The Four Streets Saga

by Nadine Dorries

  As he left the Grand hotel to retrieve his car, he saw Harriet, running up the street for a meeting of the Mothers’ Union. All this activity had one purpose: to ensure that the new cathedral, known by everyone as Paddy’s wigwam, became a vibrant Christian community.

  ‘I hope ’tis the last time the police want to spend time at the Priory,’ Anthony grumbled at Harriet as he passed her in the street. ‘I’m beginning to feel as though my office is a police cell.’

  ‘Well, who’s the grumpy one today then?’ said Harriet, rushing past him, through the hotel’s revolving doors.

  She had deliberately not dallied. She did not want to lie to Anthony about where she had been and what she had been doing. She was on fire with excitement after having had her tea leaves read by Kathleen.

  Harriet felt a thrill as she replayed Nana Kathleen’s words in her mind. She had been told, with the help of a ghost, that she had to be bold and ask Mr Manning to meet her for a cup of tea in the café at the docks.

  During the journey to Lime Street, her mind had raced ahead. It didn’t matter what she, or anyone else, thought of Kathleen’s fortune-telling. The fact was that her feelings, which were swamping her, were beyond explanation. How could she account for them?

  It was as if someone had wrapped an invisible shawl of love around her shoulders. She knew, she just knew, it had come straight from Bernadette, the woman they all loved and spoke of with such fondness. She was sure that it was she who had sat down next to her, but no one else had appeared to notice. Did it happen all the time? What was Bernadette like? Why on earth would Bernadette possibly want to help Harriet? All Harriet knew was that Bernadette was Nellie’s mammy. As she ran up the wide carpeted staircase to the meeting room, Harriet resolved to visit the churchyard to place some flowers on Bernadette’s grave. She would thank Bernadette and tell her, I love your little girl. I will always do whatever I can for Nellie.

  If Bernadette had already talked to her through three sugars and a cup full of tea leaves, she might work a miracle, if Harriet took her some flowers, sat next to her plot of earth and said a prayer.

  The police commander was waiting in the hallway of the priory when Daisy stepped through the open front door. Having spent years using a key, she now felt at a loss as to the correct etiquette. Should she knock?

  Hearing the sound of tyres on gravel, she saw Father Anthony’s car turn into the drive. Father James had never owned a car.

  ‘My, how quickly times are changing,’ said Daisy out loud.

  ‘Hello, Daisy,’ Father Anthony called as he joined them. ‘Go along into my office. You know the way. I will be just one minute. Oh, for goodness’ sake, what are the boys doing now?’

  Father Anthony looked over the wall into the churchyard and saw Harry and Little Paddy, charging between the headstones, shouting.

  ‘Scamp, Scamp, come here!’

  But Scamp was faster than they were.

  ‘Sorry, Father,’ the boys shrieked as they flew past.

  ‘Harriet wasn’t in, so we were playing truth or dare in the graveyard,’ Harry explained breathlessly, as he struggled to keep up with the errant Scamp.

  ‘Priests in cars and little boys tearing through the graveyard, chasing a dog. I have never known the like.’ Daisy laughed.

  ‘Don’t let them see me laughing, Daisy,’ Father Anthony whispered. ‘’Twould be the end of me for sure.’

  Daisy realized that, after all the years she had spent in the Priory as housekeeper, this was the first time she had laughed out loud.

  The commander had been pacing up and down the Priory hallway, pondering aloud his dilemma to the officer who had accompanied him. It was the tall and tubby PC Shaw, who had successfully nicked Stanley.

  ‘It is all becoming very complicated and we need to ensure we keep each crime isolated. We have a priest’s murder, Mrs Barrett’s murder, a kidnapping and what appears to be an organized paedophile ring. It is unlikely the kidnapping and the child abuse had anything to do with the poor priest. I am very sure that whoever killed Molly Barrett killed him too, eh, boyo? But it’s unlikely we are ever going to find out who that was. Apart from the butt of a Pall Mall ciggie found on the outhouse floor next to the dead woman, Molly Barrett, we have not a single clue and that’s the truth.’

  ‘What about the fact that they all happened at around the same time?’ said PC Shaw. ‘Surely that links them all in some way.’

  ‘I’m not sure it does, boyo. That may just be a coincidence. On the other hand the case is turning out to be something far bigger and deeper than we thought, with new developments unfolding by the day. In the cells we have the two hospital porters and a policeman. None of them is saying a word. You would think they were all bloody nuns who had taken a vow of silence and they all look as guilty as hell. What with a kidnapping, child abuse and a double murder. We should have clues coming out of our ears, and yet hardly a sausage. You wouldn’t believe it, would you?

  ‘Let’s hope Daisy comes up trumps again, eh? God knows why she thought she needed to keep the safe a secret all this time. The priest must have been worried about robbers stealing the collection money and who could blame him? The O’Prey boys came from around here somewhere, didn’t they? Bad lads, they were. The most notorious thieves on the docks. Let’s hope they throw away the key on the oldest. They say Callum, the youngest, has turned over a new leaf, but I’ll believe it when I see it.’

  Annie O’Prey, standing at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, heard every word.

  Her elderly eyes pricked with tears. She bent her weary back to rest the tea tray she was carrying for the officers on the stair in front of her and, taking her grey and tattered hankie from the sleeve of her cardigan, she wiped her eyes.

  So alone, she missed her boys desperately. She was very proud of her Callum, who had been taken on by Fred Kennedy down at the docks, and she suspected and hoped that he had his eye on lovely young Fionnuala down the street. She was the first to admit that they were naughty lads, but they never nicked anything without sharing it with everyone else. She knew that many a house had gone without, now that her eldest lad was in the nick and Callum was doing his best to behave.

  Everyone missed the antics of the O’Prey boys.

  Annie took out her rosaries from her cardigan pocket, said her Hail Mary and asked for forgiveness for having wallowed in her own despair. Drying her eyes, she picked up the tray and carried on up the stairs as though she hadn’t heard a thing.

  PC Shaw was about to offer up an idea of his own regarding the murders. Anger boiled in his belly when he thought of the men involved and he knew what he would want to do to anyone who went near his own daughter.

  He thought the commander was wrong to think the murders had nothing to do with the kidnapping, nor with the way Daisy had been abused, and she had described others being abused too.

  When Daisy walked into the hall, his moment for speaking out was gone.

  ‘Ah, Daisy, I don’t know if you remember my name? I’m Commander Lloyd. I’m from Wales, across the border.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘I remember,’ she replied. ‘I’m not simple, you know.’

  There, she had said exactly what Maggie told her she must say.

  ‘No, quite, Daisy. I apologize if I caused any offence. Mrs Davies is also on her way. She thought you might need a bit of female company. Do you have the key to the safe? Where is this safe, anyway?’

  Daisy reached into her blouse and pulled out a chain from around her neck. Her gold crucifix hung from it – the only possession to have accompanied her to the orphanage when she was a baby.

  ‘It’s down in the cellar,’ said Daisy, ‘and so we need to go through the kitchen first.’

  ‘Well, that explains why the safe wasn’t in the office,’ said the commander.

  Annie O’Prey heard them coming down the stairs. ‘Daisy, are ye after your job back, queen? ’Cause I’m done in, I am. I’m too old for this malarkey now.’

  Daisy gave Ann
ie a hug. ‘I have to go down to the cellar, Annie,’ she said. ‘I have the key for the safe.’

  ‘The cellar?’ said Annie, amazed. ‘Well now, I haven’t put one foot in that place since the new father arrived and, do you know, I don’t think anyone else has. A creepy hole altogether, that is.’

  Ten minutes later, the commander was on his way back up the stairs, loaded with round tin cans the size of dinner plates, a projector, a screen and a pile of envelopes. He laid them all out on the hall floor and sent his officer down to collect the rest.

  Alison was turning into the drive to the Priory when she saw her page-boys, Little Paddy and Harry, walking through the gate from the graveyard. Paddy was carrying Scamp and Harry, something large and wooden.

  ‘Paddy, Harry,’ she shouted. ‘Is Scamp misbehaving himself?’

  Alison could see that something was up. ‘Is something wrong, boys?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harry replied. ‘Scamp found this on the other side of the wall, on one of the graves. It was covered with ferns but it looks a bit weird.’

  Harry struggled to hold what looked like a lump of wood while Scamp wriggled in Little Paddy’s arms.

  ‘Here, let me take Scamp,’ Alison said, extracting the rather sheepish-looking dog from under Little Paddy’s arm. But she gasped with shock as Harry held up the wooden mallet he was carrying.

  The end was soaked in what was obviously old, stale blood.

  Commander Lloyd sat in the temporary office he had been allocated in Whitechapel where he and his officer had set up the screen and projector. It was eight in the evening. They had been waiting for days for clearance to view the films, as well as for a lab-test result on the mallet. It was being examined for fingerprints, and, more importantly, to check whether the blood on it belonged to the murdered priest.

  ‘Have you eaten, boyo?’ he asked Howard.

  ‘Yes, sir, but I’m half wishing I hadn’t now, if these films are too bad.’

  The commander looked at the brown paper bag on his desk.

  ‘Now then, before we begin, nip down to the canteen and bring up a few empty cups.’

  Howard looked confused. ‘Empty?’

  ‘Because, boyo, we need something inside us, to line our stomachs and give us a bit of Dutch courage.’ He slipped a large bottle of whiskey out of the bag on his desk.

  ‘Now then, let’s see how this thing works,’ said the commander, as he wound one of the films around the wheel and PC Shaw switched on the projector.

  He took a large swig from the bottle and then turned out the lights.

  Images appeared on the screen in black and white. Although the filming was obviously amateur, they were clear enough.

  ‘Oh God, fucking hell,’ he said. He took another swig of whiskey, just as Howard walked back into the room with three mugs.

  ‘Come here, boyo,’ said the commander. ‘Do you recognize him?’

  Howard joined PC Shaw, who was staring at the screen, transfixed. Howard wanted what he was watching not to be true. But it was. It was there in front of him in black and white.

  ‘I do, sir, he’s that politician fella, he’s always on the news. Drives round here in a big black Rolls with a chauffeur, and eats a lot of pies by the look of him.’

  Peter, from the main desk, had come into the room unnoticed. ‘Eh, that’s that politician, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Aye, boyo, it is that,’ said the commander. ‘But keep it under your hat, mate, we have a bigger problem here. Did you want something?’

  ‘Yes, sir, your lab and fingerprint tests are through. One of our lads has just run back from the labs with them. If you thought you had a problem before, wait until you hear this. They managed to get a fingerprint from the mallet. It belongs to Simon, the copper. Thank God he’s already in the cells, eh? And the blood, well, that isn’t the priest’s blood group, but we know whose it is, all right – it belongs to the old lady who was murdered, Molly Barrett. I reckon it will be only half an hour before the Echo are on to it.’

  ‘Jesus, fucking Christ! So if he murdered the old woman, he murdered the priest too. Unless we have two crazed murderers running around the docks, who both happened to strike within weeks of each other.’

  Howard slowly lowered himself onto a chair. Simon – the man he had worked with for years, who had driven him to his wedding and bought him and Alison a silver rose bowl as a wedding gift – was a murderer.

  All of them stared at the screen for a second longer. Then the commander leant forward and flicked up the off button. The room became dark. He turned to Howard and PC Shaw.

  ‘You guys look through the photographs, quickly, before we have the press breathing down our necks. Let’s try to keep this to ourselves and make sure the Echo only get to hear about that dirty, stinking creep Simon being charged with the double murder. I need to speak to my boss, as this will go way above my pay grade. Number Ten will be involved in this.’

  And with that, he left the room.

  ‘I don’t know what he’s worried about,’ said PC Shaw. ‘No one is going to let anything like this concerning a politician get out to the public. It will definitely all be covered up. It will all be pinned on the policeman now. He’s a goner with those lab results, and that’s for sure.’

  But when PC Shaw opened an envelope of photographs, he blanched in horror.

  ‘And here we have it,’ he said. ‘Yet another link. Jesus, someone is shaking that tree pretty hard. They are falling like leaves.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Howard. ‘Well, what do you know? Here they are, both together, very cosy, the priest and Simon. So now we have it, the link that binds them together, that and a bloody mallet.’ Howard sounded sorrowful when he added, ‘Simon can only be hanged once, but hanged he will be, for both.’

  There was something painfully sad and disappointing about the fact that Simon was one of their own. PC Shaw drained the last of the whiskey bottle into two mugs and handed one to Howard.

  ‘Here, drink this,’ he said. ‘Makes it all much easier to stomach.’

  22

  MRS MCGUIRE SAT in the window seat of the hotel foyer, looking out onto the main road, drinking her tea and pondering. What a strange situation it was indeed that, because of Mary’s new affluence, she could now afford to do this.

  Some of the local children were walking past, on their way home. They stared in at the three-tiered plate, piled high with fancies and millionaire’s shortbread, just as she and Maisie had done when they were girls.

  A scruffy-looking young boy, who looked as though he hadn’t seen soap and water for a month and wearing a jumper with more holes than stitches, his face full of envy and resentment, put out his tongue at Mrs McGuire.

  She was far from shocked. Sure, didn’t me and Maisie do the same, she thought, as she leant forward and put out her own tongue back at him. The other boys laughed and pushed the cheeky boy to move him along.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs McGuire,’ shouted a boy she recognized, but for the life of her, could not name.

  She smiled back, to let him know, she took no offence.

  I’ve been away for too long and missed too much, she thought, as she sipped her tea and waited for Mary and Alice to return.

  Mary had been delighted that Sister Assumpta was happy to hand over the contract signed by Kitty.

  ‘All we have to do now is get ourselves to Dublin. We will talk to this Rosie O’Grady and then we can find the girl who gave birth to my baby. I know that, no matter what, she will want to help. Who wouldn’t, Alice? No one would deny a child the gift of life, now, would they? I will make it worth her while. I bet she is just a poor girl from the country.’

  ‘Of course she will help. Anyone would,’ Alice replied. ‘When do you think we should leave for Dublin?’

  ‘Tonight, if Mammy agrees. We don’t have hours to waste, never mind days.’

  Alice was distracted. She wished she could speak to Sean. She knew who the mother of the baby was and, what’s more, she
knew where she lived. There was no need for any visit to Rosie O’Grady.

  The baby was dying and only his parents could save him. Alice knew for sure that one was already dead. Alice was part of the conspiracy, an accomplice in that parent’s murder, a murder that would never be spoken about.

  And the other parent was Kitty. She could get them to Kitty Doherty within a couple of days.

  ‘Oh God, this is awful,’ Alice groaned.

  ‘What is?’ asked Mary, unwrapping the shawl from around the baby and laying him on his back on her knee. Holding his little feet in her hands, she smiled at him and blew him kisses. Her heart felt lighter than it had since the day she had first received his diagnosis.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing, I’m just tired,’ said Alice, pressing her forehead on the cold glass and looking out of the window.

  How could Alice explain that Kitty lived on the four streets, doors away from Alice’s own son, Joseph?

  ‘No woman who leaves her son has the right to call herself a mother,’ Mrs McGuire had said to Alice when she had first arrived in America. She was right. Alice had no business thinking of herself as a mother, but that didn’t stop her heart from breaking every day for the baby boy she had never wanted, had finally learnt to love and then had left behind in running away with Sean. And now Sean wanted her to have another child, as though Joseph had never existed. Alice had never wanted children but she knew in her heart that Joseph had taught her to love. She might have left him, but she would not desert him. He would remain her only child.

  If she told Mary where Kitty lived, she would have to return to Liverpool and face her demons. If she didn’t tell Mary, this Rosie O’Grady would lead them straight there anyway.

  A baby was dying. Alice would be obliged to tell Mary that she knew who Kitty Doherty was. It was going to happen. Alice would have to return to the four streets. The thought made her stomach clench and her heart scream, for a sight of Joseph. Sean no longer occupied all her thoughts. She was smart enough to realize that things were not as she had expected them to be. She loved America, the freedom and the way of life, but she was also beginning to acknowledge, if only to herself, that she no longer loved Sean.