The Cold, Cold Ground

said.
    “I’ll prescribe anti-inflammatories and codeine.”
    We got the medicine and went back to Coronation Road. She drove the Beemer through the biblical rain. I self-medicated with vodka until the codeine finally kicked in. We ate the rest of the spaghetti and lit the fire and listened to Etta James.
    She had news. Good news, she said, but I saw it differently. She told me that her parents were buying her a house. She was leaving Carrick but she wouldn’t be too far away.
    “Leaving? Where will you be?” I asked groggily.
    “Five minutes up the road in Straid. It’s my great-aunt’s house.
    We’re buying it from her. It’s lovely. It backs onto Woodburn Forest. She wants to move to Tenerife. Have you ever been to Tenerife? Black sand. And the mountain with snow on it even in summer. You go up to the top – they give you hot chocolate with brandy in it.”
    “Don’t go. Move in with me.”
    “Here? In this house?”
    “Yes. It’s bought and paid for. Move in with me.”
    “I can’t. I can’t live here with all these … I can’t live here.”
    “They don’t bite.”
    “Not so far.”
    We went upstairs to bed. I lay on the mattress and I was so beat she made love to me in the cowgirl and swan positions with my cock deep inside her and she grinding with her hips and knees. We came together and she lay beside me laughing.
    “All that riding was good for something,” she said. I lit the paraffin heater and took a couple more codeine to help me sleep. And the rain came and the wind blew.
    “It’s all going to be all right, isn’t it?” she asked.
    “Aye,” I said. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”

20: WHO KILLED LUCY MOORE?
    Dreams. Dreams of labyrinths. A labyrinth is not a maze. There are no dead ends. All paths lead inexorably to the centre. All paths lead from the outside in. From the inside out. Daedalus was no genius. Only a joiner. Only a chippie in the yard.
    Labyrinths are shaped like nooses.
    Lucy Moore’s finger was in the noose. She wished to see the baby again. She wished to live. The man wished death upon her. Motherless child, you have no protector. I am your voice. I am your avenger.
    The darkness.
    Falling, tumbling, into that black pit.
    The falling will never stop. The numbers will go on counting until the end of time. The integers are infinite. The spaces between the integers are infinite. Let me tell you about the trees, Lucy. We climbed out of the trees. We walked away from the trees. Trees are a step backwards.
    Everyone calls me Mimi, I don’t know why because my name is Lucia.
    Straid.
    The woods. Woodburn Forest.
    The letter S.
    The labyrinth.
    He killed her.
    He was the man.
    I opened my eyes wide. Rain had flooded the gutters. Liquid skitter clinging to the windows like a beaten wife clinging to a bad marriage.
    I bolted out of bed.
    Laura looked frightened.
    “What’s wrong?” she said.
    “Where did you say you were moving to?”
    “Straid.”
    “What did you say about the forest?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You said something about your grandmother’s house backing onto the forest!” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders.
    “You’re scaring me, Sean.”
    I let her go. “You said something about the house backing onto the forest.”
    “Oh … yes. I said that her house was nice because it backs onto Woodburn Forest.”
    I grabbed my jeans and fell over trying to put them on. My wrist had swollen to the size of a marrow.
    “Help me get dressed!”
    “What’s going on?”
    “Please!” I yelled at her.
    “All right, all right, keep your hair on.”
    She pulled up my jeans and buttoned them and I grabbed a black sweater.
    I went out onto the landing and down the stairs.
    I looked at the kitchen clock. 8.45. I waited until 9 and called up the Sinn Fein press annex in Bradbury House.
    “Hi, this is Mike Smith from the New York Times , I’d like to speak to Freddie Scavanni, please,” I said.
    “Just one moment,” his secretary replied.
    “Hello?” Freddie said.
    Freddie was at work. Good for him. I hung up. I calledJack Pougher in Special Branch. “Hi, this is Duffy from Carrickfergus RUC. You couldn’t do me a favour and find out Freddie Scavanni’s home address, could you? It’s never been in our files but I assume you boys must know, cos you boys know everything.”
    Jack didn’t see through the compliment and after a minute he came back on: “This is a weird file, Sean. Lots of blank pages and I’m