Free The Lake by Sheena Lambert Page B

breath, waiting to see what awful truth might be disinterred from its bleak beauty. Downstream, he could make out what looked like a line of boulders, disappearing into the still water. The arrangement made no sense to him. He made a mental note to examine it more closely later.
    Across the other side of the lake, he could make out a dilapidated estate house, partially hidden by trees. The old manor. Its windows resembled eyes, peeking out across at him through the branches, half afraid of what it might see. There was certainly no way the body that lay here, ten feet from where he now stood, could have been from the old graveyard near the estate.
    ‘It’s P and T.’ Dr. McKenna suddenly addressed Frank. He was kneeling on a piece of cardboard he must have brought with him. He pointed at the body in the sand. ‘Jute. It appears the deceased was buried here in a post bag.’ He used what looked to him like a wire brush to remove some of the wet sand further down the length of the body. ‘You might be able to make out the lettering here?’ He glanced up at him. ‘The deceased, female it would seem at this stage, appears to have been put, post-mortem, into a Post and Telegraphs sack, and buried here.’
    Just then, two figures standing on elevated ground on the shoreline caught Frank’s eye. One was the driver of the hearse that was parked nearby, ready to remove the remains to the church, where the local priest had offered Frank the use of a room should he need it. The other was Coleman.
    ‘We should be able to get an approximate date fairly quickly from the style of the bag.’ Dr. McKenna seemed to be talking to the body now, addressing it like a doctor might a patient, gently explaining a procedure; what would happen next. Frank kept his eyes fixed on Coleman.
    Then the doctor stood, and both Frank and Garda O’Dowd turned to him.
    ‘I’ve seen all I need to here. Let’s get her up to the sacristy, and I can get a better look at her. If needs be, we’ll get the lot up to Dublin tonight, or in the morning.’
    ‘Right.’ Frank noticed that Garda O’Dowd was looking at him in his needy way, waiting for direction.
    ‘Let the undertaker know the doctor is finished, Michael,’ he said. ‘They’re to bring her to the church. Father Francis is expecting her there.’
    The doctor proceeded to put the tools he had been using back into a large leather bag. ‘They’re to take the remains as they are, in the sack,’ he said. ‘Make sure there is no interference with it. It’s to all go into the box. Keep that,’ he gestured to the camera Garda O’Dowd was still holding. ‘You’ll take two final pictures of the site when the remains are removed. ‘Now, Detective Sergeant. Perhaps we might find someone to make us a cup of tea in this Godforsaken place?’
    Frank bristled at his tone, and then wondered immediately why he cared. He glanced at Michael who just nodded quickly at him. Then he took one last look at the body in the sand. Whatever peace the creature had had since being left here was being well and truly disturbed now. A third of the sand covering the shape was now pushed back, the sacking clear for all to see. A postbag containing the crumpled body of some poor person, some poor girl. Suddenly, a warm wind blew across the lake, apparently from nowhere, and he looked up to see the trees near the manor swaying, revealing the house more fully. Then he turned quickly and looked back up the shoreline.
    But Coleman was gone.

TEN
    By the time Carla appeared in the kitchen, groggy and dishevelled, Peggy had already been up and working for three hours. Two large pans of cottage pie were set out on the table and Peggy was standing at the sink, stripping cooking apples of their skins.
    She looked up at her sister. ‘Morning.’
    ‘Meh.’ Carla lifted a kettle from where it sat on the range, letting it drop with a clatter. Overnight, she seemed to have morphed back into the teenager who used to haunt the