Running his hands up and down his suited trousers, he glanced around to ensure no one noticed him.
He recognised the young teenager. Detective Inspector Parker’s only son. He stepped behind a rack of leaflets. The stirring in his trousers was so intense, he stuffed his hands in his pockets to quell the rising hardness.
It was too risky. He already had one boy. But if he truly wanted to re-enact the old experience he needed two, didn’t he?
As the boy pushed the green button on the internal security door, the man moved quickly to get in line behind him. When the door opened, he entered the small enclosure and smiled. The boy grinned back.
Eighty-Four
The noon sky was dark, more like late afternoon, and it was snowing once again.
Leaving the village of Ballinacloy, Lottie checked to see if there was any word from the hospital. Nothing. At the station she accompanied Lynch inside with the suitcase. They registered the contents and Lottie flicked through the old notebook once more. She recoiled from the written horrors and bagged the book for evidence.
‘I’ll be back in a while,’ she said.
Badly in need of a shower, she picked up her own car. She also wanted to visit Boyd. But first stop, now that she had the keys, would be St Angela’s.
A sore throat was itching to take root. Lottie coughed and it ached even more. Standing at her car looking up at the old building, she needed to ease the stress constricting her brain. She counted the windows once, then twice. Careful not to slip on the fresh sheen of snow, she walked up the steps.
At the door, key in hand, she had an uncharacteristic surge of dread. She was fearful for herself, her past, her decisions, her attitude, her grief and what she was becoming. In an instant, she wished Boyd was with her, jibing her. She missed him.
Slipping latex gloves over numb fingers, she turned the key in the old lock and pushed open the door, surprised it extended inwards with comparative ease.
The entrance hall was smaller than she expected. An icy chill took her breath away. Colder inside than out. She half-expected to see water running down the walls from burst pipes. Before her stood a large staircase. The mahogany banister twisted upwards, enclosing wide concrete steps, leading to a crossroad of dark corridors. She didn’t bother with the light switch, it might not work and she didn’t want to find out. Sometimes you were better off not knowing, rather than finding yourself literally in the dark. She comforted herself with that thought.
She listened. Stillness inside, while the wind outside hurled snow against the windowpanes, rattling their frames. A draught rustled dead leaves at her feet. She closed the front door and kicked the remnants of snow from her boots. She decided to check out the upper floors.
At the top of the first flight of stairs, she moved along a corridor lined on one side with doors and windows on the other. Subconsciously, she counted the windows – couldn’t help it – and mentally filed the numbers away. Doubling back, she headed along the other corridor, counting these windows; their frames creaked, then settled. She repeated the exercise on the other floor. Counting. It didn’t add up.
She ran down the stairs. Counted again. Only thirteen windows. Sixteen on the outside. Both ends of the corridor were bookended by concrete. She traced her hand along the wall and knocked intermittently, wondering if they were hollow. They appeared solid. Perhaps Tom Rickard could provide the answer. She was curious about the inaccuracy but had no idea what significance it might have, if any.
A bird shrieked above her head, its wings crashing against the wooden rafters, and disappeared. She would have screamed if her throat wasn't already raw. She leaned against the wall and felt the vibes of the past. O’Malley’s story reverberated in her brain. The clamour of children running along corridors, nuns screaming behind them, hair pulling, squealing, jaws clattering with the backs of wizened hands. The image was so vivid, if she reached out, Lottie thought she might touch it. The anguish, the loneliness of abandoned children. There was no sense of dreams or expectation, it was all despair and loss.
Once again her thoughts were invaded by the image of the yellowing file in her bottom desk drawer. The missing. The dead. The young red-headed boy – had he been murdered or had O’Malley’s drink-addled brain conjured up a myth? She recalled the words scripted in the navy hard-backed notebook, and the ledgers, full of truths and lies. The overwhelming emotion charging through her being was devastating helplessness.
The blackbird quietened down, nestled in the eaves of the roof and Lottie retraced her steps, counting the faded brown doors along the corridor, with tarnished brass knobs, paint peeling beneath from years of hands, young and old, twisting and turning. Since it had been abandoned to itself, the building had died.
Doors needed to be opened. Doors to a forgotten past. Maybe Susan and James had tried to unlock them, in the metaphorical sense. Look what had happened to them. Her gut was telling her this building held the key to the overall puzzle. She opened and closed a few doors to empty desolate spaces and she assumed the rooms had once been small dormitories. She turned the handle on the next and stepped inside.
It was similar to the others, though here black plastic bags covered the windows, smothering the room in darkness. She felt along the wall and flicked a switch. A low wattage bulb, suspended on a dust-covered wire, spread a modicum of light over the space. Lottie looked around.
An iron-framed bed, against a wall, dressed in white sheets. Stepping further into the room on bare, uneven floorboards, Lottie twitched her nose. A faint hint of washing powder lingered on the cotton. She turned the pillow and raised the mattress. Nothing.
A clinking sound caused her to pause, sheet in hand. Silence. Ears alert, all she heard was the wind brushing snow against the window and the refuse bag rustling in a breeze through a gap in the sashes. She studied the room. A bed, a small gas heater in one corner and a wooden chair in the other. Nothing else, except paint peeling from the ceiling and shadows deepening in yellow tremors from the slightly swaying light-bulb.
Turning to leave, she caught a glimpse of a sliver of metal at the leg of the bed. She swept her fingers through the dust and touched the object. She slid it toward her, cradled it between her cold fingers and lifted it to the light. The silver pendant shimmered against her latex swathed hand. She knew exactly who the pendant belonged to.
Jason twisted his head, sure he’d heard knocking against the wall. The binds, on his arms and legs, constrained him to the floor. The gag in his mouth prevented him from shouting.