‘She was trying to trace a child that was taken from her—’
‘What had that to do with you?’ Lottie interjected.
‘Do you want to hear or not?’
‘Sorry. Continue.’
‘Susan’s mother had refused to tell her anything about the baby. But on her deathbed, two years ago, she mentioned my name.’
‘And . . .’
‘She said I’d helped deliver the baby. Which wasn’t true, because I’d arrived shortly after the birth. I couldn’t help her back then, nor when she contacted me for information.’
Lottie twisted the spoon in her tea.
‘It must be more than twenty-five years since—’
‘I was a midwife? Yes, but this was way back. In the seventies. The girl was only aged about eleven or twelve. A child. Poor thing. Her name was Sally Stynes then.’
‘Really? Tell me more.’ Lottie stopped her idle stirring. Maybe now they could get something new with Susan’s old name.
‘Not much to tell.’
‘What happened to the baby?’
‘When she called to me, Susan stirred up old memories,’ Rose said, a frown creasing a line on her brow. ‘Her mother had called in a priest, the local curate. Apparently, he suggested placing the girl and her baby in St Angela’s. You know the old building not far from the graveyard? Closed down now.’
Lottie nodded. St Angela’s. How could she forget? They never spoke about it. But Rose was talking now.
‘It was originally an orphanage run by the nuns, then it combined into a home for unmarried girls. Obviously some of the unwanted babies grew up there. The nuns also took in wayward boys.’
‘A place to send wayward children,’ Lottie murmured. ‘That’s one way of putting it, Mother.’
Rose ignored Lottie’s remark.
‘Of course when she met me, Susan already knew about St Angela’s and the fact that the baby was probably adopted. She remembered spending time there. But she couldn’t get any information from the Church about her baby. Unfortunately I had nothing new to tell her,’ Rose said, with a steely resolve.
‘Did you know who fathered her baby?’
‘No idea. When I was in the house helping with the afterbirth, her mother was shouting at the girl, calling her a little tramp. It was very distressing, but if the girl was a tearaway, the father could’ve been anyone.’ Rose folded her arms tightly.
Lottie recoiled from her mother’s harshness and mulled over her revelations. Hopefully they would have more success finding out about Susan aka Sally Stynes. It was a coincidence that her mother had this information. Small-town people carry such secrets around with them all their lives. Coincidences were inevitable. And then again, her mother knew everyone and liked to think she knew everything. Lottie sipped her tea. A memory, deeply concealed, itched to be released.
‘Do you ever wonder about Eddie?’ Lottie asked, feeling brave enough to pose the question about her brother.
Rose stood up, rinsed her cup, dried it and put it in its rightful place in the cupboard.
‘Eddie is gone. Don’t talk about him,’ she said.
Denial, thought Lottie, but she persisted. ‘And Dad, can we talk about him?’
‘The chicken will be cooked in another half-hour. Watch the water doesn’t boil off the spuds.’ Rose pulled on her coat and hat. ‘You can heat everything up in the microwave for dinner this evening.’
‘I suppose we can’t talk about them, then,’ Lottie said, wryly.
‘You need a man in your life, Lottie Parker,’ Rose said, hand on the door.
‘What?’ asked Lottie, wrong-footed.
‘Boyd? Is that his name? The long, skinny one. Nice man.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know right well what I mean. And bring those kiddies to visit soon.’
Lottie wasn’t keeping them away – they had made the decision themselves that they’d had enough of their meddling grandmother.
On the doorstep, Rose said, ‘By the way, I saw your interview on the news.’
‘And?’
‘Not very impressive, madam.’ She drew her hat over her ears. ‘You could have masked those bruises with a touch of make-up.’
As always, her mother got in the last word.
Lottie slammed the door. She turned off the cooker, drained the potatoes and dumped them in the pedal bin. She threw out the chicken too. She was damned if she was going to eat anything prepared by her domineering mother. She would rather starve.
Her hangover was pulsating now, but she had to go to work.
Thirty-Two
As the morning sleet eased, the temperatures rose unexpectedly.
‘Listen to that,’ Garda Gillian O’Donoghue said.
‘To what?’ asked Garda Tom Tierney.
‘Snow melting.’
The sound was like a forest of humming birds, such was the intensity of the thaw. They were standing at the door of James Brown’s cottage.
‘Positively balmy,’ Tierney said. ‘A warm plus one beats minus ten on New Year’s Eve.’
‘I’m going for a walk around the garden. My feet are in a state of perpetual frozenness,’ O’Donoghue said.
‘Is that even a proper word?’
‘Who cares?’ she laughed and headed along the path to the back garden, enthralled by the greenery being slowly exposed through the shifting snow. The white beauty had been magical for the first few days until it became an unbearable burden. She breathed in the cool air and listened to the thaw.
As she turned, a snatch of colour under a tree caught her eye. She walked toward it, then backed away, shouting, ‘Tom. Tom!’
A hand, cuffed in black, protruded from the snow.
O’Donoghue reached for the radio pinned to her chest.
By the time Lottie and Boyd arrived, the garden was a scene of organised commotion.
Lottie groaned. This was more work in three days than they’d seen in the last two years. She hadn’t even had time to get her head around her mother’s revelations. Boyd and Maria Lynch had met her on the station steps with the news and they’d driven to James Brown’s house as quickly as the slush allowed.
She walked with Lynch around the back, both keeping their eyes peeled for any evidence that might be exposed. Boyd spoke with the uniformed officers.
Lottie spotted the SOCOs team leader, Jim McGlynn. He smirked.
‘The bastard,’ Lottie said.
‘Who?’ asked Lynch.
‘McGlynn.’
He was laughing at her. Pity he wasn’t under her command. She’d have him sifting pig shit for the rest of his working life, looking for invisible dioxins.
The garden was compact. A shed and a wooden table with chairs leaning against it occupied the patio area to the left of the back door. Evergreen trees bordered two sides of the enclosure, a wall at the end and snowy fields beyond. McGlynn worked the area, painstakingly removing snow and revealing the victim.
Lottie waited. Eventually the body was fully exposed. Male, face down, clothed in a black jacket and trousers. The visible hand appeared wrinkle free, with a silver ring. Pieces of glass and black plastic were scattered around and over the body. McGlynn was picking them up with tweezers and placing them in an evidence bag.
‘A phone?’ Lottie asked.
‘Smashed to bits,’ he said. ‘I doubt even our best technicians will get anything from it.’