The New Policeman (22 page)

THE RAINY DAY

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In Tír na n’Óg, the effects were no less dramatic. On the quay the musicians felt the shift and stopped playing. The dancers looked at the sky, looked at one another, let out a roar of delight. The music started again, but Anne Korff was remembering the advice she had given to J.J. Liddy on his way into Tír na n’Óg and hoped that he would not forget. She hoped that she would not forget it either, between here and the nearest souterrain. She separated herself, not without difficulty, from the euphoric crowd and started out for home. But on the way up the main street of the village, she met Séadna Tobín standing on the footpath laughing at the alchemy shop. He had, she noticed, his fiddle with him. It would be nice to have someone to walk home with. And if he
wanted to stay for a tune or two first, what harm?

As they went back down toward the quay they met the goat coming the other way, with Devaney not far behind.

“Head her off, will you?” he called, but it was already too late. She had dodged past them and was skittering off up the street, her dainty feet drumming on the cobbles.

DEVANEY’S GOAT

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Inside the souterrain, Aengus and J.J. felt the change as well, and it was absolutely wonderful. It was like the end of an illness or the delivery of a new baby, or the return home after a long, long absence. But their pleasure in the moment was ruined by a dreadful throaty rattle that came from Bran. J.J. hurried through the crawl hole, closely followed by Aengus.

The dog was lying flat on her side. Her breath was coming in short, ragged gasps, and as J.J. laid a hand on her shoulder, he found that her whole body was rigid with tension.

“Oh, Bran,” he said. “Come on, girl. You saved Tír na n’Óg, you know. You can’t go and die on us.”

“She won’t,” said Aengus solemnly. “There’s no chance of that now.”

But J.J. was a farmer. He had seen his share of dying animals. “I wish you were right,” he said, “but I don’t think you are.”

“What happened in there, J.J.?” J.J. tore his attention away from the dog. “It was a priest. Father Doherty.” He held up the flute. “He had this pushed through the wall.”

“Ah,” said Aengus. “So that’s what became of the old lad.”

“How did you know about him?” said J.J.

“I met him on a few occasions,” said Aengus.

“Where?”

“Here and there,” said Aengus. “He spent his whole life coming and going, getting to know us, trying to persuade us to stay out of his parish; his world, in fact. I should have suspected that he’d try and find a way of keeping us out. Pretty clever idea he had. I have to give him that.”

J.J. laughed. “I wonder what he’ll make of modern Ireland? What’s going to happen if he finds out that I cheated him and comes back? Do you think he’ll try again?”

“No,” said Aengus. “I’m certain that he won’t.”

He turned and started to crawl back into the inner chamber.

“Where are you going?” said J.J.

“I just have a little fantasy to indulge,” said Aengus, disappearing from sight.

“Are you going through?” J.J. called.

Aengus didn’t answer. J.J. stroked Bran’s head. “Maybe we should go with him. What do you think?”

But Aengus didn’t appear to have gone anywhere. He came back through the crawl hole with the priest’s little stump of a candle. “Shall we get out of here?” he said.

It took both of them to carry the heavy dog out of the souterrain and up to the surface. In the daylight she looked no better.

“I’m sure she’s dying,” said J.J.

“She is,” said Aengus. “But she won’t die.”

Slowly the realization dawned upon J.J. “She won’t get better but she won’t get worse.” It was Drowsy Maggie who had said it. Bran had gotten worse, because of the time that was leaking into Tír na n’Óg. But now…

Now. That was all there was. Now.

“J.J.,” said Aengus gently. “You know, don’t you, that Bran didn’t go down into the souterrain because Father Doherty was there. She’s a dog. She had no
idea what we were doing, wandering round the hills and dales. She attached herself to you because you’re a ploddy and she thought you might lead her to an open gate. You didn’t, so she found one herself. Animals can sense them, you know, especially ones that have come and gone as much as she has. I suppose you’d call it an instinct.”

“But why?” said J.J. “Why did she want to go through?”

Aengus ran his hand along the dog’s matted coat. “She came here to escape her death. We don’t know what happened to her, but you can see how badly injured she is. Just in time, she found a gate and came through. Her life here wasn’t exactly comfortable, but to her it was preferable to dying. Until the leak began.”

J.J. nodded. “When time got in, she began to get worse.”

“That’s right,” said Aengus. “And eventually her life became intolerable to her. She no longer wanted to avoid her death. She wanted to go back and meet it.”

Bran gave a feeble groan and shuddered, stiffly. J.J. felt a flash of anger. “We could have saved her from this,” he said. “You should have let me take her through to the vet before she got this bad.”

“But you couldn’t have, J.J. I told you that already.” J.J. looked at him blankly.

“Oh, dear,” said Aengus. “I thought you understood. Surely you can’t have forgotten what happened to Oisín?”

THE NEW CENTURY

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It was the new policeman who found the body in the souterrain. He wasn’t even on duty at the time, but was doing a bit of sniffing around on his own initiative. Sergeant Early ate him again for missing another three days’ work, but he was pleased with him all the same. At least they had something to show for all that Garda effort.

Not that it had any bearing on the missing persons. The police made that clear from the very beginning, but nevertheless, rumors spread like wildfire. O’Dwyer was sent to his lodgings to collect his uniform and posted in the little Garda station in the village, where he fielded anxious questions all day. He gave little away. The body was in a very advanced state of decay when it was found, and would appear to have
been there for many, many years. Forensic teams were investigating the souterrain and would remove the body for postmortem. It would be a few days before any attempt could be made at identification.

But that was enough information for most people round there. By the end of the day, the village knew that an old mystery had been brought back into the daylight. It had to be Father Doherty.

It was widely agreed that this was proof of his murder by old J.J. Liddy. The souterrain was on his land. Who else would have known that it existed? It was a perfect place for a murderer to hide a corpse. No one said as much to Helen, of course, but it was difficult even for her to put any other interpretation on the discovery. On top of her son’s disappearance, it was a blow that she found crippling.

There could no longer be any question of holding the céilí that was planned for the following day. Helen left it to Ciaran to phone around and cancel it. For the first time in the month since J.J. went missing, she allowed her depression to get the better of her and took herself off to bed.

It was midday on Saturday before she got up again. Ciaran and Marian had milked the goats and turned
them out into a day that was alternating between bright sunshine and heavy showers. They were in the kitchen playing a game of cards when Helen came down.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “About Father Doherty.”

“They haven’t identified him yet,” said Ciaran.

“They will,” said Helen. “It’s him. I was just hoping it might all have been a dream.”

Ciaran stood up and put his arms around her, but she moved away from him, shifted the kettle onto the hottest plate of the range, and stood with her back to its warmth.

“Are you doing anything this afternoon, Maz?” she said.

Marian had lots to do, but there was plenty of time for all of it. “Nothing in particular,” she said.

“I’m going to make a start on some cheese,” said Helen. “After that, if you felt like it, I might teach you a couple of tunes.”

MY MIND WILL NEVER BE EASY

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J.J. stared at the dying dog. Once again he was experiencing that sense of a landslide in his brain. But this time it hurt.

Of course he remembered Oisín. He was Fionn Mac Cumhail’s son, who fell in love with a woman of the sidhe and went to live in Tír na n’Óg. He was happy there—here—until he got a yearning to see his beloved Ireland again. His friends in Tír na n’Óg advised him against it, and when he insisted on going they lent him a white horse and warned him that he must never get down from its back as long as he was in Ireland.

When he got there, Oisín found that hundreds of years had passed. Everything had changed. He knew no one and no one knew him. He stayed on his horse,
but he encountered a group of men trying to move a huge rock that was in the middle of a field. They asked for his help, and when he leaned from the horse to put a hand to the rock, he slipped and fell. The moment he touched the soil of Ireland, he disintegrated into dust.

J.J. looked up at Aengus. “So that’s why I couldn’t take her to the vet?”

“He couldn’t have done much for a heap of dust.”

Another awful realization slithered in on the heels of the last one. “And…and Father Doherty?”

“A pile of dry bones,” said Aengus.

J.J. thought about it. “I tricked him, Aengus,” he said. “He wanted to stay until it got dark, but I told him it was dark already.”

“Good lad,” said Aengus, sounding genuinely impressed. “I always said you weren’t all ploddy.”

“But don’t you understand? I sent him through to his death. I killed him.”