A Terrible Beauty

stupid bastard hadn't even had the patience to wait an extra twenty minutes. Well, whatever Gerard had wanted to tell him, it couldn't have beenthatcritical. It was Liam's guess that he had probably been exaggerating its urgency so that he could persuade Katie to come round to see him. He didn't entirely blame him. When Katie had first been stationed at Anglesea Street, Liam had been attracted to her, too.

He ran back to his car and splashed straight into a pothole full of water, soaking his sock.

It was still raining when Katie arrived home, and the house was in darkness. Paul's burned-out Pajero had been towed away and the sitting-room window had been boarded up with plywood. She let herself in and switched on the lights. The house was cold and it evensmelledempty.

She went into the sitting room and poured herself a large vodka. Then she tried her message recorder. Jimmy O'Rourke said, 'I've been trying your mobile but it seems to be switched off. We might have a lead on the Siobhan Buckley case. A woman remembers seeing a man and a girl answering Siobhan's description in a large white car up by the traffic lights by Mayfield shopping center. She said it looked as if they were arguing, and the girl was crying. I'm going to set up a new search tomorrow morning, concentrating on Mayfield and Glanmire and maybe up as far as Knockraha. I'll talk to you later.'

Then Liam, sounding as if he had taken drink. 'Katie?I couldn't get you on your cell phone so I just wanted you to know that lover-boy Gerard O'Brien was trying to get in touch with you. He said he had some very important new information so I went round to meet him at his house. I was only a few minutes late but the silly bastard had gone out. I reckon it's you he wants to meet, if you want to know the truth.'

She rang the Regional and talked to the sister on Paul's ward. 'There's no change at all, I'm afraid.'

No change at all? she thought, sitting on the chilly sofa by the empty black hearth. She could still picture Paul pacing up and down with his glass of Powers in his hand as he blethered to all of his dodgy builder friends, and Sergeant resting his head on her knee so that she could fondle his floppy ears.

After a while she went into the kitchen and made herself two slices of toasted cheese, with Mitchelstown cheddar and lots of cayenne pepper. She ate them standing up, and sucked her fingers when she had finished, because that's what you can do, when you're alone.

52

The next morning it was still raining and the sky was a grim greenish-gray, like corroded zinc. It was so dark that Katie had to switch on the overhead lights in her office. On the roof of the car park opposite, the crows sat bedraggled and even more sinister looking than ever, and she was sure that there were more of them. She hung up her raincoat and then she sat down with a cup of cappuccino to read through her mail and her paperwork.

Dermot O'Driscoll came in, with his bright red necktie askew. 'There you are, thank God. I've had Patrick Goggin panicking since eight o'clock this morning like a washerwoman with her knickers on fire. He says there's a meeting at Stormont at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon and he needs to be able to report some positive progress.'

Katie didn't look up. 'Sir-this is a very difficult and complicated investigation. There are very few written records, there are no living witnesses, and even if I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Tomas O Conaill murdered Fiona Kelly, it won't throw any more light on what the British did in 1915.'

'Politics are bad for my digestion,' Dermot grumbled. 'I couldn't even face a second sausage this morning.'

Katie said, 'Gerard O'Brien may have some more information. He called me yesterday afternoon to say that he had some new research for me to look at.'

'Have you got in touch with him yet?'

'I'm going up to Knocknadeenly first, to talk to the Meaghers again.'

'Look, call him. The sooner I get Patrick Goggin off my back, the sooner I can get back to a normal diet.'

'All right.' Katie punched out Gerard's number while Dermot waited in the doorway, slowly rubbing his stomach as if to calm it down. Gerard's number rang and rang, but Gerard didn't pick up. Katie called Jimmy O'Rourke instead.

'Jimmy? Where are you now?'

'Dennehy's Cross, stuck in traffic.'

'Listen, on your way in, can you call at 45 Perrott Street and see if Professor Gerard O'Brien is at home? If he's not there, try his office at the university.'

'I'm very pushed for time, Superintendent.'

'I realize that, Jimmy. But this is important.'

Katie switched the phone off. 'Sorry,' she told Dermot. 'Just for the moment, that's the best I can do.'

'Well, try to get me something by the end of the day. I don't want my dinner ruined as well. By the way, how's your Paul getting along?'

'No better. No worse.'

Dermot nodded and said, 'We're all thinking of you, Katie. You know that.'

She left Anglesea Street at 10:22. She tried to call Lucy to tell her that she was running late, but all she could hear on Lucy's cell phone was a thick crackling noise. With her coat collar turned up against the rain, she hurried to the bronze Vectra that she had been allocated in place of her damaged Omega. She climbed in, brushed the rain from her shoulders, and checked herself in the sun visor mirror. She looked almost as bedraggled as one of the crows.

Cork Corporation had started new main drainage works at the corner of Patrick's Bridge so she had to wait for almost five minutes with pneumatic drills clattering in her ears and Father Mathew the hero of temperance staring at her balefully from his plinth in the middle of the road. As she drove up Summerhill the rain started to hammer down so hard that she had to switch her windshield wipers to full speed. Buses passed through the spray