Pushed towards the back was a folded pushchair, and just in front of it, a baby bag. The baby bag was open, revealing a couple of striped nappies and a bag of baby wipes, sealed shut.
Only then did he realise that he had been holding his breath. He exhaled now with a loud whoosh.
Beck felt a coldness. It crept through him, like an icy stream.
He felt sure now: A baby. Yes. There had been one.
Four
October 1954
The boy lay huddled beneath the blankets and old coats in the hag, the hollow in the wall by the fire, the warmest part of the house, alongside his grandmother. He had lain there, still and silent, since they had left and gone into the forest, listening only to the sounds of his grandmother’s breathing. He had lain there when they had come back again, shouting and agitated, his mother screaming, her nightclothes drenched in blood. He had lain there too, when the policemen had arrived, among them the big hulking detective shouting, demanding his mother tell him where the child was.
The child.
His sister.
Bernadette.
Five
‘Mr Crabby,’ Beck said. ‘When you found the car, was there a baby in it? Can you tell me that? Did you hear or see a baby?’
He was sitting alongside Crabby in the back of the squad car. Crabby appeared to have calmed down, staring straight ahead, completely still. Which wasn’t good either. He turned his head slightly, his eyes swivelling to the corners of their sockets. It gave him a shifty look.
‘Mr Crabby,’ Beck said. ‘When you found the car, was there a baby in it? Can you tell me that? Did you hear or see a baby?’
‘A baby?’
‘Yes. A baby.’ Beck was struggling to keep his voice calm.
‘I can’t be certain. I didn’t see a baby… I don’t think. I can’t be certain’
‘Okay. And you were out for an early morning cycle, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What brought you here, to this spot?’
Crabby shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s, I don’t know, pretty, isn’t it? The bridge. I’ve always liked it. There used to be a tiny village you know, Kelly’s Forge. All ruins now. It’s very peaceful. I like peace…’
‘Did you recognise the deceased?’ Beck asked.
‘You mean the person in the car?’
What?
‘Yes. The person in the car,’ Beck said.
Crabby bowed his head and folded his arms tightly across his chest.
‘Her throat was cut. I could see it.’
‘Did she look familiar?’
‘I don’t know?’
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘I don’t think I even looked at her face, you see.’ He paused, before adding. ‘All I can remember is her throat. I couldn’t take my eyes off her throat.’
‘I see,’ Beck said. ‘By the way, how did you know my address?’
Crabby unfolded his arms and they fell by his sides. He looked down, then up again at Beck. ‘You don’t remember?’
‘Remember. Remember what?’
‘The bottle of tequila. You came into my shop. I had actually closed, was locking the door. I didn’t want to sell it to you, you understand, but you were very, very, persistent. I knew you were a policeman, so I offered to drive you home. You were, you know…’
‘Oh,’ Beck said, his mind whirring quickly. ‘I’d like to thank you for that. And apologise at the same time. It was a reaction to antibiotics. I had a virus at the time.’
Crabby was silent.
Beck wondered if he believed his lie.
The truth was he had absolutely no recollection of the event. He didn’t even like tequila. But it did explain one mystery. During a particularly bad bender not so long ago, he had woken to find a half empty litre bottle of tequila on his bedside locker. He’d called it a gift from the Mexican tooth fairy.
‘I’ll have someone drive you home,’ Beck said. ‘But we’ll need to talk to you again. You’re not planning on going anywhere are you? Certainly not in the near future?’
‘No. I’m not. When do I get my bike back?’
‘We’ll have to hold onto that. It shouldn’t be for long. I’ll get word to you. You can come and collect it from the station, or we can drop it back. Whichever you’d prefer.’
‘Why?’ For the first time a change in the pitch of the voice. ‘Why do you want to hold onto it?’
‘Because we’ll need to forensically examine it, that’s why.’
Crabby thought about that. ‘And why? Surely… Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with this?’
‘I don’t know,’ Beck said. ‘I don’t know anything. Not at this moment. You can understand.’
Crabby stared at Beck. ‘Listen,’ he said abruptly. ‘Actually, I don’t understand. This is my reputation you’re talking about. I’m not involved in this dreadful business. Do you understand?’
‘Understand? I understand there’s a killer out there who needs to be found. And there’s probably a baby missing too. That’s what I understand. Anything else, such as your reputation, well, it pales into insignificance, doesn’t it?’
Crabby pursed his lips and looked out the window, away from Beck. He muttered something under his breath. Beck couldn’t quite catch what it was, but it sounded like ‘I gave you a bloody bottle of tequila.’
Six
October 1954
They were outcasts. The people of this place. This Clachán, this hamlet known as Kelly’s Forge. The boy knew it. Knew it in the way the people of the town avoided them. Knew it in the way they looked at them. In the way they spoke to them. In the way they ridiculed them. They did not belong. Their world was the world of the forest, where the monsters dwelled, the banshees, the faeries. That was their world.
He did not like looking at his grandmother’s face, so he avoided it, turning away from her now. Because it held a tortured grimace, as if she was suffering the most indomitable, insufferable pain, as if her skin was being burned alive, dripping from her body. He knew the cause, one word: stroke.
The boy watched as the people congregated around the door of the cottage, the light from their burning rushes a glowing pit in the darkness. They stood there, stooped figures for the most part, one or two women with babies beneath their shawls, the men in ill-fitting jackets, their faces gaunt and shadowed in the flickering light that reflected on the uniform buttons of the two guards who stood inside.
He watched as the big hulking detective pushed the rickety door closed, the light from the burning rushes disappearing, appearing to squeeze through the small narrow windows, where faces were pressed against the dirty panes of glass.
The boy would later learn the big detective’s name: Inspector Padráic Flaherty, of Mill Street station in Galway.
He watched his mother. She was sitting on a wooden stool by the table. In that night dress. That was drenched in blood. He saw that she was shivering, and wanted to go to her. Wanted to protect her. Because that’s what men did. But he was not a man. Not yet. He was still a boy. And so he could do nothing. The boy turned his head on the hard pillow. And was startled to see his grandmother staring at him. In the black pits of her eyes he could see his face. But he did not recoil. Instead he reached out for the old woman, held her close. And he could feel her hand on his back, gently pressing into him.
Seven
‘Do we know who she is?’ Superintendent Wilde asked.
The commanding officer of Cross Beg Garda station looked at Beck, biting his lower lip.
‘No,’ Beck said. ‘Dempsey’s just gone to the address of the registered owner of the car. We should know something soon.’
They were at the end of the cul-de-sac. The narrow roadway behind was clogged by marked and unmarked cars parked one behind the other. When the Technical Bureau van arrived, whenever that might be, it would be a slow reverse procession back onto the main road.
Inspector O’Reilly was standing a short dist
ance away. He looked to Wilde, then to Beck, his eyes lingering on Beck a fraction longer than was necessary. O’Reilly forced a smile, which Beck thought strange. Because O’Reilly rarely smiled, and at a time like this, a smile was out of place. It just didn’t belong. Since Beck’s banishment to Cross Beg, in punishment for an unstated misdemeanour, O’Reilly had harangued and roared. But now, cleared by an investigative committee whose finding would remain secret, Beck had been restored to his rank of Inspector. Although he had seniority by virtue of length of service, O’Reilly could no longer behave as before.
‘The new CRI, Gerry?’ Wilde called. ‘You up to speed on that?’
O’Reilly stepped across and nodded.
‘In relation to missing children,’ he said, like answering a question in a pub quiz. ‘Goes out on radio, television, the internet and Facebook, oh, and motorway roadside electronic signage too. That the one you mean?’
‘Yes. That’s the one. Set it up so we just have to press the switch? Have it ready to go. Let’s hope the child is with her partner. Ring that patrol, Beck, for Christ’s sake, and see if there’s any word.’
Eight
October 1954
The boy could hear them talking, the big detective’s voice like a shovel running through pebbles.
‘Kathleen, a grá’, he said, pulling a stool across the rough stone floor and sitting down.
The boy could see the big detective glance toward the windows, to the faces pressed there against them. He shouted to the other guards, ‘Run them, for God’s sake. One of you. Run them.’
The sergeant’s heavy boots pounded to the door and he shouted out into the night. The glowing light at the windows dwindled and was gone, taking with it the ghost-like faces. The inside of the cottage was almost in darkness now.
‘You’ll tell me now what happened,’ the detective said, all softness gone from his voice. ‘This minute. Or I’ll have to take you with me to the barracks in Galway. Where you’ll be locked up in a cold, lonely cell. You don’t want that now, do you?’
The boy saw that his mother was shivering continuously now.
‘Have you not got something to put over yourself?’ the big detective asked, his voice gentle again.
‘It came and took my bábóg,’ she mumbled, as if to herself. ‘We heard the banshee. And the door opened. And the creature came in. And then it grabbed my bábóg. Oh, my bábóg…’
The boy wondered. And was confused.
Why had his mother just lied?
Nine
Claire Somers didn’t do tears. Or so she thought. Anyway, it had been a long time since she had.
She wiped her eyes with the tissue again and looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. She sighed. A long sigh. A sigh of hopelessness. Also of confusion. But above all, of loss.
Was it the same for straight couples?
She was immediately angry she had even asked herself this question. It was the sort of question sure to get up her own goat if she’d heard someone else ask it. It was a question up there with, well, how do you actually, you know, do it?
Whatever, this had been the longest week of her life. It was now eight weeks since they’d got the news. The IVF cycle was now complete. Over. Finished. The result delivered. The preamble, the jargon, it went on and on, but she had known right away. Because they don’t do preamble and jargon unless they want to hide the bad news at the end. And the bad news at the end was more or less the same as the bad news on the previous two occasions. Eggs had been harvested, but only one fertilized, and this had rejected the donor’s sperm. The clinic had wanted to try again. They said to keep positive. Easy for them to say, so long as they were getting paid. But Lucy and Claire decided that enough was enough. For now. Maybe in the future they would try again, maybe with Claire’s eggs next time. But for now, it was too difficult to continue, each failure was too much of a numbing loss in itself, and it was taking too much of a toll on their relationship.
The clinic would not use the word failure when this was really what they meant. Why couldn’t they say it like it was? Why did they feel the need to colour the result with the same enthusiasm they had coloured their promises at the start of the process in their bloody colour brochures. It would have been easier if they’d just said it like it was.
The process.
Jesus.
And she didn’t do make-up either. Or so she thought. Anyway, it had been a long time since she had. But she needed colour to her pale, gaunt face. Because Beck had already rung twice. And she couldn’t keep putting him off. She had to face people. She had to present a normal image to the world.
Her phone rang again.
She picked up, ‘I was just th…’
‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Keep your shirt on, Beck, I’m on my way.’
Ten
October 1954
The big policeman was angry. The boy knew it. He could see it in the way he clenched his fists and in the way his arms hung down by his sides, his mouth set like a cross dog.
‘Stop your nonsense!’ the policeman shouted at his mother, kicking back the stool and standing. ‘Enough of it!’
The boy shuddered.
‘It’s the truth,’ his mother shouted back. ‘I swear it to you I do. It’s the truth.’ She began to wail. ‘Oh, my bábóg.’
But just as suddenly, she fell quiet, staring at the table. The weak light from the candle glinted on the nail heads in the rough-hewn wood.
‘Have you a husband?’ the big detective asked.
The boy stiffened at the mention of his father. But it was not his mother who answered. It was the sergeant.
‘Her husband is in England. He left to find work.’
‘Did he?’ his mother said. ‘That’s more than I know. He told me he was leaving. For good. Said he’d had enough. Have I not had enough as well, I ask? But where can I run off to? I can’t, can I? No. I can’t. Are marriage vows worth nothing any more? The curse of God on him.’
‘Have you got a torch?’ the inspector asked the sergeant.
The boy saw the sergeant fumble under his coat. A moment later a powerful beam of light lit up the small hovel.
‘What in the name God is…?’
The detective pointed to the open hearth. Lying on the stone floor in front of it was a calf.
‘What in the name of God is that doing here?’ he demanded. ‘I thought such days were over.’
The boy’s mother did not answer.
‘So, tell me, why didn’t it take that then? This animal here. The creature that took your bábóg. Why didn’t it? Explain that to me.’
His mother gave the detective an odd look.
‘Because nothing will take a sick animal. What? And for it to get sick itself? No. No. No. It took my bábóg. Look at here…’
She stood suddenly and crossed to the wicker basket near the door. She picked it up and brought it to him. She held it out.
‘Look at here.’
The big detective peered at the basket. There was a soft green blanket in it, splattered with blood.
‘Will you get out of that nightdress and put on something decent?’ he shouted. ‘You are covered in blood and half naked… God, this cursed place.’
His mother dropped the basket, stood with her hands open, then collapsed to her knees, wailing.
‘My bábóg. My bábóg. Will you not get me my bábóg?’
Eleven
The windows were open, but the breeze did not offer much respite from the sun beaming into the car. Beck liked heat, for a time that is. Winter Costa del Sol heat. The thought of a cold beer slipped into his mind. What could be wrong with a cold beer? Nothing, he lied to himself. And then he could see black clouds gathering, the flash of lightning, could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, the barking of a dog, straining at the end of its leash.
‘The victim’s name is Samantha Power,’ he said as they drove. ‘The missing baby, her daughter, is called Róisín.’
‘And the partner is Roche?’
‘Correct. Edward.’ Beck tapped the folded search warrant against his knee. ‘He’s refused members entry. That’s why we’re going there.’ He held up the warrant. ‘And why I have this.’
Claire slowed as they reached the turn off for Ravenscourt Drive. She drove into the small estate of semi-detached red brick houses, arranged in a semi-circle around a central green area.
She was wearing make-up, Beck noted. He had never seen her wear make-up before. He didn’t think it suited her either. She wasn’t the type. They could see the marked patrol car ahead against the kerb.
‘Right there,’ Beck said, pointing.
‘I can see it. I’m not blind.’
As Beck walked up the garden path he looked at the small, wide-set man standing in the open doorway, dressed in Snickers cargo work trousers and a black polo shirt, arms a colour palate of tattoos, his face sporting a heavy moustache and stubble. He also noted the logo on his polo shirt, Elegant Print and Design Company. This was Mr Edward Roche. A couple of feet in front of him was Dempsey, facing the door, his back to Beck. Beside him was another officer, the pale blue epaulettes of a probationer on her shoulders, her back against the wall. She straightened up when she saw Beck walking towards them.
‘Who’re you?’ Beck asked as he approached.
‘Probationer Smyth. Helen. On secondment from the Training College.’
‘Right,’ Beck said, nodding towards Roche. ‘Keep an eye on him?’ Then, to Dempsey, ‘You come with Detective Garda Somers and me.’
Roche folded his arms, standing in the doorway, refusing to let Beck pass.
Beck forced the lid down on his voice as he spoke. ‘It’s likely… no, no, let me start that again.’
The Child Before Page 2
