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

“He has only just discovered her existence, and he wants to make sure she is provided for. He's a very rich man.”


“I see. Well, that's good news, isn’t it? Very well. Follow me, please.” She set off at a brisk pace down a hallway that smelled of disinfectant. As she pushed opened a frosted glass door, she turned back to me. “I should warn you, if the child had been very sick, I’m sure she would not have been accepted here. We have the health of a hundred children to consider. She’d most likely have been sent to the charity hospital wards where she’d most likely have died.”

Children passed me, walking two by two, not speaking but glancing up shyly under the direction of more sisters.

One little boy gave me a cheeky grin, reminding me of my own brothers at the same age. I wondered what they’d look like now. Joseph and Liam would be almost young men, and young Malachy would also likely be shooting up. A wave of homesickness came over me quite unexpectedly. When I had left Ireland I had never thought I would long for my family again. And here I was ready to leap on the next train to county Mayo. I had to remind myself that when I last saw them, they had been an ungrateful, lazy bunch, and I was well rid of them.

In a dark and musty storeroom, the Mother Superior brought down boxes of ledgers. “This would have been the time period you wanted,” she said.

I started to turn through the pages. For the years starting in 1845there had been a huge number of children coming to the orphanage, coinciding with the outbreak of the famine. Several Mary Anns. Several “baby girl, no name. Parents unknown.” If the Burkes had abandoned her, would they have told the priest their names? Would he necessarily have remembered them?

And there, at last, it was. Mary Ann Burke. Aged about two years. Transferred from St. Vincent's Hospital. May 1849.

“It's her,” I said excitedly. Then my gaze moved along the line of the ledger. More details were written across the double pages. Date of first Holy Communion. Conduct Satisfactory. Health Satisfactory and finally, “Placed in service, Ormond Hall, county Waterford. September Third, 1861.”

I looked up at the Mother. “She was sent into service. It has the name of the house.”

The Mother nodded. “Most of our girls are placed in service. We educate them to be of use in the domestic arts, and we prefer to see them in the care of a good family rather than working in a factory where they can meet with undesirables.”

The picture flashed into my mind of that son of a good family, Justin Hartley, regarding me with greedy arrogance as he tried to rape me in my cottage kitchen. I didn’t think that Mary Ann Burke would have necessarily been any safer in service, but for once I wisely kept my mouth shut. I took out my notebook and tried to hold the pencil steady as I wrote. “I must copy this down,” I said. “This is encouraging. It means that she survived her childhood and might well still be alive.”

She nodded. “One would sincerely hope so.”

Suddenly the feeling of being trapped in that dusty room with its shelves of ledgers was overwhelming. I had to escape. Mother Superior had softened a little and was muttering how happy she would be if Mary Ann was found and had come into a fortune at last. I think she was hinting at a bequest to the convent that raised her. I was even offered tea with the sisters, but I made hurried expressions of gratitude and fled as quickly as I could.





Fifteen


The inquest into Rose's murder was held at the Coroner's Court, in a somber, wood-paneled room with bottle-glass-paned windows through which light filtered dimly. It was a sunny morning and dust motes floated in sunbeams, giving the scene an air of unreality. In truth I had put the whole thought of the inquest out of my mind while I was searching for traces of Mary Ann, but as I came in and saw a jury seated in a dark oak box, the fear came rushing back.

I had told myself I wasn’t a suspect. Nobody could believe I was a suspect. And yet when Inspector Harris gave his testimony, I could see the faces of those jurors staring in my direction. The body of a young girl had been found in a cabin booked by the famous actress, Miss Oona Sheehan on the night before the Majestic docked in Queenstown. The cabin had, in fact, been occupied, not by Miss Sheehan, but by a young woman called Molly Murphy, posing as Miss Sheehan. She, along with the girl's cabinmates and the third-class steward, identified the body as that of Rose McCreedy, Miss Sheehan's personal maid.