The Dead Ground

by Claire McGowan

  ‘I never done nothing,’ said Patrick, licking a yellow tongue over cracked lips. ‘Nothing, I swear to God.’

  ‘We aren’t accusing you of anything. But I believe you were previously convicted on several counts of robbery, is that right? When you worked for Magdalena Croft?’

  He tensed. ‘They said I took money from the collection pots. But I never! I’d never take money out of something holy, so I wouldn’t.’

  Patrick Duggan had been dismissed from Magdalena Croft’s employ in 2009, and given a suspended sentence for the theft of £25.33 in collection plate money. At that time, Magdalena had been attracting hundreds of people each time to her rallies in the muddy field, all of them contributing money to her so-called church building fund. It seemed uniquely cruel and petty to pursue the man for such a small sum, if he had even stolen it, Paula thought.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that, Patrick.’ Guy was being gentle, as she’d urged. ‘Tell us what you know about Magdalena Croft.’

  The reaction was extreme. Patrick huddled his arms around himself and began to rock. ‘Don’t make me see her. Don’t make me go back.’

  ‘She isn’t here,’ said Gerard impatiently. ‘She’s far away.’

  ‘I won’t see her!’

  ‘Patrick, she isn’t here. We want to ask you questions about her.’

  He lowered his arms. ‘Is she in trouble?’

  Gerard glanced at Guy. ‘What makes you say that, Patrick? Are you a Paddy or a Patrick, by the way?’

  His eyes flicked distrustfully. ‘Paddy, sometimes.’

  ‘OK, Paddy then. Why do you say that?’

  ‘She’s a bad one.’ He whispered it. ‘She says she talks to the Virgin, but the Virgin gives mercy, and her, she’s no mercy in her body. She gave me the boot, and she’d never go near old Jack when he lay dying, for all he gave her his life savings.’

  ‘Who’s Jack?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Jack Magee. He gave her all the money for her church, to build it out the back of her big ould house, and she spent it on a car, so she did. You go and see – she’s a big nice car, she has, so where’d she get the money for that? Then he was dying in the hospice and she never even went to see him.’

  ‘Did this happen to anyone else?’

  ‘Oh aye! All the time!’ He raised his voice, then lowered it again to a whisper, looking fearfully round him. ‘All the time people would come to the church, and she’d get them to give wee cheques – all their money, sometimes, then I’d hear her round the place ordering fancy big furniture or getting a new window in the house or something. She didn’t spend it on the church. Sure it’s hardly even built now, is it? She took it all for herself.’

  ‘Why are you whispering, Patrick?’ Guy leaned in.

  ‘She listens.’ His voice was barely audible.

  ‘Listens how?’

  Patrick pointed up at the ceiling, where a smoke alarm blinked red.

  ‘The alarm?’ Guy was being patient, but Gerard had his what-is-this-bollocks look on.

  ‘Inside,’ whispered Patrick. ‘The wee listening things. When I done the electrics for her, like.’

  ‘Why did she do that?’ Guy was being very careful.

  ‘So she could hear. She’d hear what all the staff said about her, and the people who come and seen her for the sickness, she’d listen so she hears them talking in the other rooms, and then she’d say, oh your mammy has liver cancer, isn’t that right, and they’d think it was the Holy Mother telling it. You see?’ He was becoming agitated.

  ‘I see,’ said Guy. ‘So she could pretend she was having visions.’

  ‘Aye. She’s a bad one. She lies about God. That’s the worst sort of lies.’

  Gerard cleared his throat. ‘Can you prove this, Patrick? If we went there, would we see these bugs, like you say?’

  His eyes went wide. ‘Bugs?’

  ‘The listening things,’ Guy explained, giving Gerard a warning look. ‘DC Monaghan’s asking would we see them for ourselves, if we went to Mrs Croft’s house.’

  ‘I’m not going back there!’ The whites of his eyes were showing, like a horse in a lather of fear. ‘I’m not, I’m not!’ Patrick put his hands over his head, in the brace position, and despite coaxing from Gerard and Guy, they couldn’t get him to say another word. Guy met Paula’s eyes through the window – she’d been right. But something was making this man very afraid indeed.

  ‘Aren’t you going home?’ Paula looked up from her desk, blinking. The office was empty, save for Guy standing over her. ‘It’s gone eight,’ he said, checking his Rolex.

  She rubbed her eyes. ‘Will Croft be arrested, then?’

  ‘Corry’s still not sure. Says we still need more before she’ll move.’

  ‘What about the print from Heather’s necklace, did it match anything in the database?’

  ‘No. Nothing ever does in this case. And it was about the only usable mark from any of the scenes. Whoever’s doing this knows to wipe.’

  Paula shook her head. ‘It just doesn’t fit. The frenzied nature of the attacks, the impulsive snatching – and then this carefulness, covering their tracks quite literally . . . I don’t know.’

  She saw her own weariness reflected back in his eyes. ‘I don’t know either. I feel like we’re at the end of the road.’

  Paula thought about it for a moment. ‘Would you let me go down to Dublin tomorrow? You know I have that contact there, Maeve Cooley. The journalist. She might be able to dig up something on Magdalena’s first church.’ Maeve was a friend of Aidan’s, and Paula liked her very much, while at the same time being hugely jealous of their closeness. It balanced on a knife’s edge most of the time. Maeve also knew everyone in Dublin and was almost Aidan’s equal at digging up unsavoury facts on people.

  Last time Paula had enlisted Maeve’s help, Guy had nearly fired her for going off on her own, but it was a measure of how much this case was foxing them that he was now nodding thoughtfully. ‘I’d really like to find out more about what Magdalena – or rather, Mary – was doing before she started her ministry. Are you up to a trip south?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll call her now.’ And there was also the chance that Maeve might know where Aidan had disappeared to. Not that that mattered.

  Guy was looking preoccupied. She knew that look meant he’d spotted a potential exit from the labyrinth of this case and was heading straight for it. ‘I think we’ve almost got her. Croft. Not just the abduction of her cousin, and the testimony of Patrick Duggan, but the fact she knew exactly where to find Alek. I want to really probe if she has alibis for Heather and Dr Bates. If she can’t prove where she was, we can break her.’

  ‘What about Corry?’

  ‘I’ll go over her head if I have to,’ said Guy. ‘This case has been mishandled from day one. Croft is the one thing linking them all. I think we need to find out if she’s ever had any prints taken – if we match it to the one found on Heather, that’s what we need. Can you look into that when you’re down there?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This is it,’ he said, all the muscles in his neck tensed and ready. ‘We just need a bit more evidence and we’ll have her. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  He tapped the back of her chair. ‘I’m off now. Drive home safely, OK? I’m worried about you.’

  Her heart stuttered. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You just don’t look well.’

  For a moment she thought about telling him – I’m pregnant, it’s your baby. Imagined how he would react, and how he’d take her in his arms, look after her, make it all OK. No more secrets. No more nights awake in her childhood single bed, staring sleepless at the cracked ceiling as car lights moved over the window. But it wouldn’t be true, would it? She didn’t even know if it was his baby. Th
e lies were so much simpler than the truth. ‘I’m fine,’ she said again. ‘See you.’

  When she got home, something was off. She knew it right away. Pat was there – nothing strange in that. Except she hadn’t actually seen Pat in the house for weeks. The little touches of her had gone, a tail wind of talc and biscuits, dishes rinsed and gleaming on a draining board, shirts taken from the basket and ironed, unasked for and unexpected.

  Paula’s stomach lurched as she set her keys down on the counter. Pat must know. That was it. She knew Paula was pregnant and that it could be Aidan’s. Or worse, might not be. ‘What’s going on?’ She could hear her voice was already high, defensive.

  Pat and PJ were standing side by side in front of the window, the sink and washing machine behind them. Pat looked at PJ. She didn’t meet Paula’s eyes. ‘Maybe I should head on, let you two have a wee chat.’

  ‘No. You should be here.’ Paula then saw her father had his arm around Pat, reaching across the sink and gripping her opposite elbow. She’d never seen him touch Pat before. Or anyone, in fact. Not since her mother went.

  ‘Dad?’ She had the sudden mad urge to start talking, make him not say whatever he was about to.

  ‘Sit down, pet.’

  There was something on the table. A piece of paper.

  Pat babbled, ‘Will I make a drink for us all? A nice drop of tea, maybe—’

  ‘I don’t want tea.’ Paula made as if to go out again. ‘I don’t want this – I can’t—’

  ‘Paula.’ Her father’s voice was pleading. ‘It’s been long enough. You need to listen, and I need to say it.’

  She was in the hall doorway, her back to them, when he said it.

  ‘I’ve asked Patricia to marry me, Paula. We – I want us to live under the same roof, and she’s a good Christian woman. I can’t ask her to carry on like that without a wedding ring.’

  Silence. Paula looked at the picture directly opposite in the hallway. Her parents’ wedding. Those awful seventies suits, the flicky hair. It was stupid, what PJ had said. They had wedding rings already, both PJ and Pat. But Pat’s husband was long dead and she was more than free to marry again. Whereas her father—

  ‘Paula.’ She turned, and instead of looking at them looked at the paper on the table. The words blurred into shape – DECLARATION OF DEATH.

  ‘It’s been long enough,’ her father said, so awkward. His arm twitched away from Pat. ‘Seven years, they need, and well – it’s been seventeen. Love—’

  She was moving. She heard Pat say, shaky – ‘Ah look, PJ, she can’t take it in. I’m sorry, pet! We won’t do it. We were just being selfish. Paula!’

  The stair carpet blurred under her feet. She was thundering up them. She was in the bathroom, retching into the sink, not caring that they saw. She retched and retched until she was an empty, shaking shell.

  ‘There, there.’ Hands were holding back her hair. ‘Get it out. Get it all out.’

  Paula started to cry. Her father sat heavily on the edge of the bath, bad leg splayed out, while she sank onto the toilet lid, leaning weakly over the sink.

  ‘It was a bad idea,’ he said quietly. ‘I never thought you’d be so upset.’

  ‘No—’ she coughed; her mouth was burning with bile. ‘No. You have to. You’d be happy. I mean, it’s Pat – of course you’d be. Of course you should get married.’

  ‘But pet, look at the state of you.’

  ‘It’s just – we’re giving up on her. We’re saying she’s dead.’

  They hadn’t spoken of this, the two of them, since she was thirteen and the night they’d sat at the kitchen table, a week after her mother had gone, and talked through what they might do, the two of them. How they might possibly carry on. PJ said, ‘It’s the only way. I can’t divorce your mother – Pat doesn’t believe in it, and she wants to be married right. I wouldn’t feel right either. It’d be like I was judging your mother somehow. But it doesn’t mean – I still don’t know if she is or not. I don’t think we’ll ever know, pet, and that’s the God’s honest truth.’

  She was crying again, her shoulders shaking. The porcelain of the sink was cool under her cheek. ‘It’s just I need her, Daddy. I need her now. You see, I’m pregnant.’

  For a moment he was very still, then he nodded. ‘I knew something wasn’t right with you. I’ve eyes in my head.’ He passed a hand over his face. ‘God almighty.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean it – it just happened. I’m so sorry.’

  He raised his weary head. ‘What would you be sorry for?’

  ‘I know it’s not what you wanted for me. I’m not married, I don’t even know who . . .’ She gulped back the tears that were fizzing in her nose and throat.

  ‘Ah, no now, no, no. Who’d be sad about a wean coming? It’s the twenty-first century, love. It’s just I don’t know what I can do. She should be here, to help you. What can the likes of your ould da do?’

  He seemed to have collapsed, sitting helpless on the side of the old lime-green bath. Paula wept over the sink for a few convulsing moments. Then she ran the tap, sluicing her face and eyes. She wiped a hand over her mouth. ‘Look, Dad. The truth is, she isn’t here. She won’t come back just because you fill in a form. It won’t change anything, will it? We still won’t know anything about what happened.’

  ‘No.’

  She was very aware of the house round them, slowly collapsing under years of sadness, the hole in the middle where Margaret Maguire should have been. ‘We’ll manage, Daddy. Don’t worry. We’ll be grand.’

  It was the same thing he’d said to her seventeen years ago, when they sat in this same house facing the fact that her mother wasn’t coming back. And somehow, barely, scraping by, they had managed indeed.

  She pushed her damp hair out of her face. PJ had gone silent. ‘I never meant for this to happen, you know. I still might – I still don’t know what I’m going to do.’ She couldn’t say the words to him, lifelong Catholic that he was, in Mass every week. She couldn’t say she still might not have this baby. ‘Dad? I mean, I . . .’

  ‘Give us a hand.’ He held out his arm and she helped him up. He squeezed her shoulders briefly. ‘Let’s not talk about it now, pet. You’ll be OK. We’ll help you.’ He and Pat were a we now. It was a lovely word, when you thought what it meant. It meant you weren’t alone.

  Paula sniffed. ‘I know. Pat will be good for you, I know it.’

  ‘Ah.’ PJ stopped. ‘Tell me this, pet, before we go down. Is Aidan the father of the wean?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Dad – I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m not sure. I— He might be. But he might not.’

  He winced. ‘Then don’t tell Pat till you’ve told him, OK?’

  ‘OK.’ She took deep, shaky breaths. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I – I hope you’ll be happy, the two of you.’ A weak smile flashed on PJ’s face and was replaced by a look of weary sadness.

  ‘We’ve as much a chance as anyone else in this ould world, for what it’s worth. And so do you. Now come on downstairs.’

  Chapter Thirty

  There was no answer the next day when Paula rang the door of Maeve’s flat, in a converted warehouse close to the old meat district in Dublin. Smithfield, it was called, same as in London. She’d driven down that morning – thanks to the improved roads built with EU money, you could get to Dublin in less than two hours from Ballyterrin, though it might take you as long again to fight your way through the city’s traffic-choked mediaeval streets. From behind the door of number five she could hear loud music: ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. Aidan had played that incessantly when he was eighteen, and they were driving about in his then-new Clio, drunk on freedom and youth and each other. ‘Hello!’ she shouted. ‘Anyone in?’

  The door flew open and there was Maev
e Cooley, pulling blond hair into a messy ponytail. Despite the chill she wore shorts under a grey hoodie, her legs long and bare, chipped lime polish on her toes. ‘Paula, howyeh. Sorry, I was working all night on deadline so I’m only up. Come in, will you.’ Having been in Maeve’s car, Paula was not surprised to find the flat was also a tip. A laptop sat on the hardwood floor surrounded by sheaves of paper and crumpled magazines, and every surface had collections of glasses, stained red with wine, or beer bottles, or plates used as ashtrays. The air smelled of smoke, and hangovers.

  ‘Will you have tea or something?’ Maeve threw back the curtains, wincing at the grey light which flooded in, and opened the fridge. A fluffy grey cat shot out from under the breakfast bar, giving Paula an evil stare and meowing loudly at his owner. ‘Give over, Ernest. Bollocks, I’ve no milk.’

  ‘I’m OK.’ Paula moved inside, setting her bag down by the door under a framed poster of Oscar Wilde. I have nothing to declare except my genius. Maeve said something she couldn’t hear over the music. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That racket!’ Maeve raised her voice. ‘Shut that bloody din off, would you?’

  ‘Oh, is someone—’

  Too late. Paula heard a voice in the bedroom, an all too familiar voice, and then suddenly Aidan was in the room. ‘It’s Slash, you eejit – oh.’ He stared at Paula. She took in the fact he wore only boxers and a T-shirt – one she’d bought him years ago, with Bob Dylan on it – and that he was coming out of the flat’s only bedroom. His dark hair stuck up and he had several days’ stubble on his face. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Paula must have backed away, because she felt the ridges of the door under her shoulders.

  Maeve was swilling water in the sink. ‘Aidan’s down staying for a few days. Did you not tell her you were here, you eejit? I thought that’s why you came, Paula.’

  ‘No.’ Paula’s heart was thumping. ‘No, I wanted to speak to you about that faith healer, like I said.’

  Maeve glanced between them. ‘Aidan’s on some story too. Won’t say what, the dodgy bastard that he is.’