Haunted Ground ng-1

by Erin Hart

  He kept silent, knowing any attempts to explain at this stage would only make matters that much worse. She left him sitting there, and each footstep that took her away from him was like a blow to his heart. No case was worth this. He had once felt that they moved in tandem, in everything they did. He remembered drinking in the scent of her as if it were nourishment. The feeling was still there, but it had been buried under the avalanche of practicalities that jobs and responsibilities and life with three children had brought. He felt like rushing after her, tackling her to the ground if he had to, and burying his face in her softness. Instead he took a towel from the cupboard near the cooker, and began drying his hair as he climbed the stairs to speak to Roisin. She stirred when the light from the hall spilled into her room. He sat at the edge of her bed, looking into his daughter’s solemn eyes, their pupils large in the murky darkness.

  “I’m so sorry, Roisin,” he said. “I got caught up in what I was doing, and the fiddle completely slipped my mind.”

  “It’s all right, Daddy. I forgave you right away.” She leaned forward and patted his arm in a gesture of comfort. “I don’t think Mammy has. But don’t worry, she will.”

  Devaney sat on the side of the bed, looking down at his shoes, trying to imagine how such a thing might come to pass.

  17

  Nora thought she was dreaming when her phone began to ring in the middle of the night. She often had nightmares that ended with a telephone ringing, unanswered, somewhere in the distance, but she gradually realized that this wasn’t a dream, and picked up the receiver beside the bed, feeling disoriented and panicky, and nearly deafened by the sound of her own heart clamoring in her chest.

  “Hello?” When there was no response, she said again: “Hello?” She peered at the clock: 12:47. That meant that it was past six in the evening at home. She remembered the call she’d received from her father the night Triona’s body was found, and felt a stab of apprehension. When there was still no response, she heard her own tentative question: “Daddy?”

  The voice in the receiver was not her father, but a disembodied, breathy whisper that was neither male nor female: “Leave it alone.”

  “Leave what alone?” Nora demanded. “Who is this?” For a fragment of a second, her thoughts concentrated on Triona. She was sure she’d told no one here about her sister’s death.

  “They’re better off.”

  “What do you mean? Who’s better off?” Nora’s brain pitched wildly in its half-conscious state, until she hit upon another possible meaning.

  “Do you mean Mina and Christopher Osborne? What do you know about it?” The only response she received this time was the flat-line buzz of a dial tone.

  Was it just a crank call, some bizarre accident? And if it was about Mina Osborne, why should anyone call her? Who knew she was even interested? Nora searched her memory, trying to figure out who knew she’d been out at Bracklyn House. She sat in the dark amid the rumpled bedclothes for several more minutes, trying to work out some answers to a relentless torrent of questions. Not least of all, she had to convince herself that the call had actually happened.

  It was no use trying to sleep now. Her eyes traveled the room, and rested for a moment upon the laptop sitting on her desk. There was one simple way to find more about the basic facts of Mina Osborne’s disappearance. She crossed to the desk and pressed the necessary keys to connect to the Internet. The Irish Times website came up before her, and she quickly went to its archive search. She typed in “Mina Osborne,” but hesitated before pressing “Search.” What was she prepared to find out? And what about the consequences? She and Cormac might find themselves in trouble if they knew any more. This was her own private compulsion; why drag him into it? And yet he was the one who had agreed to go back to Bracklyn. Perhaps his own curiosity was as great as her own. Nora hesitated a second longer, then pressed the button. In an instant, a list of articles appeared. She scanned the headlines:

  Concern Grows for Missing Woman and Boy

  Search Is Widened for Missing Mother and Child

  Woman and Child Missing for over Nine Weeks

  Gardai to Resume Bogland Searches Today

  Search for Missing Mother and Child Cut Back

  Gardai Baffled by Disappearance

  Osborne Critical of Gardai over Handling of Case

  Women Who Are Dead or Missing

  Files on Missing Women Are Reopened

  Gardai to Examine Serial Killer Possibility

  She opened the first story, dated almost three years ago:

  Concern is growing for the safety of a mother and child who have been missing from their Co Galway home since Thursday. Mrs Mina Osborne and her son Christopher were last seen on Thursday afternoon walking along the Drumcleggan road on the outskirts of Dunbeg.

  Garda divers have searched Lough Derg near their home, while 60 people, including neighbours, civil defence, and the Order of Malta have searched a five-mile radius around their home, including bogs and marl holes. Gardai have talked to a number of people to try to locate the missing mother and child.

  Mrs Osborne is of Indian descent. She is described as 5′5″ in height, of slim build, with long black hair and brown eyes. She was wearing an Aran jumper, wine-colored pullover, purple scarf, blue jeans, and brown leather boots. Christopher Osborne is of mixed Indian and Irish parentage, and is described as 2′6″ in height, with black/brown curly hair and brown eyes. He was last seen in his collapsible pushchair, wearing green corduroy overalls, a yellow-and-white-striped jersey, dark blue jacket, and red wellingtons.

  Just before she disappeared Mrs Osborne went to the local AIB branch at 1:27 p.m. where she was filmed on closed-circuit security cameras making a withdrawal. She also stopped at a local shop to purchase a new pair of wellingtons for her son.

  Gardai do not think Mrs Osborne would have accepted a lift from anyone along the walk home, and have no evidence that anyone picked her up. “She’s not somebody who would go off,” said Detective Sergeant Brian Boylan of Loughrea station. Mrs Osborne’s husband said she would never make plans without informing him of her whereabouts. Gardai say there was no sign of a struggle along the road, and that no one reported seeing or hearing anything unusual.

  Anyone with information is asked to contact Loughrea Garda Station on (091) 841333 or the Garda confidential telephone number, 1-800-666222.

  Nora devoured every scrap of information, alert for any discrepancy, any fissure that might serve at least as a temporary foothold. Looking through the list again, another headline jumped out at her:

  Gardai to Examine Serial Killer Possibility

  The Garda commissioner, Mr Patrick Neary, has ordered the setting up of a special detective task force to examine cases of missing and murdered women, and to see if there is a serial killer in this State. The move was prompted by the disappearance on August 12th of Fidelma O’Connor (20), a student nurse last seen walking near her home in Abbeyleix, Co Laois. There are similarities between the disappearances, mainly that the women were last seen walking along or near busy rural roads.

  What better way to avoid suspicion than to make your wife’s disappearance look like the work of a serial killer? It could work, especially in the absence of any physical evidence. The next article gave a list of all seven disappearance cases that had been reopened. None of the seven women had ever been found. All had been alone when they disappeared. None had had a child with her, except Mina Osborne. Nora remembered Devaney’s discomfort about this detail. There was something else as well, she learned from this newspaper account. The seven women were nineteen or twenty, and Mina Osborne was twenty-nine years old. Nora stared absently at the words glowing on her computer screen. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. She remembered the look on Jeremy Osborne’s face when she asked if he’d been watching that video. He hadn’t been allowed to answer. If she played it right, maybe she could get the boy to talk.

  18

  Cormac threw off the sheets and sat up on the edg
e of the high bed. It was no use trying to sleep; he’d be better off doing something else. He switched on the lamp and checked his wristwatch on the bedside table. Twenty past two.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have gone back to Kilgarvan. The visit had only dredged up the confusion he’d thought was long past. He’d come back last night, and flung himself into his solitary work at the priory all day long. He should be worn out, and yet his mind would not rest. He had lain in the bed in that hyperaware state that sometimes accompanies sleeplessness, eyes open, trying to make out the looming shapes in the unfamiliar darkness. The room felt airless, despite the window he’d cracked open.

  He hoped Nora was getting on all right in Dublin. For a brief second, he allowed himself to imagine her pale neck and shoulders contrasted against the dark green sheets on the bed beside him. He put out a hand and felt the warmth of the place he had lain. Enough of that, he told himself. It wasn’t that he was a monk. He’d been involved, at various times, with several intelligent, generous women he’d cared for deeply; every one had taught him a great deal. But in each relationship, he’d somehow felt more like an observer than a full participant. He should have felt like a participant, surely. And he knew they had perceived this lack in him, since each one had called it quits before he managed to figure out what wasn’t quite right. Now Nora Gavin had managed to unsettle him in a way he’d never been unsettled before. He remembered the expression on her face as she sang, the way her smoky voice dipped and slid so easily through the notes, finding unexpected intervals that had pierced him through. But it wasn’t just the beauty of her voice that struck him; he also marveled at her bravery. Singing unaccompanied must be the next thing to stripping off in a room full of people.

  With a sigh, Cormac put on his glasses, and crossed to sit at the table in the tower alcove, where he’d laid out all his maps, notes, and photographs of the priory dig. He switched on the table lamp and opened the map book to the page where the village of Dunbeg appeared. Six inches to the mile. The purpose of these maps was to help pinpoint the location of archaeological activity; they showed the subtle curve of every road and stream, tiny lanes and byways that were invisible on any road map, all kinds of ruins and earthworks otherwise known only to farmers and their cattle. He looked at the thin black lines that represented features of the landscape, the built environment, and the empty white spaces between. The excavation at the priory was in just such an empty space. How often had he and his colleagues dug for days, even weeks or months on a site, only to end up filing a report that noted ‘nothing of archaeological significance’? What if he and Nora helped Devaney delve into the lives of these people and it turned out there was no reason to do so? What if Mina Osborne had simply walked away? It could have happened that way. Any other possibility meant that someone at Bracklyn House could be involved in murder. Mrs. Pilkington said there were some in the village who’d already convicted Hugh Osborne.

  Perhaps Brendan McGann was right, and he should just pack it in. But why was Brendan so anxious to get rid of him? Cormac thought of the man’s face at the priory. There could be any number of reasons for such ill will, but he wondered whether Brendan could hate Hugh Osborne enough to harm his family…. Would you listen to yourself? Prattling on like some bloody policeman, he thought. No wonder he couldn’t sleep. And they were no closer to solving the riddle of the cailin rua, which was the primary reason they’d come back here. Cormac took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward and opened the window as far as it would go, and switched off the lamp at his elbow. The moon had set, so the darkness was almost palpable. Looking out into the blackness beyond his window, he tried to let a Zen-like feeling of nothingness replace the ticking of his thoughts. He would finish the dig as soon as possible, and be off, and worry no more about this. He pushed the thought away, focusing once more on the oblong darkness, trying to imagine himself floating in the center of that darkness, when he saw at its edge, and only for the briefest instant, a tiny speck of light. Cormac quickly put his glasses back on, and strained to make it out again, but no light flickered. The night was still. He waited, feeling his breath flowing in and out. Just as he decided that he must have imagined it, the light appeared again, this time approaching rapidly. The bright spot jogged up and down, like a torch being carried over rough terrain. Then the jogging motion stopped, and the light moved steadily closer, disappearing for a few seconds at a time. It seemed to be moving through the wood that lay to the southeast of Bracklyn House, flickering as it traveled through the trees, then becoming a steady beacon as it skirted the edge of the wood and drew nearer to the house. When it reached what Cormac judged to be a wall at the edge of the back lawn, the light abruptly vanished altogether.

  What was it Devaney had said? Anything that seems out of the ordinary. But he couldn’t be sure what this was, or even whether it had to do with someone belonging to this house. Leave it, the voice in his head urged. Get back into the bed and try to salvage a few hours’ sleep. Instead Cormac switched the lamp on again, threw on a pullover and a pair of jeans, and stepped into his shoes. He picked up the small torch he kept in his site kit, testing the strength of its beam against the palm of his hand. Couldn’t sleep, he’d say if he encountered anyone. Thought I’d help myself to a nightcap if that’s all right. He checked the hallway outside his room. All was quiet. He stepped lightly down the carpeted stairway to the foyer and, seeing no one, continued down the stairs to the kitchen. Hugh had cooked them a small supper a few hours ago, and the scent of sauteed onions still hung faintly in the air. The kitchen, too, was dark and quiet, and Cormac began to feel as though he might have dreamt the whole thing. He stood still, listening, then shone his flashlight on the door that led outside. It was bolted shut. He opened the door and stepped outside to look along the back wall of the house. Someone could have entered, he supposed, but gone up by one of the side stairs; there was one set just outside his bedroom, and he guessed that another similar communicating stairwell ran between floors at the opposite end of the house. He felt suddenly foolish at his curiosity, and annoyed with himself for giving in to it so easily. He closed and bolted the door again, and was just turning to go up the stairs to the foyer when he heard the sound of a wooden chair skidding across a stone floor. The noise came from behind a door just to his left, opposite the kitchen at the foot of the stairs. The door was slightly ajar, so he gave it a tentative push, and found himself in a whitewashed stone hallway with several open doorways. A gash of light fell from one.

  Hugh Osborne was sitting at a table, one eye closed in concentration as he threaded a large needle with sturdy white cord. The single lamp on the table cast a warm yellow glow. At his elbow on a workbench were the guts of a book, signatures neatly stacked, and an empty leather-clad cover. A series of different-size tools, including a variety of awls, presses, and clamps, hung on a wooden rack within arm’s reach. The ceiling in the room was quite low, and shiny black paneling reached halfway up the walls; the rest was whitewashed like the hallway, hung with antique maps in plain black frames. To the left of the doorway was built-in shelving, painted glossy black like the paneling, and containing many leather-bound books, which gave the small space the familiar musty smell of a library.

  Cormac cleared his throat in greeting. “Evening.”

  Osborne turned on his stool, peering over a pair of magnifying glasses that had slid down his nose. He looked worn, the lines in his face exaggerated by the light of his work lamp.

  “Ah, Cormac.” He seemed neither surprised, nor particularly displeased, to see his guest wandering about this time of night. “Don’t tell me that sleep has escaped you as well.”

  “It has. I just came down to get something to drink and heard a noise. What’s that you’re working at?”

  “Just putting a sturdier binding on my old copy of Tom Jones. There’s some single-malt in the cupboard there to your left; if you’d have a drop, I’ll join you.”

  Cormac moved to pour them each a measure of whisk
ey in the pair of tumblers he found beside the bottle. If Osborne had been outside, he’d made a smooth transition. He wore a dark blue sweater and gray wool dress trousers, not the usual kit for knocking about in the woods.

  “Oh, by the way,” Osborne said, “I meant to mention to you this evening that I have to go to London tomorrow on some business. Just for a few days. I hope you and Dr. Gavin will be all right here on your own.”

  “No bother, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” As he poured the whiskey, Cormac found himself checking Osborne’s footwear for any traces of mud or dew, but the man’s feet were ensconced in a pair of worn leather bedroom slippers. Cormac capped the bottle and held out a drink to Hugh Osborne. “To books with backbone.”

  “Indeed,” Osborne said. “Where would literature be without a spine?”

  Cormac sat on a cot against the wall and let his eyes travel around the room. Three butterfly nets, each one larger than the last, stood in one corner. The cot made up one side of a sitting area in front of the small fireplace, along with a slipcovered armchair and a threadbare Oriental rug on the stone floor. A meager turf fire helped dispel the evening’s chill. Despite the few attempts to make it cozy, the room was bare as a monk’s cell compared with the heavy opulence of the upstairs rooms. Osborne saw his appraising look.

  “I come here often,” he said. “It helps to have something to do.” He spoke simply, without self-pity. Osborne looked away, and Cormac made no attempt to reply. What could one say to a man preparing to live the rest of his life in uncertainty? Instead, he sat on the cot, glass in hand, and let the silence rest between them for a moment. It was curious that no matter how objectively he might consider the possible role Osborne played in his wife’s disappearance, all suspicion immediately vanished when he was in a room with the man. Cormac supposed he’d never make a good policeman for just that reason. When he finally did speak, it was to change the subject, for which Osborne was apparently grateful.