‘I’d say Tipperary,’ said Barrett.
‘Could it be east Clare? It’s soft, though.’
‘It could be Clare,’ said Barrett.
‘If the nun was from the Buleen area, maybe she knew your Peggy Nolan already. Did your girl have hair like a “conker”?’ Swan asked Considine.
‘Yeah, dark-reddish. She was the right age, too.’
A phone was ringing downstairs. Swan raced down the steps. When he got to the office, Mother Mary Paul was holding out the receiver to him. T. P. Murphy was on the other end.
‘You’ve got the nun?’ asked Swan.
‘You little bollix,’ replied Murphy. ‘A complete wild-gooser. And now I’ve got the RUC on my back. They insisted on accompanying me to Newry, and now they want me to fill in a stack of forms, threatening me with cross-border infringement. It’s going to take me hours to get home.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She wasn’t there at all. The priest who finally deigned to break his silence said she phoned last week to cancel. You owe me, big time.’
Damn. Where had she got to? Mother Mary Paul had no answers for Swan. Considine and Barrett were waiting in the hallway.
‘Barrett, stay here until it’s secure and empty. Make sure forensics are coming, even if it’s tonight. Gina, I want you to put out a call for Sister Bernadette, but we also need to get the team to trace all the Peggy Nolans you can find, just in case your one’s too good to be true. Then come join me as soon as you can.’
‘Where?’
‘Buleen, of course! Wherever the hell it is. Oh, and give that girl with the short hair a tenner – no make it twenty. I’ll see you right.’
On the doorstep Monsignor Kelly was pacing and smoking – an expensive-looking brand with a gold band around the filter. He threw down a long butt as Swan emerged and came forward to shake his hand. Cufflinks in the shape of crosses.
‘Bit of a mix-up with your officer here,’ said the monsignor, as if they were old friends temporarily kept apart by a harsh world.
‘Sorry about that – thing is, I’ve got a lot on, so perhaps we could catch up later.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Smashing, Father. Lovely place they have here, beautifully kept.’
Monsignor Kelly looked relieved, grateful.
‘My officers are taking a few statements from the nuns and residents, so Garda O’Malley here can keep you company till that’s finished.’
‘But it was you I needed to speak to.’
‘No can do, Monsignor.’
Swan set off down the front steps. At the bottom he turned back.
‘Must take a good lot of donations to keep a place like this in the style, eh? Regular donations. From couples.’
Monsignor Kelly’s determined smile dribbled off his face.
‘But as I said to the Reverend Mother, we’ll talk later, eh? After I’ve seen the adoption board.’
Swan went to the office to keep on top of the paperwork, then headed home. He couldn’t see the end of it yet, but he was starting to see the beginning. Peggy Nolan could have known Sister Bernadette of old and persuaded the nun to help her, to let her stay at Percy Place without telling anyone else. She delivers the child there, with the nun’s help, because the nun knows nursing, but three days later someone – one of them – beats the baby to death. The nun sneaks her away. Bernadette knows the Rosary Garden well. It’s her idea to bury the child there, but for some reason it gets left in the shed.
But why – why kill it?
At home Swan poured himself a finger of whiskey, searched out a couple of clean shirts, underwear, razor. He had hoped, without too much hope, that Elizabeth might be there. The only sign of her presence was a small sheet of paper torn from a notebook, the left edge frilled where she had ripped it from the spiral. Auntie Josie had taken another dip, it said; she was needed there, it said. With luck, she’d be back tomorrow.
He made some calls and packed his things in a briefcase, sat on the bed for a time. He might as well sleep now and leave early, than navigate in the dark. And he didn’t want to go away, with things so strained between Elizabeth and himself, without doing some little thing to thaw the ice, though he wasn’t sure what.
He woke before dawn, relishing the idea of driving the empty roads west as the sun rose behind him. He made a cup of coffee and fed the cat, stood looking at Elizabeth’s note on the table as he supped. He washed his cup and put it on the draining board, then turned the note to the blank side and wrote quickly:
It’s not just there you’re needed. I need you. I’m sorry for my coldness. We’ll do as you want. I love you,
V
He stared for a moment at his hokey words. She’d think he’d gone mad. Fuck it.
He left the note on the table and ran out the front door before he could change his mind.
27
Father Philbin’s homily didn’t mention Joan’s time in Damascus House. He also avoided anything particular to the circumstances of her death, but opted instead for generalised gravitas and veiled allusions to ‘a young life snuffed out in its prime’ and ‘which of us knows the time and the place of our calling’. Under this roof, in these circumstances, there could be no question of Joan having had a conscious role in whatever slip or fall took her into the river’s flow. If her death was suicide, they would not be having this mass; therefore it was not suicide.
The church was already packed when Ali arrived. Many more than at that Sunday mass Una had dragged her to when she first arrived. A little over a week ago, but felt like so much longer.
As she took her seat, an uneasy silence reigned among the congregation, torn here and there by muffled coughs. Finally the moan of the organ washed
