The Lost (22 page)
‘That’s
what they do,’ said Maeve. ‘They go on to other cities and set up groups there. Like a virus or something.’
‘Next thing she says is, can she get her money out. Her post office money – you know, from her Communion and that. I says, “Dympna, that’s for a rainy day.” And she shouts at me! My Dympna! “It’s pouring now, Daddy,” she says, “The Church needs the money. It’s for God.” They took every penny she had so she could go and be a missionary, and they get her to make a Will that says when I die, Dympna gives them this house.’
‘You fell out with her?’ Paula leaned in to listen.
‘Aye, we had words. I wish to God I could take them back now. And off she went, and I never saw her for five years. She was eighteen the day she left.’
‘Then what happened?’
Paddy paused to cough wetly into a cotton hankie, which he then pushed up his sleeve. Paula winced; she was finding the airless room increasingly oppressive.
‘She turns up on my doorstop, out of the blue, bold as brass. A wreck, she was. White as a sheet and her belly out to here.’
‘She was
pregnant
?’
‘Oh aye. Six months’ gone. Well, it was a shock. Couldn’t get a word of sense out of her. She’d hardly sit, wouldn’t look at a body straight in the eye, not a word about the wean’s father. “Stay here and I’ll mind you,” I says, but she says, “No, I can’t.” I says, “Of course you can, pet, it’s not the Dark Ages, you can come home any time you want.” But she just shakes her head. And her hands on her belly, fit to break your heart. “He’ll find me,” she says. “He’ll take her away anyway. I can’t keep her.”’
‘He?’
‘That’s
all she said. “
He’ll find me.
He says I’ve to give the baby up and that’s that.”’
Paula glanced at Maeve, who wore a
see what I mean?
expression. ‘And she left?’
‘She went the same day, and then next I hear, four months on, she’s dead. Hanging off a tree, they said, like Judas Iscariot.’
He spoke so matter-of-factly Paula blinked. ‘And the baby?’
‘Took me a whole crowd of lawyers to find out. I was onto my Senator, in the papers, on the radio. Eventually they says Dympna wanted her wean adopted to America, and I could whistle for all the chance I had of seeing it. Wouldn’t even say was it a boy or a girl. She thought it was a girl. Gave her some comfort, anyway.’
What an awful story. Paddy told it in flat, practised tones, as if it was the only thing his life rested on. Probably it was.
‘But you didn’t stop there, did you, Paddy?’ Maeve encouraged.
‘Well, people heard me on the radio and that. So I start getting all these letters, So and So else’s wean getting caught up with this God’s Shepherd crowd, and the next thing you know, they’ve gone and their money with them. And you’d hardly credit how many of the girls were like my Dympna – expecting, and then the wean vanished and the girl never came back.’
‘Paddy was the one helped get God’s Shepherd kicked out of Ireland,’ said Maeve. ‘He looked in the accounts and saw all the deposits they got off rich Yanks desperate for kids.’
‘You
proved they were selling the babies?’ Paula asked Paddy.
‘Aye. The ould book-keeping came in handy for once. We couldn’t prove the girls didn’t want to give the weans up, of course, but why’d my Dympna cry otherwise? Why’d she take her life, God forgive her? Anyway, we got them put out in the end. Tax evasion, like Al Capone.’
Paula looked at the picture of the girl with the seventies haircut, and the pretty pink and white face. Another one dead. Another one pregnant. No more answers.
‘So, what do you reckon to Paddy? He’s a character, isn’t he.’
Paula’s head swam as Maeve backed the car out into traffic. ‘And that’s all true, is it?’
‘Oh yeah. They buried Dympna in Liverpool – never even told Paddy about the funeral, the bastards. He’s got a bee in his bonnet, but it’s all true. And his ESCAPE charity’s pretty big now – Dympna wasn’t the only one. It’s always the same story. Girl went off with the Church, gets pregnant, gives the baby up, then like as not she either kills herself or she’s never seen again.’
‘And you think the Mission—’
‘It’s the same people, for sure. Or as near as makes no difference.’
‘The man Dympna talked about – you’ve an idea who that was?’
Maeve gave Paula a look out of sharp blue eyes. ‘You ever hear the name Ron Almeira?’
Paula shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Hoke out that file in the back there.’
Paula rummaged round in the mess while Maeve ducked from lane to lane, and came up with a fraying manila file. ‘This one?’
‘That’s
the one. See that photo?’
The file contained a black and white shot of a fifty-ish man, plump and genial, a big aw-shucks grin on his face, rings on fat fingers. Paula turned over the flyer and read:
Pastor Ron Almeira, God’s Shepherd Baptist Church.
Then contact details.
In God’s Footsteps.
‘He does preaching tours,’ said Maeve, disgusted. ‘Faith healing, speaking in tongues, all that shite.’
‘So how does he fit in with all this?’
‘That man set up God’s Shepherd in Ireland. And he was back and forward here all through the seventies and eighties. Until he skipped out for good, just when they were
this
close to nailing him on child abuse charges. Course, we’ve a bit of a backlog of those here. He’s currently on trial for rape in the States, though he’ll probably get away with it, yet again.’
‘Christ. Maeve, do you know – was there a God’s Shepherd group in Ballyterrin, in the eighties?’
Maeve screwed up her face. ‘There was a whole load of them, but yeah, I think there was. How come?’
Paula stared down at the picture. Who did this man remind her of? She couldn’t see past his plump cheeks and executive suit. ‘I just wondered if he . . .’ She stopped, hearing the angry buzz of her phone in her bag. She took it out, looked at the text. ‘Thanks a million, Maeve, you’ve been brilliant. But I think you better drop me at the car park. I have to get back.’
Running through the multi-storey, Paula dialled the unit. ‘You really found it?’
She could hear the excitement in Guy’s voice. ‘Twelve-inch blade, like we thought – bloodstains on the handle. Picked up by a dog-walker.’
Dog-walkers
made most of the grisly finds in police work. ‘Where?’
‘This is the interesting part. Dockside, in the bushes.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Near where the travellers lived. ‘Are you going down there? You think they might know something about Majella?’
‘We’ll have to go house-to-house . . . I mean, caravan-to-caravan. But it’s not straightforward. They’re already furious at all the police attention down there.’
‘I can imagine.’ She remembered the last time they’d gone, the looks on people’s faces, the banging and shouting.
‘We’re having the briefing now. Can you get back?’
She was juggling the car keys with the phone and trying to be quiet. ‘I’m in the middle of something. Give me an hour or so?’
‘I’ll keep you posted.’ He rang off, and Paula got in the car and did her best to speed through the Dublin traffic. How could the knife just be under a bush all the time since Cathy’s death, undiscovered? She’d been so sure, her gut feelings about Ed Lazarus and Eamonn Carr screaming inside her. Had it deafened her to something else, something more important?
Paula had driven out of Dublin as fast as she could, but it was still an hour and a half before she was nearing Ballyterrin. Her phone was ringing again and she risked an illegal answering. After all, she wasn’t meant to be anywhere that required driving. She saw the office number and spoke quickly. ‘I’ll be down in ten minutes. Just finishing up.’
‘Where are you?’ It was Gerard Monaghan, his voice cold.
‘I’m just leaving.’
‘The boss tried ringing you back. Got a foreign ringtone.’
Shit, she hadn’t heard it. ‘I said I was on my way—’
‘You’re in the South, aren’t you? You’ll be for the high jump,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Get your arse down to that caravan site. We’re going in.’
Paula
raced through Ballyterrin, down towards the docks, where the wind blew sharp and icy. She parked her car where Guy had the last time. When she opened the door she heard the shouting drift across the wasteground. It sounded like a full-scale riot. Shivering in the damp air, she started walking. After a few steps she was cursing her heeled boots. She’d anticipated driving today, and had been trying to impress the unknown beauty, Maeve Cooley. Eejit.
As she trekked over the empty ground, the mass in the distance became a familiar scene, one seen on countless news bulletins over the years. A police-issue Land Rover, surrounded by youths, shouting, throwing stones. The calling of voices on the wind. There was Guy’s car, in the distance. There was another car, inside the compound. Surrounded.
She started to run, tripping over stones and mud, until she came to Guy, parked up near the gates of the camp. He was crouching behind his BMW in his good suit, and Bob Hamilton was inside talking on his police radio, shouting breathless over the wind.
‘
Request Tactical Support Unit attend immediately!
’ His face bulged, frightened, behind the glass.
‘It got out of hand,’ Guy said, giving her a quick grim look.
She was panting. ‘What happened?’
‘We were just going to ask questions. Gerard drove the jeep in, and I left mine here – you know.’
She understood; to keep it safe. And it meant he’d escaped being surrounded too.
‘And where – Christ, Gerard’s not in there?’ But now she could make out a figure inside the car, between the swarming bodies of traveller kids. As she watched, one got hoisted onto the roof and began jumping up and down, to jeers and catcalls. They were perhaps thirty metres away. ‘Where’s the fucking back-up?’ she exclaimed. Then: ‘Sorry.’
‘Sergeant
Hamilton has radioed.’ Guy stood up, and they huddled by the car to look out, a thin piercing rain making them shiver.
‘Should we not—’
‘It isn’t safe. We have to stay back.’ Unlike the PSNI officers, Guy and Paula had no guns. Old Bob could barely outrun a shopping trolley.
‘Shit.’ She strained to see Gerard in the car, and realised Guy beside her was radiating tension from every muscle. She followed his eyes and saw them – a group of men emerging from the caravans, armed with baseball bats. Iron bars.
Guy tapped on the car window; Bob unwound it an inch.
‘Aye? I radioed them, but they said—’
‘Sergeant,’ Guy said quietly. ‘Tell them to fucking get here
now
.’
It all seemed to happen very fast. There was a bright flicker on the edge of the group, and Paula realised something was spinning in the air, fluttering – newspaper? Of course, a home-made petrol bomb. Half of Ireland probably knew how to make one of those. Then it was turning, falling, the kids scattering like rats, and it was hitting the car and exploding into points of light. And then the car was on fire, and she could hear the crackle of it, and she could hear Gerard shout across the empty space, and the clunk of the car door, and then he was stumbling back against the flames, and falling, and she saw the man was on fire. Gerard was burning.
Hands were pushing against her, strong and unyielding. ‘No!’ She was struggling before she understood.
‘Get in the bloody car. Stay there.’ Guy was bundling her in, and for once, for some reason, she was obeying. She watched out of rain-stippled windows as Guy ran, in his suit, across the ground, hunching down low.
Army
, she thought in a daze. Definitely ex-Army. A moment’s startled look at her and Bob was fumbling with the lock and getting out too, charging in his ill-fitting suit, for God’s sake. Like Dixon of Dock Green. Both men were running straight
into the throng, the flames. In the distance rose the high squeal of sirens.
‘Will
Gerard be OK?’ Paula clasped her hands between her knees.
Guy was pacing behind his desk. ‘They said so. He has burns on his hands and neck, but he should be out in a few days.’
She nodded, trying to forget the sounds of her colleague’s screams as the fire had taken hold. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. ‘And the rest?’
Guy stopped pacing and rested his fists on the plasterboard of the wall, as if he would like to punch it. ‘It’s a mess. Excuse me – it’s a fucking disaster.’
It was indeed a mess. Ever since the brawl that morning, the story had been top of radio news bulletins, and would feature prominently not just on the regional TV news, but even on the national. The images were shattering – riot police on the streets of Ballyterrin, for the first time since the 1996 Drumcree stand-off. Ten traveller men in the cells, countless injuries from stones, batons, and out-of-control flames. On the news, images of babies wailing as their mothers looked horrified from their caravan doors, children scooped out of the dirt by terrified arms. Allegations of racism, police brutality. And the worst thing was, it had all been for no reason.
She shuddered. ‘So, it wasn’t Cathy’s blood on the knife after all.’
He shook his head, exhausted. ‘Not even human. Cat, most likely. A prank.’
‘OK.’ She
almost wished he’d bawl her out, get it over with, not make her wait forever in his office for the coming punishment.
Guy looked up. ‘Where did you go today, Paula? You weren’t doing interviews.’
‘No.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘I had a contact—’
He held up his hand. ‘Save it. I must say, Paula, I have some very serious problems with how you’re carrying out your work. I knew when I hired you – I mean, your old boss said you had problems with authority, but—’
‘Allen? He hated me!’
‘Maybe. But maybe he was right, too.’
She said nothing for a moment, resting her eyes on the pictures of his children. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just felt very strongly that the Mission was the key. And I finished all my reports, like you said.’
‘That isn’t the point and you know it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I realise I’ve weakened my position by our – well, by what happened between us – but I still have to manage you, and I wish I could explain that we are
this
close to being shut down before we’ve even got started.’
