by JJ Marsh
“Has he given you any information as to the whereabouts of Mr Harvey?”
“No, ma’am. Mrs Connor told them all to say nothing until they speak to a solicitor.”
Inspector Crean and Grant joined them.
“Good afternoon, sir. I was just explaining that we’ve taken most of the family and farm staff in for questioning. But Mrs Connor’s husband, Samir Lasku, is out doing a job on the farm somewhere. No one seems to know what or where. So far, we haven’t located Mr Harvey.”
Grant jerked his head at the ambulance. “So this is just a precaution?”
“No, it’s for one of the girls. Look, this is a bit complicated. Do you want to come through here?”
Grant gestured for Beatrice to go inside. “You go ahead, I’ll take a look around.”
While Beatrice and Inspector Crean sat, the young sergeant stood at the end of the kitchen table, as if he were Head Boy about to deliver assembly.
“We’ve searched the farm and most of the outbuildings, but we haven’t started on the plant yet. It’s a huge area, full of bits of dead animals, so it’ll take a while. The Inspector has asked them to shut the processes down, but they can’t, so we’re going to have to work around them. They’re on lunch right at the moment, but the machines will start up again in around half an hour.”
Inspector Crean smiled and nodded. “Good work, Sullivan. What else is there?”
“Upstairs in this house, we found four young women, all in different stages of pregnancy. Brigid Connor says they all work here. Three of them are at the station but one’s still upstairs, bleeding heavily. It looks like she’s having a miscarriage. I called an ambulance to take her to hospital, but she doesn’t speak much English, so the crew are having some difficulties persuading her to go.”
The inspector shook his head in amazement. “Do we know where she’s from?”
“No clue, sir, sorry. Don’t recognise her language and she has no ID that we can find.”
“Were the other pregnant girls also foreigners?” asked Beatrice.
Sergeant Sullivan consulted his notepad. “No, Ma’am. All Irish girls, but none local.”
Grant ducked under the low doorway, a frown darkening his face.
“Anything?” he asked.
Beatrice shook her head. “No sign of Adrian yet. The local officers are starting to search the plant.”
Grant stood with his back to the window, making his expression hard to read. But his voice was tight and angry. “Let’s be realistic. Why bring him back here? Because he had evidence, and they wanted to get shot of him. The most logical place to get rid of a body is in with all the others. We need to search the rendering area, but there are still trucks arriving. Why hasn’t the plant been shut down?”
Inspector Crean sat back and gave a patient smile. “We’ve tried, Sergeant Grant. To shut the place down, we’d need a court order. Under Department of Agriculture rules, it runs continuously to prevent contamination.”
His easy-going manner infuriated Beatrice. “Inspector, if there’s a dead body in that factory, everything will be contaminated. I have to ask you to prevent any more vehicles entering the plant for the time being.”
Sergeant Sullivan cleared his throat. “Inspector, we can actually close that first section. It’s already inactive while the crew have their lunch. The first two parts of the process are only kept moving so as to minimise decay. The only section that needs a court order is the rendering equipment, where the raw material is heated and sterilised. We can halt the deliveries right now.”
Beatrice turned to give Grant the order, but he was already out the door.
“Inspector, if Sergeant Sullivan accompanies Grant and myself to the plant, could you ask your men to prevent any more lorries from arriving. Is that acceptable to you?”
His eyebrows floated upwards, but he gave a gentle smile. “It is, DI Stubbs. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me up there. I’ll leave the best man to the job. Sullivan, let the officers know DI Stubbs has my full support.”
“Sergeant Sullivan, could you walk with me? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Receiving a benevolent nod from Crean, the sergeant picked up his notebook and followed Beatrice outside. He indicated a path curving away to the right and they began walking towards the origin of the all-pervading stink.
“You seem to know a lot about this rendering business,” she began.
“A bit. My uncle has a slaughterhouse and used to bring his waste here. I did work experience with him, only for a few months, but learned about what happens to the bits we don’t eat.” The sergeant’s high colour could have been due to embarrassment, enthusiasm or genetics. Beatrice was unfussed.
“Can you talk me through it? I’m not squeamish.”
“Sure I can. Take a left here now and we’re onto the main track up to the plant. This is a Category Three facility. Animal by-products fall into three categories; the first two are the diseased or toxic carcasses, which you’ve got to keep out of the food chain, or process them properly, as I expect you know. Category Three includes the bits of the animal we don’t eat; hooves, snouts, tails, ears, guts, well, you get the picture. Slaughterhouses can only use about half a cow. The rest is sent here. This category also includes gone-off meat from shops, put-down pets from vets and animal shelters and downed animals from local farms.”
Beatrice decided she did feel squeamish after all. “So to summarise, this is one of the less dangerous facilities.”
“Right enough. Anything dangerous is separated and treated at another plant. They don’t have the equipment here to cope with infectious diseases. So lorries deliver the bits of meat, cat corpses, poultry feathers and so on, which they call the ‘raw’. It’s all tipped onto the plant floor and then it’s reduced before processing.”
“And that would be the first two stages? Delivery and reduction. I don’t think I really want to know this, but can you explain ‘reduction’?”
“Ah, it’s not all that complicated. Two massive rollers crush the whole lot to a pulp. After that, it’s treated with the sterilising chemicals, dried out and separated into fat or bone meal. Are you feeling all right there, ma’am?”
The smell, the images and her own fragile emotions stopped Beatrice in her tracks. Heat swelled her neck and the blood-rush in her ears made balance a struggle. Sullivan held her elbow, peering at her face.
Adrian.
She opened her eyes and concentrated on the job.
“Thank you, sergeant. We can move on now. Tell me, have you lived in this area long?”
Chapter 42
Good cop, bad cop. No one needed to discuss it.
Dawn assumed her practised you-can-tell-me-anything expression, softened with slow blinks and beatific smiles. Virginia’s tiredness and impatience made itself manifest in the atmosphere, like the unease before a thunderstorm. Her scornful lightning strikes lit up the room against Dawn’s calm, kindly patience.
Yet Marie Fisher, or Mairead Connor, as her passport showed, remained unmoved. A WPC stood in the corner of the room, observing proceedings. Her presence for the sake of protocol allowed Virginia to make frequent exits. The lawyer had not yet arrived, so Dawn and Mairead sat in silence. Dawn allowed her gaze to rest on the grey table and breathed herself gently into a semi-meditative state. Addressing each discomfort in turn, she acknowledged her own tensions, her fears for Beatrice and Adrian, her need for peace and emotional processing time, her hunger, and her impatience with this witness. She politely asked each urge to wait in the queue.
The door swung open and Virginia was back, pressing the record button on the monitoring device and smiling.
“DI Lowe has returned. So Mairead, you may as well start now. Your lawyer is still en route, but your family have already coughed up the story. It’s a shame, but the charges are stacking up now that the foreign girl’s gone to hospital. Negligence at best, but I’m pushing for attempted murder.”
Mairead’s deliberately unimpressed
look at Virginia slid away to the wall, reminding Dawn of her own teenage son.
Virginia’s eyes shone. “Not going to give us your side? Because they’re not sparing you, I’ll tell you that. The whole baby farm was your idea, you organised the network of recruiters and it was your decision to use your retarded sister as a guinea-pig.”
Mairead’s head snapped round. “Fuck you! She’s not retarded. Minor learning difficulties is all. And she’s never been a guinea-pig.”
Dawn flashed a look at Virginia and lowered her voice from the confrontational tone. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Teagan. She’s forty-five but still acts like a kid. She’s not developed the way the rest of us have. But we never took advantage of the fact she’s a bit innocent. God knows, others did. More than once. But we’re her family, so we always helped her out. Not like we had a choice.”
“You’re telling me she got pregnant accidentally?” Virginia demanded.
Mairead’s eyes flicked to Virginia and away in contempt. Dawn tried a softer tack.
“That must have been a shock for you all. And I’m guessing you didn’t find out till quite late on.”
Mairead gave a brief nod. “No. She didn’t realise herself till the Mammy spotted it. But Ceana, that’s my other sister, she’s a nurse. She was working in Birmingham back then. She knew of a couple, infertile and desperate for kids, so it seemed obvious. Teagan couldn’t even take care of herself, leave alone a baby. What we did was a kindness.”
Virginia raised her eyebrows. “How much did you charge them for this ‘kindness’?”
Mairead didn’t even look at her, but continued talking to Dawn. “It was a one-off. But our eldest sister ...”
“Can I interrupt, Mairead? I just need to get the facts clear in my mind. When did you give Teagan’s baby away?” Dawn asked.
“Ninety-four. My father died the same year, before we found out about Teagan, thanks be to God.”
“That must have been tough for your mother, running the farm alone.”
“She had Samir. And Eoin could be useful if he just copped himself on. He’s lazy, soft-hearted and no kind of asset on a farm. But Samir’s not afraid of hard work. He came over as a refugee from Albania with his daughter. One of the first out the country as soon as they opened the borders. He kept the place going all right. We owe him a lot.”
Virginia slid behind Mairead and made a speeding-up motion with her hand, indicating her watch. Dawn nodded once.
“I think your story is going to be very important to this case, so I want you to take your time. The problem is, we need to find Adrian Harvey, the man Eoin and Samir abducted from Pembrokeshire. As a matter of urgency. If you can help us locate Mr Harvey, it will do you a real favour when this comes to court. A jury is always better inclined to a cooperative witness. Can you help us, Mairead?”
Mairead threaded her fingers together and pressed her forehead to her hands, as if she was praying. Minutes ticked past. Virginia shifted from foot to foot, glowering at the silent woman. Dawn held up a hand, asking for patience.
Mairead looked up. “The guy had photographs. Pictures of me, the last deal we did, the boat ... he told them he was a private detective, so we thought he was working alone. We couldn’t have let him go, he’d have blown the whole thing open. So Samir decided to deal with it. Disappear him.”
Virginia sat beside Dawn, her voice hard. “By ‘disappear him’, you mean you planned to kill him.”
Mairead stared at Virginia with naked dislike. “I just said, Samir decided. He was going to do it and dump him with the rest of the carcasses at the plant.”
“How can you be sure a human body wouldn’t be spotted among the animals?” asked Dawn.
Mairead leant back with a sigh. “Because we’ve done it before.”
When Dawn got back from the bathroom, Virginia was still on the phone to the Cork Constabulary. She looked up and indicated the interview room, mouthing the word ‘lawyer’.
“Thanks for your help, Detective. Call you back within the hour. Bye now.” She replaced the receiver. “They haven’t found Adrian. And no sign of Samir Lasku either, which isn’t reassuring. But seems Eoin Connor has made a full confession and claims he tried to help Adrian get away. The girls and Teagan are spilling all over the place, but nothing from Brigid. Otherwise known as The Mammy. They’re searching the factory now. Rather them than me.” She lifted her shoulders and rolled her neck from side to side.
Dawn grimaced. “If he’s in the factory, he’s already dead.”
Virginia stopped her stretching and looked up. “You’re right. Oh God, poor Beatrice.”
“Come on, let’s go and hear Mairead’s side.”
Dawn’s headache tightened. “Let’s go back. I can see how you found prospective parents, through Ceana’s job at the hospital fertility clinic. But locating the girls ...”
Virginia looked like death warmed up and the lawyer was picking at his nails.
Mairead sighed with impatience. “As already I said, we have two routes. Niamh, she’s the oldest, has good contacts at IFPA, the Irish Family Planning Association. They tip her off about girls looking for an abortion. She does a bit of research and approaches them with a proposition. Her code name is Sandy. All of us begin with an S. Scarlett, Sienna, Saffron. Memorable names, see.”
“So one recruitment channel was through your older sister in Ireland. And the other?” asked Dawn.
“The other route was through Elira. I told you Samir and Elira came to us as Albanian refugees. Now Elira works with asylum-seekers in London and has an eye for girls in trouble. She offers them six months’ work and a solution to the problem. It’s like I keep saying. We’re doing people a favour. The mothers, the kids, the new parents; everyone’s happy.” Mairead’s saintly expression was nowhere near genuine.
Dawn’s instinct told her it was time to puncture that smug surface. “Was Teagan happy when you sold her twins?”
Mairead’s back hit the chair and she placed her palms on the edge of the table. “Do I have to repeat everything for you people? Teagan is under-developed. She can’t look after anything. We had to take the twins away and give them a proper family. Of course she didn’t like it, she gets easily attached. But for everyone’s sake, it was better that way.”
Her expression had changed. Defensive, as opposed to indignant. There was something else. “Who got her pregnant, Mairead?” asked Dawn.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, how the feck do I know? I live in Cardiff, I don’t follow my little sister around all day, making sure no one takes advantage. How do you expect ...?”
Virginia’s voice, low and deliberate, interrupted. “Who do you think it was? There’s a limited pool of sperm donors on the farm.”
“I don’t know! I have no idea! There are up to seventy lorries a day coming in and out of the plant, it could have been anyone. As if I’d know.” Her cheeks were a stark binary pattern of white and red.
Virginia turned to Dawn and the disbelief in her eyes was clear. Internally, Dawn agreed. Whoever it was, Mairead knew. The silence swelled with implications.
Mairead’s voice changed from shrill to persuasive. “Look, we wanted to help people. Unwanted kids, childless parents. All we did was find a supply to meet a demand.”
“The fact remains, despite your altruistic motives, you sold children. How much, Mairead? How much did Teagan’s first baby go for?” asked Virginia.
“I told you already, that was a one-off.”
“Apart from the twins you flogged later. How much?”
“Five grand. But that was in ninety-four. There was one other girl in ninety-six, which was more of a favour than anything. But in ninety-eight, the fallout from Mad Cow disease hit the factory and we had cash-flow problems. But we also had a way of raising money. So we put the price up.”
Dawn tilted her head and smiled, struggling to stay sympathetic. Virginia folded her arms and closed her eyes.
“Yes. I hear fifteen g
rand is the going rate nowadays. And that’s when the ‘business’ started in earnest?” asked Dawn.
Mairead shrugged. “Yeah. By 2000, we had a waiting list of parents. It was complicated, but we were very, very careful. The parents won’t say anything because they might lose the child. The girls have a job for six months, a solution to their problem and a cash payoff at the end. No one knows what they’ve done and so long as they keep it shut, no one will tell.”
Virginia opened her eyes. “How much did you pay ‘the girls’? How much of fifteen grand do they see?”
“We take all the risks, so we keep the majority. They get five hundred Euro and should be grateful. It’s enough for them to start off again.”
No one spoke. Dawn breathed deeply and gazed at the grey surface once more, willing herself to find calm. She couldn’t even attempt to communicate with Virginia, who scraped back her chair and left the room. Dawn informed the recording device of the change in personnel and returned her attention to Mairead.
“You mentioned earlier that human cadavers had been disposed of at the factory. Could you explain?”
Mairead glanced at the lawyer, who scribbled something on his pad for her to read.
“In the spirit of cooperation and full disclosure, I’ll tell you. We lost three babies, and one of the mothers died in childbirth. All those bodies went into the crusher.”
“And no one noticed? None of your employees saw a human cadaver? No one missed this girl?”
“She was a refugee. No one really knew where she came from, so there was no one to miss her. It was a shame, a sad situation, but the easiest thing all round was to clear up any trail. And as for the plant workers, no. Look, when carcasses are unloaded onto the rendering floor, they aim for the conveyor in the middle. Two machines push the raw from the edges onto the conveyor. If something strange was on the outer edges, it’s possible someone might see it. If you just make sure your waste is in the middle, the conveyor feeds it directly to the crusher.”