BENEATH LOST GROUND

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Mailing list

  BENEATH

  LOST

  GROUND

  By

  G.D. Higgins

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

  incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by G.D. Higgins

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

  or used in any manner without written permission of the

  copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book

  review.

  First edition published February 2021

  CHAPTER ONE

  July 18th, 2019

  He slouched as he descended the station steps. A phone call from inside interrupted Detective Sergeant Conal Brophy from his meandering thoughts of how to deal with the humidity in his stuffy two-bedroom country house. He was loath to spend another night there alone with his nightmares and ghosts. The heat was sweltering. He wiped the sweat from his brow.

  The call came from Garda Finch, requesting his assistance in interviewing a local drug addict. Patrick ‘Packo’ Lenihan, one of the station’s most frequent offenders in recent years, had been brought in and processed. Having been arrested dozens of times, his charges through the years ranged from possession of class A’s to vandalism, theft, and indecent exposure. Brophy instantly regretted not turning off his phone, as he had planned to do as soon as he got into his black Saab.

  He returned to the dim central corridor of the city’s headquarters, which didn’t get any natural light. It was unusually busy, with several uniformed gardaí racing in the opposite direction to Brophy. A thought crossed his mind, which delivered a pang of guilt as soon as he’d had it, that the N25 heading eastbound might be impeded by a rush-hour accident, preventing him from getting back to his isolated dwelling on the Copper Coast.

  Brophy entered Interview Room Two, a growing chip on his shoulder; he wasn’t in any kind of mood to deal with Packo’s lip. Two uniformed gardaí stood in opposite corners, half-poised to make a grab for Packo if he stirred. Brophy knew something wasn’t quite right. For all his indiscretions, Packo was never violent or dangerous, as such. His five-foot-six skinny frame would rarely give any garda cause for caution. But this time was different. Packo sat at the square, bolted-down table, his back straight, growling and drooling, a look of sheer terror in his eyes. He didn’t even register Brophy’s arrival.

  Garda Finch approached Brophy from the back corner, glancing down at Packo a couple of times as he moved, and whispered into Brophy’s ear, “Thanks for coming back in, Sergeant. He was brought in twenty minutes ago, kicking and screaming, talking about winged demons out to get him if he didn’t find a pot of monarch butterfly wings, quickly. He was found in someone’s back garden over in Saint John’s Estate. On his hands and knees, he was, digging with bleeding fingers. Scared the life out of two sisters inside watching cartoons, six and eight years old.”

  “Thanks, Garda. I’ll take it from here.”

  Brophy sat on the chair opposite Packo and glanced at the fresh plasters covering all of his fingers. Six-foot-one and broad-shouldered, Brophy slumped in his seat to get to eye-level with the much smaller Packo, so as not to intimidate him too much, an old academy trick he never gave much credence to but had become accustomed to, nonetheless.

  “Packo, you’re looking a bit worse for wear over there. Can I get you a coffee or something?”

  Packo’s eyes darted around the room, tracing along the outline of the triangle of light cast by the single shaded bulb overhead, still not having registered Brophy’s presence. He reeked of ammonia-like body odour.

  “How many arrests is this now, Packo? Sixty? Seventy? The judges are going to lose patience soon and send you down for a few years.”

  Packo laughed, a guttural dreg of a cackle. After finishing in a viscous sniffle, he half-focused on Brophy for the first time. “They’ll never put away an upstanding citizen like meself.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Brophy. “And why is that, then?”

  “Because all the bleedin’ prisons are full to over-capacity in this lawless nation of ours.”

  “Who told you that?” Brophy questioned, attempting to act combative, and not show he completely agreed with what Packo was saying.

  “That ride of a blonde one on the news told me. She’s on about it nearly every day. Since you mad peelers locked up all the big time gangs, the Joy and the Portlaoise Hilton are all booked out for years to come.”

  “Maybe you should become a crime correspondent yourself. You seem to know so much about what’s going on.”

  “Yeah. And I know the shower of yee made it wicked hard to get sorted these days.”

  “You seem to have managed, all the same. What is it you’re on, anyway? Doesn’t look like the usual coke high with prescription downers.”

  “Me? I’m just high on life, man. Had a couple of tins of cider to celebrate the success of you lot.”

  “Well, your latest escapade has left two little girls traumatised. Do you care about that?”

  “Traumatised? Traumatised?” he said, incredulous, his eyebrows raising in hideous arches. “What about my childhood trauma, Bottler?”

  Up to that point, Brophy hadn’t been sure Packo even recognised him. His entire body tensed up at hearing the word. “Don’t call me that, you little rat.”

  Packo lit up a little, perhaps from knowing he had touched a nerve with Brophy. The two uniformed gardaí shuffled uncomfortably in the background.

  “I remember when I was six years old, All-Ireland hurling final day — our first crack at that title in fifty years. In the pub, I was, with the aul fella and his mates. My little signed Waterford jersey on, swinging a hurley around like a wild caveman, all those stoned bastards laughing their arses off at me.”

  Brophy took an audible breath, his lips pursed tightly.

  “Devastated, I was when our star player didn’t show up. No injury, no explanation. Nothing. And then, the biggest ever defeat in an All-Ireland final. You talk about trauma. I never got over that day. In fact, it’s what drove me to the drugs.” He smiled, then seemed to get confused about what he’d just said.

  “You’re a little scumbag, Packo. And I’m going to see to it that you go down this time.”

  Packo sniggered, momentaril
y lowering his head, and Brophy noticed a large red blotch under his tightly cropped mousy hair.

  “You’ll bottle it again, Brophy,” he said, a demented look swiping across his face.

  Brophy sprang to his feet and pressed his hands on the table and came face to face with his tormentor.

  “You listen to me, you scabby little junkie. We’re testing your blood to see what you’re on, and when I find out, I’ll make sure whoever is supplying you knows that you’re the biggest little rat in the city.”

  “You’ll do no such thing, Detective Brophy,” he said, moving in close enough for Brophy to see tiny flecks of blood on his cracked lips. “You need me for-”

  A uniformed garda burst in the door, disturbing Packo’s train of thought, but Brophy never took his eye off him.

  “Sergeant Brophy,” called Garda Sinéad Mallon with some urgency.

  “I’m busy here, Mallon. Get someone else.”

  “Inspector Bennett was just on the phone. You’re needed urgently. There’s been an incident.”

  “You heard the young lady, Brophy. There’s been an incident.”

  Brophy glanced back at Garda Mallon, biting his lower lip, then turned around to face Packo. “I’m not finished with you yet. The Hilton might be full, but we have plenty of space here.” He looked up at Garda Finch. “Make sure our guest here has a comfortable stay in the penthouse. The toilet hasn’t been fixed yet, has it?”

  “No, sir. Still as blocked as a stuffed pheasant,” said Finch with a smirk.

  “Well then, that’s about all for now. We’ll continue this in the morning.”

  “Ah here, don’t be like that,” pleaded Packo as Brophy turned to head out the door. “I have to babysit tonight.”

  Brophy shut the door behind him, oblivious to Packo’s last words. “What’s so urgent Garda Mallon?” he said, noticing the worry in the rookie’s green eyes.

  “There’s been a murder out in Woodstown. A husband and wife shot in their dining room whilst having dinner. Sounds like a real mess. Bennett wants you there, pronto.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Despite the siren and the reckless driving of Garda Mallon, it still took over twenty minutes to make the eight-kilometre journey. She sped through the Waterford city evening traffic and the winding country roads that led to the picturesque seaside village of Woodstown. Brophy assumed the heavy traffic was due to people returning from the beaches of Tramore and neighbouring areas. Mallon had no further details on the unfolding incident than what she had told Brophy at the station, so a contemplative silence pervaded the speeding squad car. Brophy considered what his role might be in such a big case, and assumed Mallon, who was only months out of the academy, was anxious about seeing her first murder scene. It was only natural; they all experienced it at some time or another.

  Brophy’s ascendancy up the ranks during his early years on the force had been commendable, but in recent years his career had stagnated, and he wasn’t too bothered by it, either. When he made detective sergeant at twenty-nine, the department handed him every big case concerning suspicious deaths or missing persons. Nowadays he was content to play second fiddle to Detective Inspector Bennett, assisting in, rather than leading the big cases.

  As they turned off the Dunmore Road, heading towards Woodstown, Brophy felt himself become light-headed and for a moment panicked about what could be happening. A sensation that usually only occurred in confined, stuffy spaces. He quickly realised it was the blistering heat and lack of functioning air-conditioning in the squad car that made him feel disorientated. He pressed the window button on the passenger door and sucked in a few deep breaths, drawing a confused look from the now pale Garda Mallon.

  “We’re nearly there, Sergeant. Just another kilometre,” she said whilst turning onto a narrow country road, flanked by dense Sitka spruce trees. “What’s it like, Sir?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “I mean, the first time you see dead bodies at a crime scene.”

  Brophy looked at her and was caught off guard by how very young she looked, her shoulder-length brown hair up in a neat ponytail, her sallow skin smooth and unblemished. He guessed she couldn’t be more than twenty-two, a year younger than when he joined the force.

  “I’m not gonna lie to you, Garda Mallon. It stays with you for a while, but you get used to it, I promise. It just becomes another part of the job.”

  He observed her smile uneasily and appearing unable to get out what was on her trembling lips.

  “Just try not to look into their eyes, if they’re still opened.”

  “Okay, Sergeant. Thanks.”

  Mallon indicated right, and Brophy had to do a double-take to spot where she was about to turn in to. She headed towards a driveway that looked more like a logging route for lorries and heavy machinery than an entrance to a house. The trees shaded most of the mid-evening summer sunlight, and Mallon turned the lights on full. After crawling along the bumpy lane for a minute, it opened into a large clearing, and they turned onto a tarmacked driveway on a large two-acre green patch that led down to the beach on the far side. At the end of the driveway was an expansive modern dormer bungalow.

  Five squad cars were parked at varying angles in front of the house, and the large white van of the Technical Bureau was surrounded by people in white hooded overalls. Mallon stopped the car behind the van and they both got out. The entire scene felt silent and haunted, only the low toned murmurs of gardaí speaking through their light blue face-masks to be heard. Those who weren’t talking, moved around in a sombre haunch, going about their tasks, examining the crime scene.

  Brophy shut the car door as silently as he could, not wanting to interfere with the deliberate silence. He saw Inspector Bennett near the front door, talking to a uniformed garda, in his early fifties, he didn’t recognise. He approached the two men with Mallon in-toe.

  “What have we got, Inspector?” he asked Bennett.

  “Thanks for getting here so quickly, Sergeant. I know you were on your way home, as was I.” Brophy gave him a faint nod. “This is Garda Sergeant Gough, from the local station. He got a call about an hour ago; someone on the beach heard gunshots and a scream.”

  Brophy glanced towards the shoreline at the end of a fifty-metre wide garden. Must have been some scream.

  “How are you, Sergeant Brophy?” said Gough, wide-eyed, clearly out of his depth as a countryside, one-garda operation. One of the few small stations around the country to avoid closure during cutbacks in recent years. “I got a call just before seven. The caller was walking his dog on the beach. Lives in the next house over, about half a mile away at the far corner of the woods. Said he heard four or five shots and thought he heard a scream, too, but couldn’t be sure. He’s a man who’s done a lot of hunting through the years and knows what a gunshot sounds like, so I took it seriously straight away. Got here within seven or eight minutes and found the two of them... well, you’ll see for yourself when you go inside.”

  Mallon returned after a few moments, having retrieved two sets of white overalls and handed one to Brophy. They got suited up and were about to enter the house when Bennett called Brophy back.

  “There’s one more thing I should tell you,” he said with a cold glare.

  “What’s that?” said Brophy.

  Bennett nodded at Gough in a gesture that said, ‘divulge.’

  “They have a ten-year-old son.”

  Brophy’s heart thumped off his chest wall.

  “He hasn’t been located yet. They’re conducting a room to room search now.”

  Without saying a word, Brophy headed towards the house and put on shoe covers at the front door before entering, followed by Mallon. They found themselves in a large reception area, tastefully decorated, with a painted family portrait, with four adults and a small child. A blue Persian rug covered a wide section of the centre of the foyer.

  “Don’t stand on that,” said one of the forensics team, “and keep to the right along the hallway. We
want to limit the contamination area,” he seemed to add for Mallon’s benefit, whose apprehension was visible in her eyes, the only part of her exposed.

  Brophy looked to the right at the stairs and saw two pairs of white pants passing by the landing, searching for the boy, no doubt.

  They proceeded left, down the hall, keeping close to the wall on the right, as instructed. At the end of the hall, they entered through double French doors into a spacious dining area that opened out into a large glass conservatory. Most of the many windows were wide open, which might explain how the scream was heard, but it would still be a stretch.

  Brophy took a few steps in and looked to the right where he saw a long, solid wood dining table. At the end of the table, slumped over, head on a dinner plate, was one of the victims: the father, a hole in the back of his skull, where the bullet had exited. A pool of blood darkened and glimmered around the man’s head. Brophy glanced at Mallon and saw the familiar look of terror at seeing such a sight for the first time. He briefly considered excusing her but decided against it. She had to go through this at some stage.

  Brophy noticed another three places set at the table, two that had been cleared of the plates, and the other had an empty dish and wine glass still in situ. He crouched a little to get a better look at the body and was able to determine the man had been shot at least one more time, in the chest. Maybe it was how a trained killer might have done it. A first for Brophy. The few murders he had seen in his eighteen years on the job were mostly crimes of passion, domestic abuse gone to the extreme, or suspicious suicides. Waterford and the South East simply weren’t the places where this kind of criminal activity happened. There was never a major problem with gangs. That sort of stuff seemed to be confined to Dublin or Limerick.

  He looked towards the conservatory and saw two people crouched down by where the wall met the glass, and a door on the adjacent wall looked like it led into the kitchen. He walked around the table, starting to feel the layer of sweat on his back drip down. He saw the second victim, lying in a twisted scrawl, her upper body facing down, whilst her lower body jutted upwards. He and Mallon were quickly instructed to keep several feet back, and he soon saw why. Scattered around the body were the remains of the shattered plates and glasses she must have been carrying to the kitchen at the time she was shot. Knives and forks were also on the wooden floor, nearby. Unlike the untouched set at the table, those looked used, and so would provide a hotbed of fingerprints and DNA if they happened to have been touched by the shooter. Unlikely as that might be, they couldn’t rule anything out at that stage.