The Dead Ground

by Claire McGowan

  ‘I see.’ Corry’s mouth twisted. ‘It’s going to happen again.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Saoirse?’ After another late night tying up ends on the Pachek case, Paula was back working at her desk the next morning. She was looking for other cases of abducted babies when the phone rang, her friend’s voice on the end. ‘What’s up?’

  Saoirse said, ‘Don’t be cross. I’ve made you an appointment for today. They had a slot.’

  She genuinely didn’t get it for a moment. ‘An appointment for what?’

  Saoirse sighed. ‘Paula. Antenatal, of course.’

  Paula felt as if the front half of her body was trying to run away from the back. ‘Oh, I can’t. We’re really swamped here, we just found Alek Pachek, and—’

  Corry’s face hadn’t been off the news since Alek had been found safe and well the night before – she was taking all the credit, and as Guy hadn’t even wanted to call in the psychic in the first place, the unit hadn’t come off well. Paula was up to her eyes in research on child abduction and the phone was ringing off the hook with worried parents, wondering if the baby-snatcher might strike again, and journalists looking for a quote from a ‘child abduction expert’. She was not keen on that label. It sounded as if she gave lessons.

  ‘You’re going.’ Saoirse was stern. ‘No arguments.’

  ‘But I’m not ready. I don’t know what to do yet.’ Paula could hear the panic in her own voice. ‘There isn’t time!’

  Saoirse spoke patiently, as if to a small child. ‘There isn’t time not to. It’s not going away. Either way, you have to see someone. So just go, and tell them the situation. If you’re going to have this baby you need taking care of.’

  ‘And what if I’m not?’

  ‘Then at least you’ll have all the information.’

  Saoirse was always such a know-it-all. ‘I can’t . . . Will you come with me?’

  A small pause. Was it too much to ask? ‘Call in and see me first. You’ll be grand.’

  ‘Seersh?’ Paula rapped on the door of the office and after a short delay, it was opened, not by her friend, but by Dave, Saoirse’s husband of five years. Six foot three and almost as wide. She stumbled over the words. ‘Oh, hiya. I didn’t – I was looking for Saoirse.’

  ‘She’s here. I’m just going, myself. Come in, Paula.’

  She went in but stayed leaning against the door. With no experience of anything approximating a long-term relationship, she didn’t know how much Saoirse would have told Dave about her ‘situation’. ‘Erm – I’m just after a wee word with Saoirse. About a case.’ She caught her friend’s eye and Saoirse’s infinitesimal head-shake told her Dave didn’t know. She was relieved. One less person then.

  Dave was putting on his coat, a navy one with reflective shoulder patches. ‘OK so. Nice to see you. If you’re talking to Aidan, tell him I’m up for that jar, any night but Thursday.’

  ‘We’re . . . not really talking.’

  Dave looked embarrassed. He obviously hadn’t yet learned, as Saoirse had, to steer well away from the deep channels that ran between Paula and Aidan. ‘He’s busy, I’d say, with the paper and all that.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Dave turned back to his wife, cupping her face in two big hands. ‘You’re OK, love?’

  ‘I will be.’

  Paula looked away as they kissed, feeling like an intruder. When he went out Saoirse spun round in her chair. ‘So, no luck with the Pachek case?’

  ‘Nope. I mean it’s great we found him, but we still need to catch the person. The staff interviews have thrown up nothing, and we’ve no prints or traffic data, nothing useful at all. Looks like no one saw anything. And this doctor’s missing as well.’ Dr Bates had been officially announced as missing that morning, once the good news about Alek Pachek’s recovery had everyone busy. Corry always had an eye for the press and whether or not they’d show her department up as incompetent.

  Saoirse took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘That’s bad. I mean, she wasn’t much liked in town, but the idea that someone would actually hurt her – it scares me, when people start going after doctors.’

  ‘We might find her safe. You never know.’

  ‘Hmm. Did you go to see that psychic?’

  ‘Croft? Yeah, I did. She’s . . . I can’t describe it. But I’m not surprised she can persuade people that her healing works.’

  ‘Are you so sure it doesn’t?’ Saoirse turned to her computer.

  ‘You don’t believe in it, surely?’

  Saoirse shrugged. ‘Mammy went to a fortune teller before she met Daddy. The woman told her Daddy’s name, his job, and that he’d be the oldest child of six – all true.’

  ‘You think it’s possible to be psychic then?’

  ‘I don’t think we understand how everything works yet.’

  Paula tried to hide her frustration. ‘But you’ve got medical training – how do you explain these so-called miracles she does?’

  ‘The body and mind are linked. Like I say, I don’t think we understand it all. A few centuries ago you’d have said most science was magic too.’

  ‘But what if people refuse medical care and just rely on her tricks? They’d die, wouldn’t they? I looked her up, Seersh. She’s taken a lot of money off dying people, convinced them to stop their treatments. Did you know she went to America a few years back, collecting donations to build her own church? It’s still hardly even been started. So where’s the money? And all these people wanting babies, going to her, paying good money. It’s just . . . I hate to think of people being ripped off by her.’

  But Saoirse was unmoved by this. A stubborn, secretive look came over her face; Paula recognised it well from school when her friend was in a mood about an unjust teacher or who sat with whom at lunchtime. ‘Sometimes there’s nothing we can do for people anyway. I don’t think it’s up to us to tell people how to feel.’

  Paula sighed. ‘All right. Listen. I have to go anyway.’ As she moved to the door her friend was hunched over the computer, and Paula wondered how it could be that someone you’d once known inside out could become a total stranger. She could feel it between them, the knowledge that her friend had been trying for five years to get pregnant, and the tests they were having clearly weren’t going well. ‘Listen, Seersh, I know it’s not – thank you for helping me with all this. I . . .’

  ‘Ah, go on, you’ll be late.’ Saoirse turned back to her computer, mouth lifting slightly at the old nickname.

  Babies. They were everywhere. Missing babies, found babies, and in the waiting room of Ballyterrin General Hospital Obs and Gynae unit, so many babies you were practically falling over them. Toddlers running round, newborns howling, and at each turn the swollen bellies of expectant mothers. Paula kept patting her own surreptitiously under her jumper, to see if it had done the same. It felt tight and hard, but still flat enough. She tried to read the report she’d brought with her, on an infant abduction from an English hospital, but it seemed so inappropriate in this place that she could barely concentrate.

  ‘Paula?’

  At first she thought they were calling her, and hurriedly dropped her jumper, but then she was confused at the sight of Fiacra Quinn’s smiling, cherubic face. ‘You’re here?’ she said, startled. He was off duty, she saw now, in jeans and a Gaelic football jersey; he looked like a teenager.

  ‘I’m bringing my sister.’ He indicated a young woman behind him, equally fair and angelic. She was also visibly pregnant. ‘Aisling, this is Paula out of my work.’

  Aisling plonked herself beside Paula, who quickly hid her reading material. ‘How are you, Paula? He never shuts up about that unit. Loves it, so he does.’

  ‘I never said—’

  ‘Fiacra, go and get me a juicebox, will you?’

  He went, the easy o
bedience of a boy with four sisters.

  Aisling made herself comfortable. ‘What brings you in, Paula?’

  ‘Um – just a check-up.’ It was a gynaecology unit too, so she hoped that would cover it. Was it not a bit rude to ask someone what they were in for, in a hospital? People in this town couldn’t seem to keep their noses in their own business.

  ‘Right so. Tell me this now. Our Fiacra does be awful secretive about his love life. Who’s this Avril he’s always on about?’

  ‘Avril? She’s our intelligence analyst. They’re just friends, aren’t they? I think she has a boyfriend.’ As far as Paula knew, Avril was romantically involved in some way with the pastor of her church, a whey-faced youth called Alan whose picture adorned her desk at the unit.

  Aisling was agog. ‘Oh really? That can’t be it then. He must have a girl, Mammy says. We do be drowning in the smell of his Lynx every morning.’ She gave Paula a speculative look, as if preparing to transfer her suspicions to the only other woman in the unit.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Paula cast about for a change of subject. ‘How far along are you?’

  ‘Seven months. I’m scared to death,’ she said frankly. ‘Do you ever watch that show, that One Born Every Minute? The noises they make on it. Jaysus!’

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s nice of Fiacra to bring you.’

  ‘I’m staying with him.’ She rubbed her bump. ‘The peelers gave him a flat in town, so if I stay with him I can come here instead of the hospitals down south – it’s much better in the north, between you and me. He’s been good to me, since this one’s da fecked off.’ She indicated her stomach.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye, he went back to Nigeria before they kicked him out. We could have got married, I said, for his visa, but he’d a roving eye. Mammy said so and she’s always right.’ Aisling Quinn said all this with the same cheerful expression on her pink and white face, gold curls rippling down her back. She was clearly one of those people who’d never been taught how your secrets could be used against you.

  Paula wasn’t sure what to say to all that, but luckily at that point the nurse with the clipboard called her name, in a bored way. She gathered her papers. ‘That’s me, anyway. Nice to meet you, Aisling.’

  Soon she was left spread-eagled on the edge of a medical couch, awaiting the midwife. She’d been instructed by the nurse to remove her boots, jeans, and pants, and lie back with the blue tissue paper over her. It was about the most vulnerable position she could imagine, so she already felt far from her best when the curtains swished open and Guy’s wife stood there.

  Paula sat upright, holding the pathetically thin tissue paper round herself. ‘Oh my God!’

  Tess Brooking was staring at her with the dark suspicious eyes that had seen right through Paula on their first meeting, a month before. Dressed in blue scrubs, her curly hair was tucked up in a bun. She looked from Paula to the clipboard she was carrying, and blinked slowly. ‘P. Maguire. I should have realised.’ Tess’s reaction was odd. She began to laugh softly. ‘So I was right. You are pregnant after all.’

  Paula’s heart was pounding. ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘And you’re going ahead with it?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. What are you – why are you in Ballyterrin?’ Last time she’d seen Tess it was in West London, where as far as Paula knew she’d gone back to live, without Guy.

  Tess folded her arms, leaning against the desk as if trying to protect herself from Paula’s mere presence. ‘I had a job offer here, and Katie needed to go back to school. It seemed like the right thing to do. I take it he didn’t tell you.’ Katie was her daughter – Guy’s daughter – who’d run away from home the previous month.

  Paula hugged her knees. ‘No. No, he didn’t.’ He’d chickened out, clearly. Guy, whose bravery she’d always so admired.

  ‘Well.’ Tess tapped her pen on the clipboard. ‘This is a problem, isn’t it?’

  Paula wasn’t sure what she meant. Whatever way you looked at it, it was a problem.

  ‘I can’t be your midwife. You know that, don’t you? You wouldn’t want me anyway.’

  She didn’t even know if she’d need a midwife, but events seemed to be thundering on ahead while she stood in the wake, waving weakly. ‘I just – I can’t believe he didn’t tell me.’

  Tess laughed again, short and sharp. ‘You haven’t told him yet either, have you?’ She indicated Paula’s supine position.

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing yet. And I told you, there was someone else at the same time.’ Aidan bloody O’Hara. If only she could be sure which man it was.

  Tess clasped her arms tight over the clipboard. ‘Look, Paula. I know you didn’t mean to get yourself in this situation, but you are in it. And as for Guy – we’ve had our ups and downs, but I won’t let you hurt him.’ That was a bit rich coming from the woman who’d tried to divorce him in the middle of their grief for their dead son, but whatever. As if reading her mind, Tess said, ‘What happened with Jamie, it really broke him. And here you are, maybe carrying his child – have you any idea what that would do to him?’

  Paula just sat, horrified to feel tears prick at her eyes at the thought of Guy’s son, who’d been killed in London earlier that year, accidentally shot by gang members intending to frighten his policeman father. ‘I just don’t know how it happened.’ Her voice hitched. ‘I don’t know how I ended up like this.’

  ‘I’ll draw you a diagram if you like,’ said Tess frostily. But then something softened in her face and she sighed. ‘Look, I can see you need help. Let me get someone else to talk to you.’

  She picked up a phone on the desk. ‘Is Bernice back off leave? Right, can you send her to consulting room three?’

  It was only a minute or two until the door opened, but the tension between her and Tess seemed to snap and bite like stretched elastic bands. Tess fiddled with some papers on the desk; Paula read a poster about the stages of pregnancy, the baby swelling in the hollow inside, the pulsing blues and reds of the veins. She opened her mouth to say something – maybe try to explain she’d only slept with Guy because she thought he was getting divorced, because of the terrible pressure they’d been under, having just pulled a girl’s body from the canal – but then the door handle turned and another midwife came in, tall and smiling, black hair greying at the temples.

  ‘Bernice.’ The relief in Tess’s voice was palpable. ‘This is Ms Maguire. We just realised we know each other, so if you could take her on instead, that would be great.’

  ‘Of course, of course. Now isn’t that a coincidence, you knowing each other?’

  ‘We met in London,’ Paula said, clearing her throat. It was, strictly speaking, the truth.

  ‘Thanks, Bernice.’ Tess made for the door, throwing a backwards glance at Paula. It very clearly said: watch your step.

  The new midwife was doing things with a machine and lots of cables. ‘Now, let’s get you sorted.’ She produced a white plastic probe. ‘Lift the wee sheet up for me, pet.’ The gel on Paula’s stomach was cold and the pressure firmer than she’d expected. She tried to breathe. Bernice turned the probe, staring at the screen. ‘You want to see the baby?’

  ‘Er . . .’ Once again she was paralysed. From her vulnerable position, Paula found herself nodding at the ceiling. Even though she knew this was some irrevocable moment, some Rubicon being crossed.

  It looked like nothing. A black and white scribble on an abstract painting. ‘Oh, I see. Thanks.’ She saw nothing. The machine hummed gently.

  ‘There you go. It all looks good, Paula. Good size and heartbeat. You’re about seven weeks along, I’d say.’

  Seven. Not six or eight. Her mind tried to do the maths and collapsed in on itself. She thought of what the faith healer had said. ‘Can you – is it possible to see the gender?’ Why was she asking?

  �
�It’s a wee bit early for that. A few weeks on and we might know.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Congratulations, Paula. Is Daddy not here today?’

  ‘The thing is . . .’ Paula rearranged the paper covering her in a pathetic attempt to gain some dignity. ‘I’m not sure who the father is.’

  ‘Oh?’ The woman was clearly trying to keep her face neutral, but Paula had seen the look that flashed over it. She decided it was best to press on.

  ‘And also – I don’t know what I’m doing yet. If I’m keeping it. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know where to come. I don’t know what to do.’

  There was a very short pause. ‘All right. We can’t do anything for you here, of course. It’s illegal, as I’m sure you’re aware. But it’s your choice.’

  ‘But I just don’t know!’ She thought she might start crying again. ‘I can’t think.’ This was what she’d been afraid of, why she hadn’t wanted to come to hospital. If there was one thing which united Catholic and Protestant in Ireland, it was a firm hatred of abortion. ‘I didn’t mean this to happen. It was an accident. I – I’m sorry.’

  ‘Come on now.’ The midwife was helping her sit up, handing her a tissue with gloved hands. ‘You’re not the first, Paula, and you won’t be the last. You’re a smart girl, aren’t you? And I bet you’ve a good job?’

  She nodded, sniffing.

  ‘Have you family in the town?’

  ‘Yeah.’ PJ. Pat, she was practically family. And by extension, Aidan? Her fists clenched at the thought of him.

  ‘Well, then, you’ll be fine either way. Have you talked to the daddy, I mean, to whoever it might be?’

  ‘It’s one of two people.’ It was a relief to finally talk about it, in the anonymous clean of the room. She imagined this happening in London, how no one would bat an eyelid, probably book you in for an abortion that same day. But here – the idea of having to fly to England, stay in a hotel somewhere, sore and bleeding – she shrank from it. ‘You see, there were two people right next to each other, and I used, ah, contraception, but I just don’t know how . . . I don’t know.’