A Terrible Beauty

At that moment, John came over and said, 'What about a drink, Superintendent?'

She would have done anything for a double vodka, but she said, 'Tea, thank you. No milk, no sugar.'

'And you, Inspector?'

'Three sugars, please. And unstirred, if you don't mind. I'm very partial to the sludge at the bottom.'

Gradually, the weather began to clear from the west, and the farm was illuminated by a watery gray sunlight. Katie went into the house to talk to John's mother. She was sitting in the living room with a pond-green cardigan draped around her shoulders, watching Fair City and stroking the dog. A large photograph of a white-haired man who looked almost exactly like an older John was standing on the table next to her, along with an empty teacup and a crowded ashtray.

'I'm going to have to ask you some questions, Mrs. Meagher.'

'Oh, yes?' said John's mother, without taking her eyes off the television.

'Do you mind if I sit down?'

'You'll be after taking off your raincoat.'

'I will, of course.' Katie took off her coat and folded it over the back of a wooden chair that was standing behind the door. Underneath she wore a smart gray suit and a coppery-colored blouse that almost matched her hair. She sat down opposite Mrs. Meagher but Mrs. Meagher still kept her attention focused on her soap opera. The living room smelled of damp and food and lavender furniture polish.

'So far we've discovered the remains of eight people, and it looks as though there may be more.'

'God rest their souls.'

'You wouldn't have any idea who might have buried them there?'

'Well, it must have been somebody, mustn't it? They weren't after burying themselves.'

'No, Mrs. Meagher, I'd be very surprised if they did. But I'd be interested to know if you were ever aware that your late husband was doing any work in the old feed store.'

'He was always in and out of there. The cattle needed feeding, didn't they?'

'Of course. But what I meant was-were you ever aware that he was doing anything unusual in there? Like construction work, or digging?'

'Sacred heart of Jesus, you're not suggesting for a moment that my Michael buried these poor folk, are you?'

'I'm just trying to get some idea of how they got there, and when.'

'I'm sure I don't have a clue. It would have taken a lot of work, wouldn't it, to bury so many people, and Michael would never have had the time for anything like that. He always said that he worked harder than two horses and a brown donkey.'

'Did he take any interest in politics?'

'I know what you're saying. He read An Phoblacht but he never had the time for anything like that, either. Not the meetings. It was all I could do to get him to mass on Sunday.'

'Did he have any special friends that you know of?'

'One or two fellows he met in The Roundy House in Ballyhooly. He used to play the accordion with them sometimes, on a Thursday night. That was the only time he was ever away from the farm, on a Thursday night. But it was feeble old fellows they were, couldn't have killed a fly, let alone find the strength to bury the poor creature afterward.'

'Did anybody strange ever come to visit him? Anybody you didn't know yourself?'

Mrs. Meagher shook her head. 'Michael liked his family around him but he wasn't one for entertaining. Whenever that fat good-for-nothing priest Father Morrissey came visiting and I gave him a piece of cake or a ham sandwich, Michael used to say that he felt like cutting his belly open to get it back, to think of all the hard work that every mouthful had cost him.'

'I see. Was he a difficult man, Michael, would you say? I don't mean to speak ill of him.'

Mrs. Meagher sniffed sharply. 'He had his opinions and he didn't care for eejits. But, no- tut-he wasn't any more difficult than any other man,' she said, as if all men were quite impossible.

'Did he ever have any long-running arguments with anybody?'

'What? He hardly spoke a single word to anyone from one day's end to the next, leave alone argue.'

'One more thing. Did you ever hear any stories about people going missing anywhere in the area? Not necessarily recently, but at any time?'

'People going missing?' Mrs. Meagher took her attention away from the television for the first time. 'No, I never heard of anybody going missing. Of course when I was a girl my mother was always telling us tales about folk who had been taken by the fairies, off to the Invisible Kingdom, but that was just to frighten us into eating our potatoes.'

Katie smiled and nodded. Then she said, 'One more thing. Have you ever seen anything like this before?' She reached into her pocket and took out a sealed plastic evidence bag, with one of the little gray rag dolls in it.

'What's that, then?'

'You've never seen anything like it before?'

'That's not a very good toy for a child, now, is it? Full of hooks and all.'