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

at his watch. T. P. Murphy had volunteered to fetch Sister Bernadette from Newry. He would be there within the half-hour. With Sunday traffic, he could get her back to Dublin by four or five.

‘So when did this Peggy leave here? Tell me about that …’

The girls looked at each other.

‘Dunno,’ said Esther. ‘It was about two or three weekends ago, we just sort of realised she wasn’t here any more. Gone home.’

‘Home to where?’

Esther checked silently with the other two. ‘Dunno. Nowhere near me. Galway, maybe?’ The quieter girls just shook their heads.

Swan became aware that Sister Dreyfus, standing by the kitchen sink, had given up any semblance of lunch preparation and was listening intently, completely still.

‘Sister?’

She turned to face them, clutching a dish brush in her yellow gloved hands.

‘Did you know this girl?’

She nodded.

Considine asked the girls to wait in the TV lounge, assuring them that they would get their lunch soon. Sister Dreyfus removed her rubber gloves and sat at the table, looking simultaneously nervous and determined.

‘It was a Sunday, because there was only me here. I was on my way upstairs, after the girls had their tea, and she came out of her room. She had a big coat on and she had a bag. She was holding something inside the coat – I thought it might be the baby. She didn’t notice me; I was on the lower stairs. When she closed the door, I went to the window. There was a car waiting across the road. She got into it and drove off.’

‘When you say she drove off, did she drive the car herself?’

Sister Dreyfus thought for a moment, her face a scowl of concentration. ‘She can’t have. She was holding the baby still. There must have been someone driving. Yes.’

‘And Sister Bernadette wasn’t here at the time?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see the baby move, or hear it cry?’

Sister Dreyfus’s eyes grew large behind her glasses as she realised the implications of what he meant. She shook her head.

‘She would never harm her child.’

Above them he could hear male voices, raised. The Guard at the door fending off Monsignor Kelly, it sounded like.

‘Did you discuss this with Sister Bernadette?’

A quick shake of the head, a cowed look.

‘Did you not think, when the baby was found in the convent, that there might be a connection?’ said Swan.

‘No, I thought she had decided to keep her child. That was why she sneaked off. By rights, she should have left it with us.’

An idea was beginning to form in Swan’s mind, something that would make sense of the convent’s secrecy.

‘Who adopts the babies, Sister?’

‘I don’t know anything about that. Mother Mary Paul, you should talk to her.’

‘We’ll do that.’

Swan waited for Considine to finish her notes, thanked the nun for her time.

Sister Dreyfus held a pale finger in the air. ‘Wait!’

‘What is it?’

‘Her name!’ The nun went to a drawer in one of the kitchen cabinets and took out a notebook. Several nibbed pens were bound to it by a thick rubber band. She brought it to the table and opened it. It was a kind of copy book, where names and letters were drawn in the mannered thick-and-thin stroke calligraphy that Swan recognised from the name signs upstairs. Sister Dreyfus flicked through the pages and stopped, put her finger to a name repeated three times in three varied styles – Peggy Nolan. Peggy Nolan. Peggy Nolan.

‘That’s her. I make the name signs. I made one for her door, but she took it off.’

It was a common name. There must be hundreds of Peggy Nolans throughout the land. Maybe it had already come up in the investigation.

‘Familiar?’ Swan asked Considine.

She frowned. ‘I’ll have to check.’

‘Please go ahead with your lunch, Sister, and thank you. Your help has been invaluable.’

Sister Dreyfus smiled, a mercurial spasm.

As they climbed up to the first floor, Swan turned to Considine and shook his head in wonder.

She gave him an answering grin. ‘Unbelievable.’

Up in the front office they found that Barrett and Mother Mary Paul had run out of conversation. The nun gazed anxiously out the front window.

‘Monsignor Kelly is being kept outside, waiting,’ she complained.

‘How much do they pay you for the babies?’ asked Swan.

She glared at him, full beam. ‘How dare you! That’s not the way it is – even slightly! If the new parents choose to show gratitude, that is completely—’ She jerked in her seat. ‘I think you should talk to Monsignor Kelly about this.’

‘We can’t let anyone else into the house now, Mother, we need to search it. In fact it might be an idea for you to take the other girls back to the convent with you.’

‘I can’t take them back to St Brigid’s – it’s not suitable.’

‘I’m sure you’ll sort it out. By the way, does Sister Bernadette drive?’

‘Yes, she drives. And I hope she gets back soon to help me sort out this … misunderstanding.’

‘We’ll be first in line to talk to Sister Bernadette. Tell me, is the name Peggy Nolan familiar to you?’

‘It is not.’

Swan showed Barrett and Considine the back bedroom, where this Peggy Nolan had stayed. They didn’t enter the room, but stood close together on the threshold.

‘Can you find out about locking this, Declan? And supervise the exit of the girls and nuns. I’m thinking the baby could well have been killed right here, in the bedroom. There’s no immediate signs – it’s all been cleaned. It might account for her hiding it under her coat, wouldn’t it?’

‘Could be,’ said Barrett.

‘Gina?’

Considine was frowning at the carpet, miles away. At the sound of her name she quickly met his eye.

‘It’s odd, but I’m pretty sure there was a girl down in that town in Clare called Peggy Nolan. The guy I met to talk about the Buleen baby was Dr Nolan, right? And his daughter, the receptionist, she was a Peggy. I remember thinking it was an old-fashioned name for a girl.’

They looked at each other for a few seconds. Weighing the idea.

‘Sister Bernadette,’