The Dead Ground (15 page)

Of course, the man. He’d been so debated and discussed that at times Paula almost wondered herself if she had just imagined him. The memory had the fake, sweaty quality of a dream.

It was the day before her mother had gone. A normal day.
I came home from school and Mummy was at the back door
(had she really said Mummy? At thirteen?). There was a sketch of the house, the kitchen door giving out onto a small back yard and lawn with a whirligig washing line.
She was talking to someone. She shut the door and then I saw a man going past the window down the passageway
(sketch of how the narrow alley led down the side of the house and into the main street).
I didn’t see his face, he had a hat on.

What type of hat?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

A memory popped up, as if things moved and breathed beneath the surface – her mother had been in her dressing gown that day. She remembered it now, her mother shutting the door, a flash of leg as she turned, Paula already opening the fridge, warning
don’t make toast, you’ll spoil your dinner
. She’d have asked, surely. Wouldn’t she have asked why her mum was in her dressing gown at four in the afternoon?

Paula remembered nothing about that evening, the last one she and PJ would ever have had with her mother. What had been on TV on Thursdays?
X-files
,
ER
? She’d lived her thirteen-year-old life around school and TV, and now she remembered nothing, as if those years had pressed on her as blank and suffocating as a pillow.

Below the case notes was the list Paula had begun when Guy had given her this file a month before. Just names, meaningless on their own.

The first name:
Colin McCready
. Her mother’s boss at the solicitor’s office where she’d worked part-time. Paula remembered him, a soft-hearted man who’d once given her a packet of Minstrels when she went to the office after school.

The next name was this:
Auntie Phil
. Her mother’s family were dimly recalled from Christenings and Confirmations, all ties severed after Margaret went, during those weeks when her father was suddenly at home, and then his own colleagues came round one day to arrest him. Yes, those memories were all still there, under a barely healed scab.

She’d also written:
Pat
. Her mother hadn’t had other friends, and even with Pat it had been a couple’s friendship, forged in PJ and John O’Hara’s shared pursuit of what they called justice, while their wives stayed at home and worried about phone calls, balaclavas, shots ringing out.

Another familiar name below:
Bob Hamilton
. She’d copied that from the front of the file,
Lead Officer, Detective Sergeant Robert Hamilton.
Sideshow Bob had led the hunt for Margaret, wife of his own former partner, even coming round in person to arrest PJ.

So far, that was all she had for her list of people who might know something about her mother. Her boss, her sister, her friend, and the investigating officer.

Slipped into the file was an extract from a longer interview transcript, with several lines highlighted in yellow. Paula made herself read it.

Commission for the Disappeared (CD):
And those missing people we showed you, did any of the names ring a bell? There’s a lot of families looking for some answers, Sean
.

Sean Conlon (SC):
I need assurances before I talk. I’ll not answer for legitimate wartime acts
.

CD:
As we’ve made clear, Sean, there will be no recriminations for pre-Good Friday Agreement actions. We just want answers, for the families
.

SC: [Pause]
This name. Margaret Maguire. I remember her

CD:
Yes? She’s the only woman on the list, you’ll see
.

SC:
Husband was a peeler, I mind. A Taig and a peeler
.

CD:
And was she targeted because of that?

SC:
I’m not saying that. But I heard other things about her. Like she used to help out the Brits. Worked in some solicitor’s, so she did. She’d have had access to things. Information, on Republican soldiers
.

CD:
Can you tell me more, Sean?

SC:
Not till I get my assurances. I want protection, if I talk to you. I won’t say any more
.

And he still hadn’t spoken, but the hint was there, the sly half-moon promise of the truth after so many years.

Paula set down the paper, the edges sharp as a knife, and with an old chewed biro added the man’s name to her list, though it felt like a malediction.
Sean Conlon.
That’s who she had to speak to.

Getting into bed, shivering with cold, she realised again there was only one person who could help her draw this into order, tell her what to do. One person who’d understand what it would mean for her to speak to Sean Conlon, knowing he might be behind her mother’s loss. No matter what was between them and whatever he’d done, she had to speak to Aidan. The simple fact was she couldn’t do this without him.

Chapter Sixteen

‘Are you sure this is her?’ Paula looked askance at the large detached house they’d drawn up to.

Fiacra obligingly checked the map, where Gerard would have just told her he knew how to read a bloody GPS, thanks very much. Fiacra was very restful to be around, in fact, like the happy-go-lucky younger brother she’d never have. ‘It is, so.’

‘I suppose nutcases can live anywhere.’ She shouldn’t be using words like that. It was rubbing off on her, being around the police so much, and there was something about these pro-lifers that really put her back up. Melissa Dunne lived right over the border, in one of the oversized mansions that littered the no-man’s-land there, farm vehicles parked up in their back gardens beside BMWs. It was technically in the South, hence Fiacra instead of moody Gerard. When Fiacra rang the doorbell they heard a rough chorus of dogs start up. Paula backed away slightly.

The door was opened by a small child of about seven or eight, unsuitably dressed for the cold in leggings, bare feet, and a pink scalloped T-shirt with what looked like ketchup down the front. Paula hoped it was ketchup, anyway.

‘Is your mammy in, pet?’ Fiacra bent down to the child, who he seemed to think was a girl. She had limp fair hair, unbrushed and hanging down her back.

‘She’s busy.’

‘It’s very important. Tell her the police are here and we need a wee word.’

The child called out, ‘Mammy!’ and the dogs started up again from deep in the house. Paula looked about her as they followed the child in, drawing her coat tighter. The house was very cold, and quite dirty, though the family clearly had money – there’d been a Mercedes and a Range Rover parked in the drive, and they glimpsed a huge TV set in the front room, playing
Finding Nemo
, with a collection of different-sized children and dogs watching it. Christmas cards were displayed haphazardly along the mantelpiece of the unlit fire. Paula tried to remember if it was the school holidays. ‘Shouldn’t at least some of the kids be in school?’ she said to Fiacra as they went down the hall, wood floor stained with paw prints. There was a greasy smell in the air, mingled with what seemed to be dirty nappy.

‘Mrs Dunne?’ Fiacra tapped on the ajar door of the dining room. The carpet was napped in dog hair, and the room was dominated by a huge scuffed table which looked antique. Underneath it lay three dogs, a Jack Russell, a large black Lab, and an indeterminate terrier-type thing with beady eyes. Fiacra was polite. ‘Can we have a word, Mrs Dunne?’

The woman at the table was large, a size eighteen or twenty at least. She had thick seventies glasses and mousy hair held back with a hairband, drooping over the shoulders of her jumper, on which was knitted a flock of woolly sheep. ‘Can you not see I’m busy?’ She could barely be made out behind stacks of envelopes and pamphlets, the latter of which she was stuffing into the former. Paula moved closer to look at one and flinched. Anti-abortion leaflets. They’d spared no detail in their rendering of the mangled foetus. The red ink had been most liberally used. Paula had done some research after the briefing with Corry and it was true – Dunne’s group and others had grown increasingly active in Ireland. There was money coming in from somewhere; as well as the leaflets there were billboards, even TV ads.

Fiacra said, ‘Mrs Dunne, I’m Garda Quinn and this is my associate Dr Maguire. We’re after looking into a case, and we’d like your help. You’re the secretary of a pro-life group. Life4All, is that right?’

Melissa stopped stuffing and pushed aside her little netbook, which was cherry-red, and reminded Paula they still hadn’t found Dr Bates’s missing computer. ‘I am. What’s it to you? We’ve no government funding – too scared to stand up to the lefties and save our children, they are.’

‘Well, do you know the name Alison Bates? Dr Bates?’

Melissa spat. ‘That murdering bitch. Don’t you say her name in my house.’

‘We have it on file that you phoned the doctor up a few times. Threatening sort of calls. Maybe sent her a few letters too. Is that so?’ Fiacra made it sound as if they’d been pen pals.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a busy woman, I don’t have the time to be writing letters.’

‘On your website, you mentioned the doctor, and you said, I think I have this right, “She’s headed straight for the fires of hell”? Is that so?’

Melissa was unmoved. ‘That’s nothing but the Gospel truth.’

‘Well, thing is, the doctor’s been killed, Mrs Dunne. And seeing as you may have threatened to do her some harm, we’d a notion you’d be a good person to ask about it.’

The woman was on her feet in an instant, despite her bulk. ‘I most certainly did not threaten her. If I explain the consequences of her actions, it’s a warning, surely. I was trying to help her.’

‘You said she would “burn in hell”, did you?’ Fiacra soldiered on.

‘As she will, for the souls of all those babies she murdered.’

‘Someone murdered
her
, Mrs Dunne. That’s the thing.’

The woman paused; Paula saw with a lurch that she was smiling. ‘I can’t say I’ll mourn her too much. That woman has the blood of innocents on her soul, and she’ll be answering for it now.’

Paula broke in. ‘Do you remember where you were last Thursday, Mrs Dunne? That’s when Dr Bates went missing.’

‘How would I remember something like that? I’m a busy woman, like I said.’ Melissa Dunne met Paula’s eyes, bullish.

Fiacra cut the tension. ‘Ah . . . OK. We’d also like the names of your fellow group members, Mrs Dunne – we need to know who might have targeted Dr Bates.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Nearly anyone, Garda. She didn’t exactly make friends. And if you think I’m giving you anything without a warrant you’re sadly mistaken. It’s not right to be persecuting God-fearing Christians. We’re only trying to warn people, help them turn away from sin.’ With one chapped hand, Melissa took off her glasses and cleaned them on her jumper, exposing her saggy stomach. Paula looked away and the woman caught her aversion, addressing the next remark to her. ‘You know what they do to the babies during an abortion, Miss?’

Paula struggled. ‘I – eh. Yes.’

‘Do you? They rip their wee heads off and they suck them out with a vacuum. Now you tell me that’s right to do to a woman when she’s vulnerable, tear the innocent life right out of her.’ Paula stared at the dirty carpet, willing the woman to stop talking. She didn’t. ‘You look at this. Take some away with you. Tell your friends.’ She was shoving some pamphlets at Paula, who backed away. ‘Look at what it is they do.’ Paula found one in her hand. The hollow eyes of the foetus seemed to stare at her, accusing.

‘Mrs Du— Oh.’ Fiacra stopped as a vile smell filled the room. The Jack Russell had squatted and left a fresh steaming turd on the carpet.

‘Darragh!’ Melissa turned and shouted. When the small child appeared again she picked the poo up in her bare hands and carried it out.

Paula realised she couldn’t stay here another second. ‘Garda Quinn?’ Her voice was unnaturally high. ‘Let’s go.’

‘You better get a warrant for those names. I’m not breaking Data Protection.’ Melissa was shouting after them as they beat a hasty retreat to the door and back to Fiacra’s Fiat Punto. ‘You’ll be hearing from my solicitor!’

‘God, what a tip,’ Fiacra said, starting the engine. ‘She’s mad as a box of frogs, that one. Our Aisling went to the Bates woman when she first found out she was expecting – she wasn’t going to have the abortion, but you know how it is, she was scared – anyway, that crowd were there picketing the place. Put her off going in.’

‘How is Aisling?’ Paula asked, thinking of the girl. She’d also had an unexpected pregnancy, but now she was full of joy and excitement. So it was possible.

‘Ah, she’s grand. Frightened, like, but she’ll be OK. She’ll do a better job than your one in there, I’m sure. Poor kids freezing to death, and on a day like this. Aisling might not be with the da but she’ll love that wean, and she’s her family around to help.’

Paula’s numb hands crept under her coat to sit atop her thick jumper. So would she, if it came down to it. She’d do a better job too, and she had people to help her. But still the idea made cold dread percolate through her veins. She looked down and realised something was crumpled in her hand – that picture of the foetus, eyes black holes, head curved like a fragile little alien.

‘Is this really all we’ve got?’

Guy was pacing in front of the whiteboard in the small conference room. Bob, his suit ironed into the same lines as his old RUC uniform, watched him anxiously, as if trying to learn the walk and the talk. Glances went between the kids – if Guy and Bob were the adults – Avril widening her eyes significantly at Fiacra, Gerard catching Paula’s gaze before shrugging and biting his nails. No one wanted to go first. Despite Corry’s warning, the press had discovered the location of Dr Bates’s body, and the news had run all day with speculation about why she’d been found on an old pagan site.