Deeply Buried

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Author's Notes and Acknowledgements Deeply Buried Ariana Lambert The author: Ariana Lambert has a penchant for stories that are out of the ordinary. As a lawyer and criminal defense attorney, she dealt with real-life atrocities; today she writes about them in fiction. She loves to put that special something extra into her characters, peeking behind the facades of the everyday life and taking her readers into a world she knows all too well. Ariana Lambert lives with her family in Dublin and enjoys spending summers in her homeland, the Spreewald. The Book: On Ireland’s Beara Peninsula, inside the circle of ancient Celtic stones, incessant rain washes out a dead body. Its discovery leads to a far more gruesome find: buried bones and skeletons of numerous children. The Irish Police are shocked and baffled. Are the findings of these remains connected to the children of Tuam, one of the most horrific and bone-chilling incidents in Ireland’s criminal history? The family of the dead man is shrouded in mysterious silence. They only want to testify to Anna Schwarz, a lawyer from Berlin. But Anna has sworn never to set foot on the green Island again. Deeply Buried Ariana Lambert Thriller April 2023 © Empire-Verlag Empire-Verlag OG, Lofer 416, 5090 Lofer Austria www.empire-verlag.at First published 2023 001 The moral rights of the author, illustrator and copyright holders has been asserted Translated: Ariana Lambert Proofreading: Literary Queens Novel Translation Barkhausenweg 11 22339 Hamburg Germany Cover: Chris Gilcher http://buchcoverdesign.de/ Illustrations: Adobe Stock ID 443480882, Adobe Stock ID 549102946, Adobe Stock ID 140465072 und freepik.com All rights reserved. The work may be reproduced only with the permission of the publisher I dedicate this book to all the children of this world who have been deprived of any chance of life. 1 They had stretched a tarp over the area against the rain that had been falling for days. Nevertheless, they had to hurry to secure the mortal remains. The incessant rain rose to form rivulets around the graves. With his arms folded behind his back, Jon Johnson looked at a group of helpers who scurried about, industriously like ants, taking no notice of him whatsoever. He couldn’t tell them apart; all of them in white plastic suits to avoid tampering with the forensic evidence of the scene of the crime. The buttons on Johnson’s rain jacket threatened to give way over his considerable abdominal girth, and the jacket was soaked inside and out. Rainwater dripped down his back. At regular intervals, he wiped his blurry spectacles. Surprisingly, his shoes were still dry, but it was only a matter of time before the rain would make its way there as well. He wanted to get away and leave this place. Get back to his dry and warm office in Dublin. Why did they have to make this terrible discovery now? He came to attend the trial at the Circuit Court in Tralee. After which, they were to go back to Dublin. However, the discovery of the body last night thwarted his plans, as he happened to be the only prosecutor around the area at that time, he had to visit the site of the discovery and take the initial investigation back to Dublin. At first, it had been just one dead body, found in the woods on the Beara Peninsula, far to the west and infinitely far from Dublin. It was carelessly buried and discovered by a walker. A classic case scenario. However, the standing monoliths neatly placed in a circle, covered with moss and partially overgrown, lent an eerie look to the entire proceeding. Such millennia-old rock stones of the Celts could be seen everywhere here. The question was whether the choice of the grave was random or whether it had a deeper meaning to it. To find out, they would first have to find out who the dead man was. Male, between fifty and sixty years old, cause of death, not natural. Numerous hematomas were found on the wrists and ankles, which gave the conclusion that he had been tied up and did not have the chance to fight back. He had strangulation marks on the neck, which most certainly led to death by asphyxiation. Not pretty, but nothing that would deprive Johnson of his sleep, he thought. Unfortunately, things turned out differently. No sooner had they uncovered the body the night before, when one of the gardaì, who had been assigned to clean up the mess, found more human remains that did not belong to the dead man. According to the forensic scientist, these other remains were much older. The huge stack of bones and skeletal remains found were of babies and children. As Johnson stood there, skeleton after skeleton was unearthed, showing no sign of ending. How many were there? A white tent was erected to protect the scene from the falling rain. Johnson had once erected such a tent in his garden. It was for his eldest daughter’s communion party, to accommodate the numerous guests. That was a long time ago. His daughters now lived their own lives, and celebrated their own parties. The cottage which they owned then had been sold. He now lived in a smart Victorian terraced house, typical of Dublin, in the middle of the city at Leeson Street. The purchase, alone, had cost him several years’ salary, in addition to the extensive renovation that the house needed. But it had been worth it. He loved his large living room with its dark green Chesterfield sofa, the tall bookshelves of dark brown rosewood, and the extension that was reminiscent of a conservatory that housed the spacious kitchen. After long days at work, he enjoyed the garden, which could have belonged to a posh hotel, with its meticulously laid beds and Buxus trees trimmed into shape. Even the eye-catching