Free Bleed a River Deep by Brian McGilloway Page A

both, Mrs Moore,’ I said, though in the event we were thinking of two different people.

Chapter Eight
     
    Sunday, 8 October
     
    Debbie, the kids and I went to early Mass. The days were turning now, the sky darkening earlier each evening. After Mass we spoke with Father Brennan, our local priest, and I gave him a Mass offering for Natalia Almurzayev’s safety.
    We drove to Derry that afternoon and had lunch in town. Penny’s birthday was a few weeks away, and we had promised we’d take her to the toyshops to pick what she’d like. Shane was walking unaided now, his squat body shifting from side to side as he moved. Every so often, when he came to a high kerb that required extra balance to step off, he raised his small fist in the air in the expectation that Debbie or I would take hold and support him till he had stepped down. Then the fist would be withdrawn and he’d continue on his way.
    Penny was trying on an outfit when my mobile rang.
    ‘They’re bringing that bog body back to Orcas this evening, ahead of the Hagan visit,’ Harry Patterson said, without introduction. ‘Get over there and show your face.’
    ‘I’m on my day off, Harry,’ I said, raising a hand to placate Debbie.
    ‘You tell me that like I’d give a fuck. Get out there, Devlin.’
    ‘Why?’ I asked, refusing to be drawn into a swearing match while Penny and Shane were standing in front of me.
    ‘Because I’m telling you to,’ he replied, then hung up.
    When I reached the main building, a museum truck was parked at the front doors, the hum of its air-conditioning unit audible. Fearghal Bradley and Linda Campbell were in the foyer of the main reception area when I arrived. John Weston was speaking on his phone near by.
    Fearghal was not as effusive in his greeting this time, merely nodding and winking once as he worked the electric controls on a glass presentation case that sat in the centre of the area. The box was perhaps five feet long, sitting atop a mahogany plinth.
    The workman I had seen on my first day out at the mine was standing nearby, fixing up the frame on a noticeboard, inside of which was a hastily produced poster about the bog body and its discovery. The rest of the building was in darkness.
    Weston snapped his phone shut and came over to me, smiling expansively as always, hand outstretched. ‘Good to see you, Ben. Out on a Sunday – that’s above and beyond the call of duty.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Tell me, did your wife like the gift?’
    ‘She did, sir,’ I said, earning a glance from Linda and Fearghal, who then went back to their work. I gestured towards the truck outside with a nod. ‘So you managed to get a loan after all,’ I said.
    ‘More than that, Ben,’ he said, smiling, then placed his manicured finger against his lips and motioned towards Fearghal’s back, intimating that I shouldn’t say anything more. I suspected it was a sore point with Fearghal.
    When Fearghal was finally happy that a constant temperature and humidity level could be maintained inside the case, he asked for our help carrying Kate in.
    She lay on a plastic board, clay and browned leaves cushioning her body. She was much lighter than I had expected and smaller than I remembered. Her skin shone now, as if polished, and her hair’s redness was more vivid than before. We carried her as one might a coffin, each taking one corner of the plastic board on which she lay, shuffling sideways through the main doors and into the reception area.
    We positioned her on the plinth and Bradley lowered the glass cover and pressed a small button to the side. Air hissed as the body was sealed in a vacuum and several small spotlights within the unit flickered on. Then all the lights in the reception area went out and I became aware that Weston was standing at the switch by the wall, gazing in wonder at his newest acquisition.
    The spotlights threw shadows upwards on our faces and I wondered if it were that, or something else, that made