Free Blood Sisters by Graham Masterton Page A

morning, along with another vet from Horse Racing Ireland, and some fellow from the Department of Agriculture.’
    ‘All right, Horgan, good. I’ll try to get up there myself this afternoon. As soon as we check the horses’ identities and find out how they died, we can start asking questions around the training stables and the racetrack. I don’t want to go rushing into this, though. Racing’s a fierce tight business and it’s not going to be easy to persuade anybody to talk about this.’
    ‘Tell me about it. My cousin Tierney works for Jim Culloty at Churchtown and the only tip he’s ever given me is not to waste my money betting on the horses.’
    * * *
    She finished reading through the Book of Evidence against Michael Gerrety and then stood up and went across her office to take her coat from its hook. She could see that the lights were on in Michael Gerrety’s apartment at the top of the Elysian, and she wondered how he was feeling now that she had at last managed to take him to court, with a very fair chance of conviction. Irritated, probably, but contemptuous. Michael Gerrety was another of those men who thought that women had been put on this earth simply to serve them.
    She was walking along the corridor when Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán stepped out of the lift and came briskly towards her.
    ‘Ma’am? Are you heading off somewhere?’
    ‘Dromsligo. They’ve taken all of those dead horses up there for a post-mortem. There’s going to be media there, too, so I’ll have to be saying a few well-chosen words.’
    ‘I talked to Mother O’Dwyer at the Bon Sauveur Convent.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And I got the strongest feeling that Sister Bridget was not at all popular. The trouble is, Mother O’Dwyer wouldn’t say so directly, and there’s no possible way of proving it.’
    ‘She didn’t give you any names? Anybody who might have borne a grudge against her for any reason?’
    Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán shook her head. ‘They’re all sisters in Christ, she said, and they get along with each other like sisters.’
    Katie said, ‘ Pff ! If my relationship with my sisters is anything to go by, there’s more fighting in that convent than the Battle of the Boyne.’
    ‘There was something, though,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. She took the twisted latex glove out of her coat pocket and held it up so that Katie could see the fragment of jawbone inside it. ‘The young nun who answered the door gave me this – Sister Rose O’Sullivan. She said she found it in the convent garden when she was weeding the flower beds.’
    Katie took it and examined it carefully. ‘It has teeth in it. A child’s first teeth, by the look of it. When did she find it?’
    ‘About six weeks ago, that’s what she said. She showed it to one of the other sisters but she told her to throw it away and forget about it. She’s only a novice, so she was scared to show it to Mother O’Dwyer.’
    ‘What’s a child’s jawbone doing in a convent flower bed? The Bon Sauveur used to be a home for unmarried mothers and their babies, that’s what I find disturbing. I hope to God we’re not going to find it’s another Tuam.’
    ‘I asked Sister Rose to draw me a sketch map, showing exactly where she found it. She’s going to email it to me.’
    Katie handed the jawbone back to her. ‘Take it to Bill Phinner, would you? See what he has to say. We may have to send it to the path lab in Dublin. Oh, Jesus. This is just what we need. They found the bones of seven hundred and ninety-six children buried at Tuam, didn’t they? Let’s pray that there was only one little soul buried at the Bon Sauveur.’
    Just then her iPhone warbled. She took it out of her pocket and said, ‘Detective Superintendent Maguire.’
    ‘Oh, glad I caught you, ma’am. It’s O’Donovan. I’ve just had a call from Sergeant Finlay at Glanmire. You’re not going to believe this. It’s another dead nun.’
    ‘Please tell me you’re joking,’