A Terrible Beauty

like ghostly illuminated boats.

She reached Knocknadeenly at 10:57. The garda on duty at the gate was sitting in his squad car with the windows steamed up, having a cigarette, but when she drew up beside him he climbed out and came across, still breathing smoke.

'Nice soft day, Superintendent,' he remarked.

'Everything okay? Has Professor Quinn arrived here yet?'

'About twenty minutes ago. Nobody else.'

'All right, then, Padraig. What time do you go off duty?'

'Not for another two hours yet. If it doesn't stop raining soon I'll have to go home by canoe.'

Katie drove slowly up the driveway, with her windshield wipers still flapping hysterically in front of her. She turned her car around in the muddy forecourt in front of Meagher's Farm and climbed out. A blue Ford tractor was parked next to John Meagher's Land Rover with its engine running, but there was no sign of anybody around. She walked across to the farmhouse and into the porch. The front door was open and the house was filled with the strong crusty aroma of baking bread. She knocked and called out, 'John? Mrs. Meagher? Anyone at home?'

Nobody answered, and the rain continued to pour down out of the sky as if it was determined to drown her.

Katie opened the farmhouse door a little wider, and stepped into the hallway. There were old coats hanging on pegs, and muddy boots tangled together. 'John?' she said. 'Lucy?' But still there was no reply. Only the giggling of Teletubbies, in the sitting room.

She looked into the kitchen. It was gloomy but reasonably tidy, apart from a mixing bowl with a tea towel over it, and a floury bread board, and a rolling pin. Katie hesitated for a moment, and then she went through to the sitting room.

The Teletubbies were rolling on their backs and kicking their legs in the air. Mrs. Meagher was sitting in the tall armchair facing the television, her gray wiry hair barely visible over the back of it. Katie could see one arm dangling down the side of the chair, in a hand-knitted olive-green sweater, with orange flecks in it. A burned-out cigarette had fallen onto the carpet.

'Mrs. Meagher?' she said. 'Mrs. Meagher? It's Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire. Do you know where John is?'

Mrs. Meagher didn't answer. The Teletubbies called out,'Eh-oh!'and went scampering off behind their improbably green hill. Cautiously, Katie walked around the side of her chair. Mrs. Meagher was staring at her with milky eyes, her mouth hanging open to reveal her tobacco-stained teeth. Her throat was cut from side to side and the front of her sweater and her pleated skirt were drenched in blood. Drops of blood were still creeping down her shins and into her slippers.

'Oh, Jesus,' said Katie. She stood staring at Mrs. Meagher for a moment and then she had to turn away.

Her hands shaking, she took out her cell phone to call for backup. As she started to punch out the number, however, John Meagher stepped into the sitting room and barked, 'Don't!'

53

Jimmy O'Rourke parked his car outside 45 Perrott Street and heaved himself out. Personally, he thought that this part of their investigation was a total waste of time. He didn't give a monkey's who had killed those eleven women in 1915, and if it had been up to him, he would have dropped the case into the 'pending for all eternity' file, even if Sinn Fein were acting the maggot about it. All that mattered was who had killed Fiona Kelly, and Jimmy believed, like Katie, that Tomas O Conaill had at least been a party to it.

He went to Gerard's front door and rang the bell. No answer. He rang again. Still no answer. He walked round to the side of the house and peered up at Gerard's window, his hand held up to shield his face from the rain. Gerard was out, no doubt about it, and that meant that he would have to go looking for him at the university. He said, 'Shit,' under his breath. He had plenty of other things to do this morning, like interviewing seven Romanian so- called asylum seekers who had broken into a mini-cab office in MacCurtain Street and made off with ?132.75 from the petty-cash box.

Jimmy was just about to leave when a bedraggled black Labrador came around the corner of the house, carrying something in its mouth.

'Here boy,' said Jimmy.

The Labrador looked guilty, and dropped its trophy onto the pavement. At first glance Jimmy thought it was somebody's lost gardening glove, but when he took a closer look he realized that it was a man's hand.

'Here boy, where did you find that, boy?'

The dog loped off. Jimmy walked over to the hand and hunkered down next to it. He took out his ball pen and poked it but he didn't try to pick it up. There was a cheap gold ring on the hand's third finger, with a black onyx in it.

Jimmy walked around the back of the house, into the driveway. There were twenty or thirty crows flapping and hopping around, and when Jimmy appeared they flustered off into the sky. It was then that he saw Gerard O'Brien's body lying on the ground, with wet strands of black hair sticking to his face like a veil. His arms were lying amid a heap of litter over seven feet away, next to a loose, bloody tangle of knotted cord.

'Holy Mary,' said Jimmy. He leaned over Gerard to make absolutely sure that he was dead, and then he stepped away. 'Who the feck did this to you?'

He took out his cell phone and tried to call Katie, but he couldn't get through, so he called Liam Fennessy instead. 'Inspector? I'm at 45 Perrott Street. I've found Professor O'Brien, or what's left of him. That's right, somebody's done for him, practically torn the poor bastard apart. Yes, 45 Perrott Street.'

Liam sounded out of breath. 'I'm away from the station at the moment, Jimmy, but I'll send Patrick O'Sullivan and Brian Dockery, and the technical team. When you say they've torn him apart-?'

'Somebody's ripped his arms off. Looks like they must have tied him to the back of a car.'