‘You were supposed to check out every lying-in home and refuge in the land. Remember this one? Run by the nuns from – where is it? – oh yes, St Brigid’s, where the baby was found!’
‘There’s no central register, boss. No proper system. This place wasn’t on the adoption-board list and didn’t come up in any enquiries.’
‘If the Rosary Baby was born here, we’ve wasted a lot of time. I want you to go in there and talk to the residents. They’re down in the kitchen. Get me some background on the girl who stayed here two weeks ago and left with her baby.’
Considine flared her nostrils slightly and walked stiffly up the steps while getting her notebook out of her shoulder bag. Barrett smirked.
‘And I’ve no time for that,’ Swan said, finger in his face. ‘You come with me while I talk to the Reverend Mother.’
He took a chair opposite the nun.
‘So when were you going to let us in on this little secret?’
‘It wasn’t – isn’t – a secret. We’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Did you not think that the fact you were running a home for pregnant girls might interest us?’
‘It’s nothing like that. Just a few referrals from the country – nothing formal. The few residents here are in a fragile state; there was no point in putting them through police questioning. There’s no connection between St Jude’s and the child in the garden, I’m perfectly satisfied with that, and you will be too.’
Mother Mary Paul’s hand disappeared into the folds of her habit and emerged with a ring of keys. She rose and went to a quaint cupboard in an alcove beside the fireplace and unlocked one of the doors. It was empty except for a couple of files, a book and what looked like a petty-cash box. Mary Paul pulled out this book – a black ledger, the paper dyed a rosy-pink along the edges. She flicked through it, arriving at the place she wanted, handed it to Swan.
‘I checked this myself. Afterwards.’
The list of names ended halfway down the left page. In the columns next to the names was written the name of a town, a priest, then two columns of dates. At the top of the first column of dates it said ‘Arrival’. Above the second column were the letters ‘DLV’. The last three entries were the same names as those he had read on the doors upstairs. They only had an arrival date next to them, nothing in the column marked DLV.
‘This second date …?’
‘That’s the date they gave birth.’
The latest delivery date recorded was 3rd June 1984, more than six weeks before the Rosary baby was born. That might explain why this place hadn’t turned up in Considine’s investigations of recent births. Swan flicked back through the earlier pages. The register went back seven years. The busiest year was 1978, when twelve girls stayed. Not exactly an avalanche.
‘The information here seems a bit minimal, Mother. What about the girl’s addresses, the details of adoption?’
‘We just provide a place for the girls to stay. They are referred by their parish, and all adoption details are dealt with privately.’
‘Privately between whom?’ he asked.
‘I think you need to talk to Monsignor Kelly, if you wish to pursue this.’
The doorbell rang, and Swan answered it to two flush-faced young Guards from Rathmines. He sent one down to the back door and told the other to stay on the steps and prevent arrivals and departures.
He sat down again to face the nun.
‘The thing is, Mother, a girl stayed here recently who isn’t on this register. She had her baby in her room with her, and now she’s gone. Disappeared about the time that the baby was found in your convent grounds.’
‘She must be on the register. Sister Bernadette wouldn’t allow it otherwise.’
‘Well, she’s not. Though the other girls remember her. It’s a pity Sister Bernadette’s not here to explain yet. We’ve sent a car up to Newry to collect her from the retreat house. Seems they don’t believe in answering phones there, either.’
‘It’s a silent retreat,’ said Mary Paul. To one side of her, Barrett rolled his eyes.
‘I’ll leave you here with Detective Barrett,’ said Swan, ‘in case anything pertinent comes to you.’
In the basement kitchen, Considine sat at the table with the three pregnant girls, while Sister Dreyfus busied herself by the stove, a big blue apron practically brushing her sensible shoes. The cloying smell of packet minestrone permeated the room. A plate of white sliced bread and some industrial-looking cheese were laid out on the table.
‘What have we got?’ said Swan, taking a place at the table.
‘The girls say she arrived about a month ago, and mostly kept to her room.’
‘Do we have a name?’
‘She wouldn’t tell us,’ said a girl with very fine blonde hair.
‘Who brought her here?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Esther McDaid. ‘She just came down to the kitchen one day …’
‘And she had a baby with her?’
‘Not when she arrived,’ said Considine. ‘As far as I can establish, cries were heard from the room two weeks after, not long before she left.’
‘We never saw the kid,’ said Esther. ‘I think she was keeping it away from us, you see, out of kindness.’
‘What did she look like?’ Swan asked.
‘She was older, twenty-five or so, I’d say. Lovely thick hair – like a conker.’ This from the blonde girl. Considine wrote quickly in her notebook.
‘Was the baby delivered here or in hospital?’ Swan was wondering if this girl could be someone they had already accounted for, someone who had come up in the hospital searches. He needed to keep a lid on this exultant, headlong feeling. The girls looked at each other and shrugged.
‘Sister Bernadette would know. They got on well,’ said Esther.
‘Who got on?’
‘Sister Bernadette and the Peggy girl. I heard them talking in her room a few times – when I was praying in the chapel.’ The two other girls looked at Esther sceptically.
Swan looked
