The Dead Ground

by Claire McGowan

  Saoirse shook her head. ‘Even if the ambulance had made it to the hospital sooner, she was already gone. The helicopter couldn’t take off in that weather. It was so cold, and she’d lost so much blood. Nothing could be done.’

  Paula looked round at them, Fiacra and Avril pale as frightened children, with their near-identical blond heads. Bob accepting it, yet another death on his shoulders. So many he’d seen. So many taken. The whole team was there, gathered in the hospital to see if they’d managed to find one of the lost. And they had, but too late.

  Gerard swore softly, then pushed back his chair and went out, banging the door. Guy let him go, shaking his head briefly as Bob stirred. ‘Leave him.’

  Saoirse rubbed her face. ‘Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. My colleague is in telling the husband. Can someone sign the paperwork?’ Corry straightened herself and went to the door. Saoirse followed her out with a sideways glance at Paula, who still hadn’t moved. The news seemed to have paralysed her.

  Guy let the door shut after Saoirse and looked round at them. ‘We’ve lost Heather. But her baby is still missing – she may be alive.’

  ‘She?’ Paula’s throat was dry.

  ‘Yes. They knew it was a girl. They were going to call her Lucy. So we can still find her, bring her home to her father.’

  No one else seemed to believe it. ‘Could she really be alive, sir?’ said Fiacra wearily. ‘The depth of the snow out there . . .’

  ‘The doctors think she could be. We don’t know if Heather was even killed at the cairn – there was a lot of blood, but perhaps not enough. If it was done indoors, if the baby were kept warm and fed, and they knew to clamp off her umbilical cord and so on, she could be OK.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Paula, wearily. ‘I’ve read about cases like this.’

  ‘It’s happened before?’ Guy looked horrified.

  ‘It’s called foetal abduction. They kill the mother, cut the child out. The baby was quite often alive after birth. They found them too, a lot of the time. These women often aren’t careful. They want everyone to think it’s their own child, so they’ll take it out, display it. These aren’t hardened criminals, just desperate people.’

  ‘Women?’ said Avril, very pale.

  ‘Yes. It’s nearly always women.’

  ‘Right. So it’s very possible we will find Lucy.’ Guy was doing his best to sound efficient. ‘Now we need to look at the traffic data again. Heather’s car was found halfway up the track to the Mass rock. Here’s the odd thing – there is no blood in the car, though she was quite probably injured before being taken there. It’s almost like they wanted us to find the car, and know she was there, but she can’t have been transported in it.’

  ‘How did they get her up there then?’

  Guy acknowledged Fiacra’s bewildered question. ‘That’s what we need to find out. We’re working on the assumption that it’s the same person who killed Heather’s mother. The MO is exactly the same. So they must have access to some kind of off-road vehicle, a Jeep or a van or something – though in this case we don’t know why Heather’s car was also left there, or how they got her up there and escaped. Heather hadn’t been there long when we found her. She’d have been dead otherwise.’

  She was dead anyway. Worse, sometimes, to think you might have saved them, if only you’d been faster, a minute here, a second there, however long it took to keep their heart beating. Timing. It could break you in two. Paula tried to think. ‘So maybe there were two of them – a husband, perhaps, helping?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Guy ran his hands over his face. ‘We must have barely missed them, too. She’d only just been dumped there.’

  ‘The killer could have still been there?’ Paula recalled the dark of the trees, the breathless silence of the snow.

  ‘Yes,’ said Guy briefly. ‘They may well have been. So that’s possibly three linked cases now – Darcy Williams, the doctor, and Heather, plus her child, who’s still missing. We’re leading on that case, while Corry’s team launch the murder inquiry.’

  ‘What can we do, sir?’ Fiacra’s voice was wavering. He was watching Avril, who was fighting back tears.

  Guy said, ‘It looks as if someone has a grudge against the family. I want to talk to Heather’s father, and her husband if he’s up to it, and I want TV and radio appeals to find the baby. Posters, ads, the lot. I want you on screen, Paula, interviewed on the psychology of this person. Explain what signs to look for, what people should report.’

  She nodded, trying to see it as work, not a pregnant woman ripped apart, dumped like meat.

  Guy went on. ‘I want rock-solid alibis for all those pro-life nuts of Dunne’s. I want to know do any of them have Jeeps. I want everyone in this town looking for Lucy and Darcy. And I want an explanation from that bloody psychic woman.’

  Bob stiffened at the curse. ‘Will DCI Corry authorise an arrest?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I think she knows something, and I’d bet it’s not through visions of the Virgin Mary, either.’ He swept his eyes round the team. ‘This case – it’s getting out of hand. Let’s bring it back. Let’s find that child and bring her home safe.’

  Paula had been thinking and thinking about what Magdalena Croft had said when they’d gone to see her, and what it was she’d found jarring, and now eventually she got it – God willing she’ll be found, the woman had said. And her wee baby too.

  Separately. As if she’d already known Heather and her child would be so violently torn apart. She got to her feet. ‘I’ll meet you back at the unit.’

  Paula found Saoirse in her office, the door shut but not locked. She was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands. Paula closed the door behind her. ‘Hey.’

  Saoirse didn’t turn. ‘The baby.’

  Paula moved closer. ‘We’ll find her.’

  ‘She won’t survive it. It’s . . . look.’ Saoirse gestured painfully to the window, where outside the blinds the snow continued to fall.

  ‘It might be OK.’ Paula hovered, looking at her friend’s bowed back, her dark hair pulled smooth.

  ‘No.’ Saoirse looked up, blinking. ‘Have you done anything about it yet?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your baby, Paula.’

  She recoiled. ‘I— no.’ It was true. She hadn’t done anything, not been to the counsellor as suggested, not booked the flights to London. She was closing her eyes and battling through as if in a blizzard.

  Saoirse spun her chair. ‘You know what happens if you have a late abortion?’

  ‘I . . . think so.’ She thought of Melissa Dunne’s leaflet, the mangled mess, the eyes.

  ‘Do me a favour and don’t let it get that far. It isn’t going to go away, if that’s what you’re hoping.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m hoping.’

  Her friend got up, and took off her bloodied coat. She pushed this into a hazard bin and stood in just her scrubs before her mirror, smoothing hair behind her ears and wiping her glasses. ‘I wish you’d think, Paula. You just never think.’

  ‘Seersh, I—’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have to work.’ And she went. Not knowing what else to do, Paula let her go. She wondered if her friend was right. Was her problem that she didn’t think, or that she thought too much? She looked at herself in Saoirse’s mirror. Face clammy with fear and exhaustion. Hair in rat’s tails. Her heavy coat stained in snow and mud. Anyone looking at her could see she was a mess.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘OK?’

  Paula nodded at Helen Corry, pale-faced. The mike was clipped onto the lapel of the black suit she’d bought for the occasion. Marks and Spencer’s. Boring. She’d had to get size twelve trousers to go over her stomach, and when the waistband of the ten had failed to button, she’d had a brief, angry cry in the changing rooms at the Meadow
s, Ballyterrin’s soulless shopping centre, while ‘Santa Baby’ on pan pipes blasted over the tannoy. She’d pressed powder all round her red eyes to hide them, and changed in the toilets of the main police station while a crew from the Northern Ireland news set up lights and cameras. Paula was to be interviewed by famed local reporter Alvin Laurence, with Corry hovering in the background, eagle-eyed. Paula was terrified. A low-grade nausea brewed in her stomach.

  ‘You’re awful pale,’ tutted the researcher with the clipboard. ‘Have you a wee taste of make-up you could put on?’

  ‘I’ve got some on already.’

  ‘A bit more?’

  Paula shook her head, sitting rigid, sure that someone would see any softness in her abdomen. She was nearly two months pregnant now. On Paula’s laptop there was a permanent minimised window of easyJet flights to London. Weekends were ticking by. The price was going up, in more ways than one.

  ‘Paula, how are you!’ Alvin Laurence. Face of her childhood, fading TV star looks, caring expression a speciality. Years ago he’d done the nice news, the bits they showed before the bombs and shooting and failed peace talks, the Irish dancing stars and kids in wheelchairs learning to walk and that, but since the supposed end of the Troubles they’d shunted aside the more hard-bitten hacks and Alvin was doing the lot.

  Today he’d left off his trademark check jumper in favour of a maroon sports jacket and lurid tie. Paula forced on a smile as he took her cold hands in both of his; she winced at the grip. Why did some men feel they hadn’t greeted you properly unless they pulverised your metacarpals? ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Laurence. We were big fans of yours in our house.’

  That was a lie. PJ called him ‘that gobshite in the golfing jumper’, but her mother had been fond of him, insisting on watching the early evening news when Paula had wanted Neighbours on, so that she could talk about it in school the next day.

  ‘Ah now, you’re very young.’ He wasn’t listening anyway. ‘Amazing to think a wee girl like you has a big important job with the police. We’ll do a wee quick interview. Now don’t be nervous. Any mistakes can be done again, aye?’ He had a tissue tucked under his jowly chins, a rash of powder caught in it, and Paula nodded again, clutching her hands in her lap.

  ‘Er – could I have some water, please?’

  Alvin nodded to the girl with the clipboard, who grudgingly brought over a plastic cup. Paula spilled a drop down her top. ‘Shit!’

  Alvin tutted. ‘You’ll watch the language on air, Miss Maguire, won’t you?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Paula saw Corry sigh, and look at the clock. The watchful stare said I’m counting on you.

  Finally they were ready, and all the faffing with cameras and lights seemed to be done. A boy of about fourteen held up a large white hoop behind Paula’s head. ‘She’s awful washed out,’ muttered Clipboard Girl. Paula took deep breaths.

  ‘Don’t be nervous, pet.’ Alvin leaned forward and put an avuncular hand on Paula’s leg.

  She jumped, dislodging it. ‘I’m not. Are we starting soon?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He looked cross. She could see the join where his hair weave met the grey underneath. Then it was all smiles and they began. It went like this:

  Sombre Alvin: ‘The province is living under fear tonight as a third infant is abducted by a suspected murderer. This time it’s even more horrific – ripped out of her mother’s womb before she was even born, Lucy Campbell is now missing. I’m here with Dr Paula Maguire, a top psychiatrist specialising in such cases. Dr—’

  ‘I’m a psychologist,’ Paula said, blinking into the vast light. She had black spots in front of her eyes.

  Annoyed Alvin: ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Psychiatrists are medically qualified. I’m not. I’m a chartered forensic psychologist.’

  He paused. ‘We’ll do that bit over.’

  Sombre Alvin again: ‘Dr Maguire. You’re a “psychologist” (he applied almost imperceptible quote marks round the word) specialising in this kind of case, is that right?’

  ‘Not really, I—’ She caught Corry’s eye. ‘I specialise in missing persons, yes, and I work with the MPRU, which is based in town here. But this is a very unusual case. I don’t think there’s ever been one in the UK before.’ Paula had been researching the topic.

  Interested Alvin: ‘Indeed?’

  ‘No. However there have been several in the United States, and in fact there’s quite a large body of work that helps us profile the kind of person who might have done it.’

  Relieved Alvin: ‘Now you’ve hit on a question that I’m sure our viewers will be asking themselves. Who would do such a thing? Steal a wee baby, and cut up its poor mother to get it out? Does this really happen?’

  ‘It’s rare, but it does happen. I’ve examined around twenty instances, all in the USA. In most cases the mother is left to die, like Heather Campbell sadly was, and the baby is removed. If the baby’s looked after properly, they often survive. In fact quite a few have been found safe and well again. The abductors usually get caught – these aren’t criminals, you see, and they aren’t usually suffering from mental illness. They’re ordinary people who just . . . snap. Sadly, I believe Heather encountered someone who was desperate for a child.’

  Sad Alvin: ‘Indeed. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family tonight, and of course with Heather’s husband and her father, renowned cardiologist Dr Roy Bates. Dr Maguire – can our viewers help in any way? Is Lucy out there somewhere?’

  Paula shifted in her seat; she was sweating under the lights. ‘The person who did this, they want a baby of their own. And they want it so badly they have to pretend it’s theirs, to loved ones and even to themselves. It’s common for such women to actually think they’re pregnant, a condition called pseudocyesis . . . em, it’s basically a type of false pregnancy. They may even have symptoms – putting on weight, and so on. But then there’s no baby in the end. So they take the youngest child they can find, one that hasn’t bonded with its mother, because it isn’t even born yet. The act can be savage – it’s very difficult to cut in the right place – but the impulse comes from love. They want the child for themselves.’

  Nervous Alvin: ‘That’s very graphic, Doctor. We wouldn’t want to alarm anyone.’

  ‘I’m afraid they should be alarmed. We believe this person has already taken a child at least twice before, and it’s likely we’ll find other abductions or attempted abductions in their past. If for any reason Lucy doesn’t survive, they will want to try again.’

  ‘You’re saying it was the same person who took the little baby Darcy Williams?’

  ‘We believe so. We think they may also have taken Alek Pachek, who was abducted and then found safe.’

  ‘Is there any chance they will return Darcy too, now that Mrs Campbell’s child has sadly been stolen?’

  ‘It’s possible. We think they returned Alek because they failed to bond with him – this could also explain why they’ve moved to actually taking an unborn child, who didn’t have the chance to know their mother before she was murdered. Darcy of course is a little older, so it’s very possible. But we must carry on looking for her, because this person is capable of cold-blooded murder, as we’ve seen.’

  He quailed. ‘And – what type of person could it be?’

  ‘A woman. It’s nearly always a woman. She may befriend a family, perhaps at antenatal groups, or those, what do you call them – childbirth classes. She might even pretend to be pregnant as well. So I’d say look out for anyone who suddenly produces a newborn, or if you’re pregnant, anyone who seems strangely friendly to you. Just be careful.’ Under the suit, her fingers found the mound of her own stomach. ‘Because this person really wants something. Like, more than most of us have ever wanted anything in our lives. And they won’t stop until they get it and they feel the child is truly theirs.’ She fell silent. Everyone w
as staring. ‘Er . . . that’s all.’

  Alvin had rallied somewhat. ‘And I gather the investigation has been looking at several avenues, including staff at the Ballyterrin General Hospital, and some pro-life groups in the area. Can you tell us why that is?’

  Over his shoulder, Paula could see Corry giving a warning look. She wasn’t supposed to discuss the rest of the investigation. ‘Er . . . there was felt to be a link between this case and that of the missing family planning doctor, Dr Bates. The doctor had previously received death threats, so the PSNI have been following those up, I believe.’

  ‘Dr Bates being the mother of Mrs Campbell, of course.’

  Shit, so the press knew about that. She had a feeling Aidan might have something to do with it. ‘That’s correct.’ She saw Corry frown.

  ‘And the MPRU has been accused of harassment by a pro-life activist, is that right? A Mrs Melissa Dunne?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what she said. But Alvin – we’re talking about someone who thought it was OK to put a brick through the window of a doctor’s house, just because she wanted to help people.’

  He made a face. ‘Dr Bates had a sad death, though many in Ballyterrin disagreed with her pro-abortion stance.’

  ‘I doubt she was pro-abortion,’ snapped Paula. ‘I think she was pro helping people not being forced to have babies they didn’t want. I mean, all those pro-lifers, do they ever stop to think a woman is involved too? Whose life is it exactly that we’re talking about?’

  The interview ended not long after this.

  ‘Sorry. I did say I didn’t want to do it.’

  Corry didn’t look up from her desk. Paula was seated on the other side, hands clamped between her shaking legs. ‘He just riled me, you know? He’s so condescending.’

  ‘Mm.’ Corry kept writing.

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  ‘I imagine they’re going to edit the piece down quite heavily. Then I’d imagine we might get a fair number of angry phone calls from pro-life groups, most of the churches in the area, and also any local baby groups, since you suggested their classes might be some kind of breeding ground for serial killers.’