The Rosary Garden

by Nicola White

  That was so typical of her. Make him help when she needed him, then try and wave him off, like he was still a boy. Next she’d be saying it was women’s things, women’s business. Well, he wasn’t going anywhere. He stepped in and put his hands under Joan’s arms, gave her a hoosh up so that she could sit on the wall. Now she was at an even height to Una, eye to eye. This would be interesting, he thought.

  ‘Your child’s at peace, Joan. You need to understand that,’ said Una.

  ‘You told me he went to limbo. Someone at the hospital told me there was no limbo any more,’ said Joan. ‘I hate to think he might be floating alone in the dark, the cold.’ Davy made a small, involuntary sound. Una shot him a fierce look, put her hand to Joan’s arm.

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’

  ‘You said there would be other babies, but none came.’

  ‘You’ve been unlucky.’

  ‘If his remains were in the right place, he’d rest. Maybe another child could come to me then.’

  ‘That’s a bit morbid now,’ said Davy, trying to lighten things, but Una gestured him to shut up, no appreciation for his efforts. Well, all right then, she could handle it herself. He turned from them, ran his eye over the backs of the houses. Dark windows, everyone asleep or at the dance.

  ‘He is at rest,’ Una was saying. ‘On the farm.’

  Joan started wailing then. ‘I’m not asking much of you, missus. I just want you to move him to the graveyard.’

  ‘Keep your voice down—’

  He was vaguely aware of Una reaching for the girl, then a flurry of fast movement in the corner of his eye. Una knocked into him, holding her jaw, and Joan – Joan was gone.

  He threw himself across the width of the stone wall, looked down into the dark. He could make out nothing, only some smears of river foam scrolling by.

  ‘Jesusgodnojesusno …’ Una’s voice ran out over the flowing water.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘She kicked me! She flung her leg out and kicked me!’

  ‘Did you push her?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. She toppled herself!’

  Una grabbed his hand and pulled him after her, over to the chapel and down the riverbank, sliding on the muddy grass. She hadn’t held his hand since he was a child. It was so strange, like a game. He was aware of wanting to laugh, to scream with laughing. They were feeling their way along the outside of the bridge, down to the arch, the stone damp and gritty under his fingertips. He kept looking at the surface of the water, its even drift. No splashing, nothing moving in it.

  ‘Are you sure she fell in?’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody simpleton,’ Una said.

  ‘I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘She’s probably hiding. Call her name, would you? Quietly.’

  ‘Jo-an?’ His voice was tentative.

  They stood and listened; there was only the river’s steady flow.

  Una shook his hand off, drew herself up and stepped off the bank, into the water. It was waist-deep at the edge, and her coat floated out around her, like a lily pad.

  ‘She’ll be hiding,’ she said, and waded her way under the arch.

  Davy looked at her stiff posture as she disappeared into the shadow, her awful determination. What had just happened could not have happened.

  He scrambled back up the bank. Far off on the main street, a pair of drunk women were singing, holding each other up as they walked along.

  He started to run, away from the town, the bridge, the lights. He clambered over the first gate he came to and ran up two fields before he let himself stop. Lungs sore, he flung his body down in the lee of an old wall. A cow wheezed nearby and he jumped with fright. It was a wonder his nerves still worked at all. He remembered the naggin of rum in his jacket pocket. It hadn’t broken. He clamped it to his lips. Una would be wondering where he had got to, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t his fault this time.

  21

  It was pathetic to admit it, but Swan quite enjoyed Saturdays in the office. The drive into work was clear, and a sunnier air was discernible among his colleagues – dress code loosened by one button. The overtime helped, of course. A packet of chocolate biscuits lay open beside the coffee machine. He took two and balanced them on a saucer on top of his coffee cup. Breakfast.

  Half of the others were in already, and Considine’s jacket was on the back of her chair. Barrett scooted across the aisle to pass him a sheaf of messages. The top one said Dr Flynn from the Technical Bureau wanted him to call. The number was an internal extension, not the one for the state lab at Abbotsford, so he guessed she was upstairs. He felt invigorated; things were starting to move. Hopefully Goretti could provide another piece of the jigsaw.

  Dr Goretti Flynn’s office was crisp and organised, as was the woman herself. Her hair bothered him – a perfect dome of it floating about her skull as if it had never met the resistance of a headrest or pillow. He imagined her sitting bolt upright in bed in a frilly nightdress, fast asleep. He was once tempted to comment on the hair, but stopped himself in time. It was hard enough to get forensics results through at the best of times.

  Goretti was at her desk, a china cup in one hand and a pen in the other, making marks in a grid on a large sheet of paper. Swan rapped gently on the glass door and she looked up and smiled. As he entered, she put her cup down and wiped her fingers on a tissue from a box on her desk.

  ‘I’ve something to show you,’ she said.

  She unlocked the door of the small lab behind and brought him over to a counter where three fat paper bags lay.

  ‘These are three school blouses – the one on the right is from the crime scene, the one on the left Declan Barrett got from the convent laundry, the one in the middle you brought in a few days ago. The blouse from the convent has a name tag sewn in at the neck, and Declan said all boarders’ shirts are required to have the same. Neither of the other two blouses has a name tag or signs that one was ever attached.’

  Goretti was on a roll. She had that tight quality to her voice that usually boded well.

  ‘So, taking the name-tagged blouse out of the equation for the moment, I compared these two. If you washed out the fluid stain, you would be hard put to tell them apart. Identical material, identical size and, as far as I can tell, identical wear and tear.’

  ‘This type of blouse is made in Birmingham and imported by one Irish wholesaler. It’s sold in places like Arnotts, Clerys and Roches Stores. Since it’s a standard piece of school kit, the wholesaler estimates they shift thirty thousand units a year. But that’s predominantly at primary-school level, in smaller sizes, so there’s only about one thousand sold per year in this size.’

  ‘Only a thousand? That’s a lot of blouse.’

  ‘Yes – were it not for two things. Now neither is conclusive, but put them together and they are … well, quite the coincidence.’

  She shook both blouses out of their bags and showed him the right cuffs – both were frayed along the edge in exactly the same way, in exactly the same place.

  ‘Probably from rubbing against an edge or surface while writing, but interesting how the wear is identical.’

  ‘A common thing, though.’

  ‘Okay, but look at this.’ Goretti swung a lamp out over the counter and switched it on. ‘Look closely – just above the pockets.’

  On both blouses there were several holes pierced through the fabric in the same position on the right breast, the tight weave of the polyester pulled open at minute entry-points. Something had been pinned there.

  ‘Could be from some badge or religious medal the girls all have.’

  ‘Not in St Brigid’s they don’t. Prefects wear a sash, and only one medal or cross on a chain around the neck is allowed. All else is considered jewellery, and Sister Mary Paul would kill you if she found it.’

  ‘Your research is formidable.’

  ‘Sure they drilled it into me.’

  ‘Ah, for God’s sake, why didn’t you mention it?’
/>   She shrugged. ‘It’s not important. Let’s just say my days at St Brigid’s weren’t the happiest of my life. I’m sure whatever was attached to the shirt would have been hidden by the tunic bib that covers it – so it was something clandestine.’

  ‘So, badges or brooches aren’t allowed, but Ali Hogan wore some under her uniform, as did the owner of the shirt in the shed.’

  ‘Or they’re both Ali Hogan’s.’

  ‘Do y’know, that’s a possibility that’s looking stronger by the minute. Did you have time to look at that bag she left in the shed?’

  ‘That’s why I’m in here on a lovely morning and not on the golf course.’

  Ali’s patchwork bag was on the central table, pulled inside out on a sheet of white card, so that only its black cotton lining showed.

  ‘You wanted a check for blood?’

  As he walked towards it, Swan could see that the lining looked spotless, except for some deposits of lint in the corners.

  ‘Nothing?’

  Dr Flynn nodded, not breaking eye contact.

  Perhaps a stain of bloody fluid in the bag, to match the one on the shirt and paper bag, would be too neat. The baby could have been wrapped in some other layer that they hadn’t located, or she brought the baby to the garden in just the paper carrier at an earlier time. The misty woman or girl in his imaginary scenarios now wore Ali Hogan’s face.

  There were no leads yet from the towelling or blue carpet fibres, but they could come if they found a location to match them to. He urged Goretti Flynn to get out and grab what was left of the weekend.

  ‘If I served only you, Vincent, I’d be happy to, but there are others in line. Thanks anyway.’

  Considine was waiting for him outside the door.

  ‘Managed to track down Carmen Fitzgerald,’ she said. ‘Her mother had taken her on holiday – South of France, no less. She brought her in this morning.’

  ‘I told her to tell Rathmines if she left the city.’

  ‘Do you want to hear this or not?’

  ‘Anything good?’

  ‘Well, Carmen says she’s shocked at the idea that Alison might have been pregnant. Says she didn’t have a boyfriend; they told each other everything and shared rooms in each other’s houses, so she would have noticed if she had a bump.’

  ‘Is she plausible?’

  Considine shrugged. ‘I think so, but then she told me something very interesting. You can hear it from her.’ She jigged her head towards the corridor of interview rooms and Swan followed her.

  Carmen Fitzgerald lit up the dreary room with her red jacket and electrocuted yellow hair, but her face was ashen.

  ‘Tell him what you told me,’ said Considine, ‘about the night before you found the baby.’

  ‘Can I go home if I do?’

  Considine looked to Swan. He nodded at the girl.

  ‘We were at the school that night – near the hockey pitch. We go there sometimes … to drink. It’s just round the back of Ali’s house.’

  ‘What time was this at?’

  ‘Dunno. About nine or ten. We met two blokes we knew from Rathgar College, and we had some drink. But we weren’t near the Rosary Garden.’

  ‘She says they didn’t see anyone else,’ said Considine. ‘That they drank some beer and went home by eleven.’

  ‘And Ali was with you all the time?’

  Carmen chewed her bottom lip into a small sideways loop.

  ‘She went off for a little while with Ronan – they didn’t go far away.’

  ‘And you were involved with the other boy.’

  ‘God, no! Bobby Kinsella, you must be joking.’

  ‘I thought you said Ali didn’t have a boyfriend.’

  ‘She doesn’t – that was just, y’know, a little bit of messing. Ali always had a soft spot for Ronan. He used to go out with Eleanor Glenn.’

  She spoke as if Swan would have foreknowledge of her social scene, of the repulsiveness of Bobby and the cachet of Eleanor Glenn.

  ‘Was Ali a virgin, do you know?’

  Carmen blushed as red as her jacket. ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘I’m sure you talk about those kinds of things.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she insisted.

  They let the girl re-join her mother, but asked them to stay to have a statement taken and give details of the boys.

  Considine and Swan regrouped in the corridor. Carmen’s hotly claimed ignorance of Ali’s sexual experience wasn’t particularly convincing. And the fact that they’d been in the grounds of St Brigid’s around the time of the child’s death was impossible to ignore.

  Swan reminded Considine of the pathologist’s anecdote, about the girl whose boyfriend didn’t even notice she was pregnant. Wasn’t it possible that a best friend mightn’t notice, either?

  Considine ticked off the known facts on her fingers. ‘Ali was there that night, she had the means to conceal it, the blouse found at the scene is probably hers.’

  ‘We’re going to have to move this forward, fast. I’ll get Barrett to track down the two boys this morning, but more importantly we need to recruit an expert, a thingummy – gynaecologist – can you take care of that?’

  22

  Ali had slept badly. Her mind had kept startling awake to thoughts of Ivor and what had happened in his van. The shame and the wonder of it. How different it felt compared to every fumbling misadventure she’d tried before. But on the way back to the marquee they’d found nothing to say to each other. Maybe they never would. It was only a one-night stand, she told herself, trying out the phrase she knew from magazines, flicking it away.

  Ali swung her feet to the floor. This swoony feeling was just exhaustion, not emotion. She had slept naked and now peeled the sheet from her body, pulled on her pyjamas and an old jumper, and went downstairs.

  The house was strangely silent, the kitchen empty. Toast crumbs littered the oilcloth and the teapot felt warm. She checked the immersion was switched on for a bath, and went to the scullery to get milk for cornflakes from the big jug there. It was so fresh from the cows that it was still lukewarm and frothy. She changed her mind about eating.

  As she filled the kettle she wondered if Davy was up and about in the bungalow. Maybe she could bring coffee up to him, try to get back their normal jokiness, after the strange mood they parted with last night.

  The love-bite. She tried to see it in the small rectangle of mirror that hung over the sink. It was hardly anything, just a purple smear. If she remembered not to push her hair back, it would stay hidden. She met her eyes. She could go out for a walk later. Down through the village maybe. Joan said Ivor’s flat was above the garage.

  There was a sudden movement in the background of her reflection. Someone had passed by the window and was opening the door in the scullery. She heard rustling among the coats hung there.

  ‘Hello?’ she called.

  Brendan appeared in the doorway. He looked shattered, and she smiled at him, thinking of a joke to make about hangovers. But he didn’t smile back, just stared at her like he wasn’t sure who she was or what she was doing there, and hurried up the hall to the front door. Something wasn’t right.

  By the time she got to the front of the house, Brendan was halfway down the drive, running. Two Garda cars were parked in the road, their blue lights spinning silently. There was a tractor in the field, and a couple of Gardaí were trying to connect a flatbed trailer to it. She could see there were more people down by the river. They were right beside the bright curve of sand where she and Joan had picnicked. You could see it so clearly from here.

  Joe and Una were standing down by the gate, looking over at the cars. When Brendan reached them, he stopped briefly and pointed back up at her, at the house. Joe turned, started to make his way up the drive.

  Brendan reached the tractor and pushed past the Guards to quickly finish hooking the trailer to it, using something he had brought from the house. He got into the tractor cab and drove off to the river with both Guards sitt
ing on the back edge of the trailer, feet dangling like children. A car passing on the road slowed right down to have a look.

  Her uncle stood below her on the path.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ he said, and Ali’s first instinct was to laugh, but nothing came out of her mouth. She had a sensation that the inside of her body was completely hollow, light as a balloon.

  ‘Kevin Lawlor, from next door. He was out walking his dog. He found someone in the river. Drowned. Dear God!’

  A response seemed to be called for. ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you remember Joan, who used to work for us? I didn’t even know she was let out, but he recognised her straight away. She was caught on a branch in the shallows, lying on her back, you see. Not a mark on her.’

  Ali put her hand out to clutch the door jamb, and the sharp corner of wood became the only solid thing in the whole world, an axis around which everything spun. Joe caught her by the waist and steadied her.

  ‘It can’t be Joan – she was at the dance last night. We were talking.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have been out of that hospital, let alone at a dance. You go inside while they bring her up.’

  ‘Bring her up?’ Ali had an image of Joan rising through dark waters, a rope wrapped around her waist. None of it made sense. The memory of Joan pushing past her in the dark outside the marquee, just hours ago, angry with her, telling her she knew nothing. What was it she didn’t know?

  Down in the field the tractor was returning, heading for the road, the two Gardaí jogging along behind, hands on their batons. She couldn’t see what was on the trailer; it was hidden by the cab of the tractor. Joe turned to look.

  The tractor steered out of the field and into the road, revealing a long blanketed shape on the trailer. An ambulance had appeared from nowhere and waited on the roadside behind the police cars. Another car drew up to join the line of vehicles. Father Philbin got out from one side, wearing his black raincoat. He took a rolled-up length of green material out of his pocket and hung it over his shoulders, hurrying to the shape on the trailer. Dr Nolan emerged from the other side of the car, and Aunt Una turned quickly and started to walk back towards the house.