The Rosary Garden by Nicola White (best books to read now TXT) 📕

‘Are you needing some company, Ali?’ Cathal wheedled.

She flicked them the V-sign.

‘Ooo-ooo,’ they chorused, the mocking note swooping after her as she stepped into the dark.

14

Chief Superintendent Francis Kavanagh was big in every direction. He looked like the kind of man who should be out in the open air, striding the hills of Kerry with a sheep across his shoulders or a maiden in his arms. Even his hair was vigorous, a sprinkling of grey giving sparks to his straw-coloured crop. Yet Swan had never known Kavanagh to take exercise or leave the confines of a building or car unnecessarily. His rosy complexion was probably due more to a combination of bluster and drink than the wind coming in from the Blaskets.

When Swan walked into Kavanagh’s office on Monday morning he found his boss sitting behind the desk in a vest, revealing gouts of chest hair, shoulder freckles and the outline of nipples under thin ribbed cotton. It was all Swan could do not to raise his palms in front of his eyes.

‘Do you want to me to come back later?’

‘Get that prissy look off your puss, Swan. I spilled coffee down my shirt. Could happen to anyone. I asked Considine if she could wash it out, and the look she gave me would freeze a waterfall in spate. Your man Barrett stepped in, thank God; says he knows a laundry and he’ll have it back by noon. I’ve a lunch at the Castle today, the Dutch prime minister … or is it Belgian?’

Kavanagh searched his desk for the invitation card, distracted by the possibility of a diplomatic faux pas. The current commissioner wasn’t much of a man for canapés and glad-handing, so it fell to his deputies to represent the force on ambassadorial occasions. It was a task that fitted Kavanagh well, with his man-of-the-people bonhomie and rampant ambition.

He waved a stiff card at Swan. ‘Belgian! – Brussels, mussels, pissing statues. Right. Let’s get on with it.’

‘Well, our enquiries are continuing on two fronts. We’re looking closely at the people on the spot: the religious community, former and current pupils—’

‘The nuns – have you won their trust?’

‘It’s been slow enough. They’re very resistant to any suggestion that anyone in their community might be implicated. Problem is, they think they’re above the law, or answering to a different law, and I can’t have that.’

‘You can’t have that? Careful, Vincent, a little softness doesn’t go amiss – you don’t want to get into one of your intellectual struggles about what is Caesar’s and what is God’s, eh? Let’s concentrate on finding the mother.’

There was a knock on the door and Barrett swooped in with a pale-blue shirt on a hanger, draped in a gloss of polythene.

‘Good man,’ said Kavanagh, rising from his desk to grab the shirt. He tore off the plastic cover, threw the hanger in the corner and started to battle with the buttons. Barrett stood holding out the superintendent’s jacket by its shoulders, waiting to help him on with it, like some shop assistant.

Swan continued with his report.

‘We checked out the pupil who left the school earlier this year. Eileen Vaughan.’

‘She’s back with her parents in Terenure,’ offered Barrett.

‘Maybe you should tell the chief what we found?’

Barrett beamed for an instant, then Kavanagh turned towards him and grabbed the jacket from his hands, giving him a suspicious look. With a flick of his hand he directed Barrett back to the public side of the desk. Barrett took his place beside Swan and recited, in a flattened voice, ‘The girl was delivered of an infant six weeks ago in a refuge in Arklow …’ He stopped to dig out his notebook.

‘You’re not in court, Barrett – just talk,’ said Swan.

Barrett kept flipping through pages, so Swan took up the tale, sensing that Kavanagh’s growing agitation wasn’t solely to do with buttoning his cuffs.

‘We talked with the mother and girl yesterday. The baby was put up for adoption.’

Swan had given up his Sunday morning to visiting the girl at her home. The smell of frying lingered in their kitchen, making his stomach mourn for his own missed breakfast. The mother had refused to let them speak to Eileen alone, and kept answering the questions herself. The girl seemed monosyllabic with misery, a baggy grey sweatshirt pulled over her still-heavy stomach, her lank hair curtaining a face that wore a look of protracted shock.

‘And the baby?’

‘Yes. The agency that handled it gave us the details of the adoptive family, and Barrett went for a visit yesterday.’

‘He’s been keeping you busy.’

Barrett shrugged modestly.

‘No problem, Chief. It was a big house out in Sutton. The husband is a banker, the wife was too. They’re all thrilled to bits. I’d say the little chap is very lucky.’

‘So what’s your second line?’ Kavanagh addressed Swan.

‘Pardon?’

‘You said you had a second line of enquiry – come on.’

‘It’s very possible that the baby’s mother would go to her doctor for some medical attention afterwards. T. P. Murphy’s leading a small team talking to all doctors’ surgeries in the area, all Dublin hospitals too.’

Kavanagh was buttoning his jacket now. Looking around for his cap. Swan told him how they had identified a couple of families in the Dodder Vale area known to the social work department: one where a daughter already had an illegitimate daughter living in the home, the other where there had been two suicide attempts in the family in the past six months. There was no evidence of a baby in either case.

‘Murphy can tell you more. I thought he would be here.’

‘Ah yes. Meant to say – I’ve sent Murphy to assist with the Dundalk shooting; there’s a lot of pressure on that one, and the usual cross-border shenanigans.’

Swan’s first feeling was one of relief. He never could hit it off with T. P. and now he could coordinate things as he liked. But if they didn’t find the woman – if things didn’t work out – it