Page 55 of Hidden Daughters (Detective Lottie Parker #15)
Lottie stayed on to fry a lamb chop, and when the potatoes were boiled, she mashed them with butter and milk, under Brigid’s watchful eye. The older woman had been silent for a long time, and Lottie left her alone.
‘Will you not have some yourself?’ Brigid enquired when the plate was in front of her.
‘No thanks,’ Lottie said. ‘I need to be getting back. But can I ask you a few more questions?’
‘If you have to. I’ve not been so upset in a while. The memories…’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Go ahead. Ask away.’ Brigid dug into her dinner.
Lottie debated the order of her questions. She decided on asking the last one first. ‘A man was murdered out in the woods behind the convent this week. Mickey Fox.’
‘He was the gardener. They treated him badly too.’
‘How so?’
Brigid took a sip of water, passing her cutlery to one hand.
‘He tried to help. He once got a woman out the gate and was about to put her in his car when Father Robert appeared and chastised him and took the woman back inside. Mickey had got the lass a boat ticket to Liverpool. I don’t think he chanced it again after that.
And now he’s dead? May he rest in peace.
’ She blessed herself, knife and fork still in her hand.
‘A woman was found brutally murdered too, out at a holiday cottage in Connemara. You might have heard it on the news?’
‘I try not to listen. All you hear is bad news. Father Lyons always has a radio on somewhere, and this week I’ve had such peace without the hum and noise. Who was this woman then?’
‘Her name was Assumpta Feeney. I believe she used to be a nun at the convent at some stage. She would have been quite young.’
‘Her name rings a bell, but I can’t be sure.’
‘What about Imelda Conroy?’
‘Is she dead too?’ Brigid scrunched up her eyes, brows knitting in the centre.
‘I hope not. She was making a documentary about the laundries and the industrial school at Knockraw.’ Lottie added the last bit even though she wasn’t sure about it.
‘I remember a young lassie being at the door a few weeks ago. All biz she was. Wanted to interview Father Lyons. He sent her packing. Don’t think he’d have had any knowledge of that time. He’s only in his late thirties.’
‘Did this woman talk to you?’
‘She didn’t pay any attention to me at all.’
Lottie stood. ‘This is my card in case you think of anything. I’m not on duty here, not my jurisdiction, but if you’d rather talk to me than the Galway guards, please contact me.’
Brigid took the card and propped it against the sugar bowl in the middle of the table. ‘Of course I will. You’re a good person.’
Lottie smiled. ‘I’ll rinse the pot and pan, and then I’ll be off.’
‘And you’re a gem of a woman. The man that gets you will be lucky.’
‘I don’t think he feels too lucky at the moment. His sister is due to get married on Sunday.’
‘Must be a civil ceremony if it’s on a Sunday.’
‘It is and her fiancé is currently in custody. The detective in charge thinks he might have had something to do with the murders.’
‘Good God, that’s terrible. Terrible altogether.’ Brigid blessed herself. ‘ Did he have anything to do with them?’
‘I don’t think so. But he was in Knockraw back in the day.
He also got his girlfriend of the time pregnant.
He believes she ended up in the laundry.
His sister did too. He asked me to see if I could find them.
’ That wasn’t strictly true. Bryan had only asked her to see if his girlfriend and the baby had survived and could be found.
‘Any luck with that?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Bryan O’Shaughnessy. He’s a sheep farmer out in Connemara.’ Lottie turned from the sink to see Brigid bless herself again. ‘Are you okay?’
‘May the Lord grant you strength.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘The mission this O’Shaughnessy man has given you. It will be like searching through a den of iniquity.’
Lottie sat in Bryan’s Range Rover for a good five minutes mulling over Brigid’s words before she could bring herself to turn on the engine.
Did she know more than she’d revealed? Would she be the type of woman to help a man who had been a priest?
Not by the way she’d spoken of him, but then again, the power of the Catholic religion ran deep, especially in the older members of the community.
Lottie sensed that no matter how Brigid had been harmed by those in religious orders, she would not turn away a man of God.
She’d tell Mooney what the woman had said, then she needed to concentrate on the task Bryan had set her. To discover what had happened to Mary Elizabeth and the child she’d been carrying.
The records from the laundry were a good starting point, but it would be impossible to get her hands on them, even if they still existed.
She had a feeling Imelda Conroy would have sourced them.
So where were all Imelda’s documents and recordings that she’d have used for her documentary?
Nothing had been found in the holiday cottage as far as she knew.
Had the person who’d killed Assumpta taken them, or had Imelda hidden them somewhere?
And why was Assumpta in the cottage and not Imelda? Did Imelda kill her?
Then she realised that she’d never asked Brigid if she remembered a man being burned or scalded at the convent. Shit. She didn’t fancy further disturbing the woman today. She’d call in again tomorrow.
A curtain twitched in the large bay window.
A soft mist started to fall. The windscreen clouded over and the parish house, shaded by the leafy trees, faded into the background as the curtain fell back in place.