Little Bones

by Sam Blake

  Now it was six o’clock, and bells were ringing out across the country, calling the loyal and devout to prayer, a constant reminder of duty and obligation, a reminder that the Church was watching, waiting, like a great black crow hungry for the weak to stumble.

  Boy, had she stumbled.

  Shivering involuntarily, Cathy heaved open the steel and plate-glass front door of Dún Laoghaire Garda Station. It sucked closed behind her, sealing out the world, sealing her into a protective bubble of ringing phones and urgent voices, interviews and leads, of laughter and despair, of frenetic teams trying to beat the clock. But today it was a bubble that also stank of bleach, the disinfectant masking cheap perfume and unwashed bodies, last night’s puke. The confusion of odours hit Cathy like a slap in the face as she headed across the pale-grey-tiled hall, nodding to the station house officer in the public office, punching her code into the inner door, holding her breath just long enough for her to get to the bottom of the stairs. When she let her breath out, it came in a whoosh. She gagged, coughed theatrically, trying to hide it. Feck this.

  Her appointment next week couldn’t come fast enough.

  Upstairs, O’Rourke was in his office scowling at his laptop when she stuck her head around the door.

  ‘You look like you need a coffee.’

  ‘Cruise in the Caribbean more like.’ O’Rourke didn’t look up, continued to type, two fingers flying over the keys like he was hammering out a tune. Rock or heavy metal.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Angel Hierra has vanished off the face of the earth. And he definitely didn’t get on the ferry. I’ve got twenty bloody mules out there checking every bar, every hotel, every bed and breakfast. Nothing. Nada.’

  Cathy came into the office properly, closing the door behind her, leaning her back on it, her fingertips tucked into the tight-fitting pockets of her jeans.

  ‘Could he have changed his appearance?’

  O’Rourke paused from his typing to look down his nose at her. ‘It seems likely.’

  ‘But he’s American. He must have a strong accent.’

  ‘He’s Mexican American, speaks fluent Spanish. I imagine he’s dropped into the Spanish student population.’

  Cathy nodded. There were a lot of Spanish students in Dún Laoghaire, in Ireland to study English at one of the many language colleges.

  ‘Are you going to do a press conference?’

  ‘Looks like it, Chief Super’s orders. Spread a bit of terror among the residents, have the local gougers turn on anyone who speaks with an accent.’ He shook his head, widening his eyes at the implications. A press conference was more likely to spook Hierra into running than anything else, while they coped with the fallout.

  ‘Anyway, the Grant case.’ O’Rourke cleared his throat. ‘The soil samples’ – he said it like he was announcing the best actor award at the Oscars – ‘don’t match.’ He paused, looking straight at Cathy, his hands hovering in mid-air as though if he sat there long enough he could perform magic, solve all his problems with the next keystroke. It was one of those significant pauses, but Cathy wasn’t too sure what he wanted her to say, so she kept her mouth shut. She was pretty sure he was going to tell her anyway. He did. ‘Wrong sort of sand.’

  Leaning over, O’Rourke riffled through a pile of printouts, looking for the report.

  ‘Are there different sorts?’

  ‘There are. And the sort we’ve got doesn’t come from Zoë Grant’s garden.’

  ‘How can they tell?’

  ‘Remember Jim Donovan?’ O’Rourke didn’t wait for Cathy to answer. Everyone knew Jim Donovan’s name: the first director of forensic science in the state, who had had his legs blown off by The General. O’Rourke paused, shaking his head, appalled all over again by one of their own taking a direct hit. ‘When Jim worked the Mountbatten case, he did a comparison of sand granules from the beaches around Mullaghmore, the whole way from Sligo to Mayo. And he found out that they’re all different shapes. Amazing, isn’t it? Sand looks like sand to me . . . So anyhow, our sand didn’t come from Zoë’s garden.’

  ‘So where did it come from?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘That’s the million-dollar question. The lab boys are going to take samples from the surrounding area but for all we know those bones could have been buried in Kerry . . .’ A sigh of frustration escaped before O’Rourke could stop it.

  ‘So it’s going to take a while.’

  O’Rourke scowled at the screen of his computer, chewing his lip. Then rubbed his hands over his face, massaging away the strain, the tension.

  He hated it when things went wrong. And Cathy knew he wanted to move the investigation forward. If they found the burial site then there was half a chance it would lead them to the crime scene, give them an idea of who it was who had taken it upon themselves to murder a child, bury it and subsequently (why?) move the bones to the hem of a wedding dress.

  They needed to hide them.

  The thought hit Cathy slap in the middle of the forehead like it had been out there all the time but she was too stupid to see it. At some point after burying them, the person who had hidden them had needed to move them, to hide them again.

  Obviously.

  But why the dress? It was hardly convenient, hardly the first place you’d think of to stick a pile of bones in a hurry.

  Cathy thought hard but nothing came. Sometimes her subconscious was downright uncooperative.

  Crossing his arms tight, O’Rourke forced a grin. ‘So how did you get on? Better than me, I hope.’

  ‘So-so.’ Cathy moved away from the door, pulled out the chair opposite his desk and flopped into it.

  ‘Sit down, why don’t you?’

  ‘Thanks, I –’

  O’Rourke cut across her. ‘Hope you’ve had something to eat today. You’re looking positively peaky at the moment.’

  ‘Peaky?’ The words didn’t fit coming out of his mouth.

  ‘My grandmother’s favourite word. Has you covered. You coming down with something?’

  That was about right. Cathy shrugged. What could she say? How many headaches could you have in nine months without someone smelling a rat?

  ‘Just keep away from me if it’s contagious. I’ve enough problems. So, Zoë Grant’s mother. Where is she and when can we talk to her?’

  Picking up the dog tag on her necklace, Cathy ran it along the chain as she answered.

  ‘That’s looking a bit tricky. She’s in France, apparently, but Zoë lost touch with her when she was a child. They haven’t had any contact since she was about three. She doesn’t even know her date of birth.’

  ‘What d’you mean, no contact? She’s her mother, isn’t she?’

  ‘Zoë was brought up by Lavinia Grant. She thinks that perhaps Eleanor – that’s her mother – might have been in touch over the years, but Lavinia never told her. Sounds like she eloped, reading between the lines. Zoë thinks Lavinia might have burned the correspondence.’

  ‘For pity’s sake. So what are we supposed to do, put an ad in Le Monde? Jesus. You’ll have to get back down there first thing tomorrow and go through Lavinia’s papers. Take 007 with you again.’ He frowned. ‘There must be some record of her mother, a postcard or an email, her birth cert. Something. Anything.’ He paused. ‘I’ll get the lads here to get on to the embassy and Interpol, put out some feelers. I want to know exactly who has had contact with that dress since the day it was made.’

  ‘I’ll need a warrant.’

  ‘Obviously, I’ll organise it for first thing in the morning. Have an early night and get your beauty sleep. And you’d better get hold of some garlic on the way. Those bloody women are like a coven of witches. Burning? Jeez, they probably nail their men to stakes, leave them in the basement to rot . . . You’ll have to keep a close eye on lover boy.’

  23

  Tony Cox put his head around the living-room door.

  ‘You asleep?’

  The fire was dying in the grate, a reading lamp
throwing a pool of warm light over the end of the sofa on which Emily was lying, a cat stretched out on her knee. She stretched, yawning.

  ‘I must have been. Have you been drinking? I thought you were at a meeting.’

  ‘I was – it ended up in the Blind Beggar. Did you know a guy was shot in there? It used to be a real gangland pub – the Krays drank there.’

  He flopped into an armchair.

  More awake than she wanted to be, Emily slipped her hand under her head. ‘How did you end up in Whitechapel? I thought the meeting was at St Thomas’s.’

  ‘It moved. Right over to The London. Very handy. I walked home.’

  ‘I guessed you didn’t fly. You should be more careful. You’ll get mugged.’

  Tony didn’t answer, was struggling to undo his tie in the half-light.

  ‘I swear these things get harder as you get older. So how was your day?’

  Emily yawned again. ‘Good, actually. I got Mary kitted out, and we had lunch. Met an old guy from Bundoran who knew my parents.’

  ‘What, both of them?’

  Emily nodded, turning to face him, curling her knees up, much to the cat’s disgust. ‘They’re from the same village. Ireland’s a small country, you know. They say you’re only one person away from the person you need to speak to.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘That everyone knows everyone else, and if you don’t know someone, you’ll know someone else who does.’

  ‘Got it.’ It was plain he didn’t, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it. ‘How was Mary? Any improvement?’

  Any improvement? It was hard for Emily to be sure, but sitting in the brightly lit kitchen, the radio tuned to RTÉ 1 and Ireland’s favourite morning show, a cup of tea cooling in front of her, Mary had seemed to be emerging from the cloud of confusion that had surrounded her, was almost chatty. And it was a huge relief. Emily knew she had made a fuss of the old lady with the soda bread and home-made marmalade, knew she should be distancing herself, not getting involved, but seeing her sitting there, bundled up in her cardigan, her shoulders hunched, it seemed, through years of shivering, Emily couldn’t help herself.

  There were still tests Singh wanted to do, but he’d been satisfied enough to try a course of medication, and it seemed to be beginning to work. Which meant that with proper care Mary would be able to function in society without the anxiety, the paranoia, the isolation she had probably been feeling for years. Tears had pricked at Emily’s eyes. She blinked them away; now she was being ridiculous. She took a deep breath; the years of hormone treatment had left her emotions heightened and, she was quite sure, jumbled, her despair and her failure raw. But right now no one could rob her of the glow that Mary’s recovery was bringing her; she might not be able to get pregnant, but one thing she could do was help. And even the prospect of a simple shopping trip had helped, bringing Mary’s memories closer to the surface.

  ‘I thought we’d have a look around the shops today, Mary, see if we can’t find you some better shoes.’

  ‘Shoes?’

  As she lifted her rheumy eyes from the piece of toast in her hand, a shadow had passed across Mary’s face, creased like a relief map of the Derryveagh Mountains, as if a shoe-buying expedition was something to be feared. She looked so vulnerable.

  ‘And maybe a new cardy.’

  Behind Emily the toaster popped, the wonderful homey smell of brown toast filling the kitchen.

  ‘A new cardy?’ Mary frowned, then looked directly at Emily. And for the first time since they had met, her eyes were focused, penetrating, her voice clear. ‘I knew you’d come.’

  It was a definite statement of fact.

  Not entirely sure what she meant, Emily stood up to get the toast.

  ‘We couldn’t leave you in that draughty flat now, could we, after you being up half the night?’

  Watching her put the plate of toast down between them, Mary shook her head, her voice back to a whisper, but her eyes clear.

  ‘It was so cold. Nowhere to sit. And rough. You can’t imagine. Everyone was sick.’

  ‘Where was that, Mary?’

  Mary wrinkled her face. ‘She told me to pack my case, said it was a holiday . . . until . . . Never even said goodbye. Just gave me the address and the ticket and turned around.’

  ‘Who did, Mary? Who gave you the ticket?’

  As if she didn’t hear her, Mary took a delicate sip of her tea, her little finger sticking out from the cup as if it was made of bone china and they were taking tea on the lawn. Emily waited, desperate to repeat the question but knowing too that she needed to give Mary space, time to connect with her past.

  ‘I knew you’d come. I knew. You were a determined little thing right from the start. I’ve been waiting, you know. Every night I thought it could be tomorrow, it could be tomorrow when she comes.’ Mary paused and the moment was lost, the glimpse of clarity gone like a cloud scudding across the sky. When she spoke again, it was half to herself, the words almost a mantra, worn like a groove on a record: ‘Hard to find. Must have been hard to find.’

  Hard to find, like a slipped stitch or a lost button.

  ‘Why did it take you so long?’ Not much more than a whisper.

  ‘Sorry, Mary?’ Watching her closely, Emily wasn’t sure if Mary knew where she was, who she was talking to. But her eyes were still bright, her face animated.

  ‘Why did it take you so long to find me?’

  Emily had thought she was talking about them finding her at the police station, but was she? She kept her face straight like she knew what Mary meant.

  ‘I was waiting. Every day I thought it might be the next day. Waiting, waiting. Mrs Hartnett always said I looked like I was waiting – an “air of expectancy”, she called it.’

  Emily took a sip of her tea.

  ‘Who was Mrs Hartnett, Mary?’ It was the first time she’d mentioned anyone from her past by name. And today was the first time she’d talked about the past without living it as she spoke, the first time it was a genuine memory. She must be getting better. The drugs had to be kicking in. In the background, the radio presenter introduced another guest but Emily wasn’t listening, her entire focus on Mary.

  Trying to sound conversational, relaxed, Emily could feel a tiny bud of excitement flowering inside her. There was something about Mary, something about her story that Emily felt desperate to unravel. She was like she was a character in an Agatha Christie novel, or Dickens, her past a mass of strands knotted together, or the pieces of a pattern jumbled up. All of it locked inside her head. The one thing Emily was sure of was that she was Irish, that she would have family back home. They had a connection, a kinship.

  ‘Who was Mrs Hartnett?’ Emily prompted gently.

  ‘She was a dragon.’ Mary said it as though the memory left a bitter taste in her mouth. Emily was about to ask why, but Mary continued, her face softening, ‘Mrs Lynch though, she was lovely, looked like Rita Hayworth when she was dressed for dinner or the theatre.’ Mary smiled, her eyes shining, leaned towards Emily conspiratorially, her toast forgotten. ‘But she had terrible trouble with her nerves. Only saw the children after their bath.’ Mary shook her head sadly. ‘He worshipped her, insisted the children were quiet when she was resting, went mad if there was the slightest disturbance.’ Mary nodded as if agreeing with herself, then ‘She couldn’t believe I was only nineteen and travelling on my own, kept asking questions. All the time, questions.’ Mary paused. It was a long pause and for a moment Emily felt like she should say something to keep the memories coming, something to prompt her to keep talking. But there was no need. Almost as if she was trying to justify herself, Mary continued, ‘But she needed the help with the two little ones and then another one came along. And then there was the mending. Mrs Lynch was always full of my invisible mending, my fingers were black and blue with all of it, but I didn’t mind . . .’

  It was the longest speech Mary had ever made. Emily was bursting with questions, but didn’t want
to interrupt. Mary smiled, the memories obviously happy ones.

  Something Mary had said before had made Emily think maybe she’d been a nanny or a governess. Now she was sure. Perhaps if they could find Mary’s employers they could find out a bit more about her – the children would be well grown and Lynch was a common name, but . . .

  ‘What were the children’s names, Mary?’

  ‘Clara and Tom, and then Benjamin, he came next, and then little Richard, he was on the end. Clara was such a pretty thing, with blonde ringlets, gosh how she screamed when I brushed her hair. And Tom, well he was a devil. Went and joined the Royal Engineers as soon as he was eighteen, but I wasn’t with them by then.’

  ‘Where did you go, Mary?’

  Mary frowned. ‘Where did I go?’

  ‘After Mrs Lynch, after Clara and Tom and Benjamin, where did you go?’

  ‘Mrs Lynch found me a place with the Hartnetts. Great big house in Hampstead. But not like the Lynches at all. I hadn’t been there long when she told me little Tom Lynch had been killed in Aden.’ Mary sighed, her lip trembling. ‘But Mrs Hartnett wouldn’t let me have the afternoon off to go and call, to give my respects. They were all going away to the country, couldn’t spare me. And of course we were away all summer. I wrote but I never heard back.’

  Emily leaned across the table. ‘I’m sure they got your letter, Mary, I’m sure Mrs Lynch knew you cared.’ She could see Mary was getting distressed, tried to move the conversation on. ‘Did the Hartnetts have children?’

  Mary looked impatient like it was a stupid question.

  ‘They wouldn’t have needed me if they didn’t. Twins, girls, and little madams, always scheming to get me into trouble. I didn’t stay . . .’

  Mary left the sentence hanging, and looked down at her toast, cold now, her face clouding. Reaching for the memories had drained her. Emily was desperate to find out what happened next, to ask if she’d maintained contact with her own family, but she could see Mary was slipping back into the no man’s land of her mind. But they were definitely getting somewhere.