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

‘Well, I persuaded her. But I’m not sure now if—’

There was a knock on the open door and Swan turned to see an oddly familiar face.

‘I’ve completed the examination. Do you want me to run through the initial findings?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Considine.

‘Eh. Just give us a minute,’ said Swan.

Dr Beasley agreed to come back shortly.

‘Jesus, Gina!’ Swan hissed, once the doctor was out of earshot. ‘Him! Did you not see that Late Late?’

Considine stood silent and thin-lipped, while Swan ranted about how it could compromise the evidence, the bastarding smallness of Dublin and their generally atrocious luck on this case.

‘Flynn said he was the top man,’ she said. ‘Done dozens of expert-witness slots for the force – I’m sure his evidence will stand up in any case. How was I to know the girl made him look a tit on the telly?’

Beasley reappeared with a camel-coloured coat over one arm and a snappy, un-doctorly attaché case.

Swan invited him to sit at the table with them and talk through his findings.

‘There are certain signs to support your theory – extra weight carried on the abdomen, slight swelling of the uterus, the evidence of recent abrasion at the mouth of the vagina. Also, I’m sure that she lied to me about her sex life. She’s certainly no virgin.’

‘Her virginity wasn’t the question. We just need to know if she was recently pregnant,’ said Swan.

‘Well, it’s difficult to be definitive on this. As I say, she’s young, very healthy. Things can return to normal quite quickly. There’s little research to measure it against, so I don’t want to rule anything out.’

‘What about the cervix?’ asked Considine.

Beasley’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. ‘What about the cervix?’

‘I believe it changes, or the womb entrance does – something about a slit, not a dot.’

Beasley brushed the back of his hand over the table, as if wiping away her question. ‘It’s really not as simple as that.’

‘Okay, Doctor,’ said Swan, ‘this is what it sounds like you’re telling me. There’s no evidence that she was recently pregnant, but at the same time you won’t rule it out. Is that it?’

‘What I’m actually telling you is that I will prepare a full report, as requested, and I’m happy to testify in court that a pregnancy can’t be ruled out. If that’s what you’re after. I’ll write up my notes tonight and telex you a copy. And I’ll send the invoice to the finance office.’

Top man, indeed. The baby was born only a couple of weeks past. Surely that would do something to a woman’s insides that you’d notice. Swan was a great admirer of the resilience of women, but Christ, that would be some bounce-back.

‘What about a scan?’

‘Yes, a scan, as I said, would be helpful, but the machine operator won’t be in until Tuesday, unfortunately. If you would like to bring the suspect back then …’

‘We’ll let you know,’ said Considine and showed him to the door. Swan stared at the innocent face of Postman Pat across the room.

‘What do you think, Gina? From a woman’s point of view?’

‘I think he’s a prick.’

‘I mean about her being pregnant.’

‘He says he can’t rule it out. And there’s all the other stuff – the blouse, the fact of her being on the spot. But you’d think a doctor could tell.’

‘You would,’ said Swan.

‘Are we going to get her scanned?’

‘I think what we need is another doctor.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Sorry for biting your head off.’

Swan found Ali alone in the examination room, sitting stiff-backed on a chair behind the door, a pair of socks in her hands, tears wet on her pale face. He squatted down in front of her, wondering if it was Beasley that had upset her.

‘Can I go home?’ she asked, her voice polite but strained.

‘Detective Considine told you why we had to do this.’

‘What did he say? Did he say I had a baby?’

‘Did you?’

‘No! Is that what he said? He hates me.’

‘He’ll do a report for us. Is there anything you want to tell me?’

Ali shook her head vigorously. As her dark hair swung back he spotted a mark on her neck – a smudge of bruising with a dotted crimson centre. The mocking voice of Beasley came back to him. She’s no virgin. Well, she mightn’t be a virgin, but it didn’t mean she was a mother. There was no real evidence for it. He felt that familiar deflation of a neat theory beginning to disintegrate.

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘No. I’ll get a car to bring you home. We’ll have a chat tomorrow.’

The girl bent forward to put on her socks with shaking hands. Pink socks, dotted with little hearts.

24

Swan caught himself smiling at some children in their mass clothes outside Rathmines church. He was sitting in traffic, waiting for the lights to turn, and a tiny girl with a ponytail sticking up from the top of her head raised a little hand and wiggled her fingers at him. Without thinking, he grinned like a cretin and waved back. A bigger boy behind her put a protective hand on his sister’s shoulder and flicked a V-sign at Swan. That was more like it. He laughed and drove on.

By the time he’d got home from the hospital last night, Elizabeth had made the house cosy again, in a way he never managed to. Table lamps glowed, Benny purred on a fringed cushion. They didn’t discuss his work and they didn’t discuss her time in Enniscorthy with her aunts. Their sparse chat was about what was on the radio, how well the garden looked. The stuff of strangers at a bus stop. How had this happened to them? It was only when she sat at the piano, at his urging, and music flowed about them that he felt joined to her, emotional, speechlessly close.

He drove on to Ranelagh and parked outside Hogans’. Considine was standing by the gate. Before they reached the front door, it opened and Deirdre Hogan appeared, dishevelled in that fancy