The Rosary Garden

by Nicola White

  ‘That so?’ she managed. Her hand moved to embrace the curve of the doll’s back beneath the thin wool of her cardigan, some animal sense in her feeling a small presence there. The tractor thrummed out of sight.

  Davy drew her close and lowered his voice. ‘Una’s not a very sentimental person, you know that. It was the middle of Christmas Day when you found it. Guests arriving and all. She did what she had to do.’ He tapped on the metal with the toe of his scuffed black brogues.

  Ali stepped back from the metal hatch, couldn’t block out an image of the baby’s body sinking slowly into the brown muck, lit by a square of daylight. Una standing above it, the grimy box in her hands.

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘Women do horrible things, though your Mary O’Shea libbers don’t think so. Oh, the poor mistreated women … Oh, the terrible men that oppress them … If you hadn’t stuck your little nose in, it could have waited. I might have buried it properly on Stephen’s Day, when things were quiet.’

  ‘You knew it was under the bed?’

  ‘Course I did. I said I’d deal with it. And I would have…’ He turned from her. ‘Ach, you were only a child, it wasn’t your fault.’

  Ali stared at him. Davy was quieter now – the antic spirit had gone out of him as suddenly as a wind dying. He’d been too young to be involved in something like that, younger than she was now, and she didn’t believe that callous tone he was trying to muster. He was still her Davy.

  ‘Let’s go down to the house,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t want to see my sister right now.’

  The tractor noise was moving closer, though the machine itself was hidden behind the sheds. The light of the day was fading, shadows gathering in field hollows and the lee of buildings.

  ‘You look tired,’ Ali said.

  ‘I’d like to sleep for a thousand years, but I can’t even manage an hour. Come back to the bungalow and have a drink with me.’

  He held out a hand to her, and after a moment she took it. She had asked, and he had told her. That should be worth something. Truth should be worth something.

  They walked back through the trees, Davy humming a meandering slow tune. His grip on her hand was reassuring, tight.

  31

  The Nolan home was on a rise of land to the north of Buleen, half hidden by a lush hedge. It was double-fronted, with wide bay windows, a large brick-arched porch and a thick creeper straddling one corner. They left two police cars blocking the driveway, and the Kinmore Guards quickly fanned out in the grounds. Swan, Considine and Fitzmaurice walked round to the front door. An old blue-and-white vase took centre stage in one of the windows, holding sprays of gladioli. In the deep of the room, a pale face turned to their passing.

  After a short wait, it was Sister Bernadette who appeared in the porch, her expression guarded but calm.

  ‘Good afternoon, Detective.’

  ‘Well, it’s been quite a hunt to track you down. We’ll need to talk to you further, and your sister Peggy.’

  She stood for a moment as if running through reasons to refuse them. Her eyes moved to take in the police cars.

  ‘Come in.’ She stepped back to allow them into the house. The broad hall beyond the porch was wood- panelled, with a grandfather clock and a carved oak bench. Discreet good things, handed down. A brass plaque on one door read Surgery. Sister Bernadette was attempting to show them into the room opposite, but Swan hesitated.

  ‘Who else is in the house with you?’

  ‘My father’s in his study, working,’ she said, indicating the door with the brass sign. ‘My mother’s shopping in Limerick with a neighbour.’

  ‘And your sister?’

  ‘Having a nap,’ said Sister Bernadette. A board creaked above their heads. Swan raised his eyes to the sound.

  ‘Peggy?’ Bernadette called.

  Bare feet appeared at the top of the stairs, slowly followed by the rest of a young woman. She wore a nightdress and a shawl around her shoulders. Her hair was indeed the colour of a conker and curled thickly around her shoulders. She registered no surprise to see them there. Her face was still as wax.

  ‘Peggy, we’re going to have a chat with your sister,’ said Swan. ‘Perhaps my colleague Gina here can keep you company in the meantime?’

  Considine was on her way up the stairs when a man with white hair stuck his head out of the surgery door. Garda Fitzmaurice greeted Dr Nolan in an easy-going way and reassured him that no emergencies were in progress. Swan introduced himself and said he’d be obliged if the doctor could remain in the house for the moment.

  Nolan exchanged a furtive glance with his eldest daughter before retreating behind his door.

  Sister Bernadette led Swan and Garda Fitzmaurice into the living room and took a seat on the very edge of a chintz-covered armchair, hands demurely clasped over one knee. Swan experienced a surge of impatience in the face of her composure, an urge to shout or throw some delicate ornaments about. Instead he wandered past her to take in the view from the window, settling his breathing. When he spoke, he addressed the windowpane.

  ‘Your nuns think you’re in Newry.’

  ‘I needed to come home.’

  ‘To check on your sister?’ He turned.

  She gave him a steady look. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve been to St Jude’s. Your sister had her baby there, didn’t she?’

  A quick nod. ‘My sister’s not well.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I think having a child disturbed her – disturbed the balance of her mind.’

  ‘Can I ask: where is that child?’

  Sister Bernadette looked over at the dried flowers arranged in the empty fire grate. ‘You have it.’

  ‘The baby in the shed?’

  The nun turned to look at him, her eyes full of rising tears. ‘I recognised her the moment I saw her lying in that basket. I delivered her myself. Held her in my arms each day she lived.’ She pulled her black sleeve down over the knuckle of her thumb and wiped her cheeks quickly.

  ‘You misled us. You lied.’

  ‘I was worried about Peggy. I discovered she disappeared the same day the child was found. I came down here as soon as I could get away, to find out what had happened.’

  ‘Do you know for certain that your sister killed her baby?’

  ‘We argued about the child. I thought Peggy should bring her back home, despite what people might say, but she wanted her to disappear, that’s what she said.’

  ‘Your sister’s not married – wouldn’t it be tough for her to keep a child and raise it alone?’

  ‘We would have managed. I told her I’d help.’

  ‘But you’re up in Dublin.’

  ‘I could have come home.’

  More tears appeared and Sister Bernadette swiped at them irritably.

  ‘That seems mighty liberal of you. We spoke with someone who saw your sister leave St Jude’s with the baby. She saw her being driven off in a car. You drive, don’t you, Sister?’

  Sister Bernadette looked at him, plainly surprised or acting it well. ‘That wasn’t me.’

  ‘Who else did she know in Dublin?’ he asked.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Did she tell you who the father was?’

  ‘I asked her, but all she would say was that they couldn’t be together – yet.’ Sister Bernadette took a breath. ‘I think he must have been a married man, but she still had hopes for him. The hope was more precious than the child. Maybe I pressured her too much.’

  ‘Did she admit to killing it?’

  Sister Bernadette shook her head quickly. ‘But having a baby can bring on depression, even psychosis. Peggy was – not herself. Like she didn’t have her feet on the ground. I didn’t think she could something like that, but what do I know?’ There was bitterness in her voice.

  ‘And what does Peggy say?’ asked Fitzmaurice.

  ‘She says the baby in the shed wasn’t hers, that her baby was adopted and taken abroad. It’s a f
antasy. I held Grace in my arms, so how can she be in another place and happy? She wasn’t just Peggy’s, she was something to me too …’

  ‘Grace?’

  ‘Peggy wouldn’t name her, but I call her Grace.’

  They sat in silence for a minute while Sister Bernadette struggled to control her breathing.

  ‘Why did you unwrap the coverings from the baby?’

  ‘I needed to see what was done to her.’ She brought a curled fist to her mouth, pressed it hard against her lips. ‘I wish I hadn’t. I don’t know why I hid the blouse; I think I was in a panic in case it was Peggy’s. I sent the Hogan girl away for water so I could have some time. Just an excuse – she’d been baptised already in the little chapel at St Jude’s, only the three of us there.’ She smiled briefly at the memory.

  There was a knock at the door and Considine stuck her head in, asked to see Swan for a moment. They went into the small front porch and kept their voices low.

  ‘I was making small talk, boss, wasn’t trying to do my own interview, but she just started talking about the kid.’

  ‘Okay. What’s she saying?’

  ‘She says the one found in Dublin wasn’t hers. Says that hers was taken to England. She won’t say who took it.’

  ‘Do you believe her?’

  ‘It’s pretty unlikely.’

  ‘Did she talk about being picked up in the car?’

  ‘No – I wanted to hold off till you were there. How’s the nun?’

  ‘Chatty. Now she says she recognised the baby in the shed as her sister’s. She thinks her sister snapped and killed it.’

  ‘Wow. Just like that.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Swan. ‘She’s assuming no one else was involved, but who was driving the car that picked Peggy up from St Jude’s – if it wasn’t her sister? Time to bring her downstairs.’

  Peggy Nolan sat in the corner of a small sofa in a bright room off the kitchen, her bare feet tucked under her. The room was painted yellow with little mirrors and pictures livening the walls, the kind of old-fashioned things Elizabeth would like. Swan remembered the sentimental note he had left for his wife and quickly bundled her from his mind.

  Apart from her russet colouring, Peggy was quite different from her sister, made from some heavier element, her face full and sensuous but lacking animation. Moving quietly, Swan took a chair opposite. Considine sat on the sofa beside Peggy, while Fitzmaurice lurked somewhere behind him.

  ‘This is Detective Swan, my boss,’ said Considine. ‘Can you tell him what you told me?’

  Peggy moved her gaze slowly from Considine to Swan. ‘My baby is in England, in a house by the sea.’

  Swan wondered whether the girl was doped. Her dark eyes were hard to read.

  ‘That sounds pleasant. Who took her there?’

  She opened her mouth slightly and closed it again, her gaze dropping to the floor.

  ‘Can’t say.’

  ‘Was it someone you met in Dublin?’

  A slight shake of her head.

  ‘Your sister doesn’t think the baby was adopted. She says she recognised her as the one found in the Rosary Garden.’

  ‘That baby was NOT mine.’ Although Peggy didn’t raise her eyes, an edge of defiance had come into her voice, an anger stirring.

  ‘Look at me, Peggy. We have a way of proving the baby in the garden wasn’t yours. You want that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All we have to do is take blood from you and from your child’s father.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to prove the dead baby’s not yours?’

  ‘Is that the only way?’ The girl was agitated, slurring her words slightly.

  ‘We’ll take care of the arrangements, if you just tell us his name. You don’t have to see him.’

  ‘Come on now, Pegeen,’ said Garda Fitzmaurice from the doorway. His voice was low and managed to convey an infinite reasonableness. Peggy looked at him in hope.

  ‘He said we’d have a fresh start. It was him found the good home for it.’

  ‘Of course he did.’

  ‘But now he won’t talk to me at all.’

  ‘I could have a word with him,’ said Fitzmaurice, ‘straighten things out for you.’

  ‘Could you really?’

  ‘No bother.’

  Tears tipped suddenly from Peggy’s eyes as she got to her feet and shuffled over to put her arms around Garda Fitzmaurice. Swan held his breath and prayed that no one would enter the room to see this.

  ‘Where is he today?’ Fitzmaurice asked, smooth as a breeze.

  Peggy shook her head, rubbing her forehead against his uniform jacket.

  ‘Remember that lovely mild evening, Peggy, back in the autumn. When I saw you up in the quarry wood? You were parked in your father’s car with someone, weren’t you? Davy Brennan, I think it was.’

  Peggy had gone very still. Her hands dropped from the Garda’s shoulders and came to cover her face.

  ‘He’ll be angry with me. Don’t tell him I said.’

  ‘Was it Davy Brennan who took the baby away to be adopted?’ asked Swan.

  She nodded. ‘In England. He gave me a photo of the couple. They have a lot of money, he said, and they’re Catholic.’

  Swan gave silent thanks for Garda Fitzmaurice and old-fashioned vigilance. The detectives retreated to the hall.

  Garda Fitzmaurice said he’d seen this Brennan lad in Buleen that morning, but that he’d been up in Dublin for a while.

  Dublin. Swan’s heart quickened.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Bit of a boyo, but from a respectable family. As you know.’

  ‘What do I know?’

  ‘Sure, he’s one of the Devanes at Caherbawn. Mrs Devane’s maiden name is Brennan. Like your one on The Late Late Show, only she goes by the name of Hogan. He’s her uncle.’

  Swan’s brain raced to absorb this information, throwing up a picture, a memory, from Rathmines Garda station on the very first day of the case. When he walked into the reception area after interviewing Alison Hogan, there had been two people sitting in the chairs. The emotional Deirdre Hogan had shaded her companion into obscurity. But he had been sitting right beside her. Swan tried to conjure him back into memory, but could only see the way his fringe fell forward to hide his features, the dark slouch that he had read as boredom.

  He asked Fitzmaurice to phone the farm, to check if Davy Brennan was there.

  ‘Pretend it’s nothing important.’

  The Garda came back after a short exchange.

  ‘His sister says she hasn’t seen him, says he might be away to Kinmore. She was very keen to know why I wanted him, though. I’ll put a call out, if ye want.’

  ‘Yes, but no hanging about – let’s just go to the farm. Leave two of the lads here and round up the others. I’ll join you in a minute.’

  32

  Davy pushed Ali through the hall of the bungalow and into the kitchen. ‘I need a drink. We both need a drink.’

  He worked his way along the line of cupboards, opening and shutting doors on empty shelves.

  ‘Is there beer?’ said Ali, laying the doll on the dirty counter. The place seemed even more of a wreck than when she first saw it. A bucket beside the sink overflowed with rubbish and the cement floor was splashed with brown stains. A queue of bottles stood against the skirting board.

  ‘No beer – I’ve whiskey somewhere.’ He twirled round to face her. ‘I’ve never told anyone about the slurry pit. It’s stupid for you not to know. You’re not a child any more.’ Davy walked over to the small fridge, opened the door and stared into it, even though he had searched it a moment before. ‘That’s not to say I’m not a little bit annoyed with you.’ He addressed the fridge, not her.

  ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You’ve been bringing policemen sniffing in your wake.’

  ‘What’s that to do with us?’

  ‘What indeed!’ Davy slammed the frid
ge and walked out of the kitchen. Ali followed. From the hallway she watched him do a circuit of the small bathroom, searching.

  ‘I don’t want you to be annoyed with me,’ she said.

  She hoped he would calm down, hoped he wouldn’t find any whiskey and that not finding it wouldn’t make him angry. She followed him into a bedroom. Davy got down on his hands and knees and started going through his suitcase and the pile of clothes beside it. She needed to ask him something. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer, but the question kept nagging around her head.

  ‘You said that Joan’s baby was sickly. But she told me it was stillborn.’

  Davy sat back, cross-legged on the floor. ‘They made that up afterwards, Una and herself. I know what I saw … I saw its little arm waving – I saw it. They treated me like an idiot. Never took a breath, Una says, but I saw it. I was looking through the window at them. When Una laid it on the table it wasn’t moving any more. I don’t know what they did to it, or which one of them did it. Una said I didn’t see what I thought I saw.’

  Ali moved to the mattress on the floor, crawled over it so that she could sit with her back against the wall. She needed to sit very still. Davy was looking at his hands. She remembered him as he was at sixteen, a tall hero. She tried to figure out the likely truth of what he said – was he mistaken, or spinning a tale? She thought of her mother’s story of her grandfather forcing them to kill animals as a mercy.

  Minutes passed.

  ‘When I went back into the kitchen, Una was tending to Joan. She told me to put it away – so I did – I hid it for her. Christmas Day, after the hoo-ha, I saw her coming back down from the pit with the box and she says to me, It’s in a better place, with that pious bloody face on her. My sister. My sister is … remarkable.’

  Davy turned to look at Ali, his eyes refocusing.

  ‘Aaah!’ he cried and lunged in her direction, stretching flat out on the mattress beside her. His hand came from behind a pillow, gripping an almost-full bottle of Paddy by the neck. He rolled away and spun the metal top from it with one rub of his palm. He threw back a slug and held out the bottle to her. ‘You look like you need it.’

  ‘I don’t like it straight.’