A Terrible Beauty

'No. She literally disappeared. She faded. Very gradually, so that I could still see the faint outline of her when I was only twenty or thirty yards away. But by the time I reached the place where she had been standing, she had completely vanished. No trace of her. No footprints, nothing.'

'What did you do?'

'What could I do? There was nobody there.'

'You didn't tell the garda on duty?'

'What was the point? He would have thought that I was off my head. That's what I'm saying. Maybe Iamout of my head.'

'So why did you decide to tell me?'

'Because I couldn't keep it to myself and I couldn't think of anybody else to tell. My mother thinks there's something strange about me because I don't eat mashed potatoes with my knife.'

Katie looked at John for a long time without saying anything. The way she saw it, there were several possible explanations. One, he was simply trying to attract her attention, because he liked her, and this was the only way he could think of doing it. Or two, he had seen nothing more ghostly than the setting sun, shining on the early-evening mist. Or three, he was suffering from delusions, brought on by isolation and depression and stress.

'What doyouthink it was?' she asked him.

'I don't have any idea. I guess it could have been a mirage or an optical illusion.'

'But you don't think it was?'

'No. I was looking at it for far too long and it was far too-I don't know,substantial. It wasn't just a trick of the light or a puff of smoke.'

'Nobody could have simply lain down in one of the furrows so that you couldn't see them?'

'I told you. She didn't fall over, or drop down, or anything like that. Shefaded.'

Katie had another long think. Then she said, 'Can I show you something?'

'Sure, if it explains what I saw.'

She went to the front door, but as she did so the doorbell chimed. She opened it up and there was a young man in oil-stained blue coveralls with a Maxol badge on his pocket. He had curly fair hair and a smudge of oil on his upturned nose and there was no mistaking that he was Patrick Logan's son.

'Superintendent Maguire? Declan Logan. My father called me to look at your car so.'

'That's great. Thanks for coming. I don't have any idea what's wrong with it but my husband couldn't get it started.'

'My dad said that your husband was in the hospital. I'm sorry to hear about that.'

'Thanks. Look-here are the keys.'

Katie went outside, and Sergeant followed her, intently sniffing at Declan's trainers. His bright yellow Transit van was parked by the front gate, with Declan Logan Auto Doctor emblazoned in red on the side. Katie went to her car and took out the picture of Mor-Rioghain that Gerard had given her.

'Come on, Sergeant,' she called. 'You're being a pest.'

'Oh, he's grand,' said Declan, slapping Sergeant's flanks. 'I like dogs.'

Katie went back into the sitting room. 'Would you like another beer?' she asked John.

'I'm okay, thanks. You have to keep your wits about you when you're operating farm machinery. Especially when you're going nuts, like me.'

'Here,' said Katie, sliding the drawing of Mor-Rioghain out of the envelope. 'Does this look anything like the woman you saw?'

John studied the picture intently. Then he nodded. 'It could have been. Obviously she wasn't so distinct. But, yes.'

He handed the picture back. Outside, they could hear Paul's Pajero whinnying as Declan tried to start it up. Katie opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly the air in the sitting room became strangelycompressed, like an airplane at high altitude. There was a deep creaking sound, and Katie immediately knew what was happening. She threw herself across the sofa and dragged John onto the carpet, just as the windows exploded with an earsplitting bang, and the curtains flew up in a blizzard of glittering glass.

Clouds of thick black smoke rolled in through the window, so that Katie could barely see from one side of the room to the other. Thousands of cushion feathers drifted down on top of them, as well as shreds of burning Dralon and fragments of sponge rubber.

John struggled to sit up. He said, 'What the hell was that?' but then he realized that he was deafened, and he couldn't even hear what he was saying.

'Bomb,' Katie shouted at him. 'Don't get up. Stay where you are. There might be another.'

'Bomb?I didn't think that happened in the Republic.'

'Just stay where you are.'

She stood up. The smoke was clearing, and through the frameless window she could see Paul's Pajero blazing in the middle of the driveway. Declan's van was parked right next to it, connected by jump leads. The Pajero's roof had been blown upward into an extraordinary question-mark shape. The driver's door was lying in the herbaceous border by the front gates, and Declan was lying next to it, with his hand still clutching the handle. Katie could see blood.