‘I can’t say, Mrs Hughes. I’m sorry to bring this all back up for you. We’ve been digging on Islandview and have uncovered the remains of infants. We believe they were buried there as part of a cillin.’
She nodded.
‘We were told that—’
Her tears began freely now. ‘My son is there, if that’s what you want to ask.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hughes,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
She shook away the offer of a handkerchief and instead wiped at her tears with the sleeve of her jumper.
‘They told me they would bury him for me. They said he couldn’t be buried in a church. They told me there was a cillin in Lifford. I never knew where it was exactly.’
‘Your son was one of a number we recovered with some physical injuries to the face.’
She nodded. ‘He was born disabled. He never breathed, not once. I remember waiting to hear him cry after they ripped him out of me; I was so young it almost broke my pelvis. They worked with him as best they could, but I could tell it wasn’t right from their reactions when they saw him. He never cried. They didn’t even let me hold him. I asked to see him and they held him out to me. His face looked like it had collapsed. His eyes were closed, his little mouth pursed. They let me kiss him once. Even through the blood I could see his hair was the most beautiful gold. “He’s still warm,” I said. I thought maybe he was still alive, but the doctor said it was because he’d been inside me. I knew, though, from his colour. He was grey.’
She did not shudder or sob as she spoke, though the tears coursed freely down her cheeks.
‘But he was dead, is that right?’
She nodded. ‘Why?’
‘Someone claimed a PPS number for your son when he was a year old,’ I said. ‘That wasn’t you?’
She shook her head, horrified. ‘Of course not. Is my son alive?’ she asked, her face alight with both hope and terror.
‘I don’t know, Mrs Hughes,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
As I watched the conflicting emotions play in her expression, I felt that, in implying that her son may still be alive, I had caused her much greater hurt than I had in reminding her of his death.
‘I want to know if my son is alive,’ she said.
‘Honestly, I—’
‘I understand you can’t tell me his name,’ she said, leaning towards me suddenly, her hands reaching for mine. ‘But if you know where he is, can you give him the choice to find out about me. Only . . .’
Her eyes shifted towards the door whence we could hear the voices of her husband and McCready approaching.
‘I’ll do my best,’ I said.
The door opened and Hughes came in. When he saw the tears on his wife’s face he immediately straightened.
‘What the hell’s this all about?’
‘We recovered the body of a friend of your wife’s,’ I said, standing myself now. ‘We wanted to inform her.’
He held my stare, his back erect. ‘Are you all right, love?’ he asked finally.
‘I’m sorry if I upset you, Mrs Hughes,’ I said. ‘If I do have any further news, I’ll be in touch.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘He’s a piece of work,’ McCready said as we left. ‘Though he knows his way around a car. Handy with his hands.’
‘He strikes me as the type who might be a bit too handy with his fists at times, too,’ I said. ‘As for her, either she’s an incredibly convincing liar, or she knows nothing about her child still being alive.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘Maybe the home lied about the child dying to make it easier for her, you know. Taking the baby from her and that.’
‘It seems a bit callous, telling her the child was dead.’
‘Let’s head for Donegal town.’
‘Why?’
‘If Max McGrath looks anything like Christopher Hillen, we’ll know for sure.’
‘Do we have to?’ McCready said.
‘St Canice’s is at the centre of all of this. Declan Cleary was buried with those seven youngsters. Whoever carried out the recent killings must be connected with it in some way. I think the attack on the Commission’s diggers was to stop them finding these children. We need to find out what happened to them.’
He didn’t speak as we drove through Barnes Gap on the way to Donegal, though I could tell he had something on his mind. His skin had paled and he chewed at a rag-nail while he drove.
‘It’s not going to happen,’ I said.
‘What?’ he glanced across at me, distracted from his own thoughts.
‘Your child won’t have Goldenhar syndrome.’
‘How do you know?’ he said petulantly, then quickly apologized.
‘It’s rare; you heard her yourself.’
‘Not that rare if we’ve found seven cases of it here.’
‘I understand your fear,’ I said. ‘Every parent has it. But it won’t happen.’
‘You can’t say that. No one can say it won’t happen. What are you meant to do if it does?’
‘You adapt. You deal with it. You’ll always love your child, no matter what.’
He nodded, but I knew my words could do little to pierce through the darkness of his thoughts. ‘Seeing another kid with it is the last thing I need,’ he said.
He lapsed into silence again, continuing to bite at the side of his thumb as he drove on to Donegal town. But one aspect of the conversation played on in my mind.
As we passed the petrol station on the outskirts of Donegal town I asked McCready to pull over so I could get a packet of cigarettes. While I was out of the car, I took the opportunity to phone the pathologist, Joe Long.
‘What can I do for you, Inspector?’
‘I was wondering about the children on Islandmore,’ I explained. ‘If you’d done the post-mortems yet?’
He paused a moment, considering his response. ‘I understand this is part of the Disappeared dig. I will have to report back to the Commission. I can’t share any information with you, Ben.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘Is there anything in particular you’d like to discuss?’ he added quickly. ‘Any aspect of the children, or their appearance?’
It took me a moment to realize that he was offering me an alternative way in.
‘They all appeared to have Goldenhar syndrome,’ I said.
‘That’s correct,’ Long replied. ‘And . . .’
‘Would that have killed them?’
‘The evidence to date suggests natural causes of death. That’s what I will be reporting to the Commission, certainly.’
He waited and I knew I wasn’t asking the right question. I returned again to my conversation with Joe McCready in the car.
‘Is Goldenhar syndrome rare?’ I asked.
‘Extremely, Inspector,’ he said. ‘One birth in maybe 125,000.’
‘Yet all the bodies date from the same period.’
‘Indeed they do.’
‘Is it normal to have that level of incidence in such a small geographical area?’ I asked.
‘Now, that,’ Long replied, ‘is exactly the type of question I’d be asking.’
‘So what causes it?’
‘No one knows for sure. But with seven infants displaying the same symptoms, I’d want to examine it further.’
‘In what way?’
‘I report only to the Commission on this,’ he replied. ‘So I’ve contacted them to ask permission to send away bone fragments for analysis. Lennie Millar is to get back to me to let me know what the legal position is. If I get the all-clear, I’d hope to have the results in a day or two.’
‘And might I get an indication of the results you’ll be reporting to the Commission.’
‘That might be doable,’ Long said, laughing. ‘Though of course you can’t use any of it,’ he added. ‘If this was uncovered during a dig for the Disappeared, it won’t be admissible in court anyway.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Max McGrath was not there when we called. Indeed, though it was his registered address, he had not lived there for five years, apparently, since taking up a teaching post in Dublin. This all was explained to us by his mother, a small, greying, wispy-haired woman, her upper spine bent so that she had to stoop and look up at us sideways.
‘Is something wrong? Is Max in trouble?’
‘No Mrs McGrath,’ I said. ‘We’re sorry for bothering you. We’re in the middle of an investigation and Max’s name came up.’
‘What are you investigating that involves Max?’ she asked, horrified.
‘Nothing important, ma’am,’ I said. ‘We’re trying to follow up on children who may have had a similar ailment to Max, who were born at the same time as him.’
The woman twisted her head sharply, regarding me full on. ‘What ailment?’
I was a little wrong-footed, unsure how best to refer to the disfigurement that Margot Hughes had described.
‘Oculo-triculer-vertebre spectrum,’ I said, knowing as I spoke that I was saying it wrong.
‘What are you talking about?’ Mrs McGrath said angrily. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Max.’
‘Does your son not have a facial disfigurement?’
‘You people need to do your homework,’ she snapped. ‘Max is perfectly healthy.’
‘Can we see a picture of him, Mrs McGrath?’ I asked.
She led us into the front room. A graduation picture hung on the wall. Mrs McGrath, looking considerably younger, and a heavy, grey-haired elderly man stood either side of a lithe young man wearing his graduation gown, a rolled scroll clasped in his hand. He smiled broadly, his face perfectly normal, his hair thick and black.
‘He’s obviously not Max Kennedy,’ McCready said, as Mrs McGrath made tea. ‘Burgess is an idiot.’
‘He’s pig-ignorant at times, but he’s not stupid,’ I said. ‘He said the child was given a PPS number when he was a year old.’
The old woman returned, carrying a tray on which two cups and saucers, alongside a plate of biscuits, sat atop a lace doily.
‘I can’t apologize enough, Mrs McGrath,’ I began.
She waved away the apology impatiently.
‘Why did you think Max was sick?’ she asked. ‘He’s never been ill, beyond the odd cold.’
‘We were told . . .’ I began. ‘I’m sorry for asking this, but we were told Max had been born in St Canice’s. Is that the case or have we completely the wrong person?’
She paused momentarily, then nodded. I stood and took the tray from her and she lowered herself onto the seat opposite me.
‘You adopted him?’
‘My Harry was quite a bit older than me, God rest him,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t have children of our own. We’d tried for years. When we found out what was wrong, it was too late. The adoption agencies all refused us; we were too old, they said.’
I nodded, pouring the tea and offering her a cup. She took it without comment.
‘Anyway, we were told that St Canice’s was always desperate for people to take the children born there. And we were desperate for a child. It was all above board. We filled in all the forms, everything was legal,’ she added, glancing across at McCready worriedly.
‘I’m sure it was, ma’am,’ he said. ‘You were very good providing a home for Max.’
‘We kept his Christian name,’ she said, mollified by McCready’s comment.
‘Would you have Max’s birth certificate, Mrs McGrath?’ I asked. ‘Just so we know he is the child we’ve been told about. If so, it’s clearly our mistake.’
‘It should be upstairs,’ she said, putting down the untouched cup of tea and rising. She walked so softly we could barely hear her steps on the stairs above us.
‘So, what do you think? Clerical error in St Canice’s?’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
Mrs McGrath reappeared a moment later, her hands shaking as she unfolded the document.
‘His name was Kennedy,’ she said, handing me the sheet.
I glanced through the details. He had been born in September 1976. His mother’s name was listed as Margot Kennedy. It was as I reached the bottom of the sheet that I saw a further name I recognized. The birth had been registered by Sheila Clark.
‘Sheila Clark?’ I said. ‘Did you have any dealings with her?’
The old woman nodded. ‘She was the woman who arranged everything for us. She was young herself. It must have been her first placement. She arranged all the affairs, though. It was her we paid.’
‘Paid?’ McCready asked.
She nodded, blinking several times, as if the light from the window beyond was irritating her. ‘We paid 5,000 punts to the home, as a donation.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Joe McCready dropped me off at the station and I sent him to follow up on Sheila Clark, to see if he could dig up anything further about her on the system. For my own part, I wanted to see Niall Martin again.
There were a number of cars sitting in the driveway outside Martin’s house when I arrived. To one side, an ambulance was parked with its engine running, the rear doors ajar. I glanced in as I approached the front door, but the vehicle was empty.
A harried young woman, who I assumed to be the housekeeper, answered the door when I knocked.
‘Is Mr Martin here?’ I asked, smiling.
She glanced beyond me to the marked Gardai car. ‘Which Mr Martin?’ she asked. Her accent was eastern European, which surprised me a little. The Martins must be paying well, for most of those who had come to the country in search of the Celtic Tiger had long since departed.
‘Either, I suppose,’ I said. ‘My name is Inspector Devlin.’
I was working on the assumption that she would not be totally aware of the vagaries of judicial jurisdiction. After a moment’s prevarication, she proved me right.
‘You’d better come in. Alan is unwell. The doctor is with him; you’ll have to wait.’
‘What happened to him?’
The girl bit her lower lip nervously. ‘We think it’s his heart,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll wait for his son.’
I stood at the sheet-glass wall at the rear of the room, looking down to where the river below split into two streams at the old linen mill which dominated the bank opposite.
I could hear raised voices from a room off to the left, but the tone was of concern rather than anger. Finally the voices became clearer. Two paramedics appeared down the hallway, wheeling a stretcher on which lay a man I recognized from the picture in the paper. He was, of course, older, frailer, his features sharper, accentuated by the fact that he was lying flat. His pyjama shirt was open, cables taped to his chest running to a monitor which a doctor wheeled alongside.
Niall Martin followed behind. He glanced across at me and, upon realising who I was, failed to conceal his irritation. I could understand why and felt awkward at being there.
He raised his hand, telling me to wait, then headed out to the driveway with his father and the medical team. A few minutes later he returned, his face flushed. As he spoke he tugged his coat from the row of hooks on the wall of the hallway.
‘This isn’t a good time,’ he said. ‘You were told that my father was sick?’
‘I’m sorry to hear about it, Mr Martin. I hope he’s okay.’
‘He’s patently not okay,’ Martin snapped. ‘What do you want? I’m going to the hospital.’
‘I wanted you to look at something for me, sir,’ I said, pulling out the newspaper page I had taken from the Donegal Reporter offices.
‘Can’t this wait?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ I said. ‘Would you take a quick look? It won’t take a moment.’
‘Are you being deliberately obtuse?’ Martin asked as he approached, pulling on his coat, glancing at the picture. ‘It’s my father, so what?’
‘Is t
hat you, too, sir?’ I asked, pointing to where he stood.
‘Yes,’ he said exasperatedly, glancing again. ‘Are you done now?’
‘The woman standing with your father is Sheila Clark,’ I said, following him to the front door.
‘And?’
‘That’s the woman you allowed to use your house in Islandview, Mr Martin. The woman you claimed not to know, when I asked you. Yet here you are pictured with her.’
‘Thirty-five years ago,’ Martin replied angrily. ‘How the fuck am I meant to remember everyone I worked with thirty-five years ago?’
‘I’m sure you remember the other three men here,’ I said. ‘They’re all dead now. Indeed, one of them died just a few days ago.’
‘Seamus O’Hara is dead?’
‘You hadn’t heard?’
He shook his head. ‘We’ve had other things on our minds over here with my father’s ill health.’
‘O’Hara was a smuggler. What was his involvement with St Canice’s?’
‘He was an orderly; worked part time. Like the rest of us, really. I didn’t really know him.’
‘You said you didn’t know Miss Clark, either,’ I said. ‘The same person who killed O’Hara also killed Declan Cleary’s son.’
‘And I’m responsible for that too, am I?’ he snapped. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’
He snatched his keys from the table in the living room and strode towards the front door. He stopped as the housekeeper appeared from the kitchen doorway.
‘If this man arrives here again, don’t let him in. He’s a guard. He has no authority here. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘You never got me that address,’ I said.
‘We don’t have it. I checked yesterday. Obviously I’ve been busy since. Don’t come back to my house again or I’ll call the actual police and have you hauled back across the border.’
With that, he walked out to his car, leaving the front door ajar. He reversed sharply across the driveway and drove out, following the ambulance which had just left, and spraying gravel against my car.
I looked apologetically at the young woman.
‘You should leave,’ she said.
Brian McGilloway - The Nameless Dead (Inspector Devlin #5) Page 15