The Dead Ground

by Claire McGowan

  They stayed very still. Paula had little choice, her arm chained, her heart racing, struggling to breathe through her nose and straining to hear. Upstairs was the slow tread of feet, and the knock on the door came again.

  Magdalena removed her hand from Paula’s mouth, with a warning look, and went to the window. Underneath it was a small box Paula had assumed was a light switch. Magdalena flipped it and noise filled the room.

  Paula tried to say something, remembering Patrick Duggan – she listens, the wee listening things. Her voice came out as a low moan, and Magdalena immediately was at her side, gagging her again. ‘Be quiet, girl.’

  Voices. A high, nervous one she recognised as Bernice’s. A deeper male one. It was crackly and difficult to hear. Magdalena was poised and rigid, her hand gently but firmly smothering Paula, who wasn’t sure if she had the strength to scream anyway. Who was it? The police? One of Magdalena’s followers? Or something innocuous, like a salesman? Imagine if you could have been saved by someone delivering pizza flyers.

  The man’s voice said, ‘Good evening, madam. Is Mrs Croft here, please? I’m from the MPRU in town.’ Gerard! It was Gerard. Paula’s heart pounded at the sound of his nasal Ballyterrin tones, and Magdalena felt her tense and pushed down harder.

  ‘No, she isn’t here. I’m sorry, officer.’ Bernice.

  There was a pause. ‘Would you know where she is? She’s been helping us on some cases, but we’ve not been able to get hold of her. Thing is, one of our own staff went missing last night.’

  I’m here I’m here look down.

  Bernice sounded perfectly calm now. ‘I’ll tell her you were asking for her. She’s out of town for a few days.’

  ‘Do you know where?’

  A pause. ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘And who would you be, madam, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  Again a slight pause. ‘I’m her cleaner. I just come in once a week.’

  ‘Are you the owner of the van parked outside?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. For my supplies.’

  Paula was desperately trying to think if Gerard would ever have seen Bernice at the hospital. She’s lying she’s lying, please Gerard, come into the house, find me . . .

  ‘All right, madam. Please do tell her we’d like to speak to her.’

  ‘I will.’

  Silence again. The sound of the door shutting. Magdalena relaxed a fraction. ‘I told you, we know how to cover—’ They both jumped as a pair of legs appeared at the small, high windows. By the looks of it, Gerard was peering through the back windows of the house. Paula tried to wrench her face away but Magdalena held her fast. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Come on now.’

  Paula had to lie there as the legs stretched up when Gerard craned to look at something. Look down look down. He didn’t. The window must not be visible from up there. The legs moved away, and soon there was the sound of a car starting up.

  Magdalena sighed and took her hand away. She laid the scarf on the bed, and gently she touched a finger to Paula’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That’s it for you. But what I said is true. Your mother is alive. She doesn’t know you’ll die in this wee pokey room. But maybe now I’ve told you, you can go with a bit more peace.’

  She went out, closing the door gently. Paula shut her eyes, feeling tears run down the sides of her face.

  More time went by. Paula didn’t know how much any more, her body held fast in the grip of the drug, her mind turning in slow, lazy circles. She knew there was no way out of this room. She would die here. But she lay there, and every time she opened her eyes she saw the same grey walls, and still nothing had happened.

  She woke. There were voices outside the door of the room. Her heart began to race as she listened.

  ‘Bridget, for God’s sake, you’ll kill them both. There’ll be no baby then. You know I’m right.’

  ‘But they might come back! You heard him. He didn’t believe me.’

  Magdalena sighed. ‘I can hardly blame him. Could you not have told the truth?’

  ‘They know me. They’ve spoken to me twice at the hospital. I told them I wasn’t there that day the baby went, and I never claimed for working it, so they didn’t have me on their interview lists. But they’ve seen me. It’s too risky.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly made them suspicious now.’

  ‘That’s why I have to do it!’

  ‘Pet, could you not wait a few weeks? We can take her away somewhere. What about to your house?’

  ‘Too small. The neighbours’ll talk.’

  There was a long pause. ‘I won’t stand in your way, if that’s what you want. But you know what will happen.’

  ‘I have to. I’m getting my things. It’s time.’

  Silence again. They’d moved away. Paula sat bolt upright, pulling herself up with both hands. This was it. She had to get out and now. The police might be coming, but it would be too late.

  When she stood up her legs collapsed under her. She hauled herself up again, pulling on the table. The windows seemed impossibly high. She staggered up, putting one knee on the table and with a huge amount of effort dragging herself onto it, hands on the narrow windowsill. Then she just had to stand up. She felt around the edges of one tiny window, set in place with putty and shot through with wire. There must be a way to get it out. She looked around for something to use but there was nothing, unless she dismantled the furniture. Even the jug of water was plastic. Outside she heard a noise, and panicking, snatched up the laptop from where it lay on the table, and swung it as hard as she could against the window. There was a loud crack, and she almost blacked out with the effort. Once more and the glass began to shatter, though it didn’t budge from its frame. Come on come on. Another swing took all she had, but she felt the pane shift a little. She was gathering strength for another go when she heard the door open.

  Bernice/Bridget was dressed all in blue surgical scrubs, a cap over her hair and a mask on her face, eyes unreadable above it. Without even looking at Paula she whisked in, carrying a tray she set down on the table. On it, surgical knives, glinting in the dull light. Panic took hold of Paula’s throat and her voice forced its way up from the torpor. ‘Let me out! Get away from me!’

  Without looking up, the woman shook her head slowly. She moved to Paula and lifted her straight off the table, dumping her on the bed as if she weighed no more than a child. Paula trembled, all her panicked energy leaked away from the effort of standing.

  ‘Please, Bridget.’ No answer. Her arm was lifted and snapped into the handcuffs again, a piece of skin painfully trapped. Bernice turned back to the knives, laid out on surgical paper. Why bother to clean them, Paula wondered, when she’d be left to bleed anyway, blood rushing for the gaping lips of her skin? Habit, maybe. She remembered those autopsy pictures of Heather Campbell and talked faster, though her voice was weak and cloudy. ‘It’s your name, isn’t it? When you lived at Ceol na Mara? Bridget.’

  Nothing. She saw the muscles in Bernice’s back, under the scrubs. Held taut.

  ‘Bernice?’ Paula’s voice cracked. ‘Bridget, sorry. I know you’re still Bridget, aren’t you? You were kind to me. I needed help when I came to you, and you were nice.’

  Silence. The slow exhale of breath. Outside the heavy press of snow.

  ‘I want her,’ Paula said. Her voice seemed leached of all strength. ‘The baby. The little girl.’

  Nothing.

  ‘I want the baby, Bridget. I’ll look after her. I know I was confused, and I didn’t realise before. I was stupid. I’m young – OK, I’m not that young, I know – but I was scared. Please, Ber – Bridget. Please don’t hurt my baby.’

  Nothing. The clink of the instruments as she examined each, the sound of her breathing against the surgical mask.

  ‘OK,’ Paula said, faste
r. ‘Maybe you were right. I don’t deserve her. You’d be better than me. I’m a mess. I sleep around, I drink – though not since I found out, I swear. I want her to be safe. So you can take her, if you need to. But Bridget – she isn’t ready yet! It’s too soon. You know that. She’ll die.’ Paula’s voice broke. Surges of terror were running through her body, the handcuff chafing at her wrist. The bed creaked under her but nothing gave. She felt pain shoot through her skin. ‘Bridget? Are you listening? You will kill the baby if you do this now. I know you gave back Alek, and Lucy is OK, she made it – but you know what will happen. You’ve worked in neonatal units. You know the babies don’t live if they’re too small. My baby’s not even three months inside me. You will kill her. You will kill us both.’

  Nothing. The woman didn’t even turn. Paula began to cry again, harsh, dry sobs catching in her mouth. She felt so dried up there were no tears left. The only sound was her desperate, empty weeping. She’d lost. She knew it.

  There was movement. Bernice/Bridget turned. Above the mask, her eyes were blank and expressionless. The grey showed in her roots, and Paula could see no trace of that girl in the picture, in a small cottage by the sea, where the wind blew hard and lonely. The girl with the quick smile, and the man’s hand on her shoulder, his head ripped off. Up close, knowing what she did now, Paula could see the scars running down the sides of the woman’s face. She must have worn make-up before. She’d had something done, surgery maybe, and that was why no one had recognised her as Bridget Conaghan.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bridget.’ Her voice was failing. ‘I’m sorry he hurt you. Your grandfather. I know it was him.’

  Bridget was turning towards her. In one hand another syringe. Rohypnol, Paula had worked out, or something like it. Keeping her quiet, pliable. Unmoving. Bridget lifted Paula’s free arm, which was floppy as spaghetti. The syringe plunged in. Paula could barely feel it. She moaned. It flowed through her veins, dark and deep, putting her under. Then Bridget picked up the tissue she’d discarded and pushed it deep into Paula’s mouth. The paper was dry; she retched against it.

  ‘Breathe through your nose,’ said Bridget flatly, turning back to the table of knives. Her voice and her tread had the impersonal grace of a nurse. When she turned again the scalpel was in her hand. It glinted under the orange light. She moved the three paces to Paula – not quick, not slow. In control. She pushed up Paula’s jumper, exposing her to the dank air. One hand was placed on Paula’s white abdomen, goose-pimpled with cold. The other brought down the knife, and Paula felt the steel touch her skin, then go into it. A bright rainbow of pain. That was all.

  Epilogue

  White.

  Silence.

  At first there was so much pain she thought she couldn’t be dead. Wasn’t there meant to be peace in death? She imagined people – her mother, standing in the corner of a hospital room, hair still red but her face older, smiling, and she failed to get to her, but someone was holding her down. Then her father, but sitting down for some reason, and Guy, and Aidan, and Saoirse – so many people she cried to be alone, burying her face in the pillow. The pain was a rack she twisted on, a ribbon of agony round her middle. The world coming back grey and noisy, bumping over ruts, and then.

  White.

  Silence.

  Things were happening around her, or maybe she was remembering, or dreaming. How did you tell? There was a rush of noise, footsteps and doors banging, shouts, and then one sound she couldn’t escape – the high scream of a woman, going on and on until it got into the marrow of your bones. Hands were lifting her, and the air seemed to hurt her skin, and she cried. There was a screeching of sirens, then more white light, impossibly bright.

  Silence.

  This must be how death was. It was what she’d imagined when she tried to taste it as a teenager, the peace, just to lie down and forget your own name. For a while, she did. For a while she just floated, in the peace and the white and the stillness. For a while, Paula was quite happy to be dead.

  Then she woke up.

  It came back slowly, so blinding she couldn’t open her eyes. Her mouth was sore, as if her teeth had been knocked out of place. Her limbs were heavy, molten, and when she could see there was a pressure cuff on one finger and a catheter going into her arm. Below the waist was foreign – she couldn’t feel what was what going on down there, but it rustled when she stirred, and it felt like it wasn’t even a part of her.

  ‘Paula? Paula?’ Her father was there, in fact. She hadn’t dreamed that. And he was sitting down, or more strictly, in a wheelchair, one arm bandaged painfully in front.

  She swallowed. There seemed to be sand in her throat. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Am I OK?’ PJ was gripping her hand in his one good one.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He sighed. ‘You’d me worried sick, and you’re asking am I OK. I’m grand now you’ve opened your eyes.’

  She blinked round the room. ‘Daddy . . . What happened? I thought I was dead.’ Flowers, cards, a blur of pastel.

  ‘You nearly were.’ He shifted so he could reach the bed, patting the arm with the pulse monitor on it. ‘They found you. One of your colleagues went to the house.’

  ‘Gerard came. I heard him. But he didn’t see me. I tried to call.’

  ‘He knew something was up when the sister answered the door. He’d seen her at the hospital – she’d even been interviewed a few times – and he didn’t buy her excuse, so they came back with a Tactical Support team. They saw the van outside, you know. It must have been bought illegally because it never came up on any of their searches of hospital staff. Anyway, she was in the room with you and she was about to – well – do you remember what happened?’

  ‘She cut me.’ It was easy to say it, somehow. The certainty of a blade slicing flesh. That had happened.

  ‘Yes. Well, she got the skin and muscle, and she’d nicked the – eh, your womb, pet – but not the artery. So they found you in time.’

  ‘Oh.’ She licked her dry lips and rustled again, tentatively. ‘I didn’t know . . . She was there all the time, and I never even realised. Is she—?’

  ‘You don’t remember what happened?’

  ‘No – it’s all sort of like a dream. I remember someone screaming.’ She shivered under the blankets.

  ‘She cut herself. Bernice. When they came in for you. Tried to slash her wrists, but they got her. She’s in a different hospital. The sister’s in custody. She admitted the whole business. She thinks they were in the right, you know. Doesn’t see a thing wrong with it. Anyway they found the wee Campbell baby safe. I thought you’d want to know that. She’ll be grand.’

  Paula moved, cautiously, trying to work out what was going on below her waist. ‘Am I stitched?’

  ‘You’ve staples in, but they’ll be out in a week or so.’

  ‘Dad, I . . . am I . . .’

  He took her hand. ‘Paula, you’re still expecting. If you want to be. The baby’s grand. She really is.’

  She. Paula put her hand under the sheets, and felt the gauze dressing on her stomach, and underneath a line of staples holding her flesh together. Pain flared and she drew in her breath in a hiss.

  ‘They said it’d be a challenge, since your skin’ll stretch a fair bit more, but you’ve time, and they’ll do their best.’

  She was taking this in. ‘I’m having a baby.’

  ‘Looks that way, pet.’

  A baby. That iron grip of life, the one she’d told to hold on no matter what. It had.

  ‘I’ll have to tell them,’ she said, panicking suddenly and trying to sit up. ‘Guy and Aidan. I’ll have to tell them I don’t know whose it is.’

  ‘Never mind those eejits,’ PJ said. His hand was rough and warm. ‘They’ve both been in pestering me day and night.’

  ‘Aidan too? Aidan came here?’ For a moment
she wasn’t sure which was more painful. Assuming he wouldn’t care if she was dying, or thinking that maybe he did care, but just not enough. Never enough.

  ‘Of course he came. He’s not bad through and through. Though God knows how he’d take to being a father. Pay no heed to them now. I’ll mind you, and Pat too. We’ll get you well and the baby will come and we’ll sort it all out later.’

  ‘Dad. Magdalena – Mary, I mean. She said something to me, just before her sister – before she cut me.’

  ‘Don’t think about that now. It’s over. They’ve been caught, and they’ll not be hurting anyone else again.’

  ‘No – she said she saw Mum. She told me Mum’s still alive.’

  He stopped patting her hand. ‘And how would she know a thing like that?’

  ‘She sees things. Visions.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. But, Dad, I’ve been looking. I’ve been looking at Mum’s file. I’ve been talking to people.’

  ‘I know you have. I’ve eyes in my head.’

  ‘But I want you to be with Pat. You have to be with Pat.’

  ‘Pet, you know that means I have to say your mother’s dead. There’s no other way.’

  ‘I know. But I have to keep looking, too. Even so. You understand that?’ She was pleading.

  PJ sighed. ‘It seems like a lot of heartbreak for no reason. But you do what you have to, and I’ll do what I have to. I can’t let Patricia down now. She’s a good woman, the best. You’ll have to tell her, you know. About the wean. That she might be Aidan’s.’

  She. There it was again. No longer an it, a situation, a problem, but an irrevocable person on her way to them. Paula looked at the screen of the monitor, which was attached by a cord to her stomach. Not her heart, she realised, but the baby’s. Proof it was still there, and fighting, under those layers of skin and muscle so nearly laid bare. The pulse of it juddering, stuttering into life. It was the smallest thing. But it was everything, too.