The Cold, Cold Ground

minutes?”
    “It’s possible.”
    I turned to Crabbie. “And the rest of the house was untouched. No trophies taken, no money, nothing like that.”
    “What are you thinking?” he asked.
    “I think this was all done in a hurry. I think John Doe was killed first in a more premeditated manner and then Andrew Young was murdered because he was a well-known homosexual. The killer shot Young as he opened the door. There was no conversation, no demands, nothing. He knew he had to kill him fast, cut off the hand and get in and out as speedily as possible.”
    “Why?” Laura asked.
    I shook my head. “I don’t know, yet.”
    We sat there for a minute while thunder rolled across the lough from a storm in County Down.
    Laura gave an apologetic look and pointed at her watch. “I have my clinic,” she said.
    I nodded. “Ok, let’s turn to Lucy Moore.”
    I picked up the second file.
    The first shock was the baby.
    “Are you sure about this?” I asked.
    “Oh yes. She gave birth about a week before she died. It looks like she breastfed the infant for about two days and then stopped.”
    “It died?” I asked.
    “Or she gave it away?” Crabbie said.
    Laura shrugged. That was beyond her area of expertise.
    “We’ll get dogs and go back up to Woodburn Forest. Maybe the baby was buried nearby,” I said to Crabbie.
    “And I’ll check the missions and the hospitals,” McCrabban added.
    “This might be a better explanation of why she killed herself: you give birth, your baby dies …” I said.
    “Why did you think she killed herself?” Laura asked.
    “Well, her ex-husband just joined the hunger strike last week and we were thinking guilt or something. But this is more concrete,” I said.
    “And it’s probably why she ran away! At Christmas she would have been – what, three months gone?” Crabbie asked.
    “She’d know at three months but she might not be showing,” Laura said.
    “Pregnant! At least this is one case we can start closing the book on, eh Sean?” Crabbie said.
    He was dead right. Everybody in Ireland understood this particular trope. Girl gets pregnant out of wedlock, runs away, gives birth, kills herself. Happened all the time. Abortion was illegal on both sides of the Irish border. There were few places a girl could turn. Of course Lucy was a little different in that she was slightly older and she had already been married, but with her ex locked up in the H Blocks and already a Republican hero, there would be just as much pressure, perhaps more …
    She was probably too guilty to even write a note explaining herself.
    Sad. Sad. Sad.
    “Gentlemen, I really should …” Laura said quietly.
    “Yes, yes, of course, Dr Cathcart. Anything else suspicious here?” I asked.
    “I’ve been told that she’s been missing since before Christmas,” Laura said.
    “That’s right,” McCrabban agreed.
    “There were no bruises on her wrists or ankles, no signs of malnutritionor torture or abuse. Her muscles had not atrophied, her vitamin D levels were high. Which means that she was eating just fine and that she was getting plenty of sunlight,” Laura said.
    “So she wasn’t somebody’s prisoner,” Crabbie said.
    “I think you can infer that,” Laura replied.
    “Everyone thought she was down South because of the postcards and letters she sent home. Can you tell if she was living down there?” Crabbie asked.
    Laura shook her head. “No. She’d eaten fried egg on toast which I imagine you can get on both sides of the border.”
    “That’s a hell of a last meal,” I said.
    “I like fried egg on toast!” Crabbie said. “I make it for the missus sometimes.”
    “So, is that everything?” I asked before Crabbie could further depress me with his culinary exploits.
    “It’s all in the autopsy,” Laura explained.
    “Good,” I said.
    “There is one thing,” Laura added hesitantly.
    “Yes?” I said.
    “Well, I don’t want either of you to make a big thing about this because it’s probably nothing …”
    Crabbie and I exchanged a look.
    “Go on,” I said.
    “Well, she died by strangulation, of course: the rope choked off the oxygen supply to her brain and she asphyxiated.”
    “We saw that,” Crabbie said. “She thought it would be quick and it wasn’t.”
    Laura nodded. “And she got a finger between the rope and her neck but it didn’t do any good.”
    “No, it didn’t,” I agreed.
    “Well, it’s just that … I’m not entirely happy with the bruises on