by Des Ekin
‘You mean she became pregnant.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then?’
Monsignor Mason looked uneasy. ‘Things were different in those days, Miss Macaulay. You can’t judge people by the more enlightened standards of today.’
‘No.’
‘There were accepted procedures to cover this sort of eventuality.’ The monsignor was trying to convince himself. ‘Families of good character did not want to become the talk of the neighbourhood if their daughter became pregnant out of wedlock. They would send the expectant mother away to a special convent where the child could be born in secret, then given up for adoption. Everyone conspired to keep things quiet – the parents, the relatives, the Church, the registry office. There was nothing to prove that the birth ever happened.’
‘But that didn’t happen in Lizzie’s case, did it?’ asked Emma. ‘She wasn’t a pampered daughter. She got the second-class treatment.’
Monsignor Mason sighed heavily. ‘Yes. We had the Magdalen Laundries, where the less fortunate girls were sent if they became pregnant.’
‘They were sort of gulags, weren’t they? Social-cleansing prisons run by nuns. The girls were put to work washing dirty laundry.’ Emma pressed home her point. ‘Effectively, they were hard-labour jails.’
The old monsignor continued to stare at her in silence.
‘How did young JoJo react to Lizzie’s sudden departure?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice casual.
Monsignor Mason looked at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, did he take it badly?’
‘You are a very perceptive young woman, Miss Macaulay.’ His face became solemn. ‘I’ve never seen a child so badly affected. He was shattered, destroyed. His entire personality changed.’
‘How?’ pressed Emma. ‘Did he cry a lot? Was he depressed? Did he become ill?’
‘No. That was the strange thing.’ The old monsignor looked away. ‘He cried his eyes out on the day Lizzie left, but after that, he didn’t shed a single tear. He just seemed to bottle it all up inside himself.’ He frowned. ‘If I had to choose just one word to describe his reaction, that word would be anger. A dark and bitter anger.’
HE fell silent. Outside in the darkness, a foghorn sounded its mournful note across the bay.
‘It was all done on your signature, wasn’t it?’ Emma pressed him gently. ‘Lizzie’s committal to the Magdalen Laundries. The semi-legal adoption of her baby. Her disappearance overseas to start a new life. The whole package deal.’
The monsignor looked uncomfortable. ‘God forgive me,’ he said. ‘Every day I pray for her. That’s why I say she won’t let me forget.’ He pointed to his own head. ‘She’s always in here, Miss Macaulay. She’ll always be in here.’
He glanced nervously around at the wall of books that surrounded them. For the first time, he seemed to share his guest’s claustrophobia.
‘Let’s walk out into the garden,’ he said, setting down his teacup. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’
They squeezed through the narrow warren of books until they were out in the open air. Emma breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief. It was still raining, but the soft water felt good on her face, and even the fishy, oily air of Passage North smelled pure and clear. She promised herself that, no matter what happened, she would never be persuaded to go into that house again.
After a few moments spent savouring her freedom, she looked around the monsignor’s back garden. It was a mess. Five-foot nettles besieged a ramshackle wooden shed, the unpruned shrubs were strangled by ivy and bindweed, and dandelions rampaged over the long grass of what had once been a lawn.
She felt confused. If Monsignor Mason hadn’t been cultivating his garden, then what was the explanation for the constant digging noises that locals had heard from behind his tall hedges? The hours of metallic scratching as spade scraped against soil and stone?
He motioned to Emma to follow him, and led her towards the far end of the garden. Almost hidden from view behind a huge weeping birch, there was a tall thorn hedge with a gate-like gap in the centre.
‘I’m not proud of what I did in those days, Miss Macaulay,’ he said quietly, gesturing to her to lead the way through the gap. ‘There were a lot of dark things done in the name of Christian charity, a lot of damage done that can never be repaired.’
Emma walked through the gap into a tiny secret garden. It was only about the size of an average living-room, but its lawn was beautifully trimmed and surrounded by a border heaped high with soil. In the centre was a rectangular shape. In the darkness, it looked like a sunken flowerbed.
‘All I can do,’ said the old priest, ‘is make my peace as best I can.’
Emma felt a chill run through her as she walked closer and recognised the shape. It wasn’t a flowerbed. It was an open grave, about four feet deep. At the bottom lay a rusty spade.
‘I dig a little more of it every day,’ Monsignor Mason explained, as though he were talking about constructing a model plane. ‘But I’m getting a bit weak. Most days, I can manage only a spadeful or two. It’ll take another year or two to make it deep enough.’
He fell silent again.
It took a few seconds before Emma could summon up the courage to ask the question. ‘Who’s it for?’
It sounded like somebody else’s voice, a long distance away.
The monsignor looked surprised. He glanced back towards the old parochial building, the home that he’d sworn never to leave.
‘It’s for me, of course,’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE golden-skinned Thai girl leaned over suddenly and flicked her tongue on Hunter’s earlobe. The sensation was all the more intense for being unexpected – a two-thousand-volt jolt of sensual electricity concentrated in a tiny square millimetre of flesh.
The Thai girl was about twenty-three and breathtakingly beautiful. Her hair was long and shone like black ice. She wore a blue silk sarong that caressed every curve of her perfect body.
‘I wouldn’t get treatment like this in the casualty ward down the road.’
‘Sit still. Nearly finished.’
The girl poured some more antiseptic onto a wad of cottonwool and dabbed it on the cut on Hunter’s forehead. As he winced, she leaned forward again and delicately nibbled the other earlobe.
‘Whoa, there,’ Hunter laughed, pushing her away gently. ‘You’re supposed to be tending my injuries. Not causing more.’
‘You brave boy. Get reward each time.’ She grabbed a hand mirror and held it in front of Hunter’s face. ‘All done. How’s that?’
Hunter looked at his damaged face in the mirror. Chato Cook’s forehead had struck him at the top of the nose, gashing the skin and creating a dark-purple bruise that was already starting to spread. But he’d been lucky. His nose wasn’t broken and, so far as he could tell, there was no damage to his skull.
‘That’s fine. You did a great job.’
She smiled. ‘Used to work in hospital in Bangkok. Pay no good, though. Better in this job. You want to buy me champagne?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry. I’ve no money,’ he admitted. ‘Some other time.’
The Thai girl eased herself onto his lap and wriggled. ‘Maybe no need for champagne,’ she whispered.
‘Chantelle!’
The voice behind them rang with authority. The Thai girl turned around as a middle-aged woman walked briskly towards them.
‘Thank you for tending to Mr Hunter’s medical needs, Chantelle,’ she said kindly, ‘but I think that’s quite enough for now. Why don’t you and Cherie go across to those Japanese gentlemen over at the bar? They look as though they could do with some company.’
‘Okay.’ The Thai girl gave a final defiant wriggle of her hips. ‘You know, you’re cute,’ she whispered into Hunter’s ear. ‘You come back sometime, ask for Chantelle.’
Smiling, she darted forward and thrust her tongue inside his ear. In the same smooth, balletic movement, she
rose from his lap and was gone.
‘She’s taken quite a fancy to you,’ said Shirley approvingly as they both watched the Thai girl sashay across the nightclub to the bar. ‘Chantelle is one of our best escort girls. Very imaginative, very much in demand.’
Shirley was a tall woman with blue-rinsed hair that framed a stern but kindly face. She looked like the headmistress of some exclusive finishing school for girls, but she carried herself like a model – which was not surprising, since that had actually been her profession a quarter of a century before.
Now Shirley was one of the most successful business-women in Dublin. She ran an exotic lingerie shop and two high-class escort agencies; her latest venture, Shhh, was a nightclub, where lonely foreign businessmen came to listen to torrid saxophone jazz and buy overpriced Romanian fizzy wine in exchange for the company of the most exotic and experienced girls in the country.
She sat down beside Hunter and inspected his face. ‘Ah. That’s much better, chuck,’ she said in her broad Liverpool accent. ‘I think you’re going to live. When you turned up at our door with blood all over your face, I thought I was going to be left with another corpse on my hands.’
‘Another?’
Shirley shook her head sadly. ‘You don’t want to know. It’s a very tragic story, really. Ingrid was providing company to a gentleman of the cloth when he became rather overexcited and shuffled off this mortal coil. We had to drag him out into the street before calling the police. It’s what he would have wanted, poor lamb.’
‘No scandal.’
‘That’s right. And, luckily enough, there was another priest in the next room to give him the last rites.’ She rose to her feet and motioned to Hunter to follow her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you an albino geisha girl,’ she joked, ‘but I can offer you a nice cup of tea.’
She steered him expertly through the nightclub towards an office at the far end. They passed a strobe-lighted dance floor where two black girls wearing baby-doll nighties and unnatural smiles were writhing erotically around fake-marble columns. Beyond the dance floor, they walked past a table occupied by a group of bored-looking girls in miniskirts. As Hunter came towards them, they looked up enthusiastically, smiled and crossed their legs. When it became obvious that he was not about to be entrusted to their care, the smiles were rapidly switched off and the bored expressions resumed. It was exactly the same story at the next two tables. As he walked by, the fake smiles were switched on and then off, on and off, as efficiently as motion-detector lights on a security system.
At a centre table, a drunken German businessman was arguing loudly with a statuesque blonde. ‘No more champagne!’ he was shouting. ‘Already I buy two bottles! Goddamn whore, you come to my hotel, now!’
With a peevish swipe he swept the bottles and glasses off the table. Before they’d hit the floor, Shirley gave an almost imperceptible nod to a suavely dressed Lebanese at the bar. Within twenty seconds, three things took place simultaneously: the blonde was spirited away to another table, the German found himself standing in an outer lobby facing a dinner-jacketed gorilla who was brandishing his bill, and the table itself was restored to pristine condition with a new tablecloth, a red rose, and a lighted candle in the centre. The two black girls danced on, oblivious to everything.
‘Milk and sugar, love?’ asked Shirley, who had hardly paused in her stride.
‘Just milk, please.’
‘Okey-dokey.’ She gave the order to a waitress and escorted Hunter into her office. It was like the office of any medium-sized business. There was a desk with a computer, a phone, a fax machine and several filing cabinets. A calendar on the wall showed a view of the Lake District, and a miniature carriage-clock told them it was eleven-fifteen at night.
‘So, Hunter,’ Shirley said, sitting down on a swivelchair, ‘now that we’ve got you off the medical danger list, what can I do for you? I know you can’t be tempted by any of my young ladies.’
‘Tempted, certainly,’ said Hunter ruefully. ‘But I’d still have to say no. What I’m asking, Shirley, is two favours. First of all, I need somewhere to stay tonight. I can’t go back home. As you can see, someone made a serious attempt to kill me. I’m going to have to lie low for a while.’
‘Is that the only reason you want to lie low?’
‘You heard the news?’
‘I always listen to the news, chuck. The detectives in Passage North want to question you. And, if it’s any consolation, I believe you’re being set up.’
‘Thanks. Nice to find one person who has faith in me.’
‘They’re not going so far as to claim you’re the killer. But they say they want to talk to you in order to eliminate you from their inquiries.’
‘I disagree. I think they want to eliminate me, full stop.’ Hunter grimaced. ‘I don’t know who I can trust and who I can’t. There are people watching my house night and day. They’re either cops or Government spooks. For all I know, Chato Cook could be working for them. If I hand myself in to the police, I could be walking into a trap.’
Shirley nodded. ‘Then why not stay in a hotel?’
‘Too obvious. They’ll run checks on them all.’
There was a knock on the door. A dark-skinned young woman, probably Brazilian, came in carrying a tray with full silver service. Shirley thanked her and poured the tea into delicate china cups.
‘Earl Grey, dear,’ she said. ‘I hope that’s to your taste. There’s lemon instead of milk, if you like. That’s the way I take it. What’s the second favour, love?’ she asked suddenly.
Hunter took the cup from her. ‘I’m still trying to trace the woman who came to my office and used the name Mags Jackson.’
‘Yes.’ Shirley popped a slice of lemon into her own tea. ‘I’ve been asking around on your behalf. Nobody’s ever heard of a Mags Jackson in our line of work.’
‘Well, we can forget that name. Mags Jackson was just a pseudonym she used.’
Shirley sipped her tea thoughtfully. ‘If your visitor lied about her name, she probably lied about her occupation, too,’ she said. ‘I very much doubt that she worked as a prostitute. I reached my former colleague, Maura Granby, on her mobile last week. She knows Passage North well, and she said she’d never heard of another vice girl working there.’
‘Yes, I’ve come to accept that. But I want to make doubly sure. Just run your eye over these photos.’
He reached into his portfolio and produced Tim’s computer images of the mystery woman. Shirley put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, switched on a green desk lamp, and flicked through them. Finally she shook her head.
‘Sorry, chuck. I’ve never seen this girl before in my life.’
Hunter nodded with resignation. It was more or less the reaction he’d expected. As he reached over to help himself to a biscuit, Shirley suddenly burst into a highpitched giggle.
He looked up in irritation. ‘What’s so funny?’
Shirley wasn’t looking at the computer images any more. Instead, she was holding up the stained beermat with Naomi’s sketch on it.
‘It’s a great drawing of Maura Granby, though,’ she said.
HUNTER stared at Shirley, then at the beermat sketch in her hand. ‘What did you just say?’ he asked, trying desperately to keep his voice steady.
‘I said it’s a great drawing of Maura Granby. Whoever did this captured her to a T. That’s exactly the expression she puts on when she’s trying to explain something to you. And the features’ – she gestured at the pointed nose and sharp chin – ‘they’re exaggerated, but they’re so true to life.’
‘Let me get this straight.’ Hunter couldn’t believe his ears. ‘You’re telling me that this is a drawing of your former employee? The prostitute who lives in Passage North?’
‘I’d bet my life on it, chuck.’ Shirley looked up in surprise. ‘I assumed you knew who it was. What’s the matter?’
Hunter shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I had no idea who it was. As far as I was concerned, th
is was another unidentified woman. All I knew was that she went to the office of the Evening Report with a story almost identical to the one I wrote about.’
‘You’ve got me totally confused, love.’
‘Join the queue.’ He took a long, deep breath. ‘This is really important, Shirl. It’s the only break I’ve got so far. I want you to tell me everything you know about this Maura Granby. Everything.’
Shirley sighed. ‘Now you’re asking me. The nature of this business is that we don’t ask too many questions about our girls. There’s not much point, because you’re not likely to get the truth anyway. They might be on the run from the police. They might be married and living respectable lives in the suburbs with husbands who haven’t got a clue what they actually do for a living. So long as they do the business, we don’t want to know.’ She leaned across to the silver tray. ‘More tea?’
‘Thanks.’ Hunter didn’t interrupt her.
‘As for Maura, now, let me think. All I know is that she’s in her early forties and was brought up here in Dublin, in Connolly Flats. She had a rough childhood, by all accounts. By the time she started working for me she was as tough as nails.’
‘When was that?’
‘Around fifteen years ago. She worked for me on and off for five, maybe seven years. She was good. Very professional, very broad-minded, a great favourite with the gentlemen. But then …’
Shirley frowned as she stirred her tea.
‘But then?’ Hunter prompted.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Some of our best regular clients just stopped using our services, all of them at once. It was uncanny. They didn’t just take their custom elsewhere – I’d have known if they had. They stopped altogether. I could never understand why.’
Hunter was intrigued. ‘And what did that have to do with Maura Granby?’
‘They were all her regulars. She was their favourite – they always booked her in advance. If Maura wasn’t available, they didn’t want to play with anyone else.’