In the Woods

The story begins in a 1980s suburb of Dublin, Ireland. Three children are frolicking through their summer vacation; “their bodies have the perfect economy of latency; they are streamlined and unselfconscious, pared to light flying machines” (2).

They climb the stone wall that separates their suburban homes from the woods beyond. The woods are their playground, “their territory, and they rule it wild and lordly as young animals” (3).

The boys know every inch of the woods. You could “put them down blindfolded in any dell or clearing and they could find their way out without putting a foot wrong” (3). However, something is about to happen that will change their lives forever. This is not a coming of age story. Rather, “this summer has other requirements for them” (3).

A detective introduces himself to the reader. He doesn’t reveal his name but mentions two essential facts about himself: “I crave truth. And I lie” (6). He then describes an unsolved case that was reported on August 14, 1984. Three children named Jamie Rowan, Adam Ryan, and Peter Savage, all aged 12, went missing in the woods near their home in Knocknaree, a suburb of Dublin.

Even though an extensive search is conducted, Jamie and Peter are never found. Adam is discovered standing next to a tree, gripping it so hard that his nails have broken off in the bark. His shoes and socks are soaked with blood though he only displays minor injuries. He has no memory of anything that happened to him from the time he left his home that afternoon until he was being examined in the hospital.

The anonymous detective identifies himself as the boy named Adam Ryan. He now goes by his middle name, Rob. He confesses that he didn’t become a detective because he wanted to solve the disappearance and probable murder of his two childhood friends. Instead, he’s attracted to the look of the homicide detectives on the force: “They were like thoroughbreds, those two Murder detectives […] They played for the highest stakes, and they were experts at their game” (12).

During his early years as a detective, Rob doesn’t make friends on the force. He cultivates a detached attitude until he meets his new partner, Cassie Maddox. She is transferred to the Murder Squad after being stabbed during an undercover drug operation.

Cassie and Rob bond instantly and build up an impressive arrest record. Rob says, “If it hadn’t been for Cassie, I think I might have ended up turning into that detective on Law & Order, the one who has ulcers and thinks everything is a government conspiracy” (26).

In the middle of August, Rob and Cassie are assigned a new murder case. A dead girl has been found at an archaeological dig site near Knocknaree. Rob is nervous at the thought of returning to the place. He discloses that his family left the area immediately after the disappearance of his childhood friends. He’s never returned and isn’t sure how he’ll feel about seeing it after all these years.

The two detectives drive to the crime scene. The archaeologists have cleared much of the old woods. Only a small strip of forest remains near the wall that the children once climbed.

The site director, Dr. Hunt, explains that the body was found lying on a Bronze Age stone ceremonial slab when his crew came to work that morning. Forensics reveals that the body is a young girl aged 11 to 13. She was found lying on her side, as if asleep. Her head was struck twice by a large rock, but the cause of death was asphyxiation. They suspect a plastic bag was tied around her neck until she suffocated and that she was also raped.

There is no insect activity around the body, even though death happened more than a day earlier. This means that the girl was murdered elsewhere, and her body hidden for more than a day before it was dumped onto the stone slab.

As Rob and Cassie investigate the site, Rob begins to feel dizzy. He seems to catch a glimpse of images from his past out of the corner of his eye: “Blond wing lifting. I felt as though I had tilted sharply backwards; I had to stop myself jerking for balance” (39).

Revisiting the site of his childhood trauma takes a toll on Rob. He has always told himself that he was lucky to escape the fate of his friends. He now realizes that some part of him never left those woods.

Now that Rob is working the Knocknaree case, he debates whether to tell his superintendent, O’Kelly, about his childhood experience. It’s strictly against department policy to allow an investigator to work a case that holds some personal connection.

Rob concludes that he has no relevant memories of Knocknarnee and that bowing out would serve no useful purpose. He admits that “it appealed both to my ego and to my sense of the picturesque, the idea of carrying this strange, charged secret through the case unsuspected” (46).

Missing Persons identifies the victim as Katy Devlin, age 12. Her family lives in the estate suburb near the archaeological site. Rob and Cassie go back to the site to question the dig workers. They start with the two who found the body. Damien Donnelly tells the detectives that he saw a suspicious-looking bald man in a tracksuit hovering nearby on the night of the murder. His coworker, Mel Jackson, recognizes Katy as one of the local kids who hung around the site during the summer.

Rob and Cassie go to the estate to break the bad news to the Devlin family. Katy’s father Jonathan is moderately upset, but his wife Margaret breaks down completely. Katy’s twin sister, Jessica, seems out of touch with reality but says that a man had scared Katy. Only the Devlins’ oldest daughter, Rosalind, keeps her composure.

When asked if someone might want to harm Katy, Jonathan mentions receiving threatening phone calls. He’s spearheading a movement to move the motorway away from the dig site, and the unidentified caller threatened his family.

When the detectives leave, Cassie says that something is off with the Devlin family but she can’t pinpoint it. Rob tells the reader, “This case was too full of skewed, slippery parallels, and I couldn’t shake the uneasy sense that they were somehow deliberate” (75).

Sophie, the head of the tech team, tells the detectives to meet her in the woods. Rob feels unnerved to be entering the place again. He muses that it’s not fear, “more like the sudden shot of alertness when someone wakes you by calling your name, or when a bat shrills past just too high to be heard” (80).

They discover a recently used campsite. The techs have found boot prints, cigarette butts, a blond hair, and spilled wine on the scene. The detectives suspect Mark Hanly, the dig supervisor, has been camping in the woods. They decide to question him the next day.