The Cold, Cold Ground

Unsmiling.
    I gave her the flowers.
    “These are for Dr Cathcart,” I said.
    “I’ll make sure she gets them,” Hattie said.
    “Is she in at all?” I asked.
    Hattie gave me a severe look. “Dr Cathcart has given me explicit instructions not to let you or any policeman into the surgery area. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to work to do.”
    Matty grinned, slapped me on the back and steered me back outside into the rain.
    “That’s harsh, brother, the good doctor is not a fan. You were shot down, mate! Shot down like the Red Baron,” Matty said.
    “The Red Baron shot the other people down.”
    “Not in the end, Sean. Not in the end!”
    “Shut up! Shut up and drive us to Lucy Moore’s house. I wrote the address out on the map.”
    “Will do boss, will do,” he said and laughed again.
    Lucy’s parents lived on a large farm not far from Carrickfergus. Her father Edward O’Neill had been an old-school Nationalist, one of the few Catholic MPs in the Stormont Assembly and he was still well respected in Republican circles. There had been two girls, Lucy and Claire, and a son, Thomas. Claire was a contracts lawyer based in Dublin and New York. Thomas was a barrister in London. Lucy must have been the black sheep marrying a ne’er do well like Seamus Moore.
    We parked the Land Rover and were shown in to the conservatory by Daphne O’Neill, a prematurely aged, grey-haired lady.
    Edward was sitting by the window with a blanket over hisknees. He was a big man brought low, like an exiled king or politician.
    We drank tea.
    Talked.
    Neither Lucy’s mother nor father had anything to add. They were in mourning for a lost girl.
    The worst thing in the world that could happen had happened.
    Chief Inspector Brennan had already informed them about the baby.
    They were bereft. Adrift in a sea of grief. They showed us the postcards and letters Lucy had sent from the Irish Republic. We, of course, had the photostats in our file and the originals gave us nothing new.
    “Did Lucy drop any hint at all that she might have been pregnant to either of you or possibly to Claire?”
    Lucy’s mother shook her head. She had high, arched cheekbones and a dignified white bun. Tears had been pouring down her face and she was somehow extremely beautiful in all that pain.
    “Not a peep and she wasn’t showing or I would have noticed at Christmas.”
    “Was she seeing anyone? A boyfriend or anyone new?”
    “No! Not that we knew of. After finally divorcing Seamus? No. She had a lot of friends in the Sinn Fein crowd, but we all thought she’d lay low for a while. Oh Lucy, my darling, darling girl. I don’t understand it, I don’t understand it at all!”
    “Is the baby still alive?” Mr O’Neill asked.
    I was choking and I looked at Matty for help.
    “We have every reason to think that it might be,” he said hesitantly. “Certainly we found no traces of a body in Woodburn Forest. Nearly two dozen infants have been left at hospitals and missions in the last week.”
    The room grew quiet. Mr O’Neill cleared his throat and stared out the window. The long seconds became a minute.
    “I know what some people say. They say it’s an Irish tradition. That it’s an ironic commentary on the famine. I don’t find anything ironic about it. Do you, sergeant?”
    I was genuinely baffled. “Sir?”
    “In India the Jains starve themselves to death to obtain purity in the next life. The philosopher Atticus starved himself in Rome because he had become sick and wanted to hasten the end. In Ireland there has never been honour in such a course. I don’t know how this so-called tradition got imported into our country!”
    I had no answers for him. Clearly he blamed the hunger strikers for guilting Lucy into killing herself.
    “Mr O’Neill, if we could find out where she’d been staying for the last six months it would help us a lot to piece together—”
    “We don’t know!” Mr O’Neill snapped. “I wish we had known.”
    “Perhaps one of Lucy’s friends would know?” I asked.
    “We’ve asked everybody again and again!” Mr O’Neill said, banging his fist into the flat of his hand to emphasise his words.
    “We’d like to talk to them anyway,” I said.
    Mrs O’Neill calmed her husband down and they gave us half a dozen names, all of whom Carrick CID – that is, Matty and Crabbie – had interviewed after the initial disappearance.
    Still we went back to the station and made the calls. Nobody had heard from Lucy