When she woke up she was naked. Her head was thumping from the hammer blow and her vision was blurred. She didn't have any idea where she was, although it looked like an upstairs apartment, because there was a window opposite, and she could make out the fuzzy tops of fir trees, and a distant skyline, with clouds, and the sun shining behind it.
She tried to stand up, but then she realized that she was tied to the armchair that she was sitting in, her wrists and ankles tightly bound with nylon cord. She was freezing cold. The room was bare, with a green-flecked linoleum floor and an empty cast-iron fireplace, and the cream-colored wallpaper was stained with damp and peeling away from the walls.
There was a damp-rippled picture of Jesus on the opposite wall, surrounded by baby animals. He was smiling at her beatifically, with one hand raised. She licked her lips. Her mouth was dry and she could barely summon the strength to breathe in. '
She slept. Several hours must have passed by because when she opened her eyes again the sky had softened to a pale nostalgic blue and the sun had hidden itself behind the right-hand side of the window frame, so that it illuminated nothing more than the picture of Jesus. She was so stiff that she felt that if somebody were to cut her free, and she tried to stand up, her arms and legs would snap off.
Her skin looked even whiter than ever, and she could see the veins in her breasts and her thighs as if they were an arterial road map. She had never felt so cold in her entire life.
'Mummy,' she said, desperately. Then, much more quietly, 'Mummy, I'm here.'
33
Katie was ready to go home when Conor Cronin from the Travelers' Support Movement knocked at her door.
'I've been expecting you,' she said, slamming shut the drawers in her desk and locking them.
Conor was a man of fifty-something, with a walrus moustache and puffy, Guinness-drinker's eyes. He wore an old green raincoat and carried a wide-brimmed hat in his hands. 'I'd heard from Tadgh O Conaill. It seems like you've arrested Tomas on a charge of murder.'
'He's assisting us with our inquiries.'
'Voluntarily?'
'When did Tomas O Conaill ever help the Garda voluntarily?'
'So he's been formally charged?'
'Yes.'
Conor looked around Katie's office as if he had lost something. 'Do you mind if I sit down?'
'You can, of course. I'm afraid they borrowed all my chairs for a conference. Here.' She took a heap of papers from a small stool and dragged it over toward her desk. Conor sat on it and laid his hat on his knee, as if it were part of a ventriloquist's act, Conor Cronin and his Talking Hat.
'I need to know that you're respecting his rights,' said Conor. 'Whatever he's supposed to have done, he's not automatically guilty because he's a Traveler. I wouldn't like to think that you've picked on him for racial reasons.'
'Conor, you and I know Tomas O Conaill of old. He's a totally evil bastard and he gives Travelers a reputation that, for most of the time, they don't deserve.'
'He's not a murderer, Detective Superintendent, until a judge and a jury have decided that he's a murderer. And there's only one power that can decide if he's truly evil, and that's-' Conor pointed to the ceiling.
Katie said, 'I'm holding a press conference later today, Conor. I'm going to announce that we've arrested Tomas for the murder of Fiona Kelly, but don't worry. I'm also going to remind them of the media protocols for reporting Travelers.'
'All the same, I'm very concerned for Tomas's human rights. You have a very prejudicial attitude, I'd say.'
Katie tapped her pencil on the desk. 'A young American girl came to Ireland on a touring holiday. Tomas O Conaill picked her up, tortured her, cut the flesh off her legs while she was still alive, dismembered her body, and then used it to make a sacrifical display in the middle of a field. I don't think you can actually blame me for having a prejudicial attitude, can you?'
Conor abruptly stood up. 'We'll have to see about that. The Travelers have been persecuted ever since the days of Oliver Cromwell and I'm not having Tomas O Conaill made the latest object of your persecution simply because he doesn't have a fixed abode.'
'And I'm not going to let him get away with this, just because he calls himself a Traveler.'
Conor flared his nostrils. He said, 'Good day to you, Detective Superintendent.' Then he jammed his hat onto his head, and pushed his way past Patrick O'Donovan, who was just coming into her office with a sheaf of reports.
'What's got into him?'
'A severe case of sociological self-importance, that's all. What have you got for me there?'
'Two more relatives have come forward to say that their great-grandmothers went missing in 1915. Here you are?Kathleen Harrington and Brigid Lehane. They've both agreed to take DNA tests, too.'
'That's good news. Anything else?'
'Mr. and Mrs. Kelly will be here at four o'clock. Fiona's parents.'
'All right, I'll be here.'
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