White Bones

by Graham Masterton

  “What are you going to do, Paul?” she asked him.

  “What am I going to do about what?”

  “Dave MacSweeny and his building materials, of course. I’m really worried that something’s going to happen to you.”

  He poured himself another whiskey. “Can’t you give me some Garda protection?” he asked, wryly.

  “Seriously, I wish I could. But if I asked for police protection I’d have to explain why.”

  “You’re a guard. Why can’t you protect me?”

  “I’ve been trying to, believe me. But I can’t watch you twenty-four hours of the day, can I? And there’s no knowing what Dave MacSweeny will do next.”

  “What are you suggesting, then? That I do a Charlie Flynn and run off to Florida?”

  “You could get out of Cork for a while.”

  “What good would that do? I couldn’t stay away for ever, and what would I do for money? Anyway, I’m a Corkman. I was born here and brought up here and this is my home, and I’m not going to be frightened away by some waste of space like Dave MacSweeny. I’ll think of something. Something will turn up.”

  “Something like what?”

  “I was talking to Ricky Deasy today. He wants me to invest in a housing project out near Carrigaline.”

  “How can you afford to invest in a housing project when you have to raise six hundred and fifty thousand euros to pay back Winthrop Developments?”

  “I can’t. But the land that Ricky Deasy wants to build on doesn’t have planning permission, not at the moment.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of an investment to me.”

  “No – but it’s going dirt-cheap as agricultural land and there could be a hefty EU subsidy for anyone who takes it on to farm it.”

  “You’ve lost me, Paul. You’re thinking of taking up farming?”

  “Of course not. But Ricky’s uncle is the deputy chairman of An Bórd Pleanála and once we’ve bought the land we could see about fixing a change of use. You know, a little sweetener for Jimmy’s uncle and a couple of the other board members.”

  “Paul, you’re desperate! You’re just digging yourself in deeper and deeper!”

  He put down his drink and took hold of her hand. “I have to do something big, Katie. I have to do something dramatic. Otherwise I’m never going to get myself out of this mess, ever; and I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life watching my back for Dave MacSweeny.”

  Katie reached up and stroked his bruised and swollen cheek. “Tell me a joke,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Tell me a joke, the way you used to, when we first went out together.”

  “I’m fighting for my very life here, Katie. This isn’t any time to be telling jokes.”

  “I know. But just for me.”

  He looked into her eyes as if he were looking for evidence that she wasn’t mocking him. Then he said, “There was this Kerryman who spent an hour staring at a carton of orange-juice because it said ‘concentrate’.”

  Katie gave him the faintest of smiles and kissed him. He still smelled the same as always, too much Boss aftershave. But it was strangely reassuring, as if the past hadn’t completely disappeared; as if yesterday were still lying in the chest-of-drawers upstairs, sleeping in the tissue-paper that Seamus’ baby-clothes were wrapped in.

  39

  When she came into her office at 8:35 the next morning, Dermot O’Driscoll was waiting for her, along with a thin, serious-faced man in a dark business suit. Even Dermot looked tidier than usual: he had crammed his shirt-tails into his waistband and even made an attempt to straighten his livid green necktie.

  “Katie, this is Patrick Goggin from the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin.”

  Katie held out her hand and Patrick Goggin gave her a soft, recessive handshake.

  Dermot said, “Apparently we’re having some trouble with your friend Jack Devitt about these disappearances in 1915.”

  “I never said that Jack Devitt was any friend of mine.”

  “Figure of speech. Jack Devitt’s demanding that the British Ministry of Defence produces documentary evidence to show what happened to those women. Whether they were murdered on official orders, you see, or whether it was a renegade officer who took them, or whether it was just some fellow who was masquerading as a member of the Crown Forces. The trouble is, Devitt’s got official backing from Sinn Féin. Here in Cork, and in the Dáil, too. We could have a very embarrassing political situation here, unless we clear this up quick.”

  Patrick Goggin had a scrawny throat in which his Adam’s-apple rose and fell as he spoke, as if he was trying to regurgitate something unpleasant that he had eaten for breakfast. “Do you yet have any idea at all who might have abducted those women? Even an informed guess will do. There’s another summit meeting at Stormont next week and the last thing we need is Sinn Féin making an issue out of something that happened more than eighty years ago.”

  Katie shook her head. “I’m afraid we haven’t made much progress. I’m working closely with Dr Reidy, the State Pathologist, and also with an expert in Celtic mythology, Dr Gerard O’Brien. But, you know, these things take time.”

  “Haven’t you even got a theory about it? If the Crown Forces really did order those women to be abducted and murdered, it’s going to cause all manner of ructions. The Taoiseach is going to have to ask for an apology from the British government, and some form of compensation for their families, and the whole peace process is going to be knocked back months, or even years. Or even decades, for the love of God.”

  Katie said, “I’m sorry, Mr Goggin, but this is a very complex criminal investigation and I can’t cut any corners for the sake of politics. I don’t know who murdered those women and the chances are that I never will. As for the latest murder, we have a suspect in custody on the basis of very strong forensic evidence, and that’s all I can tell you.”

  Patrick Goggin rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, as if he had a headache. “I don’t think you quite understand the position, detective superintendent. We have to know for certain who murdered those women in 1915; and if it was a British soldier, acting on official orders, we have to find a way – well, let me put this the only way I can – we have to find a way of showing that it wasn’t. A rogue officer, we can deal with that, politically. A psychopath who dressed up in British Army uniform, that would be even better. I’m sure that I can count on you to come up with some kind of evidence that will exonerate the British Army of any direct culpability.”

  Katie said, coldly, “Evidence is evidence, sir. Facts are facts. If the British Army murdered those women deliberately, then I’m certainly not going to pretend that they didn’t.”

  Dermot lifted his hand and said, “Katie – ”

  But Katie said, “No, sir. I need to know what happened to those eleven women because it has a direct relevance to the Fiona Kelly murder case. They may have died eighty years ago, but they still deserve our respect, and our conscientious efforts to find out how they really died. They were women, sir. They were living, breathing women.”

  “Holy Mother of Jesus,” said Patrick Goggin. “Now we have feminist solidarity rearing its ugly head. An Garda Síochána is the guardian of the nation’s interests, detective superintendent, not the front line of the PC brigade.”

  “With all respect, sir – ” Katie began, but Dermot, behind Patrick Goggin’s back, shook his head and mouthed the word “No.” She knew what he was telling her. It wasn’t worth it. Politicians come and go, but police personnel stay on for years and years – hopefully to collect their pensions, and cook their favorite recipes in peace.

  “Yes?” said Patrick Goggin. “You were saying?”

  “I was simply saying that we’ll do everything we can to find out who abducted those women, sir, and how they died. And when we have… we’ll let you know. Of course. And as soon as we possibly can.”

  Patrick Goggin smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear. That’s exactly wha
t I wanted to hear.” He took out his wallet and produced a card. “There,” he said. “That’s my private number. If you want to discuss this case any further, or any other Garda business… well – ” and here he raised one eyebrow and gave her an extraordinary cherubic smile “ – you will let me know, won’t you?”

  He shook Katie’s hand and gave Dermot a mock Garda salute. Then he left Katie’s office and walked along the corridor with squeaking rubber shoes.

  He hadn’t reached the top of the stairs before Dermot burst into an explosion of laughter, and Katie shook her head in amazement.

  “He fancies you!” said Dermot. “After all that, he only fecking fancies you!”

  It was teeming with a fine, chilly rain when they arrived at Meagher’s Farm at Knocknadeenly. Mr and Mrs Kelly climbed out of the back of the car and stood looking around at the drab farm buildings and the churned-up mud and the naked poplar trees as if they couldn’t believe that anywhere so dreary could exist outside a movie set.

  “Jesus,” said Mr Kelly. “What a place to die.”

  “Actually, Fiona didn’t die here,” said Katie, gently. She opened a large golf umbrella so that she and Mrs Kelly could shelter under it. “She was killed quite a few miles away, and her remains were brought here for a very special reason. We’re fairly convinced that it was part of a pagan ritual.”

  “Jesus,” Mr Kelly repeated. He seemed overwhelmed.

  Lucy Quinn had been waiting in the front passenger seat for a while, her eyes concealed behind her purple-lensed spectacles, but at last she decided to get out. She was wearing a black raincoat, a black cashmere scarf and long black leather boots. Her bright red lipstick was the only spot of color in the whole gray morning, like the little girl’s coat in Schindler’s List.

  “I want to thank you for allowing me to bring Professor Quinn along,” Katie told the Kellys.

  “Not at all,” said Mr Kelly. He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “Anybody who can help… you know.”

  At that moment, John Meagher came out of the farmhouse, wearing a tweed cap and a tweed jacket with the collar turned up against the rain. He came up to Mr and Mrs Kelly and shook their hands in silence.

  Katie said, “John – this is Professor Lucy Quinn from UC Berkeley. She’s something of an expert in ancient rituals.”

  “You know what happened here?” John asked.

  “Yes,” said Lucy. “What can I say? It’s a tragedy.”

  John looked tired and he sounded as if he were going down with a very bad cold. “This is the last thing I need. I’ve had a hell of a year and now this. I tried to sell three milk-cows yesterday and nobody wanted to touch them. The local farmers seem to think I’m in league with Satan. They practically cross themselves whenever I walk into the pub.”

  “Do you mind if I see the place where you discovered the first eleven women?” asked Lucy.

  Katie turned to Mr and Mrs Kelly. “You can wait here for a while if you want to. Then we’ll walk to the place where they found Fiona.”

  Both Mr and Mrs Kelly were in tears. “That’s all right. You do whatever you have to do.”

  Katie followed John and Lucy to the back of the farmhouse, where the feedstore had already been completely demolished, and brick foundations laid. Lucy circled around the foundations for a while, stepping long-legged over the rubble, and then she stopped, and frowned, and looked left and right, as if she could sense a disturbance in the air. In the distance, a flock of hooded crows rose over the trees, not cawing, but circling, and eventually settling back on the branches.

  “This is where the bones were found? All mixed up?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I doubt if this was where their bodies were originally laid out, after they were killed. I would guess that their bodies were originally spread out in the same place where Fiona Kelly was found. When the birds and the animals had eaten their flesh, their bones were buried here to conceal the evidence.”

  They trudged up the deeply-furrowed field, with the Kellys close behind them, to look at the place where John had discovered Fiona’s remains. The drizzle was so intense that they could barely see the farmhouse, or Iollan’s Wood behind them.

  “I think we could observe a minute’s silence here,” Katie suggested; and the four of them stood in the field with the rain sifting down, and remembered Fiona, and all children who die before their parents. Katie crossed herself.

  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 of Finian’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 oncoming 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 so cold, and so damp.”

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

  “Oh, yes. My head of department 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 suspected you.”

  “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 and the stubble on his chin was like coal-dust. His chocolate-brown 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.