‘We’ll be doing our best to establish the identities of the people buried in the grounds. Right now, we don’t even know how long they’ve been there. It might be that they were all buried there years before you ever went to St Margaret Clitherow.’ Paula’s voice was calm and reassuring even though inside she was raging. What sort of interpretation of Christianity was this? It gave a whole new meaning to ‘suffer little children’.
‘That was always the story we got when girls disappeared: they’d been sent to Ireland for the sea air. Or they’d been sent to York because they’d made unsuitable friendships. Or their parents had turned up and reclaimed them, which I always thought was bollocks until it happened to me, so maybe that story was true. But other times, girls were sent to the punishment cells and we never saw them again.’ She looked down at the table and let out a long, shuddering breath. ‘I think maybe we wanted to believe what we were told because the alternative was just too grim to take in.’
‘I’d have been the same, I’m sure. When you know people, even if they’re deeply unpleasant, it’s hard to picture them as killers.’ A pause. ‘The ill-treatment – was it just the Mother Superior, Sister Mary Patrick, who carried it out?’
Louise shook her head. ‘No. It was standard treatment. The old nuns were the worst, they treated us like dirt. Talk about taking the sins of the parents out on the children – it was what they lived by. Because we’d ended up there, we were automatically sinners. It felt like they were determined to beat the sin out of us. There were three or four of the younger sisters who still had a bit of kindness about them, but only when the old bitches weren’t looking.’
‘Did you or any of your friends ever consider complaining?’
There was naked despair in Louise’s face. ‘Complain? Who could we complain to? The priest didn’t want to know. If you talked to him, he’d grass you up to Sister Mary Patrick. Same if you wrote to your family or spoke out of turn to anybody visiting the perfect bloody Maggie Clit school. Sister Mary Patrick just turned on the charm and reminded them that these girls were here because nobody else could manage them, lying came to them as easily as breathing. And God help you when she got her hands on you afterwards.’ She scoffed. ‘What am I saying? God help you? He never helped us.’
‘After you went back to live with your father, did you ever tell him what went on inside the convent?’
Louise chewed her bottom lip. ‘No. Sister Mary Patrick said that if I ever spoke a word against her or any of the nuns, she would destroy any chance I had of making my way in the world. She’d tell everyone what a lying, scheming, thieving little bitch I was.’ Tears pricked her eyes. ‘You’re not Catholic, are you?’
Paula shook her head. ‘I’m nothing.’
‘The Church still has massive power over people’s lives. Even though you know in your heart you should be able to stand up to what they threaten you with, it’s hard to defy them. There are a lot of good people in the Church, don’t get me wrong. But we’re just beginning to find out now how many evil people did terrible things to children and hid behind the Church to get away with it.’ A single tear trickled down her cheek. ‘Even now, today, I feel like a traitor. I bet hardly anybody’s come forward out of all the girls who went through Maggie Clit’s.’
‘You’re the only one so far.’ Paula owed her that. ‘You’re the bravest, no question.’
Louise shook her head. ‘I’m not brave. I’m bloody terrified. My dad and his wife, they go to Mass. If this comes out, if I have to go to court and talk about this, it’ll blow a hole in their lives. But all those dead kids – somebody has to speak for them, right?’
Before Paula could answer, there was a soft tap at the door and Karim poked his head into the room. He flashed a smile at Louise, then said, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, guv, but you’re needed upstairs. Now.’
‘Thanks, Karim.’ He withdrew and Paula turned back to face Louise. ‘I think you’ve maybe had enough of an ordeal for today anyway. I will be back in touch with you, and in the meantime it would be very helpful if you could make a list for me of all the girls you can remember. And all the nuns too.’
Louise nodded, gathering herself together and sniffing hard. ‘You’ve been really lovely, thank you for believing me.’
Paula knew they would go over every detail of Louise’s story but she had no doubt it would check out. Sometimes, you just knew. She showed Louise out of the station and headed back upstairs. Karim was hovering outside the squad room. ‘What’s going on?’ Paula demanded. ‘That was a key interview. Lucky for you we were at a good place to break.’
‘They’ve found more bodies out at the Blessed Pearl,’ he said. ‘Only these ones are different.’
27
It’s always easier to do the same thing than to reinvent the wheel. But sometimes we need to examine our way of going about things to see whether we might be able to do it more effectively. We need to be willing to integrate new elements into our process if we’re to avoid
