The Dead Ground

by Claire McGowan

  ‘Mick Quinn, that was mine. Border areas. They’d likely have worked together, so.’

  ‘I’ll ask him.’

  ‘Mick Quinn?’ Corry had overheard, and paused her rant at Avril, who took the opportunity to slip from the room, muttering about going to the Ladies. ‘Mick Quinn was your father, Fiacra?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I worked with him. My first case with the RUC. I was at his funeral. Terrible thing, he was very young.’

  ‘Aye, a lot of people came.’

  Corry was squinting at him. ‘You’ve a look of him, now that I think of it.’

  Paula looked round, restless and sober. She saw Gerard was gone from the room too, and Bob had sidled off to his office, leaving Guy to jolly along the PSNI officers. They looked grim, huge country guys most of them, who could birth a lamb or dig a septic tank just as easy as subdue a suspect. To them, Guy was yet another Brit cop come to poke his nose in. Unwilling to watch his struggle, Paula decided she’d also slip out, and while she was at it, pour away her drink. She didn’t trust Corry’s gimlet gaze. ‘Excuse me.’

  Paula had been at the unit for over two months now, and she’d yet to spend any time alone with Sergeant Bob Hamilton, who presumably would be her boss when Guy went back to whatever life he had left in London. This wasn’t an accident. She was aware of it, the nasty nugget in the core of herself, the same raw ore of sectarianism she loathed in others. What made her any different? Wasn’t she uncomfortable around Hamilton because she knew he marched in Orange parades, donned that sash and beat those drums? It was in everyone, however much you liked your Protestant neighbours and colleagues, however tolerant you liked to think yourself in this post-conflict society, shopping in House of Fraser and eating sushi. When it came down to it, down to bombs and shootings and blood running in the road, you had to pick a side. Yours, or ours. And Bob Hamilton made her want to draw up battle-lines. He was the man who’d been promoted over her father – unfairly, she was sure. Bob was at best semi-competent, and PJ, a brilliant officer according to everyone she’d spoken to, had been let go in 1998 after the Good Friday Agreement. But somehow Bob was also the person who might know what had happened to her mother. So here she was.

  She tugged on her baggy jumper and knocked on the door of his office – a sort of converted supply cupboard linking to Guy’s larger one. There were no ornaments or decorations, just a scuffed desk and old computer, and hunched over it one even older-looking man. He’d been bald for years, ragged tufts round his ears as if someone had torn off a piece of paper. His eyes were pale and watery. ‘Miss Maguire?’

  ‘Sergeant, can I have a word?’

  He looked baffled, as well he might. She’d never done anything but avoid having a ‘word’ with him. ‘Oh aye. Take a seat.’

  The seat was a warped plastic one with wobbly legs, a cast-off like everything in here, including the occupant. ‘Busy?’

  He made a gesture of weary resignation at the computer. ‘Trying to get the hang of this database yoke. Our Avril gave us a lesson, but sure I can’t take it in.’

  She resisted the urge to show him. ‘Sergeant – you worked with my father, I think, way back.’

  ‘PJ? Oh aye. I worked with PJ on a lot of cases, until he retired. We were partners, for a time.’

  ‘He didn’t really retire though, did he?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Bob.’ She sat forward, drawing her knees to herself. ‘I’m going to call you Bob, is that OK? And you call me Paula. We work together. Call me Paula, OK?’

  He nodded suspiciously, scratching at the scurf in his eyebrows.

  ‘You were speaking to Aidan O’Hara earlier, from the Ballyterrin Gazette.’

  Bob started to frown. ‘That’s confidential—’

  ‘I don’t know what he asked you, but I’m guessing it was about Sean Conlon. He wants to know what Conlon said, and how likely it is that he’ll be released. He went to you because you wouldn’t try to protect me. Because you’ve no loyalty to me.’

  ‘Miss Maguire, I—’

  ‘I’m here about my mother,’ she said, deciding just to launch into it. ‘I know you worked on her case. I know Conlon’s been talking about her.’

  ‘I—’

  She talked over him. ‘It’s been a long time, and we never found anything, and now there’s this unit that actually does that, actually tries to find the people we gave up on. I know what that feels like. It’s terrifying. It’s like someone’s dead and buried and you wake up one day to find them ringing on your doorbell. Do you understand?’

  ‘Miss – Paula – I’m sorry about your mammy but—’

  ‘I want us to look at her case. I want to know if something was missed.’

  He froze.

  She went on. ‘I know that may be hard for you, to admit you might have been wrong, but I have to not care about that. I have to know if you did everything you could.’

  ‘There were no leads. We can’t reopen if there’s no new evidence—’

  ‘Look.’ She removed the file from her bag and set it down on his desk. ‘That’s what was done in 1993. And it was you who led it, you who said, that’s it, we’ll stop looking. You who came round and arrested my dad – your own partner – and you who said dig up the Maguires’ garden, and search the house and make sure you take the wee girl’s diary too, I mean, she’s thirteen, she probably knows something. Imagine that, if you can, Bob, you’re a thirteen-year-old girl, and the police come round and root through your stuff, and they say your mother’s likely dead and maybe your father did it . . .’ She stopped. ‘Do you have any kids, Bob? I never knew.’

  He looked down at his hands, which were shaking. ‘We’ve one boy. He . . . he’s not well.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But you can imagine how that was. I’m asking you as someone’s father, look at that file again and tell me you did everything you could.’

  ‘I – I can’t reopen a case with no evidence. You know as well as I do I can’t use any evidence from Conlon if he talks to the Commission for the Disappeared. It’s part of the Act. It’s not admissible.’

  ‘I’m not saying reopen. I’m just saying look at it. Please, for me, and for my dad. I don’t know if you liked him, but he’s a good man, and it broke him, what you did, and he’s never been fixed.’

  Bob stretched out one hand to the file, as if it might burn him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said shakily. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. A lot of things happened in those years, bad things. Bad things to a lot of people. We were just doing our best, you know.’

  She stood, with some difficulty. ‘I know. But we’ve got a chance to do something about it, maybe. Please take it.’

  She went out, barrelling into the corridor with shaking legs towards the Ladies, where she planned to empty her plastic cup.

  Avril was not in them. Instead she was pressed against the noticeboard, up close to the health and safety signs and the holiday rota. In front of her, his hand resting on the wall by her head, but not touching her at all, was Gerard Monaghan. Seeing Paula, Avril made a small noise, darting out from the circle of Gerard’s arms and slamming the door to the Ladies.

  Gerard ran his hands over his face. ‘Bollocks.’

  Paula stumbled back, spilling her drink over her wrist. ‘God, sorry, I—’

  Then they heard the noise – twin beeps starting up, a fraction of a second after each other. Guy came into the corridor holding his pager, coat over his arm, and just behind was Corry, the relaxed, amused look entirely gone from her face.

  ‘What’s up?’ Gerard moved forward, straightening his tie, ignoring Paula.

  Guy said, ‘Who’s sober enough to drive? We need to go out.’

  Paula said, ‘I should be. Why?’

  ‘Heather Campbell. She’s been found.’ He was alrea
dy walking, and drawn into his wake Paula followed, before turning back for her coat, pushing her cup into the bin. ‘Do we know what’s happened?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Is she OK?’

  Guy held the glass door open, so crystal-cold air poured in on their heat and light. ‘No. She’s not OK.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was full dark when they reached the place, high in the Mourne Mountains. The hills, normally green and wet and rolling, smothered in white. Snow falling thick and fast.

  Paula parked the car at the edge of the forest path, stopping as the wheels began to spin in banked snow. The trees were so close they scratched the car window. ‘I can’t get any further. It’s blocked.’ Slightly further up, police vans were drawn across the narrow path that led into dark fir trees, illuminated in cold snow light. Paula had gone with Guy to the lonely spot, her driving his car, Gerard with the PSNI. Fiacra and a rather teary Avril had remained behind at the unit.

  ‘You know this place?’ He was unbuckling, zipping up his North Face coat and rubber boots.

  ‘It’s the old Mass rock.’ He looked blank. ‘When Catholicism was banned – Cromwell’s time, yeah? – they had Mass in secret places, like this. Every year they do a service up there at Easter, I guess to commemorate it.’ She had also zipped up her coat, tucked her hair away. ‘We don’t like to let go of stuff round here.’

  Guy was ready but had not yet opened the door. Outside it was hard to see much in the whirling snow, the path lit blue with police strobes. There was an impression of activity further up, dark shapes moving. ‘It’s the same, isn’t it? An out of the way place, a sacred place – like an offering.’

  Paula didn’t want to think about it. ‘What will they do?’

  ‘Get up there. We got a tip-off a car was seen going up – it matched the description of Heather’s. That was about an hour back.’

  ‘So the abductor could still be up there?’

  The killer, was what she really should have said. After Alison Bates had been ripped open and left to die, this wasn’t just a harmless baby-hungry nut.

  ‘Yes. We’re working on the assumption that Heather is still alive. Otherwise – well, we wouldn’t be out in this.’ He scrubbed a patch in the misted-up windows and looked at her. ‘You have to stay here, Paula. You understand?’

  ‘But I need to see it!’

  ‘It’s far too dangerous, you must realise that. Wait until the scene is secured.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Paula. After last month . . . please.’

  She nodded reluctantly. She’d almost got herself killed, and Aidan too, going to the wrong house on her own at Halloween. But the truth was, this time part of her didn’t even want to leave the warm interior of the car. This time she was actually afraid. She who’d faced down sociopaths, killers, rapists. She was scared. ‘I’ll stay. But please, will you let me know what happens?’

  ‘Of course. I won’t even go myself. There’s a Tactical Support Unit heading up. We have to treat the situation as potentially dangerous. Keep the doors locked.’

  He got out, letting in a blast of ice that soaked the seat, and vanished into the gloom of the trees. Suddenly alone, all she could hear was the wind. High above the path the Mass rock loomed, a cairn of stones with a cross on top, casting shadows in the snow. Paula remembered it from a school trip. Underneath was an alcove where worshippers could hide if soldiers came. She imagined how the wind would sound up there, nudging and moaning at each small rock, worrying its way into every weak spot.

  Inches from the car windows, the trees whipped to and fro, scratching at the glass with each ferocious burst of wind. With the engine off, she could see her breath. She kept scrubbing at the windows. Nothing but the trees and dark and deathly blue light over everything. She waited, powerless, for struggle, shots, fire in the dark. Nothing. They’d be at the cairn by now, surely.

  Paula couldn’t stand it a second longer. She wrenched open the door in the wind, the cold taking her breath away after the warm car. Pulling her hood tight against her face, she battled up the path in the wind. The nearest police van was perhaps five metres away.

  It was so fast she didn’t know if she’d seen it or not. A flash in the dark, something white and quick, an impression of eyes watching, the crack of branches. Paula found she was crashing through the trees. ‘Hello? Is someone there?’ The wind snatched her voice.

  She stopped. She was several metres into the forest, her own breath sounding in her ears, snow crunching underfoot. A stony chill radiated up from the earth. Branches scratched her cheek. ‘Hello?’

  Paula had a moment of pure terror – just a few seconds, but enough to paralyse her – and then she sensed movement behind, on the path. A powerful light came on, filling the forest with dazzle. Paula shielded her eyes, and then felt her arm yanked. She almost screamed. Behind her was a breathless Gerard, ears sticking out under a woolly hat. ‘What the hell are you doing here? The car was lying open!’

  She couldn’t speak. The wind howled round them.

  Gerard shouted, ‘He says you’ve to come now.’

  ‘Hurry up, Maguire!’

  ‘It’s icy!’ The path was blanketed in new snow, white and perfect, dissolving to slush under her boots. She slipped and slid.

  ‘Don’t be daft, it’s not even frozen yet. Come on.’ Gerard took her arm in exasperation. He was radiating heat beneath his plastic jacket.

  ‘They found her?’ They were shouting over the gale.

  ‘Aye. She’s alive, barely. If they can get her to hospital she might have a chance, but—’ His face twisted. ‘He wants you to see it.’

  She took deep breaths. ‘Was it – like before?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘She was cut?’

  ‘Yeah. The stomach.’

  Paula was shaking. Snow stung her lips, her eyelids. ‘Gerard – what happened to the baby? Please tell me.’ Because she didn’t think she could handle it, not now, a baby cold and dead in the snow.

  Gerard pulled her on over branches and tree roots. ‘The baby’s gone, Maguire.’

  ‘You mean—’

  ‘Someone cut it out of Heather, then left her up there. Half her blood’s probably soaked into their car, whoever it was. But the baby’s gone.’

  At the top end of the path, through the snow, she could see an ambulance, the source of the blinding light. Being loaded into it, strapped to a stretcher, the white face and dark hair of Heather Campbell. Alison Bates’s daughter, sliced apart in the same way. The paramedics were trying to shield her face from falling snow, so she must be still alive. Paula looked at her stomach but it was covered with blankets. Her eyelids fluttered and her blue lips moved, as if she had something to say, something important, but the words were lost in the wind. Then they were shutting the doors and reversing out.

  ‘Did someone call her husband?’ Paula’s voice sounded strange inside the hood of her raincoat, louder and reverberating.

  ‘He’ll be at the hospital.’ Gerard signalled to Guy, who was conferring with Corry near an open police Land Rover. ‘I got her, boss.’

  ‘Thanks. You saw that?’ he asked Paula, cupping his mouth against the wind. ‘She was under the Mass Rock, they said, unconscious, laid out. It’s horrific.’ Snow was drifting onto his notebook; he brushed it off impatiently. ‘The baby’s been taken out and Heather was left to bleed to death. Same cuts as her mother – small, but deep, slashing across her stomach.’

  ‘The baby’s not up there?’ Paula’s hair whipped in her eyes.

  ‘We don’t think so.’

  ‘But they’ll look? Will they look?’

  ‘Of course they’ll—’

  ‘Please!’ She was shouting over the rising wind. ‘Please look hard – it won’t survive, not in this snow!’

  ‘Dr Maguire
. Calm down. We’ll look for the baby,’ said Corry, looking at her, and Paula realised someone had guessed her secret.

  Snow melts. Seasons change. But some things are forever – the stilling of a beating heart, the snuffing of a human life. That was forever. And that moment came too soon for Heather Campbell. The ambulance carrying her raced into town on treacherous roads, lights striping blue across the drifts as snow fell silently over the town, over the grey streets and huddled houses and the lives inside.

  As they unloaded her into A & E, and doctors rushed forward to lay hands on her body, Heather’s heart stopped, leached almost entirely dry of the blood that had kept it squeezing in and gasping out for the twenty-eight years since her own mother had birthed her into the world. Scrabbling around on her bloodied stretcher, doctors tried defibrillation, then CPR, and then a desperate open heart massage, until one stilled the other’s pumping arms with a shake of the head, and on the blood- and slush-covered floor of the hospital, they felt Heather’s pulse stutter and calm, until the smallest thing of all, the beat of her heart, was gone entirely.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  She was dead.

  Dry-eyed, Paula took the news like a blow, lowering her head into her hands as they sat in the waiting room of the hospital. If she were honest, she hadn’t liked Heather Campbell that much on their brief meeting, but that made it harder. No one deserved this. To be lost, and then found, but in this way. And besides, Heather had been pregnant, scared and pregnant, with no mother to help her. They were the same under the skin, all blood and veins and terror. Except now Heather was dead.

  ‘We did everything we could.’ Saoirse was the one who’d come to tell them. She looked exhausted. There was blood on her white coat and her face was pale as bone.

  Corry was leaning against the wall in her long cream coat, turned beige by the sickly yellow lighting. ‘If they’d got her here sooner?’