The detective performed a U-turn and drove west out of town. He took one of the coffees and sipped it. ‘How did she know where we’re going?’ There was a hint of accusation in his tone. He took another sip and placed the cup in the console’s holder as they crossed a curved sandstone bridge over a creek.
‘How does anyone know anything around here?’ Taylor took the other coffee. ‘My guess is she heard it from Georgie at the Royal.’ He sipped, let the warm liquid comfort him for a moment. ‘She and Lawson are pretty tight too.’
Everett acknowledged this with a soft grunt, but appeared distracted. He patted his pants pocket, and leaned precariously to take something out of it. ‘Hey, I’ve got this for you.’
‘You shouldn’t have,’ Taylor said, recognising the clear evidence baggy. He reached for it, held it to the light, and identified the plant at once. ‘Alligator weed,’ he said. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Sampson’s body,’ Everett said. ‘What’s it tell you?’
Taylor considered the question for a moment. ‘Not an uncommon weed around here,’ he said and noted Everett’s expression of disappointment. ‘What is uncommon is where you found it. You’re more likely to find it along watercourses and marsh areas, not up on the ridge where you discovered Sampson.’
‘So, it’s possible that Sampson was killed along the river, or in some kind of wetlands, before he was dumped.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Taylor. ‘And if it is a wetland, it’s more likely to be a marsh rather than a swamp. Alligator weed likes plenty of sun.’
Everett smiled, clearly pleased with himself, and took back the evidence bag.
A kilometre out of town he turned off the tarmac road onto Pattersons Lane, where a faded street sign read St Nicholas Catholic Church. Below it, in smaller writing, Heaven’s Gate Children’s Home. The road wound up the side of the mountain, offering them occasional glimpses of the town and river through the pines. A severe right-hand switchback heralded the peak before the dirt road levelled out along the ridgeline. The plantation pines that blanketed the escarpment petered out, the flora becoming distinctively native: a forest of ghost gums on a bed of bracken and tree ferns. The wind still swept the tree crowns with a whispered rustling, but there was far more shelter at ground level.
The road ended at a set of iron gates hinged by two moss-covered concrete pillars. The high bluestone walls on either side disappeared into the bracken. Everett pulled up and they both stared through the windscreen at the ornate arch that spanned the columns. Heaven’s Gate – And Great Shall be the Peace of your Children was fashioned into the ornate wrought-iron work above. The gates were closed, but didn’t appear locked.
Taylor stepped out and pushed them open with a squeal of rusted hinges. He waited as Everett drove through, and got his first glimpse of the old children’s home at the end of the drive beyond the ghost gums. It was a colourless manor of opaque windows set within its two-storey facade. A tower stood at the centre of the building, its bronze domed roof – tarnished green – capped with a cross. Taylor noticed another building to its left, undiscernible from this distance through the ghost gum woodland.
He slipped back into the car. The driveway widened as they neared the manor, and steel-grey gravel crunched beneath the car. The half-obscured building on the left was a redbrick church, St Nicholas carved into a sandstone arch over the door.
‘Saint Nicholas,’ read Taylor. ‘Isn’t he the patron saint of children?’
Everett nodded. ‘I’m lapsed, but can recall my Catholic scripture classes. Saint Nick resurrected three children who’d been murdered by some butcher during a famine. Found them pickled in a barrel … or something like that.’
The two looked at each other, the irony not lost on either of them.
‘He’s got his work cut out for him on the Reach then,’ said Taylor.
The church was surrounded by a graveyard of weathered stones and leaning white crosses. Taylor stared at the entrance doors beneath the ramparted steeple. It had been a long time since they had been opened; the pathway was overgrown, fingers of ivy exploring every crack between bricks, every gap between stained-glass windows.
‘Do you suppose those graves are just from the children’s home?’ Taylor asked.
‘Maybe,’ said Everett. ‘It’s been up here since the late eighteen hundreds.’
Taylor felt a shiver in the presence of so many dead children. He looked ahead at the main building. A Volkswagen Beetle was parked at the foot of the wide stairway. It was old, the colour a faded yellow, the seams in the wheel arches rusted; mid-sixties, perhaps. ‘I think our nun is in,’ he said.
There was a substantial turning circle outside with a centre statue of a robed, bearded man – presumably Saint Nicholas – who cradled a small child. The roses that grew beneath it were withered, losing their battle with the tangle of weeds that reached up to the statue’s feet. The surrounding buildings consisted of the church, manor house and various rows of timber sheds to the right. The sheds’ grey shingled roofs leaned to the west, near collapse. Everett parked the Commodore behind the VW and cut the engine. Taylor’s eyes followed the steps towards the arched entrance below the tower; he noticed a lean ginger cat sitting there, staring back.
‘Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a Scooby-Doo cartoon?’ Everett asked.
Taylor felt a smile break his lips. The scene couldn’t have been described better. If nothing else, they both still had their sense of humour.
They stepped out of the car together, Taylor a pace behind Everett as they climbed the stairway. The ranger looked over his shoulder when he heard the church bell ring, a delicate series of chimes – caused by the wind through the open steeple window, perhaps. It rang again, and a flock of pigeons flew from the opening. Taylor felt something brush his legs. The ginger cat. It meowed and raised its head, a white heart-shaped patch prominent under its chin.
There was a large lion’s head brass knocker in the centre of the door, tarnished green like the tower’s dome and the window flashings. Everett lifted the lion’s head and knocked three times. The sound echoed inside, like the manor’s heart beating. They waited. The cat was now circling at the door in anticipation as the sound of footsteps slowly approached from the other side. There was a rattle of latches, then the door swung open and the cat dashed inside.
‘Can I help you?’
Taylor was expecting an earnest nun clad in black robes and habit, white wimple from chin to chest, and a prominent crucifix on the string of rosary beads draped over her tunic’s sash, but no … This short, plump woman could have been his grandmother.
‘Sister Adeline Moore?’ Everett asked.
Her hand drifted to the small gold cross that hung from a fine chain around her tartan sweater. She pressed it to her bosom. It was as if the crucifix was the only thing left that reminded her of her calling.
‘Yes,’ she said. Her round face, with its tenuous bristles of grey hair on her chin, forced a smile and she glanced across at Taylor’s uniform, a curious frown above her deep-set eyes. ‘What can I do for you?’ Her focus was drawn back to Everett as he reached for his wallet, flipped it open, and displayed his ID badge.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Ryan Everett,’ he said and gave her a moment to read the ID.
She squinted to read it, then visibly relaxed.
He lowered the badge, slipped the wallet back in his pocket and gestured to Taylor. ‘This is my colleague, Mr Bridges. We’d like to talk to you about the 1994 abductions.’
The nun’s face paled. She avoided his stare and ran her fingers through her short grey hair, her hand trembling slightly. When she raised her face again, her eyes looked on the brink of tears. ‘I was led to believe that the case was closed.’
Taylor noticed she had a slight overbite, a minor lisp. Sister Moore’s expression then firmed, her lips suddenly pursed. She took a crumpled white handkerchief from a pocket in the front of her sweater and patted her eyes.
‘May we come
in?’ Everett asked.
Taylor felt she was considering the question. ‘I’d be surprised if you weren’t aware of the recent events down at Devlins Reach these past few days, Sister.’ It was blunt, Taylor knew, but seemed to snap her out of her contemplation.
She met Taylor’s stare, and her expression softened. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Please come inside.’ She opened the door wider and stepped aside.
12
‘I suppose I’ve been expecting you.’ Sister Moore gathered the sweater’s collar higher around her neck. ‘Come into the library,’ she said. ‘It’s warmer there.’
Taylor felt a moment’s hesitation. There was something about the building’s threshold that came with a warning. He could sense the history in its stone and woodwork, a collective memory of wretchedness that had long since seeped into its bluestone skin. To cross that threshold was to become a part of that history, perhaps even a part of its wretchedness.
‘You coming?’ Everett asked from inside.
Taylor stepped across the doorsill, and a strange weight seemed to be cast down across his shoulders like a wet winter coat. This place, he decided, has never known joy.
The timber-panelled walls – burgundy stained – seemed to absorb the light and sound from outside. Not even the moan of the wind or the chime of the church bell could penetrate them. The only light, dim and dusty, filtered down from the split stairway that framed an ornately carved hallway opening. They followed the nun through it. She switched on the lights and they walked along the patterned carpet runner. Portraits lined each wall with grim-looking priests staring down at Taylor. He thought of the children who once had to walk beneath their accusing stares.
‘Who are these gentlemen?’ he asked.
‘Past directors,’ Sister Moore said over her shoulder. ‘They’re my only company nowadays.’ She opened a door on her right. ‘And my cats, of course.’ She gestured for Taylor and Everett to enter.
Warmth from the fireplace filled the room, lambent light casting molten shadows across the bookcases that stood sentinel against the walls. The air had an odour of stale cigarette smoke that stuck in the back of Taylor’s throat. There was a deep wicker basket by the door, lid askew; and a rudimentary timber table with equally basic chairs in the centre of the room, more suited to a kitchen than a library. A plush high-backed leather chair and side table rested by the fireplace, beneath the light of a reading lamp. It was a mishmash of furnishings that didn’t belong in each other’s company. And there were the cats … Two curled up in front of the fire; a black tabby on its haunches on the opposite bookshelf; and yet another – a grey one – lying beneath the leather chair.
‘Please sit,’ said Sister Moore. She took a log from the hearth and dropped it into the fire. ‘I’ll take the softer chair, if you don’t mind. Better for my arthritis.’ She eased herself into the high-backed chair with a groan, then reached across to a small photo frame on the side table and stroked its gilded edge with affection.
The black-and-white picture was of a younger Sister Moore, wearing a plain dress and standing beside a smiling younger man. She had been a pretty woman. Taylor guessed the man with the same round face and deep-set eyes was her brother. He pulled a chair out from the table and tried to relax.
Everett chose to lean against the table’s edge, arms crossed.
Sister Moore reached for a packet of Longbeach cigarettes and a plastic lighter from the side table. She lit the cigarette quickly, replaced the packet on the table and called to one of her cats: ‘Here, Ginger!’ The cat that followed them into the building sauntered into the room and leaped onto Sister Moore’s lap. She drew back on her cigarette and exhaled slowly, mindful to blow the smoke away from her guests. The action seemed to calm her.
The nun pointed to each cat in introduction. ‘The old grey is The Professor; then there’s Mary Ann, Mr and Mrs Howell, The Skipper; and Ginger here, of course.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘She’s my favourite.’
Taylor glanced across at Everett to see if he’d picked up on the Gilligan’s Island theme. His small smile suggested he had. ‘No Gilligan?’ Taylor asked.
Sister Moore searched the room, and pointed to a scrawny, short-haired cat curled up on one of the bookshelves, its eyes dreamy, and its tongue protruding slightly from between its lips. ‘That’s Gilligan up there … he’s a little slow.’
‘About those two girls who disappeared, Sister,’ said Everett, drawing her back on point. ‘We know about the abductions, but very little in the way of detail.’
Taylor noted the trepidation in Sister Moore’s expression as she bit her bottom lip in consideration. ‘We know the information is archived, Sister,’ Taylor added. ‘But time isn’t exactly on our side here. We thought it might be more direct to get it from you.’
She held her cigarette close to the fire and stroked the ginger cat with her free hand. ‘This institution cared for hundreds of children in its lifetime, found them good homes, and fulfilled the dreams of so many childless couples.’ She paused, and gazed around at the very walls that had borne witness. ‘But we shall forever be remembered as the children’s home that delivered those two girls into the hands of evil men.’ She shuddered, tightened the sweater around her neck, and drew on her cigarette. ‘What does it have to do with these murders?’
‘We believe they may be linked,’ said Everett.
‘Perhaps even revenge killings,’ offered Taylor.
‘It was a long time ago, Detective.’ Sister Moore’s expression grew distant as she stared into the fire, her eyes again moist. ‘Most weeks, weather permitting, we used to arrange an outing down by the weir for the children. A picnic.’ There was now a hint of a smile on her lips. ‘In the summer months, they swam in the shallows.’ She shrugged. ‘Then, one day, twenty-eight kids stepped off that bus, but only twenty-six got back on. No one saw what happened. The two children had just … gone.’
Taylor leaned forwards, his arms on the table. ‘Who were they, Sister?’
‘Alison and Paris,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘They were just ten years old.’
‘Paris?’ Everett frowned. ‘Unusual name.’
‘Yes. She was literally left on our doorstep in eighty-four, with a simple handwritten note: May God look over my Paris. It wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened, but such events usually led back to some kind of record of a single mother somewhere. Many would check themselves out of hospital early and abandon their babies to the church, or a home like ours.’ She sighed. ‘Such is the world we live in.’
Taylor thought about Erin as a newborn; the bond with her that had formed in his first glance. How could anyone abandon a child? He bit his lip, returned his attention to what was being said in the dimly lit room. ‘How was this different?’ he asked.
‘In Paris’s case, there was no such trail, no history. She came from nowhere and simply became a ward of the state.’
‘You remember her well then?’ said Everett.
‘I remember them all, Detective. But Paris and Alison more than most.’ She dragged on the last of her cigarette and then threw the butt into the fire. ‘Hop up, Ginger,’ she said with another groan and lifted the cat from her lap as she stood. ‘It was an extraordinary event,’ she continued. ‘I kept a scrapbook about the abduction, when it happened, and afterwards.’ The nun then shuffled over to one of the bookshelves. She ran her finger along the volumes and folders on it, stopping halfway to pull out what she was looking for. ‘This may help,’ she said and passed the scrapbook to Everett.
Taylor stood and looked over Everett’s shoulder as he flicked through the pages of photographs, news clippings and letters.
‘May we borrow this for the investigation?’ Everett asked.
She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Of course.’
‘It must have been difficult for you,’ said Taylor. ‘And for the convent and the children’s home.’
‘Guilt is a terrible thing, Mr Bridges.’ She sat and eyed he
r surroundings. ‘Sometimes I think this is my penance … left alone in the place where we’d all been living.’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ offered Taylor. He knew how the weight of guilt could crush a person.
‘Hope of ever finding them alive all but went when a trucker discovered one of the girls. The poor little soul was walking the logging road out of the forest. That was two years after they disappeared, in ninety-six.’ She shook her head. ‘God only knows what that child had endured over that time.’
‘Which girl was it, Sister?’ asked Everett.
Taylor eased himself back into his chair and watched the firelight waver across Sister Moore’s features.
‘We didn’t know at first,’ she said. ‘She couldn’t – or wouldn’t – speak when they found her. She had suffered some minor burns to her hands, her hair was trimmed down to nothing, teeth were missing and … oh Lord, she was so thin. They took her to the Hawkesbury Hospital in Windsor, under police protection. I was asked to identify her, but it was difficult. A child’s features can change a lot in two years, but the problem was, the two girls had a striking resemblance to each other anyway. If it wasn’t for the slight gap in Paris’s front teeth, I would have had trouble telling them apart. And those were the teeth that were missing.’ Sister Moore paused for a moment, staring into the firelight. ‘In the end, she identified herself. Wrote her name on her bedside medical chart: Alison.’
Alison, thought Taylor, begins with an A. He looked up at Everett, their eyes meeting, and knew he had made the same connection.
‘So, what happened to Paris?’ Everett asked.
Sister Moore picked up her cigarettes, glanced at the pack and put them back, her focus returning to the fire. ‘Once little Ali recovered enough to speak, it was evident that she had limited recollection of what had happened – a blessing, perhaps. Everything leading up to the abduction and her ordeal in … that place … was gone from her. In time, bits and pieces about their final days there slowly came back to her. She told us that Paris had died in the cabin fire.’
The Reach Page 13