Erin Hart - Haunted Ground

He hadn’t bothered to calculate the time difference—it might be the middle of the night in Bombay for all he knew.

“Who is calling, please?” the tinny-sounding voice repeated, and Devaney cleared his throat.

“Detective Garrett Devaney calling from Ireland. I’m trying to reach Mr. Jaronimo Gonsalves.” There was no immediate answer. Had he pronounced the name incorrectly? “I hope I’m not ringing too late.”

There was another brief pause, during which Devaney imagined his voice traveling to India, as he heard a faint echo of what he had just said on the line. When the woman’s voice responded, it sounded slightly weary, but not unkind.

“I am afraid you are too late, Detective. My husband died quite suddenly six months ago. Is there some way that I may help you? Do you have some news of my daughter?” The woman’s musical accent gave away the trepidation behind her question, and Devaney cursed the most terrible duty of his profession.

“I’m afraid I have no news, Mrs. Gonsalves. I’m just going back over the details, and I wanted to make sure that she still hadn’t contacted you or any other family members.”

There was another pause. “I have not heard from my daughter for the past two and a half years.”

“Excuse me?” Devaney said, thinking he must have misheard. “Your husband said—”

“When Mina first went missing,” Mrs. Gonsalves continued, “the police spoke to my husband. He told them that he had broken with our daughter when she married Hugh Osborne, three years earlier. And that was true—for him. You see, my husband was a very strict man, a proud man, Detective. He could be very hard. But I ask you, how could a mother who has brought a child into this world, and cared for her, just turn away one day—deny her existence, simply because that child fell foolishly in love?”

“You kept in contact with your daughter?” Devaney’s mind was racing; he was sure this information had never appeared anywhere in the file.

“Mina and I continued our regular correspondence, without my husband’s knowledge, of course. She sent her letters in care of my sister. But they suddenly stopped without warning. One week later, my husband received a call from your Irish police. He thought he spoke for both of us; how could he know he did not? I couldn’t go against him. His heart was already broken. I’m only sorry I didn’t contact you sooner.”

“And do you still have the letters?”

“Every one.”

“I wonder if you’d be willing to send them to me? There’s a chance they might contain some detail that would help us. I will return them to you.”

“Of course, of course, anything I can do.”

“And was there—” Devaney hesitated. “Was there ever any indication in these letters that your daughter was troubled, or in any way fearful?” He winced, hoping the last part of the question didn’t betray his suspicions. There was a brief silence on the other end of the line as Mrs. Gonsalves considered his question. God, his reflexes had completely gone.

“If you’re asking whether my daughter was afraid of her husband, I think the answer is no. But of course there were things that troubled her. Who among us has no worries? I’ve no doubt that all these facts are in your files, but when you read her letters, I think you’ll understand that my daughter was already carrying their child when she and Hugh were married. I think it remained a question always in the back of her mind, whether they would have married if—well, if the circumstances had been different.”

“I appreciate your frankness, Mrs. Gonsalves.”

“I know you suspect my son-in-law. And I know it’s only natural in a case of this sort. But I’ve come to know Hugh Osborne very well, I think. I’m convinced that he loved Mina and could never harm her in any way.”

“You mean he’s contacted you?” This, also, was not in the file.

“Oh, yes. He rang us when Mina first disappeared, but my husband refused to speak with him. But when he heard of my husband’s death, he wrote me a letter. We’ve spoken on the telephone many times since then, and I would say we’ve become very good friends.” Unfortunately, Devaney thought, this could be either a genuine gesture on Osborne’s part, or just a cold-blooded ploy to gain a powerful ally.

“All this happened just when I thought that Mina and her father might reconcile. She’d talked about coming to visit us, bringing Christopher, but—”

“Would your daughter have gone against her husband’s wishes? Would she have tried to make the trip anyway, even if he opposed it?”

“I don’t know. If she did, she has never arrived home. I would give anything to see my daughter’s face.”

A silence fell on the telephone line. “I’ll do everything I can,” he said.

“You’ll let me know any news you might discover about my child?” She seemed at once old and young, Devaney thought: young in the way that she referred to Mina as her child, and old in the knowledge that her daughter and grandson were most likely dead.

“I will, indeed. There’s one more thing. Would you mind sending the letters to my home address? It’s a long story, but the investigation has been transferred to a task force in Dublin. I’m not supposed to be working on the case anymore.” As Devaney slowly walked her through the particulars, his heart held tandem hopes: that the letters would contain something useful, and that this decision would not get him booted from the Guards.

“I am getting to be an old woman, Detective. There are days when I am so very tired. But like you, I have not entirely given up hope. I know you will do what you can. Good night.”

Devaney hung up the phone, considering the benediction he had just received. He checked his watch. Nine forty-five. It must be nearly four in the morning in Bombay. When he returned to the kitchen, he found Roisin sitting at the kitchen table, writing in a composition book. Devaney poured himself a whiskey, then joined his daughter at the table, watching her dark head bent in concentration over her work.

“You’re up very late, aren’t you, Roisin? What are you writing there?”

She shrugged, but didn’t look up. “Nothing. Just things I think about.”

“And what do you think about, mo chroi?”

“About how everything got all mixed up the way it is.” Devaney felt his heart swell in his throat.

“What we all wonder,” he said, thinking of Mrs. Gonsalves, and admiring the mixture of profound sadness and innocence in his daughter’s deep blue eyes. They sat in silence for a moment, studying each other across the table. Roisin returned to her composition book, and concentrated on making a long line of curlicues across one of its thin blue rules.

“Daddy,” she said, when she had finished the last loop, “do you think I’m too old to start playing the fiddle?”

The churchyard in Kilgarvan appeared exactly the same to Cormac as it had nineteen years ago when his mother was buried there. The gray stone of the church seemed bleak against the vigorous green of the grass between the gravestones. Both the church and the grass were symbols of endurance, he thought. In the face of weather, time, the rash acts of man, both remained, one bound by tradition, staunchly resisting the forces of change, one engaged in a constant, defiant cycle of death and renewal. He walked slowly along the gravel path through the graveyard, reading the inscriptions, some moss-covered and worn with age, some newly made and sharp as the pain of loss.

He took the first left on the path, to the newer section of the walled-in yard, under a huge beech tree. He remembered hearing the gravediggers cursing as they tried to excavate the spot, running into tree roots as thick as a man’s arm, having to hack through them with picks and axes before they could proceed. How well kept his mother’s grave was. Maguire, read the Irish script on the stone; beneath that her first name, Eilis, and the dates. Someone had planted a small bunch of violets below the headstone. The heart-shaped leaves looked freshly watered, and grew in a thick profusion. He knelt on the grass, feeling the unmistakable ache of her absence once again.