A Terrible Beauty

Katie accompanied him out to his Land Rover. The force of the bomb had cracked the driver's side window and two triangular pieces of shrapnel had penetrated the bodywork, narrowly missing the fuel tank. 'So much for my no-claims bonus,' he remarked.

Katie said, 'About that other thing?the figure you saw up by Iollan's Wood.'

'Maybe I was hallucinating.'

'Tell me something?do youbelievein things like that? Ghosts, or fairies, or spirits from the other side?'

'I don't know. I can only tell you what I saw. I mean, plenty of other people in Ireland claim that they've seen apparitions, haven't they? Did you see that TV program about leprechauns? Somebody's keeping a twenty-four video watch on a magic tree in County Laois, hoping to see real live little people.'

'If you could conjure up Mor-Rioghain, what would you wish for?'

'Me? A couple of million dollars, I guess, like most people would. And a long vacation someplace warm and sunny. And a beautiful, intelligent woman to take with me. How about you?'

'I don't know. It's not good trying to put the clock back, is it?'

48

Tomas O Conaill was supremely calm, so self-possessed that Katie found him as threatening as dark afternoon, before a thunderstorm. He was wearing a faded black denim shirt which was open to reveal the Celtic chain that was tattooed around his throat and the herringbone pattern of black hair on his death-white chest. In his left hand he held a packet of Player's untipped cigarettes, which he constantly rotated, over and over, until Katie felt like snatching it away from him. But she knew that was what he was challenging her to do; and so she kept her temper, and didn't.

He smelled strongly of male sweat, and Ritchie's clove sweeties. He had a new lawyer this afternoon, a smooth gray-haired fellow in a shiny gray suit from Coughlan Fitzgerald & O'Regan, one of the grander firms of solicitors in South Mall. Before Katie could even open her mouth he announced himself as Michael Kidney and didn't stop interrupting Katie's interrogation all the way through.

Katie said, 'Tomas, there were several footprints in the blood on the bedroom floor and they were identified by our technical people as yours.'

'Then I must have wandered into the bedroom, mustn't I?'

'Wandered?You didn't just wander. You had Fiona Kelly imprisoned in that bedroom and you murdered her there, didn't you?'

Michael Kidney lifted his expensive ball pen. 'I'll have to interrupt here, Detective Superintendent. My client has admitted that he may have strayed into the bedroom, but that was onlyafterthe event, long after the murderer had left; and he was quite unaware what had happened there.'

'The bedroom was plastered with blood. Only a gowl couldn't have been aware what had happened there.'

'Being a gowl, as far as I know, is not a criminal offense. If it was, then half of the male population of Ireland would be languishing behind bars.'

'Tomas,' said Katie, leaning forward across the table. 'Tomas, listen to me. I think you know what happened to Fiona, but I'm also prepared to believe that you didn't do it entirely on your own. There was somebody else involved with you, wasn't there? You may have known all about the ritual for raising Mor-Rioghain, but there was somebody else with you who did the killing, wasn't there? I know you have a reputation, Tomas. But this wasn't your doing, was it? Not the actual murdering.'

'I swear on the Holy Bible that I never murdered nobody and I swear on the Holy Bible that I never helped nobody to murder nobody, neither.'

'You swore that you never went into the bedroom, but you did.'

'I might have done, yes. But there was nobody there and as I say I never murdered nobody. I swear.'

'What's your friend's name?'

'What?'

Michael Kidney immediately raised his hand. 'Superintendent, my client is innocent, and he doesn't have to implicate anybody else to prove it. It's your job to discover who committed this murder, not his.'

'I simply asked him the name of his friend. The one who actually murdered Fiona.'

Tomas shook his dreadlocks like a filthy floor mop. 'I've done nothing but tell you the truth, Katie. I never murdered nobody and I don't have no murdering friend.'

Michael Kidney sat back, took off his glasses, and started to polish them with the end of his necktie. 'Seems like an impasse, Detective Superintendent. And I have to say that your evidence is very insubstantial.'

'Insubstantial? We can prove that Tomas drove the car in which the dead girl's body was taken to Knocknadeenly, and we can prove that he was present in the room where she was killed.'

'Whereshe was killed, yes, but notwhen. You can't inconclusively establish that he committed murder, and you don't even have a credible motive. All this talk of fairies and witches. You're not seriously going to accuse my client of black magic?'

'We have sufficient evidence to prepare a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions, no matter what his motive was. I'm just giving him the opportunity to make things easier for himself, by giving us a little cooperation.'

There was a moment's silence. Then Michael Kidney said, 'I heard that you lost your dog today. I want you to know how sorry we all are. Everybody at Coughlan Fitzgerald.'

Katie took in a sharp, involuntary breath. 'Thank you,' she said. Then she turned to Tomas O Conaill again and she knew instantly from the look in his eyes that Tomas had sensed her distress.