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She inclined her head towards Boyd to follow her. Few marriages could survive on lies. Bryan had to be truthful. As she closed the door, she felt genuine pity for Grace. What she was about to be told would be difficult to understand. Lies were not easy to forgive. And once secrets were out of the box, they could never be locked back in.

She knew from experience that the past rarely remained secret.

52

Matt Mooney had been sure his day couldn’t get any worse, but he was wrong. He’d had to release Bryan O’Shaughnessy with assurances from his solicitor that he’d return when or if needed. The man had no current passport, so he wasn’t a flight risk. There wasn’t enough evidence yet to charge him with murder. The DNA at the scene was inconclusive. DNA on the wooden plank could be easily explained as he had readily admitted to handling it. Mooney needed more. What he didn’t need was to be dragged in front of the super to talk to Councillor Denis Wilson. The man had high ambitions of becoming a member of the Dáil in the next election, and he let everyone know every chance he got.

When he arrived at the super’s office, he was told that his boss had been called away unexpectedly but that the councillor was in the meeting room, waiting for him.

Here we go, he thought.

If he could detest someone based on appearance alone, it would be Denis Wilson. The man tried too hard to be something he was not. Too fit-looking, too damn handsome, and what was he like with those red cravats? Gimmicks, Mooney believed, could not make up for shallowness.

‘Mr Wilson, how can I help you?’ He plastered what he thought was a welcoming smile on his face. He probably looked tortured, but he didn’t care.

‘It’s Councillor Wilson.’

Fuck you, Mooney thought. ‘I’m very busy.Councillor.’

‘I reckon that could be true if you were out there hunting a killer.’

‘I am extremely busy, but apparently I have to talk to you.’

Wilson’s face darkened at the slight. ‘I want to know if you’re close to charging someone with these brutal crimes.’

He could deny knowledge of what the man was talking about, but that would just be wasting time. Time he did not have. ‘We are following a number of lines of inquiry.’

‘I saw a man leaving as I entered the building. Norah Ward was with him.’

‘So?’

‘I heard reports of an arrest having been made. Was it him?’

‘I can neither confirm nor deny that.’

‘Well, if he was arrested, why did you release him?’

‘MrWilson, if you have nothing to offer to assist me in my investigation, I have work to do.’

‘I recognised him. From when I was canvassing. Bryan O’Shaughnessy. Lives out past Spiddal, doesn’t he?’

Mooney raked a hand over his mouth and shook his head. ‘When you have information to help me, I will gladly talk to you. But for now, I have to go.’

‘Not so fast.’ Wilson made no move to leave the sunlit room. He leaned back against the windowsill with both hands behind him. The light caught a hint of dandruff on the shoulder of his otherwise immaculate suit. That imperfection made Mooney smile. Wilson continued. ‘I heard stories about O’Shaughnessy. He was once incarcerated in Knockraw. I make it my business to know about people, and he is a bad egg, mark my words.’

‘Do you have evidence of any wrongdoing?’

‘Well, if he was in Knockraw as a boy, he must have done something wrong.’

Mooney sighed loudly, despairing of the human race. ‘A lot of people ended up in the industrial schools through no fault of their own.’

‘But his sister was sent to the convent.’

‘To be a nun?’ He knew right well what Wilson meant.

‘The laundry. She was just a child. God only knows what she did to be put in there. Or maybe he did something to her, if you get my meaning.’

Mooney felt his blood beginning to boil with red-hot anger. He had no time for bigots, no matter who they proclaimed themselves to be. He presumed silence might be his best option. Let Wilson burn himself out with his diatribe.