Judy stops by a bench, puts the brakes on the wheelchair and goes to sit beside the elderly nun. She knows from the police records that Sister Immaculata (real name: Orla McKinley) is seventy-five but the veil covering her hair and her high-necked habit serve to mask the most obvious signs of age. Her face is curiously unlined, the blue eyes still sharp. Only the hand, pointing now at Southport Pier, betrays its owner’s age. It’s a mummy’s hand, skeletal and misshapen.
‘Sister Immaculata,’ begins Judy, ‘you worked at the Sacred Heart Children’s Home from 1960 to 1980.’
‘It wasn’t work, it was a vocation,’ says the nun sharply.
‘I’m sorry. But you were resident at the home?’
‘Yes.’
‘What sort of a place was it?’
Sister Immaculata is silent, looking out over the miles of pale sand. But Judy notes that her hands are shaking slightly. Age? Infirmity? Or fear?
‘It was a beautiful house. Lovely grounds. The sort of place where you can’t imagine bad things happening.’
Judy holds her breath. She mustn’t mess this up. The boss expects her to get results. That’s why she has been sent instead of Clough, who’d probably have accused the nun of satanic abuse by now and be on his way for an early lunch.
‘What sort of bad things?’ she asks gently.
The nun looks at her sharply, eyes narrowed.
‘Two children vanished. Isn’t that bad enough for you?’
‘Martin and Elizabeth Black?’
‘Yes. They disappeared. Vanished. Into thin air.’
Judy shivers. It sounds a little like a fairy tale and she has always found these particularly terrifying. Two children go into the woods and bang! they are eaten by a wolf or enticed into a gingerbread house or given a poisoned apple by a close female relation. Vanished. Into thin air.
She struggles to make her voice sound businesslike. ‘How well did you know Martin and Elizabeth?’
Sister Immaculata seems to have recovered her poise. ‘I taught Martin,’ she says, ‘didn’t have much to do with the younger children. That was Sister James, God rest her soul. But I remember Martin. Father Hennessey thought the world of him but he was always trouble, in my opinion.’
‘In what way?’
‘He was clever. Very interested in history. Gladiators, dinosaurs, that sort of thing. Science too. He was always trying some far-fetched experiment. Father Hennessey encouraged him, even made a laboratory for him in the basement. Gave him books to read. But he was the sort of boy who used his intelligence to make trouble. Always asking questions in class. Sacrilegious questions about the Holy Ghost and the Blessed Virgin.’ She nods her head in pious reflex.
‘What did Father Hennessey think about that?’
‘He made excuses for him. The children had a tragic start in life. Their mother died. The only other relative was a drunken father in Ireland. Martin was always talking about his father, making him out to be some sort of hero. That’s why, when they disappeared, we thought they might have gone to Ireland.’
‘Did it come out of the blue, their disappearance?’
‘Well, we thought Martin might have been plotting something. He’d been stealing food for weeks. Father Hennessey knew but he didn’t want to confront the boy, not until he knew what was in his mind. I think he regretted that later.’
‘What did
‘I thought he needed a good hiding. But Father Hennessey wasn’t having any of that. No physical punishment, that was the rule. Not even a clip round the ear for cheekiness. Not like it was when I was at school.’ She broods for a minute, lower lip stuck out.
‘I told Father Hennessey that Martin Black was trouble but he wouldn’t have it. Just said the boy needed love and attention. Love and attention! Look where that got him. He ran off, taking his poor innocent sister with him. Probably got themselves killed.’
‘Is that what you think happened?’ asks Judy.
Sister Immaculata is silent for a moment and Judy sees now that she has a rosary in her hands. She is twisting the beads between her arthritic fingers. ‘Yes, I think that’s what happened. The world is a dangerous place for children.’
‘What did Father Hennessey think?’
Sister Immaculata looks her full in the face, the blue eyes slightly amused. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, girl? Father Hennessey is a saint. And saints cause a lot of trouble for the rest of us.’
CHAPTER 10
Ruth is excavating the bones. The skeleton has been completely exposed, has been drawn and photographed from all angles. Now, it is Ruth’s job to remove the bones themselves so that they can go to the post-mortem. She moves calmly, placing each bone in a labelled bag and then checking it against what she calls her ‘skeleton sheet’, recording the measurement and appearance of each fragment. Respect and care, that’s what she tells her pupils. Human bones, however old, should be treated with all the respect that you would give to a body. Excavation should take place over one day so that no fragments are lost or stolen. Every bone should be saved, recorded and preserved. Ruth has worked on sites, like the war graves in Bosnia, where many skeletons are mixed together. Then, the process of trying to separate and record is an arduous one. But this is just one skeleton, one little body. Ruth handles the bones with tenderness, reverence even.
Irish Ted has already bagged the bones of the cat. She will take them to the lab on her way home. Neither cat nor human skull has been found.
‘Good day.’ The voice is so close that Ruth jumps. She looks up and sees a good-looking man of about her age, immaculately dressed in a cotton shirt and linen trousers. With him is an older man in a panama hat. Ruth straightens up, shielding her eyes with her hand.
The younger man squats down as if he is about to jump into the trench. Ruth is horrified. Like most archaeologists, she likes to keep her trench immaculate. Standing in someone’s trench is like walking uninvited into their house.
‘Stop!’ she says sharply.
The man looks at her quizzically.
‘You can’t come into the trench,’ says Ruth, struggling to keep her voice polite, ‘you’ll contaminate it.’
The man straightens up. ‘We haven’t been introduced,’ he says, as if the introduction will make all the difference. ‘I’m Edward Spens.’
That figures. The famous Edward Spens no doubt considers that Ruth’s trench, like the rest of the site, belongs to him.
‘Ruth Galloway.’ Ruth forces herself to smile up at him.
She feels at a disadvantage being so low down.
‘So these are the fateful bones.’
Fateful, thinks Ruth. It’s a funny way of describing the find but somehow appropriate. She sees Spens’ intelligent eyes fixed on her face. She must be careful not to give too much away.
‘This is the skeleton, yes.’
‘And have you any idea how old it is?’
‘Not yet. We might find some clues in the fill.’
‘The fill?’
‘The grave,’ says Ruth, thinking how emotive the word is. But that is what they have found: a grave, where a
