and I want the track sealed off from both directions. And floodlights. And I don't want the media to know anything.
'Yes, Superintendent.'
Katie didn't venture any farther into the bedroom. Apart from the fact that there was a pattern of bloody footprints on the linoleum-covered floor, which she didn't want to disturb, the smell of dried blood was like rotten lamb, and there was a chill in the air which made her feel that if she stepped inside, she would never get warm again, ever.
'What was it brought you out here?' asked Jimmy.
'Divine guidance. Apart from that, my father reminded me to think.'
Katie went back outside and took a look at the car. Her breath smoked and there were blue lights flashing and radios squawking. She laid a hand on the bonnet and it was still warm, which meant that Tomas O Conaill had probably driven it here. Inside, she found a half-empty bag of dessert mints, a folded road map, an empty pint bottle of Bulmer's Cider, and a box of Kleenex tissues. There were three cigarette stubs in the ashtray, Winfield, an economy brand, only ?4.50 for twenty.
The seats were upholstered in camel-colored woven vinyl. The passenger seat had a curved bloodstain on it, as if somebody had been sitting in their own blood, and there were crusty drops of dried blood in the passenger foot well.
She went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. It was thickly lined with newspapers, like the floor underneath the bed. The newspapers weren't heavily stained with blood, but there were three or four dark brown runnels, and a pattern of seven drops.
Jimmy stood beside her, smoking. He didn't say a word. After a few moments she slammed the trunk shut, and walked across to the patrol car. She climbed into the back seat, right next to Tomas O Conaill, and looked him steadily in the eye.
'You have a very grave look on your face, Katie,' he told her, but he still had that same sly smile on his face, almost flirting with her.
'I need you to tell me where you were on Thursday afternoon last.'
'Thursday? I'd have to think about that. Why?'
'You're going to need a very convincing story, that's why. I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder.'
His eyes gradually narrowed. '
'What's all that blood in the bedroom, then? Don't tell me you've been slaughtering a pig.'
'I don't know nothing about no blood. I never even went inside the bedroom.'
'You're lying to me, Tomas.'
'I'm not at all, I'm telling you the God's honest truth. I found the front door open and all I did was take a look around to see if there was anything lying about that nobody had a use for. I never got as far as the bedroom and I swear I had nothing to do with any murder.'
'Oh, right. Just like you didn't have anything to do with cutting a pregnant girl's stomach open with a chisel? Or hitting a sixty-five-year-old man over the head with a lump hammer because you thought he was cheating you over one of your horses?'
'You should be careful what you say to me,' Tomas O Conaill warned her. He was still smiling but his mood had turned sour, like milk in a thunderstorm. 'I was walking up here totally innocent and all I did was take a look inside. I didn't take nothing and I didn't hurt nobody.'
Katie said, 'Tomas O Conaill, I am arresting you for the murder of Fiona Kelly. You are not obliged to say anything but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and used in evidence against you.'
'May the rumbling coach of Dullahan draw up outside your house and may you be drenched in a basinful of blood.'
Katie climbed out of the car. 'Jimmy, take him back to headquarters. I'll come and talk to him when I've finished up here.'
Tomas O Conaill leaned across the backseat and said, in the thickest of whispers, 'You're a witch, Katie, and you know what we do to witches. I didn't murder nobody and you will never prove that I did.'
Jimmy slammed the door on him and turned to Katie with a shake of his head. 'What a header. I just hope that we've got enough forensic to put him away.'
'Who else would have killed a girl like that? He's got a smooth tongue on him when he wants to, but my God he's vicious as a mad dog.'
'Don't you worry, Superintendent. We've got him this time, I'd say.'
Katie said, 'I'll be applying for a search warrant right away. As soon as we've got the okay, I want you to go to O Conaill's halting site in Tower and go through every caravan and every vehicle with a fine-tooth comb. Take Pat O'Sullivan and Mick Dockery with you, and as many guards as you think you need. Talk to O Conaill's family, too. Ask them where he was that Thursday afternoon when Fiona Kelly disappeared, and ask them to account for his movements on the night that her body was taken to Meagher's Farm.'
'You're wishing, aren't you? They'll only tell me to go and have carnal associations with my grannie.'
'I'm sure they will. But we have to try, don't we? Remember the Maguire motto.'
'What's that, then?'
'Don't take shite from anyone.'
'All right. But I hope you sign for my overtime.'
