A JANUARY MORNING

The frost was spread over the field like splintered, glittery glass, turning the stalks of grass into jell-styled stiffness. There was silence of the kind that hovers over a neglected graveyard where nothing moves. The trees with their stark silvered branches were still as though listening for some descending tremor that could be felt only by their deep-set roots. The lake was a sheet of platinum beauty. A robin flew off a thorn bush its wings the only sound in the hush of early morn; its rich brown and red startlingly alive against the motionless, white tipped things. It called out but there was no answer. The sun became braver and lifted its watery skirts to sweep away the edges of night that clung to one side of the sky as though wanting darkness to linger, to hide some unworthy thing from the truth of daylight. In the vague uncertain distance, a horse whinnied, and a cow mooed. Then the silence returned to dominate the fields and the lake. Soon life would shake itself out of its sleep stupor and reluctantly begin to move into the chill of the day. The day would make no impression on A6-22 for she was lifeless.

The robot body lay on the grass by the lake as stiff as everything else in sight. She had lain there all night. Her light blue coat was covered by a layer of white and her dark glossy hair glistened with thick frost. Her red lips were pursed as though she had said ‘ooh’ but didn’t close her pretty mouth after it had escaped her. One side of her head had been brutally bashed in and her throat was gashed, a line as red as the colour on her lips. Around her head and neck a small pool of petrified, synthetic blood had spread. She had experienced one summer, one autumn and a taste of winter. But would the summer warmth ever again beam on A6-22’s face and make her smile into the face of the man with whom she had lived and to whom she had given joy.

Garda Tim Higgins and his chief Michael O’Connell were walking the lane leading to the lake. The Gardai had been alerted to the fact that the ‘machine’ had been discovered. As Higgins had shut off the engine and both men alighted, O’Connell spat in disgust.

‘That thing’s been nothing but trouble since it arrived. What in Christ’s name am I supposed to do with this ‘murder’? It’s not a human.’

‘But murdered she has been, and we need to cordon off the crime area.’ Higgins said quietly bending his knees to get a better look at the corpse. ‘She belonged to young Sean Flynn who knew her as his wife; he’ll want justice.’

‘Justice my arse! Are you out of your bloody Dublin mind, man? It’s not a she, it’s an it!’

‘She is very definitely a ‘she’. And she was beautiful.’ Higgins murmured.

‘Have you one of them things at home these days?’ A sneer was spreading across the alcohol-flushed face. The man’s rank had often forced Higgins to hold onto his professional opinions and his tongue, but Aisling was personal. He knew the older man’s dig was because his wife was nearing the end of her pregnancy. He ignored the remark and continued searching. O’Connell wasn’t letting it go.

‘It’s a bloody nuisance when women are in that condition and can’t give a man proper sex.’

He should know, Higgins thought, his senior had impregnated his wife seven times.

‘We’ve a hand in getting them into that ‘condition’, don’t we…sir? And my personal life is not for discussion with anybody.’

‘I’m not anybody, Higgins.’ O’Connell pushed his face close to his companion’s and then to Higgins’ annoyance walked in circles around the body. ‘I wouldn’t want to put my long John into one of them.’

‘We’re lucky to have real wives…sir. There are lonely people who are greatly helped by these…creations. And whoever did this did it with full force of malice and violence. To have that kind of maniac loose is dangerous. If he or she felt inclined to do that to a machine…for whatever reason, they need psychiatric assessment before they might make the next step a person.’ Higgins felt a surge of sympathy for a work of art desecrated.

‘At least she can’t have felt pain.’

‘You fuckin’ need psychiatric assessment if you think I’m wasting manpower and energy on investigating the ‘death’ of a bloody robot.’

‘Give me the case; I’ll look into it. Can I send to…’

‘You’ll send nothing nowhere. Do you want us to be the laughing stock of the country, man? You do what you can to keep young Flynn from breakin’ up the town, and wind it up quick. And don’t be expecting overtime either.’

Cathal Flynn’s mouth was open; speech had temporarily forsaken him. Higgins gave the man time to recover his composure as the farmer sagged into a kitchen chair.

‘Jaysus, me son’ll go beserk when he hears…’

‘Where is Sean?’

‘He went to his Aunt Sadie’s to pick her up; he doesn’t know yet. Sean took Ellen there yesterday evening so Sadie could measure her for a new dress. She has to do that while Dan, her husband, is out.’

‘So, the robot…Ellen was with your sister last night?’

‘Well, she was in the shed behind the house. Dan wouldn’t let her bring Ellen into the house when he’s there.’

‘How come you didn’t pick her up after the fitting, Mr. Flynn, and bring her home?’

‘We had an invitation from the institution where Sean goes for therapy sessions, a kind of belated New Year party and we didn’t want to disturb Sadie as she sleeps early. Sadie promised Sean she’d cover Ellen with a blanket and make her comfortable. She can be switched off. It took me an hour to make Sean understand that she can’t feel the cold like us once her switch is off.’

‘Why won’t her husband let Sadie bring Ellen in the house, Mr. Flynn?’

‘He thinks she’s an abomination.’

‘Do you think she’s an abomination, Mr. Flynn?’

‘Would I have bought the feckin’ thing if I thought that, man? I paid a mint for it, and it’s been worth every cent. Sean has never been so content since he hooked up with her. You’re new here, aren’t you?’ His eyes examined the younger man’s face.

‘But you know by now, I imagine, that my son is what they call…’ Flynn laughed ironically, ‘socially challenged’. But he’s my lad and I promised my late wife I’d do my best for him.’

‘Look, Mr. Flynn, as far as I’m concerned a murder was committed last night and I want to get to the bottom of it.’

The door burst open, and a distressed young man came through it.

‘She’s dead, Da! My Ellen is dead. Some bastard killed her.’

Sean Flynn banged the door shut behind him and paced the floor fast and furious, slapping his hands against any object he came up against. He ignored the young policeman as he spoke rapidly to himself, each word accompanied by an expletive.

‘Sean, Sean, sit down lad, come here. I’ll make you a cuppa tay.’ Cathal Flynn’s distress was almost equal to his son’s.

‘Don’t want tay; I want Ellen…my lovely Ellen. Where is she? I want to see her.’

‘Sean, this is Garda Higgins and he’s going to find out who did that awful thing to your wife, OK?’

Sean stopped pacing and looked at Higgins. He sat in a chair opposite and stared into Higgins brown eyes. The pale blue stare was unnerving in its intensity. Higgins had heard about Sean and his robot ‘wife.’ but this was the first time he had met the man.

‘That shite O’Connell will do nothing. He hated Ellen, he told me so. Do you know what he called my wife? He called her an abomination. I brought her into the pub one evening and he and some of the other tough nuts made a jeer of me.’

‘I’m not O’Connell Sean, and I’m going to do my very best to find the perpetrator.’ Higgins had seen a report of the incident in the computer log as he familiarized himself with his new surroundings; the infuriated young man had to be restrained from beating the daylights out of the police chief.

‘He probably killed her.’

‘We don’t know that Sean. Look, give me a little time and I promise I’ll keep you in touch with everything I find out, fair enough? I can’t let you near the crime scene now because it’s cordoned off, I’m going over it and the more people walking round the more difficult it becomes to find any traces, do you get me?’

Sean nodded; his face washed with tears.

‘Fair enough.’ Cathal Flynn sighed. ‘When can we have her back to bury her?’

‘We’re not going to bury her, Da. Maybe we could fix her.’ Hope leapt into Sean’s eyes.

‘Sean, son, I spent all the savings I had to buy her for you. I don’t have enough to send her back to the States to be fixed. I’m sorry.’

The lad sank back into the chair. ‘I don’t want to put her in a hole. I’ll clean her up and put her in the spare room. You have to give her back, haven’t you?’

‘Of course, Sean.’ Higgins attempted to touch Sean’s shoulder, but he quickly drew away. ‘I’ll get your Ellen back to you.’

Aisling ran her fine fingers through her husband’s dark hair. He was sprawled on the big couch in front of the fire, his long skinny legs and big feet dangling off the end, his head leaning gently against her belly thrilling to the movement of his child inside her. His contentment was sharply tweaked when a thought crashed through it:

‘Aisling, d’you think they’ll ever make a robot that can give birth?’

‘Given the way technology is galloping through our lives, who knows?’

He adored her. He had from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her at the birthday party of a mutual friend. She had her back to him as she stood with a group of young women. It was obvious from the faces turned towards him that she was telling them a story that had their rapt attention. It was the hair that had first drawn him, long copper-red, delicate glossy waves rippling down her back almost to her waist. Then they were laughing heartily at whatever she had said, and he murmured to himself.

‘Turn round, let’s see your face.’

It was almost as though she had heard him. She turned to place her wine glass on a nearby table and her eyes held his gaze for a moment before she turned back to her company. He found his friend and asked for an introduction. She mesmerized him. The eyebrows were a natural line of red brown above eyes of vivid speckled green. Her lashes were thick and the same shade as her eyebrows, the nose straight and perfect. Aisling McFadden had a mouth a lipstick advertiser would kill for, and Tim Higgins longed to kiss it. He felt his heart sink. No way was this beauty going to be interested in him. But she was and they were incredibly happy.

He took her hand and kissed it.

‘This really has you spiked up; hasn’t it love?’

‘It’s a tough case, Aishie; I’ve no precedent to go by. Abomination is often used around here to describe her, passed around like drink at a wake. There’s not much acceptance locally for her or sympathy for Sean. I called the lads in town on the sly, but they were as stumped as I am. All I can do is treat this the way any other crime would be treated because to Sean Flynn she was as real a wife as you are to me.’

‘His father amazes me, to be that advanced as to buy his …’

‘Socially challenged son’ is what they call him.’ Tim smiled ruefully.

‘A robot wife.’

‘From what I gather from our canteen lady, it was out of sheer exhaustion with Sean’s moods.’

‘No mother to help out,’ Aisling sighed, ‘a young man like that with all the urges of his age and unable to socialize with the opposite sex…terrible frustrations leading to terrible outbursts. It’s sad. And the debate goes on as to whether it’s a good or a bad thing for a human to copulate’…Aisling said the last word slowly with a smile, ‘with a machine.’

‘She looks so incredibly real, though. The father sent all the way to America for her. I went over the whole scene with two of the locals but there was nothing to find, nothing that leapt out at me. That heavy frost covered any tracks. Anyway, it’s not as though I’m an expert or there’s any kind of specialized equipment I can bring to investigate properly. O’Connell is just glad to have me out of his way for a few hours; he doesn’t give a damn who did it.’

‘Was she raped?’

Higgins sat up and stared at her. ‘Jesus! I didn’t check. Jesus! I totally forgot one of the most important parts of procedure in a case of that kind because…’

‘Because she wasn’t human?’ Aisling ended for him.

‘How could I tell if a robot was raped…I mean would her synthetic body show signs of forced entry, sorry love, I don’t know what else to say…’

‘Forced entry?’ Aisling raised an eyebrow at him.’ You’re on the wrong page of the police instructions manual, Higs.’

‘I couldn’t think of the right phrase…’

‘Anyway, I looked it up on the internet while you were busy. The company that makes them has a pretty explicit site that tells all the advantages of that particular model and one of the advantages of A6-22 is that she has a sac that is easily removed from her passage chamber…their term not mine…to enable upkeep of hygienic conditions.’

‘You mean you can remove the sperm and clean the area?’

‘Yes. Apparently, the way this one works is that when sex is finished, and the man withdraws his penis a…gap closes.’

‘Ouch! Not sure I like the sound of that.’

‘It’s perfectly safe according to them as the inner parts are as soft as human tissue; the closing is merely two edges over locking so sperm can’t escape. It wouldn’t circumcise you…in case you’re thinking of replacing me with one.’ Aisling kissed him lightly, laughed and continued.

‘The sperm is thus maintained…their term…’

‘Not yours, go on.’

‘It can be ejected by pressing a tiny button at the base of the spine. So…if you want a DNA sample, it’s there for you.’

‘Provided the killer isn’t robot savvy and has already taken it away if he did rape her.’ He paused.

‘I need help on this. I can’t go poking around inside her…robot or not.’

‘Call Irene.’

‘Your cousin, the G.P.?’

‘She’s delivered God knows how many babies in this town. If any person has been up close and personal with the female undercarriage, it’s her.’

‘Now whose work glossary is showing, Missus Flight attendant?’ He grinned, pulled his coat from the hall stand and started for the door taking out his phone as he did so.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the mortuary where I sent Ellen, to check if there’s any semen still there. Hallo, Irene, I have a job for you.’

Dr. Irene Collins was a tall blonde, well-toned Amazon approaching fifty with smoky blue eyes. Her hair, short at the back, fell in expertly cut meshed wisps over her high forehead. Irene was one of the reasons Aisling had been keen to give birth in her small hometown near her family. Tim had put in for a temporary six-month transfer and got it when Aisling heard through the grapevine that a vacancy had opened up, her large family had a certain amount of clout in the area. O’Connell had not been pleased as he had been hoping one of his cronies would step in and he lost no opportunity to remind Higgins that he was an unwanted temp. Irene’s deft fingers pulled on rubber gloves.

‘You owe me, Higgins, calling me out at this time. Jack was hopping mad, and the brood was yelling for Pizza.’

Irene had four youngsters all full of energy and demands. They knew their mother was a hard worker being one of only two doctors on call locally, but that evening she had promised them a pizza and the biggest prize of all – her undivided attention. She escaped the house only because she promised to add to the pizza cinnamon apple pie and the biggest tub of caramel ice cream on sale. Her husband, long used to her being called out at all times day and night, had sighed resignedly, and told the kids to shut up.

‘I can tell you one thing for sure,’ Irene examined the cut on the neck, ‘this was made with the kind of knife used to kill pigs.’

‘How do you know that by just looking at it?’

‘I’m a country girl, Tim, raised on a farm. I’ve seen pigs slaughtered. God, this is weird. I’ve never examined a robot bottom before. It’s so…realistic. Go over there and sit down. I won’t have you looking up the poor woman’s privates.’

‘I had no intention of looking up her privates; that’s why I called you.’ Higgins obeyed.

‘She’s flexible, which is a gift, because a human at this stage wouldn’t be so easy to examine.’ Irene began her examination.

‘Was she raped?’

‘Hard to tell considering, there’s no external damage from what I can see.’ Irene removed the chamber.

‘Oh, oh…as clean as my Aunt Bridie’s fridge. No sperm to help you here Tim.’

Tim sighed, thought a moment than said.

‘Can you give me a few swabs and some sterile containers?’

‘Have you any suspects?’

‘Not yet. I have to see who would be so offended by a robot…’

‘Or be curious enough to find out what exactly she felt like sexually before getting rid of her?’

‘That too…but I don’t know the people here well enough to have any suspicions. I need to ask the boys at the station if there’s a ruffian capable of that measure of aggression in the community. I’m just hoping…stupid maybe, that if whoever it was sees it’s not going to be passed over, I might startle or trap them into an admission - if I’m lucky when I wave the swabs about. Semen needn’t be mentioned. They’ve all seen enough police procedurals on the telly to know it might be saliva, hair or a number of things.’

Irene covered Ellen up and took off her gloves. As she threw them in a bin, she told him.

‘The closer to the bone the sweeter is the meat.’

‘You mean it might be the father?’ Tim was shocked; Cathal Flynn didn’t seem the type.

‘No, I don’t think so. Flynn is a good man, and he loves his son, promised his dying wife he’d take good care of Sean…I know, I was with them she died. No, I was thinking it had to be someone who knew the moves…knew she would be in the shed that night.’

‘That narrows it a bit. Are you thinking of Sadie’s husband…what’s his name?’

‘Dan Maher…a ruffian if ever. It’s no secret he’s beaten that poor woman up on many occasions. O’Connell always turned a blind eye when I asked him to have a word in person after I’d patched her up; they’re drinking pals. But he’s another bloody male chauvinist. Sadie’s also to blame, though, wouldn’t charge him. Just as well there’s no kids there.’ She added the paper surgical gown to the gloves in the bin.

‘Where does he work?’

‘Out of his home, he fixes things; everything from clocks to gas or paraffin heaters. That’s why Sean didn’t bring Ellen there during the day, he’s scared of his uncle, knew he hated the robot.’ She grinned as she rattled her car keys on her way out.

‘And he gives a hand on days when farmers need to slaughter stock, very efficient he is too from what I hear.’

Tim Higgins was beginning to think the women around him had more detective potential than he had. God bless them.

Maher was in the driveway his head stuck inside his car bonnet when Higgins drove up. He lifted his untidy head and glared at the Garda, then went under the bonnet again. Tim stood beside him and waited till Maher realised he wasn’t going anywhere until they spoke.

‘What’d you want? Does the O’Connell know yer here?’ The eyes were slits in a fleshy face that had gathered itself up into thick folds of skin above his eyes and around his broken nose. The mouth was thin and unattractive; Higgins wondered what Sadie had ever seen in him.

‘O’Connell gave me the case to investigate and that’s what I’m doing.’

‘Case! Investigate! Jaysus, you must be hard up for somethin’ t’do trying to find who bumped off a fuckin’ machine.’ An empty laugh cracked the mean face.

Higgins took a swab and a sterile container out of his pocket.

‘I need to take a sample of your saliva, it’s mere procedure for all those who had contact with Ellen recently.’

‘You will not! I wouldn’t touch that thing with a pitchfork.’

‘Well, we can do it here or at the station.’ Shit! Higgins heard himself roll out lines from a movie script.

‘And if I don’t want to give ye me spit?’

‘There’s no choice here, as I said, this is a friendly request, we can make it legal if you want but one way or another it will be done.’

‘What do you hope to gain from that?’ Maher was looking edgy.

‘It’s procedure, as I said. Criminals often leave traces on or around the victim.’

‘The victim! It was a fuckin’ bloody machine, not a person. It’s not murder to get rid of a thing like that; it’s not human.’

‘That’s not for you to decide, Mr. Maher. Can we go in the house now and…’?

Maher shoved his way past Higgins.

‘Do you possess a butcher’s knife for killing pigs, Mr. Maher?’

‘An’ what if I do?’

‘That kind of knife was used to slit Ellen Flynn’s throat. But, being a non-human, that didn’t ‘kill’ her. The blow on the head did that. The throat was simply a brutal gesture.’

‘She wasn’t a Flynn; he only called her his ‘wife’ No church would sanction that bond. She was an abomination. Who would want to poke that and then have to clean her out after it except a retarded twit like Sean?’

‘How do you know he had to clean her out?’

‘Sadie told me. The Sean fella tells her everything.’

‘There’s a good possibility that the camera inside her head might be retrieved.’

Maher froze. ‘What camera?’

‘The one that helped her recognise her partner.’ Higgins gave another silent thanks to Aisling. ‘His photo and his body proportions were programmed into her memory, and she wouldn’t…copulate with any other person without his programmed permission. Now can we go into the house and take that swab?’

The house was a bleak affair, the dull furnishings merely functional, the atmosphere abysmal. Love didn’t ring any bells in this home. Maher took Higgins into the kitchen and sat at the table.

‘Is Mrs. Maher home?

‘No, why? D’ye want to swab her as well…you think me wife is a butch?’ His laugh was harsh and shallow. The door leading to the living room opened and Sadie stood there glaring at her husband, her face a mass of bruises and her left eye so swollen it had closed.

‘He did it; he killed Ellen.’ She glared at Maher. ‘I should have taken me brother up on his offer to move in with them ages ago, but I stuck with you for better or for worse, and worse it was most of the time. I’ve put up with you hurtin’ me over years, but I won’t have you hurtin’ Sean and gettin’ away with it. He’s been cryin’ non-stop since you killed her.’

Maher stood up and rushed towards his wife his fist balled. Higgins tripped him with a Judo flip, and he went down.

‘I’ll sue ye, yeh bastard. Yeh’ve put me back out.’

Higgins took out his mobile and called one of the young guards he knew he could reply on telling him to come to the Maher house at once.

‘What possessed Sadie to tell you?’ Aisling asked her husband.

‘I think something in her snapped out one beating too many, and out of sympathy for Sean.’

‘What’s the story behind the killing?’

‘He came in that evening drunk, picked up Ellen’s dress that Sadie was ironing and started swearing at her. He went out into the shed and brought Ellen back in, asking Sadie if this was her new baby she had to dress up. He shoved his hand down Ellen’s breasts and up her skirt and Sadie said she could see his expression change.

‘Jaysus! She fuckin’ feels real enough.’

‘Did the robot react?’

‘No, she’d been switched off to conserve her battery. Then he demanded to know how to switch her on and when he did, he tried, for a laugh, he said, to have sex with her in front of his wife, but Ellen wouldn’t oblige; her thighs clamped together.’

Maher had lost his temper, Sadie told Higgins, and he hit Ellen on the head with the iron. Then he drove off with her and that was the last Sadie had seen.

‘Apparently, he keeps his pig knife in the car and cut her throat out of sheer fury, she was already flatlined. Then he threw her over the hedge into the field.’

‘Now what?’ Aisling asked.

‘There’s a pack of journalists outside the station, he’s being held for assault and battery on property, which is not ‘murder’ until someone can figure out a proper charge. One of my ‘pals’ in town leaked it to a journalist friend. O’Connell is beside himself. My life will be miserable for as long as this lasts but blast him anyway, all I care about is you two.’ He slowly massaged her tummy.

‘Irene called me,’ Aisling sighed, ‘she stitched Ellen’s throat, and the undertaker did his best to fix the outer damage and got her back to Sean, poor lad. It’s sad, both the father and the son without wives, lonely people.’

‘Yeah, but with Sadie moving in there’ll be at least a woman’s comforting presence in the house. Do you mind if I walk over for a bit, just to see how they are?’

Higgins, off duty, had a large glass of whiskey in front of him as he chatted with Sadie and Cathal. The doorbell rang and Cathal went to answer it. Outside stood a short man with perfectly groomed hair, smelling of expensive aftershave. He carried an expensive leather briefcase in his right hand and his shoes looked as though they had been handcrafted from the softest leather.

‘Mr. Flynn?’ The voice was deep and cultured.

‘…Yes?’

‘May I come in?’

‘May I ask who you are first?’

‘Of course, here’s my card.’

‘Come in.’ The man sat opposite Higgins and Flynn introduced him. ‘This is a Mr. Bailey.’ He handed Higgins the card.

‘I passed by your home Garda Higgins and your wife said you were here, so it’s a case of killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.’ A smile showed a set of well cared for teeth.

‘And what can I do for you Mr. Bailey?’ Tim wondered if Maher had in fact sued him.

‘I have heard a great deal about ‘Ellen’, and I believe you investigated the crime scene and discovered who destroyed her.’ The voice was cultured and soft.

‘I would love to represent the young man whose eh, wife, was allegedly ‘murdered’ by a Mr. Maher. I think it is one of the most intriguing cases that could ever come my way. It will be Pro Bono of course.’

By the following snow-cold January, Aoife Rosemary Higgins had come into a welcoming world and found it very good. The robin went about his business and the farm animals continued to call as they always did. The field where Ellen had lain all night was once again covered in white.

Sean lay in bed, his alarm having woken him ten minutes earlier, talking to his darling who was lying next to him, stroking her face carefully, treating her with the delicate touch of love a parent bestows on a baby. He did that a lot now, talked to her, and Ellen had started talking back. Her speech was not always clear and most of her functions were damaged but that didn’t matter; he could hold her gently and kiss her, she was warm again. He had combed the wig Sadie had bought for Ellen over one eye to hide the dreadful wound. He had recharged her battery every night even though he had been told she was technologically dead. And yesterday she had opened her good eye, smiled at him and told him haltingly she loved him too. Sean was over the moon but from now on, only his father and Sadie would know she had come back. No one was ever going to hurt his darling again.

Colette NiReamonn: Retired. Worked with Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation live/recorded, on TV and radio in various capacities: news reading/interviewing, including script writing, creating music programmes, acting as location finder and fixer for foreign crews. Had four short stories on Cyprus used by BBC World two of which were forwarded to the Commonwealth Magazine. Worked in various media forms here, magazines (commissioned articles for national air carrier), short stories in an art and culture quarterly In Focus, features, interviews, opinion pieces for newspapers. I now have a column in the oldest English language paper here. I write songs as a hobby.