Maybe he’d bought another car, a car he kept well away from where he lived. A garage somewhere else. A quiet side street where nobody would pay attention to a car parked for days at a time. It wasn’t hard to hide a car in plain sight. You just had to choose an area where the local residents didn’t have a parking problem that made every unfamiliar set of wheels a hate object.
It would have to be reliable. The last thing you wanted was a breakdown with a body in the boot. So that ruled out the truly dodgy end of the motor trade. Most people had no idea how to buy a legitimate car without their name and address ending up on the registration document. There was no indication that Martinu hung out with criminals, so there was a slim chance he’d done things the straight way.
Humming softly under her breath, Stacey made her way inside the labyrinth of DVLA. She’d been there before; it held no terrors for her. Their search engine was surprisingly competent for a government agency. And within seconds, she was presented with what she’d hoped for.
Jerome Martinu of Garden Cottage, Fellside Road, Bradesden, was the registered keeper of the Toyota SUV that the forensic scientists had been crawling over like human hoovers. And also a three-year-old black Skoda Octavia estate.
The corners of her mouth twitched in an almost-smile. Step one had produced what she’d hoped for. Now for the second step. Thanks to the ever-vigilant civil liberties organisations who made her job harder, the records for the number plate recognition system that covered almost every major road – and many minor ones – were only held for two years. But that might be enough to prove Martinu was in the habit of driving round the parts of town where victims had last been seen.
Stacey entered the details into the ANPR system. Showtime, Jezza, she thought.
55
The practical ways we deal with love and with anger are formed at a very early age. As Richard Dawkins says, ‘The Jesuit boast, “Give me the child for his first seven years, and I’ll give you the man,” is no less accurate (or sinister) for being hackneyed.’
From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL
‘Used to belong to one of those Anglo-Irish families that lost all their money in the Great Depression,’ McInerny said, gesturing with his thumb towards an ugly but imposing grey mansion on the outskirts of Galway. ‘So the Blessed Pearl snapped it up and installed a bunch of nuns.’
‘Nice view of the sea,’ Paula pointed out, turning her head to look out of the other window.
‘Doesn’t really make up for the draughts and the damp.’ McInerny suddenly wrenched the wheel and threw the car into a narrow side road. ‘Whoa! Nearly missed the turning there.’
The road climbed steadily through high hedges and banks of gorse, not a house in sight till they rounded a bend and came upon a squat Victorian villa. ‘Here we are.’ He pulled into a gravel drive with weeds sprouting unchecked. For some reason, the house had been built at right angles to the sea view, so that only a couple of windows in the gable end benefited from it.
The door was opened by a woman in what Paula thought of as nun civvies. Grey skirt, white blouse buttoned to the neck, grey cardigan and a minimalist head-covering that barely skimmed her shoulders. She seemed to be at some indeterminate point of middle age and greeted them with a sweet smile. ‘Good afternoon, how may I help you?’
‘We’re here to see Sister Mary Patrick,’ McInerny said. ‘Garda Sergeant McInerny. And Detective Inspector McIntyre.’
‘Guards?’ She looked astonished rather than afraid, and quickly crossed herself. ‘Is it bad news?’
It was an odd question, Paula thought. Because when the cops came to call, it was never good news. Even when they came to report an arrest to victims and their families, it was a reminder of the bad thing that had preceded it. ‘Sister Mary Patrick?’ Paula asked.
‘Why don’t you come in and I’ll see what’s what?’ The nun led them to a small parlour close to the entrance vestibule. ‘I’ll just go and . . . ’ she added vaguely as she disappeared.
The room was plainly furnished with generic modern chairs around a table that looked like it had escaped from a coffee shop. A print of the Virgin Mary cradling her dead son hung above a fireplace with a dust-covered grate. ‘Cheery,’ Paula muttered.
McInerny grunted. ‘You wouldn’t call the Catholic Church happy-clappy.’
The door opened to reveal a tall woman in a black nun’s habit, crucifix on her breast, amber rosary beads gleaming at her waist. ‘I am Sister Mary Patrick of the Order of the Blessed Pearl,’ she said, her voice firm and clear, her Northern accent faint but definite.
She swept across to the table and sat with her eyes fixed on Paula. McInerny might have been invisible. He rattled through the introductions again, explaining that Paula was from Bradfield, but the nun remained unmoved. She must have been handsome in her youth, Paula thought. High cheekbones, a slender nose, a chiselled jaw that was barely beginning to sag. Paula knew from the files that she was fifty-nine, but she’d have guessed at least five years younger, in spite of the violet shadows under her dark blue eyes.
‘You know why we’re here,’ Paula said.
‘Do I?’
‘The remains of forty children have been found in the grounds of the convent where you were Mother Superior. I can’t believe nobody mentioned that to you.’
‘I have nothing to say about this.’ She folded her hands loosely on top of the table.
‘You were responsible for the girls in your care.’
‘The convent has been there since the 1930s. There were several reverend
