Bog Child Read Free Page A

local at all. Maybe not even Irish. Who knows?’
    ‘I’d say she’s Irish.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Did you see the bangle?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘The metal was twisted into strands. Like something Celtic.’
    ‘Never.’
    ‘It was.’
    ‘Poor wee mite. But tourists buy that tat too.’
    The plainclothes policeman approached them. ‘We’ll need you to make statements,’ he said. ‘What you were doing, when you found her…that kind of thing.’
    ‘There’s not a lot to say. We were up here early, bird-watching—’ Uncle Tally began.
    ‘And then I spotted her,’ interrupted Fergus. ‘I saw her in the earth. It was like camouflage.’
    ‘Camouflage?’
    ‘You know. Soldiers in combat fatigues. Or birds in the field. Camouflaged so you can’t see them.’
    The RUC man’s eyes flicked heavenwards. ‘I get the picture.’
    ‘I saw the bangle first. Then her hand. Then her body. And then…the bone. Cut off.’
    ‘And then what? Did you touch her?’
    ‘Maybe. Just on the cloth.’
    ‘And I drove down to Inchquin to alert the guards,’ said Uncle Tally.
    ‘Why Inchquin? Why not Roscillin, over?’
    ‘Well, we thought we were south of the border.’
    The plainclothes man had a sharp chin and thick dark hair that flapped in the breeze. ‘And I’d say you were right. But Paddy over there says that as you crossed over from this bridleway to where you found her, you crossed back over the border, to the North.’
    ‘You don’t say?’
    ‘Are you Northerners yourself?’
    Uncle Tally nodded. ‘We’re from Drumleash, Fergus and myself.’ He gave the officer their full names and addresses.
    ‘Are you still at school?’ the officer asked Fergus.
    ‘I’m on study leave. My A-level exams start soon.’
    The officer tapped his pen on his notebook. ‘And you, Mr McCann? What do you do?’
    ‘This and that. Bar work. Work’s hard to come by these days.’
    ‘A fine fellow like yourself? You should join the RUC.’
    ‘I may be Irish,’ Uncle Tally said, ‘but I’m not a lemming.’ He guffawed at his own joke. After a moment the plainclothes joined in.
    Another car drove right up to where they were standing. ‘It’s the pathologist,’ the plainclothes said. ‘He’s driven from Londonderry double-quick.’
    A plump man in his fifties got out, carrying a battered holdall.
    ‘That was fast, Jack,’ said the plainclothes.
    ‘Hi, Duncan. Where is she?’
    The two men walked away over the bog-land towards the body. Uncle Tally put a hand on Fergus’s shoulder.
    ‘I don’t like this police stuff,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s go.’ ‘Unk. No. Not yet. I want to hear what the pathologist says.’ Before Uncle Tally could stop him, Fergus wriggled free and picked his way to a few yards from the cut. He lay flat to keep out of sight and listened to what the officials were saying.
    The doctor slid on some mud and swore. He’d trouble getting down to view the body. Then there was silence.
    ‘So how long do you reckon she’s been there, Jack?’
    Fergus pushed the grass aside and saw an Irish guard drop to his knees at the side of the cut, as if in prayer. An aeroplane passed high overhead, a silent crucifix truncating the sky.
    ‘Bloody hell.’ It was the doctor’s voice.
    ‘How long?’
    ‘Poor child. And her skin intact.’
    ‘I know. She’s fresh. Is it days? Or weeks?’
    ‘Longer than that, Duncan.’
    ‘Not months?’
    ‘Centuries.’
    ‘
Centuries?
You’re having me on, Jack.’
    ‘It’s an archaeologist you need here, not the police.’
    ‘An archaeologist?’
    ‘There was another body, I recall. Found in similar terrain, down south. It turned out to be ancient. Iron Age.’
    ‘Never. Look at the state of the skin. The cloth.’
    ‘It’s a quality of the bog. It preserves things. Like a mummy in an Egyptian tomb.’
    ‘Christ. You’re pulling my leg. You have to be.’
    ‘Christ is right and no joke.’ The doctor’s voice was breathless as he struggled back up to the higher