The Nameless Dead Read Free

would clear the surface vegetation. As it grows back, it will always be at a different level from the vegetation around it. It’s a subtle change; not
proof in itself but enough for us to carry out geophysical testing.’
    ‘What’s that?’ Mrs Collins shifted slightly, as if the backs of her legs were getting scorched. Eventually she moved across to an empty seat in front of the window.
    ‘Resistivity testing, mainly. And magnetometry. Soil displays resistance to electrical current being passed through it. You’d expect all the soil in any one geographical area to have
around the same resistance readings. Where a grave has been dug and the spoil returned back into the hole dug, it never goes back in exactly as it came out – the mixing of top soil and deeper
soil changes the overall composition and therefore the resistance reading.’
    ‘So you still don’t know if Declan is definitely there then?’
    ‘I can’t say definitely. There is something there. We had a search-dog out again today and he picked up something around one of the sites we’d identified.’
    ‘You said that yesterday, too,’ Sean interrupted, looking between his mother and Millar, as if looking for her agreement.
    ‘There have been other issues with the island and the location we’ve picked.’
    ‘What issues?’
    ‘We found a child’s body in the site we dug today. That had to be excavated and processed.’
    ‘Is it another one of the limbo babies?’ Mary Collins asked, her face creased in sympathy.
    ‘We don’t know. It’s not part of the original cillin , but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t buried there for much the same reasons. The find was very close to
where we believe Declan to be lying. I imagine there may be some scant consolation in knowing that Declan has not been lying alone these past years,’ Millar added.
    Mrs Collins smiled sadly, her eyes glistening. I marvelled at her composure, having waited thirty-five years to learn what had happened to her partner, to have come this close.
    ‘What happens when he’s found?’ Sean said. ‘What will you do then?’ He nodded at me when he spoke.
    It was Millar who answered, though. ‘When your father is recovered, we’ll have to send his body for formal identification. That may take some weeks. We’ll also want to conduct
a postmortem to establish cause of death. Then he’ll be returned to you for Requiem Mass and interment.’
    ‘But what about your lot? Will you be looking for who killed him?’
    I looked quickly to Millar before I answered. ‘I’m afraid not, Sean. That’s not how it works.’
    Millar nodded. ‘The Commission’s role is to bring about the recovery of the Disappeared. We have no powers to gather evidence or attempt to prosecute those responsible for the death
of the body we recover. Nor can anything we uncover be used in court. We will not be passing on any information to Inspector Devlin here. This is a recovery operation only. The legislation is very
clear on that.’
    ‘That’s balls,’ Sean Cleary said suddenly, shifting forward in his seat and standing. ‘So whoever killed my father can just sit back and watch on TV while he’s dug
up.’
    ‘I understand your frustration, Mr Cleary,’ Millar said. ‘But that is the law. If it’s any consolation to you, it was probably one of the people responsible for your
father’s death who contacted us in the first place. That that individual felt compelled to tell us where your father rested would suggest that it has weighed on his or her conscience these
past years.’
    ‘Except you were contacted in May and you waited until now to look for him.’
    I could sense Millar swallowing back whatever he wanted to say. I imagined that, in his role, he would come across all forms of response to the work he was doing.
    ‘The information we were given in May was that the body was located near Tra na Cnamha. No one we spoke to recognized the name.’ He stumbled over the pronunciation of