yes, Chiz, I know that. But they have this DNA, see, and whatever you say they can prove to a court that John Meagher was here, and they can call on witnesses to prove that you and Sorsh were here at the very same time that he was.’

  ‘What witnesses? Who can prove that we were here? All we have to do is say that we weren’t!’

  ‘So if you weren’t here, where the feck were you? And what are you going to say when they put the delivery lads from half the takeaways in Blackpool on to the stand and ask them who it was who answered the door when they came around here with two meat feast pizzas or a chicken kebab?’

  ‘We don’t have to say nothing at all, Bobby. That’s the law. The polls can’t make you discriminate yourself.’

  ‘But what if they say to you that you and Sorsh are both guilty of keeping John Meagher here against his will, and even if you say nothing you’re still going down for it, the both of you. And then what if they say to you, “Chisel, wee man, if you confess that you kept him here, if you admit it, and if you tell us who asked you to do it, then you won’t face any charges at all, and you can both skip off free?” What if they say that to you, Chiz? Do you think you’ll be able to keep your bake shut, even then?’

  ‘Of course, Bobby. What do you think? You wouldn’t squeal, would you, Sorsh? And neither would I. You can count on us, big man, I can tell you that.’

  ‘You’ve spent some time up on Rathmore Road, haven’t you, Chiz? Like it up there, did you? Food was cordon bleu, was it? And how about your cell-mates? All decent spuds, were they? None of them wanted to stick it up the old chocolate speedway? And how about you, Sorsh? How do you think you’ll enjoy the women’s wing in Limerick? There’s some desperate rugmunchers in there, from what I’m told.’

  Chisel tried to lift Bobby Quilty’s hand off his shoulder, but Bobby Quilty gripped him even tighter, so that he winced.

  ‘What more can I say to you, Bobby?’ Chisel appealed to him. ‘If the polls are coming in the morning, maybe you could find us somewhere to hide out for a while – you know, until this all blows over.’

  ‘This is never going to blow over, Chiz. Wherever you go, the polls are going to find you, especially with that mankin’ tattoo round your throat.’

  Sorcia crushed out her cigarette in an ashtray that was already heaped with crushed-out cigarettes. ‘So what are you going to do, Bobby?’ she demanded, with a catch in her throat. ‘Chuck us in the river, or what?’

  ‘Ach, come on, you two have been brave good when times were good, and you’ve been brave good, too, when times were bad. The bogging state of that river, I wouldn’t do a thing like that to you. I’ll make it quick and easy, you won’t feel a thing.’

  ‘You’re going to kill us?’

  ‘Sorsh, doll, I didn’t come round here for a cup of tea. If I had my druthers, I’d give you both tickets for the Maldives, or Lanzarote at least, but money’s tighter than a duck’s arse these days. I can’t risk you being questioned by the polls and that’s all there is to it. I have to think of my business, and all the people who depend on me.’

  ‘Do you know what you are, Bobby Quilty?’ said Sorcia. ‘You’re the Devil himself, that’s who you are. The Devil Incarnate. I know you’re going to hell when you die because that’s where you came from. You’ll be going off home, that’s all.’

  With that, she took two steps forward and spat in his face. A lump of tobacco-stained phlegm slid down his cheek and dripped on to his shirt collar.

  He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, then wiped his hand on his sleeve. He made no move to retaliate, but kept his eyes riveted on Sorcia as if he could kill her just by staring at her.

  ‘Bryan, Feilim,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘Come here, would you, lads, and take hold of these two for me? Go easy, though. They’re good and loyal friends of mine, aren’t you, Chiz?’

  ‘Bobby, you don’t have to do this, you truly don’t,’ said Chisel. ‘Me and Sorsh could be down to Ringaskiddy and off on the first ferry before it even gets light. We’d be off and away and you’d never see us again ever so long as you live.’

  ‘And what do you think running away is going to prove? Running away is the same as admitting you’re guilty. And you don’t think the polls have discovered the electrified telephone yet? They only have to call the British cops and tell them to watch out for a feller with a pair of hands tattooed around his neck and a fag-smoking floozy and you’ll be back here and banged up before you can say that shite is thicker than water, and that you two are thicker than shite.’

  ‘Bobby, I’m pleading with you now. Don’t do this. I thought that you and me were like brothers.’

  ‘I did have a brother once,’ said Bobby Quilty. ‘In fact, if you must know, I was twins. My brother was stillborn, and my mam never forgave me, ever, not until the day she died herself, as if I’d strangled him in the womb to make sure that I always got the best of everything.’

  ‘Bobby—’

  ‘Shut your teeth, Chiz,’ Sorcia snapped at him. ‘You’re sounding like you sit down to pee. You know that the Big Feller’s come here to do us, no matter what you say, so why don’t we just get it over with?’

  She turned to Bobby Quilty and said, ‘Come on, then, wee man. Do what you came here for. Or would you rather we went outside and stepped under a bus, so it wouldn’t look like you who’d done us?’

  ‘You have a quare ticket on you, Sorsh, I’ll say that,’ said Bobby Quilty, shaking his head. ‘Come on, lads, let’s take them through to the bedroom.’

  The two shaven-headed men came into the living room. In the light, they looked surprisingly young and not nearly as hard as they had first appeared when they were standing on the landing in the shadows. The man in the black demonic T-shirt was missing his upper front teeth and wore gold hoop earrings, while the man in the denim shirt had a livid harelip scar.

  ‘Where in the name of Jesus did you find these two scobes?’ said Sorcia.
‘Did the circus leave them behind?’

  ‘The bedroom,’ Bobby Quilty repeated, still staring at Sorcia as if he could happily kill her there and then.

  ‘Don’t you fecking touch me,’ said Sorcia as the man in the black demonic T-shirt came towards her. ‘I’ll go there under my own steam, thanks very much.’

  She pushed her way past Bobby Quilty and across the landing to the open bedroom door. The man in the denim shirt approached Chisel, but Chisel waved him away and followed Sorcia. His mouth was puckered tight and he had tears in his eyes. He looked up appealingly at Bobby Quilty as he passed him, but Bobby Quilty simply patted him on the back and said, ‘You’ll be grand, Chiz, don’t you worry. It comes to all of us, you know, sooner or later. Think of my brother. He never even got to see the sun for one day.’

  The five of them crowded into the untidy bedroom and stood around the mattress with its stained, twisted sheets. The only light in the room came from a pink china lamp on the floor beside the mattress, with no shade on it.

  ‘Okay, let’s have you taking your clothes off,’ said Bobby Quilty.

  ‘What?’ said Sorcia.

  ‘I want you in the nip , the both of you.’

  ‘Oh, I see, you want me scundered, as well as dead. Forget it, wee man. There’s no fecking way.’

  ‘Feilim!’ said Bobby Quilty, and the man in the denim shirt bounded across the mattress in his boots. Sorcia was clutching her dressing gown around her as tightly as she could, but he grasped the lapels in both hands and wrenched it wide open. Then he roughly turned her around, pulling the collar down at the back and dragging her arms out of the sleeves. Within a few seconds she was standing there naked and pale and freckled. Her rounded stomach was decorated with a multicoloured tattoo of a parrot, its wings spread wide, rising from her pubic hair as if it were launching itself out of its nest and its tail was the string of her tampon. Her legs were bruised and marbled with blue varicose veins.

  She made no attempt to cover herself, but stood there defiantly with her hands resting on her hips, as if to say, You can do what you like to me, you Devil, but I refuse to be ashamed.

  Without being prompted, Chisel crossed his arms and lifted off his sweat-stained orange polo shirt and then unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his faded blue jeans. He left his holey socks on, but he was wearing no underpants. Apart from the tattoos around his neck of the two hands throttling him, the rest of his body was covered with snakes, and lions, and naked women, and on his sunken breastbone the face of Jesus, with His crown of thorns, but looking more like Bob Geldof than Jesus..

  ‘Lie down on the bed,’ said Bobby Quilty.

  ‘Bobby,’ said Chisel. ‘I’m begging you, man. Look at me here, bollock-naked, and Sorcia, too, no threat you at all. If we can do this on your say-so, do you really think we’d squeal to the polls about you?’

  ‘Lie down,’ Bobby Quilty told him.

  Awkwardly, Chisel and Sorcia lay down next to each other, their arms by their sides, but their eyes darting around them – from Bobby Quilty to the man in the black demonic T-shirt, to the man in denim. Chisel tried to hold Sorcia’s hand, but she snatched it away.

  ‘Now, turn back to back,’ said Bobby Quilty.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, lie with your backs to each other, and real close, so that your heads are touching.’

  They did as they were told, although as he turned over Chisel suddenly let out a high, girlish laugh. He was beginning to think that this was all an elaborate joke, just to frighten them. He couldn’t see any weapons. He knew for a fact that Bobby Quilty never carried a gun in case he was stopped and searched by the guards, and neither of the two men appeared to be armed, unless the man in the denim shirt had a gun tucked into his belt.

  ‘That’s it, Chiz, good man yourself,’ said Bobby Quilty. ‘Heads together. That’s cracker.’

  He went to the bedroom door, opened it wider and stepped out on to the landing. There was silence for a while, except for Sorcia occasionally coughing and the man in the black demonic T-shirt monotonously sniffing. That, and the muffled sound of the traffic outside.

  Chisel was tempted to call out to Bobby and ask him how much longer they were going to have to lie here, as naked as the day they were born, with the backs of their heads pressed uncomfortably hard together and Sorcia’s sweaty buttocks sticking to his.

  He had already taken a breath when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs, light and businesslike and quick. He heard Bobby Quilty saying something like, ‘Ready for you, Sandy.’

  Sandy? he thought. Who for feck’s sake is Sandy?

  The bedroom door was flung wide open now, so hard that it banged against the wall. A thin man dressed in a black sweater and grey trousers stalked in, like the long-legged scissorman, his head completely covered in a black balaclava. He dropped to his knees beside the mattress and before either Chisel or Sorcia could react he gripped Chisel’s tufty hair by the roots. Chisel said, ‘Ow!’ but without any hesitation, the man pressed the muzzle of a silenced automatic hard against Chisel’s forehead and fired.

  Chisel’s head swelled up and blood and brains squirted out of his ear. Sorcia’s head ballooned, too, and her face exploded all over the pillow.

  The man in the black demonic T-shirt retched and covered his mouth with his hand and said, ‘Jesus Christ!’ The man in the denim shirt stared at the bloody hollows that had once been Sorcia’s face, his hand held up to his forehead as if he were stunned. Her jawbone was hanging wide open so that she looked as stunned as him. One of her brown eyes was hanging off the edge of the pillow on the end of its stringy pink optic nerve, peering anxiously down at the floor.

  Bobby Quilty came back into the bedroom and looked down at the two naked bodies lying on the mattress, with their mangled heads. There was no emotion in his face, but his tongue was roaming around inside his mouth as if he were trying to dislodge shreds of his lunch that might still be stuck between his teeth.

  ‘Grand job, Sandy,’ he said at last. ‘Nothing like a suicide pact to sort out a feller’s problems, especially mine.’

  Sandy quickly unscrewed the silencer and dropped it into his pocket. Then he lifted Chisel’s right hand and bent his fingers one by one around the butt of the automatic, leaving his trigger-finger until last. Finally, he angled Chisel’s arm and bent back his wrist so that it would appear that he had shot himself in the forehead, killing Sorcia at the same time.

  ‘Nice piece, that SIG Sauer,’ he said. ‘Fierce pity to leave it.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ Bobby Quilty told him. ‘With what I’m paying you for this, you’ll be able to buy yourself another five like it. Now, away with you.’

  Sandy got up and left, and after Bobby Quilty had taken a quick look around he and his two ‘business associates’ left, too. They clattered down the stairs, but as they were letting themselves out of the front door a noisy moped pulled into the kerb outside. A young man climbed off it and started to unbuckle a large red food-delivery bag on the back.

  ‘What you got there, wee man?’ Bobby Quilty asked him.

  ‘Takeaway order from the Golden Wok, for Chisel.’

  Bobby Quilty stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. ‘Nobody called Chisel living here. Not any more, any road.’

  Forty

  By the time Katie arrived at the mortuary Dr Kelley was already at work. She was closing the gaping Y-shaped incision she had made into Órla Doherty’s chest, using quick, tiny sutures that were almost as neat as a dressmaker’s stitches.

  ‘Good morning to you, DS Maguire,’ she said, looking up from her suturing and standing back. She was a tall, willowy woman in her mid-forties, with a long, exotic face. Her eyes were very dark, even without make-up, and her eyebrows were finely arched. Even in her long white lab coat, Katie thought that she looked like a figure from an ancient Egyptian frieze.

  ‘A pure tragedy, this one,’ she added. ‘I thought I’d grown impervious over the years, do
you know? But to see the little ones murdered like this, for some historical grudge—’

  Katie nodded. The bodies of the other members of the Doherty family were lying side by side against the far wall, all three of them draped in dark green sheets. They were lit up by the shafts of sunshine that fell from the clerestory windows high above them, as if they were lying in a chapel.

  ‘Any other injuries, apart from the gunshot trauma to the head?’

  ‘A few fresh bruises on the father’s and mother’s arms, as if they were manhandled. Your technical experts took pictures and they thought it might be possible to make a match from one of the bruises on the father’s left biceps because his assailant was wearing two rings.’

  Katie went up to the side of the stainless-steel autopsy table. She knocked accidentally against the analogue scale that was used to weigh dissected organs, such as livers and brains, and its metal pot dolefully clanked like a funeral bell.

  Órla’s eyes were closed and the way in which her face had been distorted by the fragmentation bullet made her look as if she were dreaming some surrealistic dream.

  ‘You would have to check her medical records to find out whether she knew it, but she was showing early signs of systolic heart failure,’ said Dr Kelley. ‘If it had been left untreated, she may have had only a few years left before she suffered a serious or even fatal heart attack.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to worry about that now,’ said Katie sadly. Like Dr Kelley, she had seen scores of dead bodies, including children, but there was something about this whole family lying here that was particularly poignant. If they had really been killed in retaliation for the Langtrys, it made her feel sorry for Ireland, too. Could there still be people in this country with such long memories and such a lack of forgiveness?

  ‘Once I’ve closed Mrs Doherty here, I’ll be finished,’ said Dr Kelley. ‘I’ll send you my full report as soon as I’ve written it up, but the long and the short of it is that all four of them were killed by a single devastating gunshot wound to the head. The boy was hit in the back of the head and not at point-blank range like the others, so it’s possible that he may have been trying to escape when he was shot. Your technical experts had some theories about that, and about the sequence in which they were killed.’