by Jo Spain
I no longer quake when I see their faces, shiver when I hear their voices.
That first blow, to the back of Attracta’s head, simultaneously smashed through all my anxieties and doubts and released in me the determination I need to get this done. It set free what has bubbled inside me for so many years.
On the outside, I look and sound the same.
If only they knew.
The detective is looking over at me, can probably see my outline through the net curtain. But he knows nothing; he sees nothing.
I had to wait for the others to leave, off on their wild goose chase to see if the alibi stacks up.
It won’t, but that hardly matters now.
I must get out of here. Before they come back and find out what I’ve done.
Before they discover that I’ve killed.
Again.
Chapter 34
Michael was vexed. After an hour of crunching around the snowy village, Father Seamus’s alibi had so many holes a bus could be driven through it.
They had banged on Larry O’Farrell’s door for five minutes before his neighbour let them in with the spare key. The house was empty. O’Farrell didn’t have a mobile phone, but a call to the hospital revealed that he had been at his sister’s bedside almost constantly since Thursday morning. When a nurse put him on the line, he informed them that he was staying in his sister’s house and hadn’t had a visit from Father Seamus before he left.
Mrs Guckian confirmed that Father Seamus had indeed called in on her, but it had not been in the early afternoon, as he had claimed. She was sure she had seen him late that evening.
Two other elderly residents in the village asserted that they had seen the priest on Thursday. They were so old and forgetful, though, that it struck Michael they could have seen the priest at any time on any day and been prompted into believing they’d seen him on Thursday. One of them had mistaken Michael for his own brother and was quite clearly suffering from dementia.
To save them a cross-country drive, Ciaran phoned Father Terence. After his initial shock at finding out that Mother Attracta had been murdered, the priest told them he hadn’t seen Father Seamus on Thursday.
Not only had he not seen him, but he hadn’t been expecting him either.
None of the bar staff in any of the public houses remembered seeing Father Seamus, though he had written on his list that he had called into ‘the pub’.
‘It’s not looking good, is it?’ Ciaran said.
‘We need to question him again,’ Michael replied. ‘He sent us chasing our tails. I think he might be planning a runner.’
‘I don’t think he’ll be running, lad. But let’s go back, all the same.’
Ciaran’s words were calm, but Michael detected a hint of anxiety.
He was glad he’d asked Ray to keep an eye.
*
Ray stood beside one of Ciaran’s squad cars, stamping his feet on the kerb to keep warm. Pure boredom had driven him to get out of the vehicle and walk around. He’d sent the uniformed guard off to get coffee. Ray wasn’t pulling rank. The man was glad to go for the walk, and he knew where to buy a hot drink.
The temperature had fallen again. Ray fervently wished he had a hat, or anything more substantial than a buzz cut. His ears were freezing. The world was still, the snow dulling what sound there was in the sleepy village. Even the wind had dropped. Ray couldn’t shake a disquieting feeling that this was the calm before the storm.
He stared over at the priest’s house. It had been a half-hour since he’d seen movement behind the curtains in one of the downstairs rooms. A ten-foot-high wall enclosed the priest’s and his next-door neighbour’s back gardens. The only exits were gates to the side of either house, both clearly visible from Ray’s vantage point. He wasn’t worried that the elderly priest would scale the back wall.
Ray kept checking the reception on his phone; he was still waiting for the toll company to get back to him. The phone had lost signal a couple of times already. He’d texted Dublin to see if there had been any developments at that end. Ian replied with a sad smiley face, which Ray found strangely unprofessional but highly amusing.
An oncoming white jeep drew his attention. He hadn’t seen any cars go by since they’d arrived, and he squinted now to see who was driving. As the vehicle approached, the driver’s dark hair and red lips gave it away. He felt his stomach do a little dance.
Ellie pulled up slowly behind the squad car.
‘Well, fancy bumping into you here,’ she smiled, as she got out. ‘Where’s your boss?’
‘He’s in the parish hall, enjoying a nice lunch, I reckon,’ Ray smiled back.
‘And poor you stuck out here in the cold. What are you doing, anyway?’
‘I’m on priest watch.’ Ray nodded over to the house. ‘He’s rapidly rising up our suspect list. Actually, he’s probably our only solid lead at this point. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t make a run for it.’
‘I have complete faith in you being able to catch and take the old man down.’
‘What brings you here?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry, Jack’s still hard at it. He sent me out to get his lunch. He claimed I needed a break, but I sense he wanted to get rid of me. I’m under strict orders to bring him back a McDonald’s. I don’t know who he thinks he is – I’m the boss.’
She cast her eyes around the green. ‘I don’t think he’ll be getting that Big Mac. You’d think, being from near here, he’d know what’s available.’
‘The pubs seem to do food.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Not yet. I’m stuck here until Michael gets back.’
The disappointed look on her face would have been enough to make his day, but the sight of Michael and Ciaran rounding the corner had him nearly leaping for joy.
Michael speeded up as they approached, outpacing the older officer, who was getting more red-faced with each passing yard.
‘Did he try to leave?’ he asked Ray.
‘No one in or out. Are you going in?’
‘Not yet. I just called Tom; he told me to hang on for himself and Willie. He’s talking to the villagers and doesn’t want us moving too fast, but this is our man. I know it. He gave us an alibi that wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Better to have all our ducks in a row, though. Still no word from the toll company?’
Ray shook his head. ‘If you’re hanging on here, do you mind if I nip into one of the pubs for a bite?’
Michael raised a knowing eyebrow.
Ray flashed a toothy grin. ‘Shall we?’ he said, turning to Ellie.
The local guard had just returned with Ray’s cup of coffee.
Ciaran took it off him. ‘Waste not, want not.’
Michael was warm from the brisk walk back through the village and refused Ciaran’s offer of the guard’s other cup. The poor chap looked relieved, and started sipping immediately.
Still feeling the hint of love in the air, Michael pulled out his phone to text Anne.
Miss you down here. Hope you’re okay. Case moving fast, please God home soon. Love you.
It took a few minutes but the return text was worth the wait.
Love you too. Miss you so much. Want to talk to you but nothing to worry about.
All they had needed was a little break, he thought. By Christmas they’d be back to themselves.
*
Ray ordered lunch at the bar and returned to Ellie, who had settled into a seat beside a blazing turf fire.
He joined her, breathing in her perfume.
‘Coco Mademoiselle,’ he observed.
Ellie looked at him, surprised. ‘Are you re-enacting scenes from Scent of a Woman? That was impressive.’
Ray stared at the table, mortified. ‘No, it’s my sister’s perfume. She orders it every Christmas. She reached a point where she got fed up with my lame efforts at gifts and started giving me orders.’
‘So, I remind you of your sister. Interesting.’
&nb
sp; He could see the playful smile on the edge of her lips. Lips he’d like to kiss. And now he’d introduced his sister into the conversation.
Ellie laughed. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not my favourite. I’ll wear something else next time we meet. Bombshell, perhaps. Unless your mother wears that one?’
Ray laughed. He wasn’t imagining her flirtatious tone.
‘It’s nice to take a break from it all, isn’t it?’ Ellie said, serious now. ‘It gets very intense.’
Ray nodded. ‘The best advice Tom ever gave me was to switch off. Some of your best ideas come when you’ve taken a breather.’
‘He knows what he’s talking about, your boss.’
‘You seem fairly comfortable in your job,’ Ray said. ‘You don’t seem fazed by all the death you see. I worry I’ll never get used to it. I’m eight years in the murder squad and my stomach still turns if it’s particularly vicious.’
She shrugged. ‘To be fair, I think your reaction is normal. It’s horrible when you see people become blasé about death. I’ve always had the advantage of a more scientific brain. I can walk into a crime scene and just see the evidence, switch off from the gore . . .’
She paused. ‘Sometimes it’s hard. You get an old man found dead at home, and they need to check it’s nothing suspicious. Doesn’t bother me; he’s old. You get the young lads who’ve been shot by some rival gang member, and it’s not pleasant; but you know they chose a certain life.
‘Sometimes, though, you get a child. That’s unbearable. I can’t stand seeing them hurt. Death in children – it’s unnatural.’ Ellie shuddered. ‘But even when it’s tough, you know that by doing your job you’re trying to get justice for that person. Am I making sense?’
‘Perfect sense.’ Ray sipped thoughtfully, then asked, ‘What do your family think of your career choice?’
‘They’re proud. I’m an only child, so they would have been supportive whatever I did. You?’
‘My mother’s family is proper working class, so it took them a while to accept me joining up. They wouldn’t be into anything dodgy, they’re just suspicious of authority in general. Nowadays, they see it as a plus. Keep asking me to help with things. Especially passports.’
They both laughed.
Their food arrived, and there was silence for a few minutes as they tucked in. Ray had ordered the roast lamb, Ellie the salmon darne.
‘How’s your fish?’ he asked.
‘They killed it twice. Your lamb?’
‘It’s mutton dressed as . . .’
She forced down another few forkfuls then pushed the plate away, checking her watch as she did.
‘You in a hurry to get back?’ Ray asked.
‘Yes and no. I’m wondering if Jack found something while I was out; I’ve never seen a site so clean. And I really want to impress your boss.’
‘You can only do what you can do. If we can find the murder site, then we’re sure to pick up DNA. Surely the killer won’t have done as good a job of cleaning up as that team of nuns did?’
‘I think you’re right,’ she snorted. ‘Have you any clue where she could have been killed? It’s a long way from here to Dublin.’
He shook his head. ‘I wish I knew. It looks like we could identify her murderer before finding the site, though. That’s why the lads are watching the priest’s house.’
‘You’re not serious. You think the priest killed the nun? Jesus, the papers would have a field day. Why would he kill her?’
‘Tom thinks he has something to hide, and maybe the nun was blackmailing him.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I guess everyone always thinks the impossible can’t happen – until it does.’
She sipped her orange juice while he finished eating.
‘I enjoy your company,’ she said, nodding as if to give him a stamp of approval.
Ray was taken aback by her directness. But before he could say anything, his phone rang.
‘That’ll be Tom,’ he said, pulling it from his pocket.
But it wasn’t.
He listened patiently to the man from the toll company.
‘That’s perfect,’ he replied. ‘Can you text those times through to me? Thanks.’
He hung up and looked at Ellie, apologetically. ‘I need to find Tom.’
She stood, pulling on her coat. ‘Good news?’
‘The best. We have him. And you can take some of the credit.’
Chapter 35
‘You know how your aunt died?’ Barney asked.
‘She hanged herself,’ Laura said.
‘She did. The doctor rang the station and the guard on the desk knew I’d been taking an interest, so he gave it to me. I remember driving in through those gates.’ He half closed his eyes, recalling images long burned into his memory. ‘They hadn’t cut her down. She had attached the rope to a bedstead in her dormitory. It shouldn’t have worked. The rope was too long. She should have crashed on to the roof of that corridor running along the front of the house. She might have died from the impact but not from hanging.
‘But it was the window she’d chosen. A month before, there’d been a huge storm and a tree had fallen on to the corridor just at the spot under her dormitory, collapsing part of it. The local roofer hadn’t got around to reslating but had covered the hole with a piece of tarpaulin. It was only held in place by a few bricks. The weight of Peggy’s body meant she plummeted through the covering and swung into a downstairs window, feet first.
‘When we arrived, she was dead. Her neck had been broken but I remember her feet . . . her poor feet . . .’ The corners of Barney’s eyes filled with tears.
Laura felt her chest constrict as the horror of how her aunt had suffered hit home.
The old man coughed and withdrew a large handkerchief from his pocket, blowing his nose noisily into it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘As if I have the right to be sitting here blubbing like this, when she was your kin.’
Laura was lost for words.
‘There’s more,’ Barney said, his voice almost a whisper.
Only the sound of a clock ticking in the corner of Barney’s room could be heard – that and Laura’s heart – until the old man started speaking again.
‘You know who was standing in the downstairs room when Peggy’s feet came crashing through the window? Mother Attracta. She was showered in glass. They thought the old witch was going to lose an eye. And she deserved it. What’s it the Bible says? An eye for an eye.’
Despite the room’s heat Laura felt chilled to her bones. She recalled the conversation with Sister Concepta in the records room earlier, about how Mother Attracta had inexplicably ordered the windows bricked up.
The thought that their victim had known her aunt – had somehow been connected to her aunt’s death – was both terrifying and exhilarating.
‘Why do you say that? An eye for an eye? What had Mother Attracta done?’ she asked.
Barney hesitated, but the young woman’s pleading expression was too much.
‘Attracta tormented that girl. I told you, she was an evil woman. Many of the Magdalenes were just young girls, but there were a lot of older teenagers and women in their early twenties who would have gone there straight from the mother and baby homes. Their families didn’t want them back after they’d had their children.
‘Attracta would torture the ones who’d had to give up babies – tell them how great the tots were doing with their new mammies, how in God’s eyes the adoptive mothers were the real parents because they hadn’t sinned. It used to drive the girls mad; you can’t imagine how traumatized they were after losing their little ones.
‘But Peggy seemed to particularly irritate her. Peggy went into herself. No matter what Attracta said to her, she had the blinds down, so to speak. So that twisted nun tried harder with her. She’d beat her for the slightest thing. Whisper in her ear all the time about how her family didn’t want her, how she should be grateful that the lads who’d raped her – oh yes, I found out
why Peggy had been sent to the place – had paid her any attention because she was an ugly thing. I never spoke to Peggy; the other girls would tell me this.’
Barney took a deep breath. ‘I tried to do little things for her, and for the other girls. I smuggled little packages of sweets in, and the older women would make sure she got them. I talked to the local doctor to see if she could be released back to her family. But by that stage, the nuns had medical advice saying Peggy needed to be institutionalized. Bad and all as it was in the convent, she was probably fortunate they never managed to get her committed to an insane asylum, given the times. Then I discovered her family had stopped visiting anyhow, so they mustn’t have wanted her back.’
‘My grandmother died a couple of years after Peggy went in,’ Laura said, defensively. ‘She died from a broken heart. She never wanted her in there. My mother was very young when Peggy entered the laundry. She went looking for her later, but Peggy was already dead.’
Barney’s mouth formed an ‘O’ of regret.
‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘I thought her family had abandoned her.’
They sat silently for a moment, absorbing the tragedy, before Barney continued.
‘Whatever I thought about her family, it was Mother Attracta I blamed for what happened to Peggy. The girl might have placed that noose around her own neck, but by God, that woman drove her to her death. I hope she rots.’
Barney spat out the last few words with a contempt that echoed how Laura felt.
‘Why didn’t you arrest Mother Attracta for assaulting the girl?’ Darren asked, shocked by what he’d just heard.
Barney sighed. ‘Lad, you didn’t arrest a nun. You wouldn’t understand – the Catholic Church ran this state back then. Even the government was afraid of them. But I did everything to investigate that girl’s death. I wanted those bitches put under pressure, even though it was a suicide. I wanted them to know that I was watching them. I felt responsible.’
Laura was gripping the sides of the armchair so hard her knuckles had turned white.