In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

I set out at first light, stopping to ask anyone I met along the way. But most people were too young to remember the famine, and nobody recalled a family taking in a girl child called Mary Ann. Older people were noticeably absent from the scene. They probably went first in thefamine, sacrificing their share of the food to the young. Those few old women I met shook their heads sadly.

“A sick child left behind on the way to the famine ships?” one asked. “There were so many of them, my dear. You’d seldom pass along a road in those days without seeing a funeral procession, or a body, just lying there. We had a man employed full time by the government, just driving around with his cart and picking up bodies. Children fared the worst. The poor little souls didn’t have a sporting chance at life. I lost two of my own, you know. Watched them slip away and couldn’t do a blessed thing about it.”

She sighed and wrapped her shawl around herself.

And so it was all the way back. I asked in every village, at every workhouse, general store, in every church and heard the same story. So many people had passed through on their way to the ships. So many had died along the way.

I had to spend another night on the road. I met no old priests and only blank stares at the various churches in response to my questions. One priest suggested that I contact the bishop's palace and take a look at the diocesan records. But any priest in 1850 would now be seventy or eighty at least. Likely not still working.

Thus I arrived back in Cork on the third day, my shoes much the worse for wear, and my legs not much better. I was unsure what to do next. I had retraced the route that the family probably took to Queen-stown, but it was possible they had followed the coast along byways instead of the most direct route along the road. If I was going to do the job properly, I should now go back and visit every hamlet between Cork and Clonakilty. Not an enviable task.

I walked into Cork longing for a hot bath, a change of clothing, a comfortable bed. I arrived back at the hotel to find a note from Inspector Harris informing me that the inquest had been arranged for the very next day. Lucky that I hadn’t lingered any longer along the way then. I washed, changed, and enjoyed a good cup of tea with warm scones and cream. Thus fortified I decided I should make use of the remaining hours of daylight by visiting the cathedral and asking questions at the diocese headquarters.

As I turned a corner, I saw a neat procession of little girls, dressed insomber black uniforms, marching two by two under the stern gaze of two black-robed sisters. The sisters looked like two large black birds, wings flapping menacingly, and one called out, “No dawdling, Adeline, and don’t drag your feet.”

And a sudden flash of inspiration came to me. What would a kindly priest have done with a child—the obvious thing, of course. Handed her over to the nearest nuns as quickly as possible, who would most likely have placed her in the nearest orphanage. I darted across the street.

“Excuse me,” I asked the good sisters, “but are you the sisters from an orphanage?”

A look of horror crossed the nuns’ faces. “The orphanage? Holy Mother, we are not. These are the pupils at St. Catherines, where we educate girls of good family from all over Ireland and the continent too.”

The other one muttered, “Orphanage indeed. The very idea of it.”

“I’m sorry for my mistake,” I said, observing the little girls’ giggles and trying not to smile myself, “but is there not an orphanage to be found around here?”

“There is. St Vincent's, run by the Sisters of Charity. On the other side of the river. Cross by that bridge, go about half a mile, and you can’t miss it.”

The two sisters followed me with disapproving glances, obviously wondering what I’d be doing poking around in an orphanage, then set their little charges off at a marching pace again. I set off at a marching pace myself, in the opposite direction and crossed the bridge out of the city. The sound of children's voices at play directed me to a stern brick building. The orphans sounded as if they had a better time of it than those girls from St. Catherine's, I thought, until I met the Mother Superior. What a severe-looking woman she was too, with a face looking as if it was carved out of marble under that white wimple.

“I wonder if you might have been here at that time,” I asked, after I had explained the purpose of my visit.

The look was withering. “I did not arrive here as a young postulant until 1875,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve always found it impossible to tell a nun's age. You all look ageless to me.”

A ghost of a smile rewarded that obvious attempt at flattery. “Let us hope that is because we live pure lives, unaffected by the corruption of the outside world,” she said.

“So would any of your sisters have been alive then?”

“A couple in the infirmary, but it won’t be necessary to disturb them, since we have always kept meticulous records. If the child came here, her name will be in our ledgers.”

“That's wonderful. Would it be possible to take a look then?”

“Of course. May I ask why, after all this time, her brother wishes to contact her?”