Читать книгу The Lake - Sheena Lambert - Страница 11

From the moment Garda O’Dowd tucked his long limbs into Frank’s car, he seemed to forget all about the body at the lake, and focus only on the Capri’s interior; staring in unabashed awe at the dashboard; tracing his fingers along the radio casing, only lifting his gaze once or twice to give Frank directions as they drove from the station towards the lake. When the boreen they were on finally came to an abrupt dead end, Garda O’Dowd seemed to remember what he was supposed to be doing, and pointed out Frank’s side window.

‘There. You can pull in there.’

Frank drove slowly into a clearing, where grass was trying but largely failing in its effort to push through the sun-baked ground. With the engine off, they sat in eerie silence, staring out over the lake. They had stopped in what seemed to be a makeshift car park, where fishermen could conveniently leave their cars and trailers while they went off on the water. It was really just a small field, edged by tall evergreens to the back, and opening out to the lake at the front. Parked as they were, facing the lake, Frank could see how low the water level was. A person could easily walk twenty yards from the edge of the clearing before their feet would get wet, and it was apparent from the barrenness of the grey sand that those twenty yards were unaccustomed to being exposed to the air.

Frank got out of the car and walked to the edge of the grass where the clearing met the lakeshore proper. A small drop, less than a foot in places, showed where the lake’s water habitually lapped. Now, Frank could step down onto the silty soil, littered with small rocks and pebbles, and walk on the lakebed with ease.

Garda O’Dowd followed him. ‘It’s just over here.’ He pointed past Frank to his right. ‘A little way along. I left one of the O’Malley lads at the site.’ He glanced up at Frank with apparent unease. ‘I was reluctant to leave it unguarded. Not that I’d expect any interference. But you never know.’

Frank said nothing, but walked in the direction the younger guard had indicated. He looked around him as he went, taking in the lake, the shoreline, the somehow unnatural layout of it all. He felt the ground beneath his feet soften as they ventured further. Garda O’Dowd hurried ahead, his hand up, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. Wetness oozed around Frank’s leather shoes as they got closer to the water’s edge. The shoreline jutted out a little just ahead of them, and the trunks of tall evergreens blocked the view somewhat; their long needles swinging and swishing high above. Frank began to feel the dampness in his feet, and was considering taking his shoes and socks off when he noticed a lad of no more than eighteen walking towards them. Garda O’Dowd spoke quietly to him, and the lad nodded his tight red curls in earnest, and pointed to a spot only yards from where they stood.

Garda O’Dowd turned to Frank. ‘It’s just here, Detective Sergeant.’

Unlike a sandy seaside beach, the silty ground between the water’s edge and the natural shoreline was grey and flat. The stones that littered the area closer to the shore were absent further out, and the area of ground Garda O’Dowd gestured towards seemed to Frank to be an unvarying expanse of plain, drying mud. But as they got closer, Frank could see that one part of the ground, a strip of about five feet by two, was a darker grey than the rest, and that the silt around this shape was uneven, sagging in places, and rounding at the edges.

Despite the heat, Frank shivered. He looked up at the two men, only to see them looking back at him expectantly. Frank acknowledged the young lad with a nod.

‘Sir,’ the lad said.

‘You haven’t disturbed it at all?’

‘No, sir.’ The lad looked from one officer to the other. They were still ten feet from the ominous shape on the ground, but all seemed to share an apparent reluctance to encroach any further.

‘’Twas two fishermen found it, Detective Sergeant. ‘Garda O’Dowd took a small notebook from his trouser pocket and flipped over a few pages before settling on one filled with scribbled notes. ‘Late last evening. A John Forkin and a Thomas O’Reilly. They’re not locals, but they say that they would return should we need to speak with them again.’

Frank looked up at the young guard.

‘I did interview them, of course,’ he continued, glancing quickly at the young red-headed boy who was still standing close by. ‘Last night, here, at the scene. One of them, eh,’ he consulted his notes, ‘Thomas O’Reilly. He went on up to the Hanleys’ up the way.’ He gestured with his notebook up along the road they had just driven down. ‘And I was summoned. And I came down here.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his brow. ‘To the scene of the crime, as it were.’

Frank looked down at the shape under the sand. ‘Well, we don’t know if it is a crime yet, of course,’ he said. He knew he was teasing, but it was difficult not to. The young officer invited ridicule with his baby face and his nervous manner.

‘Of course, sir. Of course.’ Garda O’Dowd flushed red. ‘Some of the locals suggested that it might be an old grave. From before the dam.’

‘This whole valley was flooded,’ the boy spoke suddenly, his eyes wide, his arms outstretched across the lake. ‘There was a whole village here once, sir, before they built the dam. The whole thing was drown’ded. Out there.’ He pointed out to the middle of the lake.

Frank followed his gaze. He could just make out some sort of stone, or rock, protruding from the still water.

‘The water’s so low now you can see the tops of them buildin’s, sir. Although most were blasted down, they say. But some were left.’

‘Yes, thank you, Cormac,’ Garda O’Dowd glared at the boy. He took a handkerchief from his other trouser pocket and mopped the perspiration from his brow again. He turned back to Frank. ‘It is possible of course, sir,’ he said. ‘The main graveyard over at the old manor estate was moved at the time, plot by plot, to a site higher up Slieve Mart. But that’s over the other side of the village.’ He tipped his head back towards the spot Cormac had been pointing to. ‘So it couldn’t be one of those. Coleman thinks it must be from another time altogether.’

‘Coleman?’ Frank started to step tentatively towards the shape in the ground.

‘He’d be the eldest around here,’ Cormac saw fit to interject again before being hushed by another glare from Garda O’Dowd.

‘He’s lived here all his life,’ Garda O’Dowd said to Frank. ‘Since before the flooding even. He’d be, oh, certainly in his seventies.’ He raised his eyebrows at Cormac who nodded in agreement.

‘The local sage,’ Frank said to himself. He stood as close to the shape as he could, and crouched down until his face was only a couple of feet from whatever it was that was buried there. The sand was smooth, except for the end closest to the shore, where it appeared disturbed, and Frank could see some type of cloth sticking out of the silt.

‘Ah, that is where I investigated last evening, sir,’ Garda O’Dowd said from his standing point five feet off. ‘The shape of the mound was, of course, suggestive of a grave, or, eh, a body,’ he coughed. ‘But I felt the need to be sure, sir, before I alerted the Superintendent. I didn’t want to be causing a commotion for a, eh, false alarm, sir.’

Frank didn’t answer. He leaned in as close to the exposed material as he could without falling onto the sand himself. It was coarse, like flax or some other type of sacking. It was certainly somewhat degraded. Definitely not new. He reached down and lifted the raw edge a little. Without turning, he could sense the trepidation of his two companions.

‘It’s just beneath the sacking, sir.’ Garda O’Dowd swallowed loudly. ‘You can, I think, see some, eh, remains.’

Sure enough, Frank could make out what seemed to him to be matted, black hair. Human hair. He dropped the cloth and stood up straight, wiping his hand roughly on his jeans.

A moment of silence passed between them. Cormac O’Malley blessed himself quickly three times, the reality of what he had been guarding only apparently dawning on him at that second.

Frank collected himself. ‘You were right to call it in, Garda O’Dowd,’ he said at last.

The younger man flushed, nodding in vindication. Frank stared down at the pitiful strip of mounded sand. What poor unfortunate had ended up here? He was fairly sure it was an old grave, but not old enough, he guessed, that it predated a coffin burial. Whoever it was, they had been buried in a sack, and that was no fitting end for any of God’s creatures. He ran his hand through his hair, damp from the heat of the afternoon.

‘You’ll stay here a while longer, Cormac?’ He looked at the boy, who nodded, clearly delighted to be considered worthy of assisting a Detective Sergeant all the way from Dublin.

‘Sir,’ was all he said.

Frank looked at Garda O’Dowd. ‘We’ll go up to the station, Michael,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to call the pathologist, and update him on the situation. And you, Michael,’ he lowered his gaze back to where the tiniest glimpse of black hair was visible in the ground, ‘you might go and bring the priest.’