Page 64 of Hidden Daughters (Detective Lottie Parker #15)

Lottie was in such a temper by the time she returned to the dressmaker’s cabin in Spiddal that she had to spend five minutes walking around the village before she was calm enough to talk to the woman without making a show of herself.

She took off her cardigan and slung it over her arm. No point in fainting with the heat inside. She knocked on the door and entered when Ann called out to come in.

‘Oh, you’re back.’ Ann stood up from her table and hurriedly covered whatever she’d been working on.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’ Lottie’s tone was too formal. Acting like she was on the job. She’d have to tone it down.

‘You are, actually. I’ve an order to finish today.’

‘I won’t delay you. I want to pick up the conversation we were having earlier.’

‘It wasn’t a conversation, and I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Ann, please tell me what you were implying about Bryan O’Shaughnessy. It’s important.’

‘I told you already. I have nothing to say. I don’t want to disrupt the wedding. Grace deserves to be happy and she seems besotted with him. So let fate make its own way.’

Jesus, had Boyd phoned Ann? She sounded just like him.

‘You must tell me if there’s something Grace should know about Bryan. You already intimated as much.’

‘I don’t have to tell you anything. I’d like you to leave.’

‘Maybe I’ll ask your husband.’ Now she was being a right bitch. Didn’t stop her, though. ‘You did say it was him that mentioned it to you.’

Ann came around the table so quickly Lottie took a step back.

‘Do not go near him.’ There was venom in the spittle flying from Ann’s lips. ‘I’m warning you. You have no authority around here, so please leave it. Leave me alone.’

Lottie was in full fighting mood now. ‘So be it. I’ll inform Detective Sergeant Mooney that you have information pertinent to his investigation. You can talk to him.’

‘I don’t have to…’ Ann’s face lost all its anger in an instant as realisation seemed to strike her. ‘What investigation?’

‘The murders of three people this week here in Galway, quite possibly linked to one in Ragmullin.’

‘That’s ridiculous. What I was saying has nothing to do with murder.’

Lottie leaned her head to one side sceptically. ‘How can I be certain of that while you are withholding information?’

Ann leaned back against the table before sitting on the edge of it. ‘I should have kept my mouth shut.’

‘Maybe, but you didn’t.’

‘No, and now you’re going to drag me into a murder investigation. Denis will kill me.’

‘Really? Is he violent?’

‘Jesus, woman, it’s a figure of speech.’

‘But you look scared.’

‘That’s because I am. I built up this business on my own, without help from anyone else. And you seem hell-bent on destroying it all.’

Lottie threw up her hands in confusion. ‘Ann, I have no idea what you are on about.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘Tell me then.’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry I ever said anything about Bryan O’Shaughnessy, but I can’t go there. I won’t go there.’

‘Is it about his time in Knockraw?’

‘That. And more.’

‘I don’t understand…’

Ann began to cry. Deep sobs racked her body. Lottie moved to comfort her, but Ann held out her hand, warding her off. ‘Don’t. Don’t touch me.’

‘I want to help.’

‘You’re not helping,’ she sobbed. ‘You’re making everything worse.’

Lottie was at a loss to know how to handle this. She wanted information, but she didn’t want to distress Ann any further. She waited while the woman composed herself.

Ann said, ‘You could never understand what I went through.’

‘Try me.’

‘No, I want you to go.’

‘Okay. But I will find out what it is that’s upset you so much.’

‘You can’t leave it alone, can you?’

Lottie closed her eyes and felt shame rush to her cheeks. The same words Boyd had used not a half-hour earlier.

‘No, I can’t, and I’m truly sorry.’ She moved towards the door.

‘I was there.’ Ann’s voice was soft and trembling. ‘I was in the Sisters of Forgiveness laundry. And I don’t need you, nor my own buried memories, bringing me back there.’

Following Ann’s directions, Lottie drove them over to the seaside resort of Salthill. She had to circle to find a parking spot and then wait until someone pulled out of a space.

They walked along the promenade, making small talk.

About the weather. How busy the area was.

Young mothers with buggies, people walking dogs, men and women jogging and a host of speed-walkers.

All sorts enjoying the good weather and the sea breeze.

Apparently without a care in the world. And Lottie figured that was how she and Ann looked to the unobservant eye.

Pausing at the entrance to the strand, Ann slipped off her sandals. ‘I love to feel the sand on the soles of my feet and between my toes. It grounds me.’

Lottie groaned inwardly. She hated sand.

It got everywhere. But she wanted to hear what the woman had to say, to keep her onside, so she removed her own shoes and followed.

The sand was surprisingly warm but scratched her feet.

Ann walked straight down to the water’s edge and began to stroll along it, leaving a trail of wet footprints in her wake.

Lottie remained as best she could on the dry stuff.

The dressmaker’s voice was soft as she began to speak.

‘We were always in the laundry, down in the basement. The heat, the steam, the sweat… it was unbearable. But we were forced to venture into it every single day. Teenagers, young and pregnant. And children. Child labour? Call it what you want, but to us it was inhumane and torture.’

‘I’ve been to the convent. I’ve seen the remains of the laundry. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like back when it was operational.’

‘No one can. You’d have to have experienced it.

Our clothes, thin shift dresses, were useless to protect us.

We got burned and scalded more often than not.

One day, I’ve no idea of the date nor the year, this young girl arrived.

Maybe seven years old. I was about fourteen or so.

She looked frail and scared. Fragile. But she wasn’t really.

She had a determined attitude. Reminded me a little of myself, if I’m honest. In the beginning, she tried her best to please the nuns.

She did every single thing that was asked of her, until one day she didn’t. ’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The sheets often got stuck to the inside of the large washing machine drums. And this is the awful thing…’

Lottie waited, holding her breath.

Ann continued slowly, her voice trembling. Breaking.

‘The nuns usually got the smallest child to climb inside and extract the offending article. They picked on this wee girl. She was a wisp of a thing. Anyway, on this particular day she was taking too long in the machine. The poor mite was terrified. Wide-eyed. Her whole body was one long tremor when she crawled out with her knee bleeding. The nun roared insults at her, the girl shook her head frantically and made the mistake of talking back and then the nun whipped her across the face with the large crucifix of her rosary beads.’

Lottie felt nauseous. ‘That’s horrific. What did you do?’

‘I did nothing. We were all frozen like useless statues and did absolutely nothing. We were terrified.’

‘I can understand your fear.’ Lottie thought there was no way she could fully appreciate the horror of what they’d experienced.

‘The worst thing was… No. I can’t bring myself to speak of it.

’ Tears were streaming down Ann’s face like torrential rain.

Unstoppable. She grabbed Lottie’s arm and linked her, leaning her head against her shoulder.

‘The murders this week, I think they have to do with what happened in the laundry back then. I really believe that.’

‘Why is that so?’ Lottie waited for Ann to elaborate, for the woman’s tears to abate.

‘Because… because I heard the victims this week were scalded with boiling water. Is that true?’

‘I’m not involved in the investigation. I can’t say.’

Ann pulled away from her. ‘Oh for God’s sake. I know it’s true. Denis told me, and he heard it from the superintendent.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Lottie reached for her, but Ann marched ahead. She caught up. ‘I’m sorry, Ann. Please continue your story.’

‘It’s not a frigging story! It’s the truth. It’s my life. My old life. I was sent there because my mother died and my father hadn’t the will nor the means to rear me. It was the same situation for that wee girl.’

‘What was her name?’

‘The nuns gave us new names, usually saints or angels. We only knew her as Gabriel.’

‘What became of her?’ Lottie asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She recalled Brigid Kelly mentioning that name too.

‘The nun was shouting. The poor thing was in hysterics, getting blood from her face all over the sheets wrapped around her. Then… Oh my God, I can’t go back to that moment…’

‘Please, Ann. It might help me save someone else.’

With a deep, troubled breath, Ann exhaled what she’d seemed hesitant to utter a moment ago.

‘Then Robert appeared.’

‘Robert Hayes?’ Lottie scrunched her brows in confusion.

‘Yes. The very one. The devil incarnate. Huh.’ Ann swiped at her tears, and a steely anger flashed from her eyes.

‘He was some sort of deacon then, but he became a priest afterwards. Bastard. He worked at the convent and also at Knockraw. He wanted to know what all the commotion was about. I believe he understood what was going on. And as if he was possessed by the devil himself, he pushed the nun out of the way, saying he knew how to sort the errant girl. He threw her in, slammed the drum door shut and turned the dial, and the machine roared into life.’

No longer just nauseous, Lottie felt she wanted to be physically sick. ‘Oh my good Lord God.’

‘The good Lord did nothing to help. None of us did. Robert didn’t even wait to see his handiwork.

Just strode out as quickly as he’d arrived.

Another nun, a young novice, was standing there open-mouthed with shock, like we all were.

She did her best to turn off the machine, but she twisted all the wrong dials.

It seemed an age before she got it to stop.

When it did, the silence was unbearable, a deathly quiet that I will never forget.

The first nun backed away, fell to her knees and prayed.

The fucking old bitch. As if that was going to save poor little Gabriel. ’

‘What happened to the child?’

‘What do you think happened? She was bruised, bleeding and blistered. A wee slip of a thing couldn’t survive that.

She died shortly afterwards. They didn’t even call a doctor!

Her body was taken out and buried somewhere, probably in the grounds, and we weren’t allowed to mention her or the episode ever again. ’

Lottie kneeled in the sand at the edge of the sea and splashed her face with cool water. She sensed Ann kneeling close to her and welcomed the physical presence by her side.

‘What has this to do with Bryan O’Shaughnessy?’

‘He abandoned her. He never looked for her. You see, I believe that wee Gabriel was his innocent little sister.’

Both of them were silent as Lottie drove back to Ann’s shop. Shocked was too light a word for what she felt after what she had heard.

Outside the cabin, she idled the engine. ‘How did you keep going in the convent, after what happened?’

‘It was what I had to do. I had nowhere else to go. When I was eighteen, I got out. The only skill I had learned was sewing. So that’s what I did. For the rest of my life. Every single day. My work brought me solace.’

‘How did you meet Denis?’

‘It was a friendship first, then developed into a sort of love. We have no children, before you ask. I could not bring a child into this horror of a world I grew up in.’

‘I am so sorry this has happened to you. Where is that old nun now?’

‘Long dead, and good riddance.’

‘And the other one, the novice?’

‘I’ve no idea where she is.’

‘You heard Brigid Kelly was murdered? In the house where Robert Hayes lived for a time as a priest.’

‘I heard.’

‘She was in the laundry too. Why do you think she may have been targeted?’

‘I don’t know. Isn’t that the guards’ job to find out?’ Ann opened the car door. ‘Goodbye, Lottie.’

Lottie felt immense guilt at having pressed the woman for her story.

She now knew why Ann detested Bryan. Because he did not try to find his little sister.

But was there something more? Could Bryan be the killer Mooney sought?

Was he avenging his sister’s death? If so, he’d have to have known what had happened to her.

She was confused, but she’d still put her money on Robert Hayes.