‘What’s this?’ said Sean, looking down at it in astonishment.
‘It’s for room twenty-one in the Grand. It is the room kept for overbooking and that never happens on a Monday. I kept it by accident in my coat pocket when I left.’
Alice was whispering and yet they were the only people on the street, or near the pub, as it had yet to open for business.
‘The locks haven’t been changed and the room will be empty. We can talk without being interrupted. Meet me there in half an hour.’
And with that she was gone.
Sean slipped up the staircase of the hotel unnoticed.
Maids and bellboys bustled about and the reception desk was far enough away from the staircase that entering the room was far easier than he had imagined. He had only been inside for five minutes when there came a gentle tap on the door. He opened it quickly.
Alice had been leaning her weight against the door so heavily that she almost fell in.
Neither spoke. Both were profoundly relieved to be alone together, at last.
‘Did you get the bus after mine?’ asked Sean, breaking the silence and grasping for something to say.
Alice nodded. They looked at each other. There was no need for words. There was only need.
The room, which was the size of a small school hall, felt cavernous and cold, even though it was full of spare chairs and tables, being stored for use in any one of the meeting rooms.
The Georgian panelling was painted in a dove grey and edged in a white ornate border, which made it feel cooler. The curtains at the tall windows, a faded pale-grey velvet with swathes and tails, dusty.
There was no warmth. No soul. No heart.
But they neither noticed nor cared. They could have been in a cave for all that they were aware of their surroundings.
Once Sean had reached out and pulled Alice into his arms, it took only seconds for them both to move from the door to the bed.
Within half an hour it was all over and, as they lay on their backs, they both lit a cigarette. For the first time in her life, Alice felt alive and liberated.
She stared at the ornate white coving that encircled the gilt light fitting, in the centre of the smoke-stained ceiling. As she exhaled she turned her head to look at Sean and said, ‘God, Sean, I’m normal.’ And her laughter danced, all over the bed.
Sean leant on his elbow and looked down at her, smiling. ‘Alice, adultery is a sin. It is definitely not normal.’
She lifted her slim frame off the bed slightly and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table. As she did so, she thought of the number of times she had emptied the same ashtray in this very room.
‘It is, if you are me,’ she said. Then she took the cigarette out of Sean’s hand, stubbed it out into the ashtray and set about committing adultery for a second time.
Daisy felt fine. It was Sister Evangelista who had told her she was ill. Daisy had been keen to stay at the convent but she did not want to be confined to the sick bay.
One of the novice nuns, who was also a nurse at the Northern, brought Daisy her meals and spoke to her as though she were very poorly indeed.
She had been told so many times she was ill that she was beginning to feel as though she really was sick and this morning she hadn’t wanted to leave her bed.
What was there to get up for? She was only permitted to sit in the chair at the side of the bed and soon got pretty cold doing that.
She had been told she wasn’t allowed to look out of the window, or to step outside.
One of the sisters brought her some books and there was a bible to read, but Daisy could hardly read anything more than a shopping list. Books were no use to her and she couldn’t understand them anyway, even when someone else read to her.
Daisy didn’t feel like her food today, either. Something was wrong. Things were changing, people were whispering and she didn’t like it.
It was evening and they had switched Daisy’s light off an hour ago. Daisy began to cry. She wanted to return to the convent in Dublin, where she had lived before she came to Liverpool. It was the only home Daisy had ever known and she desperately wanted to return. Daisy hadn’t cried for a very long time. From a very young age, she had learnt the lesson that crying made no difference.
No one heard. No one cared. Nothing changed.
Sister Evangelista burst into the room without knocking, her arms full of what appeared to be freshly pressed undergarments. She placed them on the bed next to Daisy’s feet and began peeling clothes from the top of the pile.
‘Daisy, get up, get up,’ she hissed. ‘You have to get dressed.’
Daisy sat upright in bed. ‘But it’s night-time, Sister.’
‘I know Daisy, I know. You have to get dressed. Come on, girl. Quickly, I have news from the bishop. Ye are going back to the convent in Dublin, but you have to go now and catch the night ferry with the bishop.’
‘The bishop is here?’ Daisy was confused. If the bishop was here, he would be at the Priory and so should she be.
‘Not here exactly, not at the convent. Look, please, Daisy, just do as I ask, would you.’
Sister Evangelista had brought with her a case, packed with smart clothes Daisy had never seen before, and in no time she was creeping down the back stairs, with the sister urging her to be quiet.
Sister Evangelista opened a large wooden door that led to the convent garden. In a dim pool of light, on the other side of the tall wrought-iron gate at the garden entrance, were two men, huddled together against the cold air, waiting. Daisy noticed a parked car. She squinted into the darkness to see if there was anyone sitting inside.
Sister Evangelista took Daisy by the arm and hurried her along the garden path.
‘These two gentlemen are friends of the bishop, Daisy. They are going to take you to meet him. He is waiting. They will take you across to Ireland on the ferry and then return you to the convent. You will be happy there, won’t you, Daisy?’
Sister Evangelista handed the case to Austin. Now she grabbed Daisy by the hand and looked into her eyes. She had been perturbed that the two men had not wanted to tell her their names and had been less than friendly when they arrived,
Daisy shook her head and began to cry for the second time that day. She knew the two men. She didn’t want to go anywhere with them. Not even to the ferry.
‘No, Sister,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to go, please don’t make me, I just want to stay here.’
‘Daisy, I have been instructed by the bishop and he is very definite in what he says. You may not know that your family pay for us to look after you. The convent in Ireland, where you were brought up, well, that’s the best place for you now that Father James has gone. You deserve that for looking after the Priory for all this time. Time for someone else to take over all that hard work now, Daisy.’
Daisy’s tears had turned to sobs. Sister Evangelista looked towards the men the bishop had sent to collect Daisy, and, with a shock, realized they had disappeared, as had the case. At that very moment, Miss Devlin, who had stopped late at the convent for supper and prayers, walked down the back steps towards them with the police officer, Howard, at her side.
Sister Evangelista thought they were too familiar altogether.
‘Here ye are. I thought Daisy was up and taking a bit of fresh air, didn’t I say she would be, now?’ said Miss Devlin. She grinned from ear to ear, flushed with the attention Howard had paid her. He had called back at the convent on the off chance, knowing she would be there this evening, and had offered her a lift home in the panda. And as luck would have it they had spotted Daisy in the garden. Before Miss Devlin knew it, Howard was out of the back door and down the steps. She had to run to keep up with him.
Sister Evangelista forced a smile.
The bishop would be furious.
She had hardly agreed with a word the bishop had said since the father had died. She was now coming to the conclusion that the best way to have dealt with this would have
been to tell the police everything, hand them all the photographs and pictures. It was as obvious to her as the nose on her face that it was a parent who had killed the priest. Any parent who discovered what that evil disciple of the devil had done to their child would surely be seized with a rage so strong they would kill, without even knowing what they were doing.
Now she was an accomplice. She had helped to burn the photographs and destroy all the incriminating evidence.
‘Tell the police Daisy has run away,’ the bishop had said, when he issued the latest instructions. ‘We need to sneak her out and return her back to the convent in Ireland, where she will be safe.’
Sister Evangelista’s heart had sunk. Everything was moving too fast. She was sure there were things the bishop knew and she didn’t. Who on earth were those two men, for example? One of them had looked very familiar, but she had no idea why.
Had she seen him in the Priory ever?
God, this was a mess. What did the bishop propose to do about Molly? He couldn’t send a couple of men to carry her off to a convent and God alone knew what Daisy had told her.
Sister Evangelista turned to face Howard. From the corner of her eye, she saw that the car the two men had arrived in slipped slowly and silently down the hill away from the back gate of the convent garden.
They knew, she thought. They knew. They must have seen Miss Devlin switch on the cloakroom light and open the back door with Howard behind her, and they had vanished, taking the case with them, so that it didn’t look as though they had planned to sneak Daisy away. She remembered where she had seen the familiar one and felt faint and sick. He had appeared in one of the photographs. But the bishop had sent him?
Her mind was screaming, her heart was racing and pounding against her ribs. As she opened her mouth, she felt sure her voice would wobble and crack, and yet out it came, each word dripping in falsehood, succeeding in concealing her inner turmoil and panic.
‘Hello, Officer. Daisy has been a little upset. Her nerves are very bad, and we thought a bit of night air would do her good and calm her down.’
Howard looked at Daisy’s face. It was blotched and streaked with tears.
‘Hello, Daisy,’ he said gently. ‘Listen, I’m sorry, queen, if yer nerves are bad, like, but do you know, I think the sooner we get this interview over, the better things will be, don’t you agree, Miss Devlin?’
Miss Devlin was keen to impress Howard.
‘Oh, I do indeed,’ she trilled.
Howard thought that if Miss Devlin or Sister Evangelista knew what Molly had told him and Simon, they would be very keen for Daisy to be interviewed too.
‘Well, I am sure the morning will be fine, won’t it, Daisy?’ said Sister Evangelista. ‘But if you don’t mind, I shall put her back to bed now, especially if you are coming back in the morning. I know how keen you two are, I imagine ye will be here for breakfast.’
Sister Evangelista managed a laugh. It was hard, but she managed.
Not her usual laugh. You would normally have to look at her to know she was laughing or catch her shoulders shaking. Her entire life in a convent, from when she had arrived as an orphan, had trained her to practise a special, silent laugh, cultivated over years so as not to disturb the peace. Tonight it was more like a pebble rolling around in a tin can. But a laugh it was.
As she put Daisy back to bed, a novice joined them with a depressing but expected message.
‘The bishop is on the phone, Reverend Mother, and he said he needs to speak to you without delay.’
Sister Evangelista knew that he would be very unhappy indeed to hear Daisy was to be interviewed by the police in the morning. She had done all she could, including convincing everyone that she was ill, to prevent the interview from taking place. It was out of her hands.
The girl was simple. Surely they could see that? As the sister pulled the cover over her, Daisy smiled in gratitude, a woman who still looked exactly like a child.
Sister Evangelista sighed as she left the room. It was all in God’s hands now. She had resigned herself to the fact that she had lifted the entire situation up to the Lord and felt a huge sense of relief as a result.
As she moved towards her office to speak to the bishop, she knew she would not, could not, challenge him. She could not be sure that the man he had sent was in the photograph, but curiously she felt bolder. She would be keeping a very careful eye out from now on and would be more forceful with her own opinions.
As was her custom, Molly sat and watched the ten o’clock news whilst eating a slice of warm millionaires’ shortbread.
She had made a fresh batch for the police officers tomorrow.
Molly knew they must interview Daisy and hear her words for themselves, but that would happen soon enough. They had told Molly that she would need to be a witness in court and that her evidence would be crucial to the case.
Molly liked that. Nothing she had ever done in her entire life before could ever have been described as crucial.
This was an occasion. Tomorrow, she would take out her curlers, put in her teeth and tell the police that Maura Doherty vanished in the middle of the night. No one in that family had ever spent a night away from Nelson Street and now, suddenly, two of them had disappeared.
This was news. Possibly, even crucial news.
It infused her with a feeling of self-importance that she was the only person her friend Daisy had told about witnessing the murder. Molly had told the police and no one else.
The police couldn’t rush Daisy. Molly had told them that and they agreed. They had already met her, they knew they would have to coax the information from her gently. That was why they were waiting for her to leave the sick bay at the convent.
Molly smiled as she heaved herself out of the chair and bent down to switch off the television. Annie O’Prey will have seven kinds of a fit when she knows what I have been keeping from her, she thought to herself, carrying her cup and plate over to the kitchen sink.
Tiger let out one of his piercing howls from the yard and Molly heard the tin bin lid slip onto the yard floor and clatter across the cobbles.
‘That bloody cat,’ she said to herself, as she opened the back door. ‘The bin will be full of river rats in the morning. Tiger,’ she hissed. ‘Tiger, come here, here, you naughty boy.’
It was pitch-black outside. The night had settled down and the street slept. There was not a shaft of dawdling light to ease her way to help her find the cat.
Molly heard another noise, this time from the outhouse.
‘Tiger, is that you? Here, you daft cat,’ she said.
There was no response. All was quiet.
‘Ah sure, well, I need to go to the lavvy anyway,’ she muttered as she shuffled across the yard and opened the outhouse door.
Molly kept a candle and a box of matches on the ledge and knew exactly where to put her hand. Plagued by a weak bladder, she could have the candle lit within seconds. As she struck the match, she shuffled round to negotiate her way down onto the lavvy seat.
That was when Molly saw him, waiting for her, behind the outhouse door.
The wooden mallet hit her so hard on the side of her temple that it carried her across the outhouse and into the wall. As her skull shattered, the last thing she saw was Tiger, with claws extended, leaping onto her attacker, but he was too late.
Molly was dead before she hit the floor.
19
THE STRAW BALES had been restacked, cloths folded and dishes put away. The bales almost reached the roof of the barn. Nellie and Kitty lay on the top, chins in hands, and gazed out over the harvested fields.
The barn retained the heat of the day and their nostrils were filled with the thick scent of straw and hay, mingled with freshly cut oats. The smell from the midden entered inwards as the breeze altered direction and, unwelcome, rested with them awhile.
Oat sheaves, which yesterday had stood five feet tall and swayed in the breeze, were now stacked into rounded mounds, dotted casually acro
ss the fields.
The girls could hear the river running in the distance.
The surface of the fields shimmered a platinum harvest gold in the last rays of the red sun as it slowly dipped behind the emerald mountain that rose from the foot of the furthest field.
‘That must have been the best day of me life,’ said Kitty wistfully, squinting into the middle distance to watch Jacko as he began to lumber slowly across the stones on the edge of the riverbank.
‘Aye, mine too,’ said Nellie.
Nellie sat up cross-legged and studied her white socks intently. Tiny, bright-red straw bugs were weaving their way in and out of the white threads. Distracted, she attempted to pick them out, one at a time, with her nails.
Giving up, she nudged Kitty.
‘What about the glorious Aengus, then, eh? He took a right shine to you, so he did.’
‘Oh sure, he did not.’ Kitty blushed.
‘Oh my God, he so did and ye to him. Ye should have seen your face.’ Nellie began to imitate Kitty. ‘Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, Aengus, I’ll just have to ask my mammy. Now hang on a moment, er, yes, she said yes, a yes, that is. Not that I’m keen now, but, yes.’
Kitty extended her leg and with her foot ejected Nellie straight off the top layer of straw and she landed on the half-layer below. Both girls were laughing as Maura appeared at the front opening of the barn and called to them.
‘Come on now, girls,’ she shouted up. ‘Time to come indoors. Kitty, ye need to have a bath.’
‘Why in the name of God do I need a bath?’ asked Kitty indignantly. ‘I had one on Sunday.’
‘Just do as I ask, please.’ There was an element of tension in Maura’s voice and Kitty picked up on it straight away.
‘What’s wrong, Mammy?’
Maura immediately reverted to a mask of gaiety. Kitty’s last night had to be a nice one. That was all that mattered.
While Maura and Kitty stepped inside and Kitty took her bath, Nellie sat on the edge of the stone sink and watched the back of the truck loaded with oats disappear down the Ballymara road.
A dark cloud had gathered in the sky above the farmhouse and the air was becoming oppressive. Nellie could hear thunder in the distance but as yet there was not a drop of rain falling on Ballymara.
The Four Streets Saga Page 49