‘Have you told Jim?’ Debs asked me when Penny was asleep.
I nodded. ‘Burke’s known to them. We had him in over the Sean Cleary killing. He robbed the body.’
‘Do you know where he lives?’ she asked, not even trying to disguise the hope in her voice.
‘He stays in a hostel in Strabane. His folks threw him out. Jim’s going looking for him.’
‘Maybe you should have found him before you told the North.’
I glanced at her to see if she was being serious. The set of her jaw left no room for confusion.
‘He assaulted Claire. He’ll do time for that.’
‘He better,’ Debs said, running her hand through Penny’s hair.
‘Would you rather I beat him up myself?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time, Ben. This time you could do it for one of your own family instead of strangers.’
‘I wanted to go across. Penny said . . .’
The discussion was cut short by our being called in to the triage room. After a further twenty-minute wait a locum doctor came in. He scolded us for allowing Penny to sleep, though by the time he did so she had woken anyway.
He shone a small pen-light into both of her eyes, using his thumb to hold open the lower lid on the swollen eye.
‘Reactions look normal,’ he said. ‘What happened to her?’
‘A boy struck her.’
‘Maybe be more careful in the company she keeps.’
‘She was protecting her friend from a sexual assault,’ I said. ‘I’d maybe mind my tone.’
‘And you yours,’ the locum said, putting away the light. ‘She seems fine. Keep an eye on her; if she gets headaches or that, bring her back in.’
With that he turned and swept back the curtain of the unit in which we sat. The nurse who had been standing with us, smiled apologetically. ‘It gets a little fractious, sometimes, when we’re busy,’ she offered by way of explanation.
I attended Mass for All Saints’ Day later that morning. It was also the Requiem Mass for Sean Cleary, his remains having been released by the PSNI. Several times during the service, Father Brennan made reference to the macabre symmetry of Sean’s life, which began just after his father’s disappearance and ended just before the discovery of Declan’s remains. He had no doubt, he said, that they had finally met in God’s kingdom.
At the end of the service, before Sean Cleary’s coffin was carried from the church, Brennan also announced his intention to bless the cillin on Islandview the following day, on the Feast of All Souls. He extended an invitation to any parishioners who may have had to bury children there, or who knew of brothers or sisters who rested beneath the island soil, to attend the service. He prefaced this with a short word about the whole idea of the cillin and the Catholic tradition of limbo. The rules had loosened, he said, so that, in the words of the Church, ‘there was a very great hope’ that those children who had been lost would be reunited with God. His own belief, he confessed, was much firmer with regards to the communion of God with such infants, and the special place they held by His throne.
As I scanned the congregation, I wondered if the seven infants found on the west of the island, alongside Declan Cleary, would be included in his blessing, so that they too might recover their rightful place among the consecrated dead.
On leaving the church, I approached Mary Collins and her husband and again offered my condolences on the loss of her son. She held my hand in both of hers as she thanked me, though she seemed so dazed I doubted she even knew who I was.
When I reached my car I noticed I had a new voicemail message on the phone. McCready had called; he had traced only a single name for a child born with Goldenhar syndrome in Donegal during the 1970s.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘His name is Christopher Hillen,’ McCready explained as we drew up outside the address in Ballykeen an hour later. ‘He was born in April 1976.’
The modest council house was part of a row of five. The entire estate consisted of such blocks, built as part of the social-housing schemes that had sprung up around the country in the eighties.
As we walked up the pathway to the house, the lace curtains at the front window twitched. Before we even had a chance to knock, a middle-aged woman opened the door.
‘Mrs Hillen?’ McCready asked.
‘Yes,’ she looked from McCready to me and back, her expression drawn. ‘Is something wrong?’ She was fine-featured, her hair thick and brown. She wore no make-up, her skin fresh save for some mild acne-scarring on her cheeks. She was not much older than fifty.
‘No ma’am,’ McCready said. ‘I’m Sergeant McCready; this is Inspector Devlin. We wanted to talk to you about Christopher.’
‘What’s Christopher done?’ she asked, standing more erect, her tone suddenly defensive.
‘Nothing ma’am,’ I said. ‘We’re looking for some help, to be honest. Is your husband home?’
‘My husband?’
‘Christopher.’
She smiled warmly. ‘You’re a right charmer, too, aren’t you? Christopher’s my son.’
‘This is Christopher Hillen? Born April 1976? He’s your son?’
‘Get away with you,’ she smiled. ‘He’s my son. I was only a kid myself when I had him. You may come in.’ She stepped back, laughing to herself as we passed.
She was little more than 5'5", standing as she did barefooted. She wore a loose grey tracksuit, her hair pulled back and twisted around a biro pen, which held the bun in place.
The hallway was narrow and dark, the staircase to our left-hand side separated from us by a flimsy sheet-wood banister. The kitchen was cramped, the only space for sitting two bar-stools either side of a breakfast bar. The ceiling retained its original wood panelling.
‘I’m just having tea, do you want a cup?’
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Milk and one sugar, please.’
‘Just milk for me, thanks.’
‘No wonder you’re so sweet,’ she said to me, gesturing for us to sit while she made the tea in two mugs and handed them to us. ‘What can I do for you, then?’
‘We wanted to ask about your son’s illness.’
‘Oculo-auriculo-vertebral spectrum,’ she said, rolling the ‘r’s. ‘What about it?’
Joe looked at me uncertainly, then said, ‘We thought he had Goldenhar syndrome.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ she said. ‘Different name.’
‘Can you tell us something about it, Mrs Hillen?’ I asked.
‘Jane,’ she said. ‘There’s not much to tell. When Christopher was born he had bones missing on one side of his face. He had some hearing difficulty in one ear and his speech was a little slow. He got some help when he was a child, quite a bit more when he grew up. That’s it. He was very lucky.’
‘Lucky how?’
‘He has a relatively mild version of it. He had no other defects, heart or kidneys or that. Some babies who develop it don’t even live to birth.’
We heard a rattle at the door as a key turned in the lock and, a moment later, a man I assumed to be Christopher clomped down the hall. He was a little stooped, though that may have been due to the bags of shopping he was carrying.
‘Hello,’ he said. Even having seen the skeletons on Islandmore, I was a little taken aback by his face. On the left-hand side his cheekbone seemed to be entirely missing, with the consequence that his skin had puckered into a gap several inches above his mouth. His upper lip was pulled back, his lower eyelids drooping. He wore his hair long, but I could see that his right ear was smaller than the other, the tan plastic of a hearing aid visible above it.
‘Christopher, son,’ Jane said. ‘These men are here to talk about your condition. Do you want to tell them anything about it?’
‘It’s shit,’ he said. ‘I can’t get a girlfriend for a start.’
‘Which is why he’s still living with his mother at the age of 35,’ Jane added, laughing.
Despite his facial abnormality, Christop
her’s speech was fairly clear, if a little sibilant in places.
‘I expected . . .’
‘Worse?’ Jane asked.
‘To be honest, yes,’ I said. ‘No offence.’
The man shrugged as he began sorting through the bags.
‘I told you we were lucky. Our health insurance covered the essential surgery when he was younger, but what he needs now is cosmetic work and they’ll not cover that. We’ll have to pay for it ourselves but it costs a bomb. We’ll get there, even if it takes a while.’
‘What causes it?’ McCready asked. He had barely spoken since Christopher had arrived and I noticed the tea in front of him remained untouched.
‘No one knows. It’s purely random, doesn’t run in families or that. It just happens.’
‘You’re very accepting of it,’ I said. ‘It’s remarkable.’
‘What choice have I? He’s my son, what am I going to do? I’ve had thirty-five years with it, you know?’
I nodded.
‘So, what does this have to do with the guards?’ Jane asked.
‘We’ve found the remains of several children with Goldenhar syndrome,’ I said. ‘One of them, we think, may have been murdered. I had hoped to identify them. I thought maybe you might have known other families with children similar to Christopher, maybe from when he was younger?’
She shook her head. ‘Me and him have been on our own since the day he was born. No help, no support, just the two of us.’
‘What about support groups? Your family?’
Jane glanced at Christopher as he put groceries into one of the kitchen units.
‘Son, would you run to the shop for me again? I forgot to get sweetener?’
‘What?’ he said, exasperated. ‘You’re not dieting.’
‘I’ll need to start again,’ she said. ‘Be a love.’
Muttering to himself, he laid down the two cans he held and headed back out again.
‘Do youse want anything?’ he said to McCready and me as he passed.
‘No thanks, Christopher,’ I said.
‘I’m fine,’ McCready managed. ‘Thanks.’
When he had gone, Jane leaned back on the counter. ‘My family have had nothing to do with me since before he was born. I got pregnant when I was 15. My first boyfriend. He was a real rat, too, but what could you do? I was a shy wee’un – not that you’d think it now. Spotty, like. The first fella that showed any interest in me, well I couldn’t believe it. It was only afterwards that I realized he was only showing interest in me cause he thought I’d be desperate for it. Never spoke to me again.’
She stared at us openly, as if looking for some reaction, some judgment.
‘What you’d love to tell your fifteen-year-old self, if you could, eh?’
‘What happened?’
‘My old man flipped. What would the priest say? What would the neighbours think? The usual shit. They put me in care. After I had Christopher, when they heard what he looked like, they wanted nothing to do with him.’
‘I’m sorry to have brought all this up for you,’ I said.
‘He came to the home when Christopher was born and told me they’d let me come back. He said he’d buy me a bike if I left Christopher behind. Let them give him away. I’d always been at him to get me a Chopper.’
I laughed, remembering my own Chopper.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘A Chopper, for Christ’s sake!’
‘What home were you in?’
‘St Canice’s. They stuck me in there to get rid of me. Then the people in charge must have called him when Christopher was born. It was the only time he visited during the whole time there. Him and his fucking bike.’
‘What did you do?’ McCready asked, his voice dry. He shrugged. ‘Well, obviously, I know what you did, but . . . were you not tempted?’
‘Of course I was,’ she replied incredulously. ‘I was a wain myself, not stupid. But I went into the room where they kept the babies, in the home, and looked at him lying in his cot. No one wanted him, no one would ever have adopted him looking the way he did. He’d have been alone in the world. I thought it would have been a shitty thing to do, to leave him like that. I knew how it felt to not be wanted.’
The room had quietened around us and she faltered as she finished speaking, her tongue clicking dryly in her mouth.
‘So here we are.’
‘Any regrets?’ I asked.
‘Are you kidding? Loads,’ she said, laughing. ‘But, as I say, here we are. So is that any help?’
‘None,’ I admitted. ‘We have no leads on who the children are. I had half-hoped you might have known some families who had children similar to Christopher.’
‘There are no children similar to Christopher,’ she said. ‘Leastways, I’ve never met any.’
We had returned to our car and McCready was starting up the engine when she ran down from the door to speak to us.
‘Look,’ she said, after some hesitation. ‘I don’t want to get anyone into trouble, but I think I might know about one of the babies on the island.’
‘The way things are going, Miss Hillen,’ I said, ‘The only person likely to get into trouble over the dig on the island is me.’
She laughed uncertainly. ‘There was another girl who was with me in St Canice’s. Her name was Margot Kennedy. She had her baby about a month after Christopher was born. I met her in Strabane once, a few years after, and asked how the baby was doing. She said it had been born dead. It hadn’t been right. She’d looked at Christopher when she said it. “He looked even worse than him,” she’d said.’
‘I appreciate you telling us, Miss Hillen,’ I said. ‘I understand your reluctance.’
‘I don’t want her getting into trouble. The baby died in the home, you know. I guess at that time they might not have had a choice but to bury it on the island. Just, don’t tell her it was me who gave her name. Especially if . . . you know.’
‘The child we found was a girl, Miss Hillen,’ I said. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
I phoned through to the station while McCready drove and asked Burgess to run Margot Kennedy through the system for me. We were passing the turn-off for Raphoe when he called back.
‘I have the details on that woman. Her name’s Hughes now; she lives on the other side of Ballybofey.’
He ran through the details before adding. ‘Your informant was wrong, by the way. Margot Kennedy’s child didn’t die.’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘Max Kennedy was given a PPS number when he was a year old. She must have put him up for adoption, though, for his name now is Max McGrath. He still has the same social-security number, and a passport, driving license and everything.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Donegal town. 64 Shandon Park.’
I reported all this to McCready after I hung up. ‘We’ll visit Margot Hughes first. If we need to, it’s just a short run onto Donegal town.’
‘Putting the child up for adoption isn’t illegal,’ McCready said. ‘We’d have no reason for following up on her son.’
‘But why would she have told Jane Hillen the child had died?’
‘Maybe she was ashamed,’ McCready said. ‘Maybe she felt she couldn’t keep it with a disability and was shamed by the fact that Hillen had.’
It seemed a plausible reason.
Hughes’s house was set back from the road on the way out of Ballybofey. To the rear of the property a large garden stretched down towards a low fence, above which could be viewed the expanse of the Blue Stack Mountains.
Margot Hughes sat nervously in a wide armchair in her living room while I introduced myself. Her husband had been out working on a car in the garage when we had arrived, his boiler suit pulled down off his trunk and tied around his waist, despite the cold, his T-shirt smeared with engine oil.
He had demanded to know why we wanted to speak to his wife and had followed us into the living room when
she finally answered the door. He perched on the arm of the sofa, glaring from her to us.
‘So what’s going on?’
‘We need to speak with your wife about St Canice’s,’ I said.
‘Where?’ His accent was Northern, Newry perhaps. He was clearly not a local, which explained why he didn’t recognize the name.
‘It was a hospital,’ Margot Hughes replied timidly. ‘A children’s hospital when I was an infant. I was never in it, though,’ she added quickly, looking at me momentarily.
McCready sat forward in his seat. ‘We were told you had been—’
‘A friend of a patient there,’ I added quickly.
Mr Hughes stared at me with open suspicion.
‘I’m afraid we have some bad news about her. We wanted to ask you a few questions.’
McCready finally realized what was happening.
‘Is that a DS out there?’ he asked the husband. ‘What year?’
‘Sixty-five,’ Hughes replied. ‘Why?’
‘I used to drive a 2CV,’ McCready said. ‘I always wanted a DS.’
‘Don’t,’ the man replied, a little less gruffly. ‘They drink petrol.’
‘It would be worth it for the drive, though,’ McCready said, smiling. ‘Can I see it?’
Hughes glanced from his wife to me one last time, seemingly satisfied that the reason for our visit was as innocuous as we had claimed.
‘I’m rebuilding it,’ Hughes said. ‘I got the body in a scrap yard and I’ve been buying up the parts off eBay. It’s a bit of a labour of love.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ McCready said, standing as Hughes stood.
‘Thank you,’ Margot Hughes said quietly after her husband had shut the front door.
‘He doesn’t know about the baby?’
She shook her head, her eyes already filling. ‘I met him when I was in my late-twenties. I’d been in St Canice’s over a decade before that. There was never a reason to tell him.’
‘He doesn’t strike me as the type who would take such news well,’ I remarked.
‘He’s a good man,’ Margot Hughes replied quickly. ‘He just likes to know what’s going on. Who gave you my name?’
Brian McGilloway - The Nameless Dead (Inspector Devlin #5) Page 14