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Lottie could still hear the waves crashing on the shoreline not too far away. The sound swathed them like they were in an echo chamber.

‘I know you’ve had an eventful day,’ he said, ‘but there’s been something on my mind that I hope you can help me with.’

‘Go on,’ she said, looking at him from under her eyelids. Bryan was a tall, handsome man. A bit rugged and square-jawed, if she was being picky, but then again, it added to his farmer image. Dressed in a clean light-blue shirt and dark denim jeans, she thought the wellingtons kind of ruined his image.

‘Grace can’t know about this, and if she is to be kept in the dark, her brother will have to be kept that way too.’

‘Oh.’ She wondered where the conversation was leading.

‘Do you agree?’

‘I need to hear what you have to say first.’

He ran a hand through his thick greying hair. ‘I suppose I’ll have to accept that.’

They’d reached the boundary wall, with a vast barren field before them.

‘What is it you want me to do?’ Lottie asked.

‘Listen to me first of all. Then see if you can help.’

He leaned against the old stone wall and folded his arms. She felt awkward standing beside him, but was intrigued to hear what he had to say.

‘When I was a boy, I was sent to a place called Knockraw. One of those industrial schools. I was only a young teenager at the time. It was an all-boys institution, run by the Christian Brothers and a couple of priests. It’s closed down now, could even have been demolished, but it remained open until the late eighties, maybe even into the early nineties. Anyhow, it’s been said that over a hundred boys died there and at the infamous Letterfrack industrial school.’

‘I’ve read about Letterfrack. And you were in a place like that?’

‘Aye, I was. Whipped raw, I was. There was physical and sexual abuse, and death. Aye, too many boys died. No words for it other than it was barbaric treatment.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ She felt genuine pity for the boy this weathered man had once been.

‘Not your fault.’

‘Why were you sent there?’

‘My mother died, and then didn’t my father take to the drink. My other brother didn’t want to have anything to do with me, so I was left to my own devices. I was always starving with the hunger and started stealing. Mainly food and cigarettes. But that sort of carry-on landed me in Knockraw. I thought when my mother died that it was my worst nightmare. But the real nightmare began the day I was led through those doors. I was subjected to all sorts of abuse for three years.’

‘That’s terrible, Bryan.’

‘When I got out of that hellhole, the country was in the middle of a recession, so I took a few jobs to get enough moneyfor a plane ticket to America. Wanted to make my fortune there. A pipe dream. But I worked hard on the building sites in and around New York, and when I’d made a good few bob, I came back.’

‘What has all this to do with me?’

‘It’s complicated, and I don’t want Grace to know about this. Not yet, anyhow.’ He patted Tess, who was circling his legs in silence.

Once the dog was settled at his feet, he went on. ‘I had been seeing this girl. Mary Elizabeth O’Dowd. She was younger than me, might have been sixteen, a gentle soul, and we had a connection of sorts. Long story short, I got her pregnant. It was around that time that I was packed off to Knockraw. I heard she was sent to a convent, one of those horrible laundries. That place was nothing more than a Knockraw for young girls. I never saw nor heard from her again. I don’t know what happened to the baby, or if Mary Elizabeth is even alive. Maybe they both died in that place. I’m sorry for putting you to trouble, and say no if you want to, but would there be any way you could find out what happened to them?’

She knew she should say no, walk away, but it was not in her to do that. ‘Where was this convent?’

‘Not far from here. People talk about the laundries in Dublin and Cork, but this one was in Galway. They did the laundry for all the hotels and businesses in the city, and for the industrial schools at Letterfrack and Knockraw, if you can believe it.’

Lottie was puzzled by his request and also his need for secrecy, which worried her a little.

‘Bryan, there’s been a commission of investigation into the industrial schools and the laundries. I’m not sure what you want me to do.’

‘I want to know what happened to that girl and what happened to our baby. He or she would be an adult now – that’s if they’re not buried in an unmarked grave somewhere.’

‘Have you tried to find them yourself?’