A Terrible Beauty

by Graham Masterton

  "If you don't believe in Satan, Katie, then how can you say that you believe in God?"

  It was then that Jimmy's car turned into the yard, followed closely by the patrol car. Quietly and quickly, as if he were trying to pass on a last piece of crucial information, Tómas Ó Conaill said, "Let me tell you something, Katie-there are powers on this earth that most people don't even have an inkling of. There are all kinds of demons and witches just itching to be raised up. You can laugh all you like, but they're there all right, and the only thing that keeps them where they belong is people like me."

  "Do you see me laughing?" asked Katie.

  29

  While Tómas Ó Conaill sat in the back of the squad car under the beefy custodianship of Garda Pat O'Malley, Katie and Jimmy O'Rourke took a look around the cottage. It smelled of damp and decay, but it had obviously been used quite recently. There was a packet of Barry's Tea in the kitchen, and a bottle of rancid orange juice in the refrigerator, as well as a tub of Calvita processed cheese with green fur on it.

  In the living room, Katie picked up a copy of theEvening Echodated three weeks ago, as well as two screwed-up Mars Bar wrappers. In the smaller bedroom, there was a single bed with pink blankets and a bronze-colored satin quilt on it. It had been neatly made up, but when Katie lifted the blankets it was clear from the twisted wrinkles in the sheets that somebody had been sleeping in it.

  "Beds," she said. "Always a feast for forensics. Hair, skin, dandruff, blood, you name it."

  They went into the larger bedroom. Katie reached around the door and switched on the light and it was then that she knew at once that she had found what she was looking for. The room was papered with dull brown roses, most of them diseased with damp. An old-fashioned iron bed stood on the opposite side of the room, without mattress or blankets, so that its diamond-shaped springs were exposed. Underneath it were spread three or four thicknesses of newspaper, copies of theIrish Examiner, and they were soaked in dark brown blood. Beside the bed, on a cheap veneered nightstand, stood an Anglepoise reading lamp.

  Apart from the bed and the nightstand, the room was empty. But the feeling of horror it contained was overwhelming, almost deafening, like a scream so loud that the human ear couldn't hear it.

  "Holy Mother of God," said Jimmy.

  Katie stood and stared into the room for a long time without saying anything. She didn't want to imagine what had happened here, but she couldn't help it. She had seen Fiona's skeleton, reconstructed on Dr. Reidy's autopsy table, and she had seen her flesh, and her hair, and her heaped intestines.

  One of the gardaí came in and said, "Anything I can do, Superintendent?"

  "Yes, Kieran. I want the technical team up here right away. Apart from that I need at least ten more guards and I want the track sealed off from both directions. And floodlights. And I don't want the media to know anything.Nothing.Not just yet."

  "Yes, Superintendent."

  Katie didn't venture any farther into the bedroom. Apart from the fact that there was a pattern of bloody footprints on the linoleum-covered floor, which she didn't want to disturb, the smell of dried blood was like rotten lamb, and there was a chill in the air which made her feel that if she stepped inside, she would never get warm again, ever.

  "What was it brought you out here?" asked Jimmy.

  "Divine guidance. Apart from that, my father reminded me to think."

  Katie went back outside and took a look at the car. Her breath smoked and there were blue lights flashing and radios squawking. She laid a hand on the bonnet and it was still warm, which meant that Tómas Ó Conaill had probably driven it here. Inside, she found a half-empty bag of dessert mints, a folded road map, an empty pint bottle of Bulmer's Cider, and a box of Kleenex tissues. There were three cigarette stubs in the ashtray, Winfield, an economy brand, only €4.50 for twenty.

  The seats were upholstered in camel-colored woven vinyl. The passenger seat had a curved bloodstain on it, as if somebody had been sitting in their own blood, and there were crusty drops of dried blood in the passenger foot well.

  She went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. It was thickly lined with newspapers, like the floor underneath the bed. The newspapers weren't heavily stained with blood, but there were three or four dark brown runnels, and a pattern of seven drops.

  Jimmy stood beside her, smoking. He didn't say a word. After a few moments she slammed the trunk shut, and walked across to the patrol car. She climbed into the back seat, right next to Tómas Ó Conaill, and looked him steadily in the eye.

  "You have a very grave look on your face, Katie," he told her, but he still had that same sly smile on his face, almost flirting with her.

  "I need you to tell me where you were on Thursday afternoon last."

  "Thursday? I'd have to think about that. Why?"

  "You're going to need a very convincing story, that's why. I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder."

  His eyes gradually narrowed. "Murder?What murder is this? I didn't have nothing to do with no murder."

  "What's all that blood in the bedroom, then? Don't tell me you've been slaughtering a pig."

  "I don't know nothing about no blood. I never even went inside the bedroom."

  "You're lying to me, Tomás."

  "I'm not at all, I'm telling you the God's honest truth. I found the front door open and all I did was take a look around to see if there was anything lying about that nobody had a use for. I never got as far as the bedroom and I swear I had nothing to do with any murder."

  "Oh, right. Just like you didn't have anything to do with cutting a pregnant girl's stomach open with a chisel? Or hitting a sixty-five-year-old man over the head with a lump hammer because you thought he was cheating you over one of your horses?"

  "You should be careful what you say to me," Tómas Ó Conaill warned her. He was still smiling but his mood had turned sour, like milk in a thunderstorm. "I was walking up here totally innocent and all I did was take a look inside. I didn't take nothing and I didn't hurt nobody."

  Katie said, "Tómas Ó Conaill, I am arresting you for the murder of Fiona Kelly. You are not obliged to say anything but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and used in evidence against you."

  "May the rumbling coach of Dullahan draw up outside your house and may you be drenched in a basinful of blood."

  Katie climbed out of the car. "Jimmy, take him back to headquarters. I'll come and talk to him when I've finished up here."

  Tómas Ó Conaill leaned across the backseat and said, in the thickest of whispers, "You're a witch, Katie, and you know what we do to witches. I didn't murder nobody and you will never prove that I did."

  Jimmy slammed the door on him and turned to Katie with a shake of his head. "What a header. I just hope that we've got enough forensic to put him away."

  "Who else would have killed a girl like that? He's got a smooth tongue on him when he wants to, but my God he's vicious as a mad dog."

  "Don't you worry, Superintendent. We've got him this time, I'd say."

  Katie said, "I'll be applying for a search warrant right away. As soon as we've got the okay, I want you to go to Ó Conaill's halting site in Tower and go through every caravan and every vehicle with a fine-tooth comb. Take Pat O'Sullivan and Mick Dockery with you, and as many guards as you think you need. Talk to Ó Conaill's family, too. Ask them where he was that Thursday afternoon when Fiona Kelly disappeared, and ask them to account for his movements on the night that her body was taken to Meagher's Farm."

  "You're wishing, aren't you? They'll only tell me to go and have carnal associations with my grannie."

  "I'm sure they will. But we have to try, don't we? Remember the Maguire motto."

  "What's that, then?"

  "Don't take shite from anyone."

  "All right. But I hope you sign for my overtime."

  30

  Dermot O'Driscoll came into her office with a sugary jam doughnut and a very satisfied smile.

  "You've exce
lled yourself, Katie. No doubt about it. I'd like to put out a media release in time for the morning papers."

  "I'd rather hold off for a while, if you don't mind, sir."

  "You don't have any doubts that it's Ó Conaill, surely? You practically caught the bastard in the act."

  "All the same, I'd feel happier if we waited for forensics, if that's all right with you. Fingerprints and footprints especially. Ó Conaill swears blind that all he did was sit in the car he never drove it."

  "Oh, stop! If he didn't drive it, how did he get there?"

  "Walked, that's what he says."

  "Walked?"Dermot exploded, with his mouth full of doughnut. "Well, there's nothing like a ritual murderer with a sense of humor."

  "You're probably right. But if we can't find any evidence that hediddrive the car, we're going to have to do a radical rethink, aren't we? I'm not saying for a moment that it would necessarily prove him innocent. After all, he could have had accomplices who picked Fiona Kelly up for him and drove her back to the cottage. But I don't want us to go off half-cocked."

  "All right. But see what you can do to hurry those technical fellows up, will you?"

  As Dermot left, loudly smacking the sugar from his hands, Detective Garda Patrick O'Sullivan came into her office. "The Merc was registered to O'Mahony's Auto Rentals, of Mallow. They rented it out ten days ago to a man called Francis Justice, who gave his address as Green Road, Mallow."

  "How did he pay the deposit?"

  "Cash."

  "In that case, we'd better go and have a talk with Mr. Justice, hadn't we? Did the car rental company give you a description?"

  "The girl who took the booking is on holiday in Tenerife."

  "Then call her up. And talk to Inspector Ahern at Mallow. We're going to need some backup."

  It was nearly eleven o'clock before they were ready to drive to Mallow. Katie called Paul on her cell phone and she could hear laughing and music in the background. A pound to a penny he was in Counihan's, with some of his more unsavory friends.

  "I was hoping to see you," he said. He sounded very drunk.

  "I'm sorry, Paul. I don't know how long I'm going to be. We've made an arrest in the Meagher Farm murder."

  "You have? That's great news. Great, great. Who is it?"

  "Somebody you've heard of but I can't tell you yet."

  "I'm proud of you, pet. Really proud of you. Listen, I can-I can wait up for you if you like."

  "Don't bother, really. I probably won't be back until the morning."

  "All right, then," he said. He sounded as disappointed as a small boy.

  "What is it, Paul? Tell me what's wrong."

  "Only everything, that's all. It can wait till tomorrow."

  "Tell me now."

  "No, love, forget it. It would take the rest of the night."

  "Paul-"

  "I've made a total mess of everything, that's all. I'm practically bankrupt, I've got Dave MacSweeny threatening to cut my mebs off, I've got two other villains after me for gambling debts. My only kid's dead and now I've lost you, too."

  "Paul-"

  He was sobbing. "I tried to make everything work out, pet. I did everything I could think of. But all I ended up doing was making everything worse."

  Katie didn't know what to say to him. She still didn't trust him, and she knew that she would never love him again, not the way she used to, but she still felt responsible for him, in the same way that she always felt responsible for everybody.

  "Go home, love," she told him. "Have a good night's sleep and we'll talk about it tomorrow."

  Of course there was no Francis Justice at 134 Green Road, Mallow, and never had been. The street was crowded with squad cars and blue flashing lights but the poor old lady who lived at No. 134 had never heard of anybody called Francis Justice, and neither had the woman next door with the quilted dressing gown and the curlers and the wrestler's forearms, who insisted on leaning over the fence and giving her opinion about everything.

  "You couldn't catch the clap, you lot."

  "Is that an invitation, love?"

  They drove back to the city. Liam sat in the back of the car with Katie, his head lolling back, staring out of the window and saying nothing at all. As they were driving in past Murphy's Brewery in Blackpool, Katie said, "What do you think?"

  "What do I think about what?"

  "Do you think that Tómas Ó Conaill could have murdered Fiona Kelly?"

  "I don't know. You'd have to ask yourselfwhy,wouldn't you? I know he's got an evil reputation, and he definitely believes in banshees and merrows and all that fanciful shite, but I don't think that he would seriously try to raise up Mor-Rioghain, do you? If he wants something, he steals it. He doesn't have to ask fucking witches for it."

  "How do we know what he wants? He may want to be a billionaire, for all we know. He may want to be the next High King of Münster."

  "That's true. Or he may be nothing more than an out-and-out sexual psychopath, who gets his rocks off from cutting the flesh off of living women."

  "Jesus, Liam."

  "I know. It's hard to get your mind round it, isn't it? But there always has to be a 'why.' Sometimes we can't believe why. Sometimes it seems so ridiculous that you have to laugh. I'll bet you don't remember that fellow from Mayfield who crushed his wife's neck in the folding legs of her ironing board? He seriously believed that she was trying to turn him into a rat."

  "I read about it, yes."

  "It was ridiculous, it was psychotic, but it was still a reason. What you have to ask Tómas Ó Conaill is, why did you do it? Not 'if,' not 'how,' but'why.'"

  They drove across the Christy Ring Bridge. The filthy waters of the Lee glittered on either side of them like an oil slick, and the lights from the opera house flickered on and off. Katie said, "Listen, Liam, be honest with me. You've never resented my promotion, have you?"

  "It wasn't my decision, was it? It was never up to me."

  "I know. But it sounds a little like you're questioning my judgment."

  "I question everything, Detective Superintendent. I question the going down of the sun and the coming up of the moon. I never believe a word that anybody says and I particularly don't believe a word that anybody in authority tells me."

  "You're a good detective, Liam."

  "Thank you. The feeling is mutual."

  31

  She questioned Tómas Ó Conaill from 2:30A.M. until well after five. He remained hunched over the table, his voice rarely rising over the hoarsest of whispers, and he kept his eyes fixed on her unblinkingly, those deep-set eyes that looked as if he had no eyes.

  Jimmy O'Rourke stayed with her for an hour, and then Patrick O'Sullivan came to replace him. Ó Conaill had been advised that he could call any solicitor he wanted, but he was content to have the duty solicitor, a young man called Desmond O'Keeffe with thick glasses and a crop of red spots on his forehead.

  Ó Conaill smoked incessantly, until the bare, gray-painted interview room was filled with a surrealistic haze.

  "Where did you get the car, Tómas?"

  "I've told you twenty times, witch. I never saw the fucking car before in my life."

  "The engine was still warm when you were arrested. Don't tell me you hadn't been driving it."

  "I had not."

  "I'll bet you money that your fingerprints are all over the steering wheel."

  "They probably are. I've told you already that I sat in it, like, to see what it felt like. But no more than that."

  "You really expect us to believe that?"

  "You can believe whatever you wish. I didn't murder any girl."

  Katie took out a color photograph of Fiona Kelly and held it in front of his face. He didn't blink, didn't even focus on it.

  "I want to know where you were on Thursday afternoon."

  "I was over in Dripsey, seeing a man about some horses."

  "Which man?"

  "Cootie, everybody calls him. I don't know his real name."

 
; "How did you get to Dripsey?"

  "I went with my cousin Ger and my second son Tadgh. Ger drove us in his what-d'ye-call-it. His Land Cruiser."

  "We'll check that, of course. Where were you on Friday?"

  "A whole lot of us went to Mallow to see about some felt roofing."

  Katie kept the photograph of Fiona Kelly hovering in front of him. "Have you ever heard of Mor-Rioghain?"