Page 149 of Hidden Daughters

‘The sexual assaults. At Knockraw. I can spin it to put you in the frame. If it ever comes out.’

‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll tell you this, you’re a twisted bastard.’

‘I’m leaving now, but if you haven’t been arrested and charged by this evening, I’ll be back. And mark my words, Miss Grace Boyd will not be impressed.’

85

Detective Sergeant Mooney was fairly thick-skinned by nature, but the content of Assumpta’s notebooks raised the hair on the back of his neck. What kind of a society did he live in? The events she had documented happened not in the dark ages but in the recent past. He could not stomach some of the descriptions. It verged on debauchery. He turned the page.

I watched the two girls being manhandled into the back of the black car. Would they return? I supposed they would, like the others before them. Broken and terrified.

Mickey Fox was standing among the trees, watching. Useless. But I can’t blame him. He once tried to rescue a girl from this place but he didn’t get far. The only surprise for me is that he kept his job. Perhaps the nuns felt safer having him under their watchful eyes rather than him mouthing off to all and sundry in the town. Who knows the way those witches think.

Robert is driving the car to Knockraw tonight. I don’t know how I ever thought of abandoning my vocation for him. I will renounce my vows in order to find another path for myself. He is a stupid man, easily manipulated, which makes him dangerous. I’m glad I saw the light, but I am so,so sad that it took the death of little Gabriel for me to see him for who and what he is.

Tonight he is taking three girls. One of them, Mary Elizabeth, has just given birth. How cruel can the nuns be? For one, they get money out of these sordid transactions. Greed. And two, I believe there’s a more sadistic reason. Mary’s baby was taken from her when she had barely gulped her first breath of air, leaving the girl’s healing slow, both physically and emotionally. Poor soul.

I feel powerless to do anything. I am inadequate. A lone voice among the fearful. The only thing I can do is document what I see and hear, and hope that one day I will be brave enough to tell their story. At the moment, I am a coward.

Mary Elizabeth is sobbing as I watch from my window. Robert takes her by the arm and bundles her inside the car. The girl called James is crying, but Ann is stoical and resigned. This is Mary’s first time to be brought on this journey, but I’m sure she knows where she is being taken; the girls talk, and she will realise what awaits her. Mickey told me about it. Made me swear not to breathe a word. But I spoke with one of the girls, and the things she told me about what goes on over there, with those men, terrified me. Men – priests, brothers, deacons – who have vowed celibacy see this as a way to fulfil their primal needs. They do not view the girls as human beings, otherwise they would not do it. How can I live in a society that treats young girls as subhuman?

I must be careful.

What happened to Gabriel could happen to me, to anyone. The little one did nothing wrong. It broke my heart to see her abandoned by her family and thrown into this place. I tried to make her life easier, but all she wanted was to learn, to go to school, to return to her family, and she never stopped talking about the baby she had cared for after her mother died.

Mooney raised his eyes heavenward, trying to make sense of it all. He wanted to read more, to find out what it was that had someone murdering innocent people. Those who had been damaged and abused by others entrusted with their care. He wanted to go out and burn the convent to the ground. To travel over to Knockraw and similarly destroy the crumbling ruins. But the only legal thing he could do was find the killer and bring them to justice.

He looked down and focused on the words in Assumpta’s notebook.

His heart almost stopped when he came to the next entry she had documented.

I am writing this a week after my last entry. I was sickened to my stomach by what I was told happened that night and I could not hold a pen, let alone write. I could not even pray, so I know now for sure that my religious vocation is at an end. I will instead train to be a nurse. I want to help heal visible wounds because I realise I cannot heal anything within a person’s heart or soul. I am a failure, a coward. But I want to try to make amends. Somehow.

Mary Elizabeth is broken, in body and spirit.

The three girls came back in the car driven by Robert. Two are survivors. Ann and James, whose real name is Edie. The other poor soul, Mary Elizabeth, will not survive.

I bathed and dressed the visible cuts and put a tincture on her bruises. She is bleeding a lot, which is understandable as she recently gave birth. I think it is more profuse than it should be. Perhaps something is ruptured. Mother Superior will not allow the doctor to come to examine her. I even went out to Mickey Fox and asked if he knew a doctor in the village where we could secretly bring the girl. But his sad eyes and shake of the head told me more than any words could.

‘Mary Elizabeth,’ I whispered in her ear, ‘please try to be strong. I will care for you.’

But the girl smiled weakly and held my hand. ‘No one can save me. You need to get out of this place. It’s not good. Save yourself.’

Her voice was weak, and I had to lean close to hear what she had to say.

‘I know I will never see my baby. I hope it is with a good family who takes care of it. I beg of you to tell everyone what happened in here, and over there… in that awful place. You have to do something…’

‘Who abused you?’ I asked. ‘Do you have the name of the ringleader?’

I felt sure she would say Robert’s name and braced myself. But it was not his name that she whispered to me. In that instant, I knew I had to do something. I might be a coward, but I was furious enough to seek revenge.

This morning, Robert came by with another young man. He was tall and gangly and extremely handsome. I estimated he was no more than eighteen or nineteen. He carried himself well and seemed to have some hold over Robert, though Robert himself is no angel.

He stayed by the back door while the younger man went down to the laundry. I think he had some perverse interest in seeing where little Gabriel had been killed. This incensed me. So much so that I sinned. I am not sorry. I had to do something. I enlisted the help of some of the others. We filled a steel bucket with boiling water, and when he was bent over looking into the machine, two of us held the bucket high and poured the water down his back.

His screams did nothing to assuage my guilt, but at the same time, I felt a surge of exhilaration.

He tore at his shirt, stripping skin off his back as he tugged the cotton away. We hastily filled another bucket and poured more water over his naked skin. He was so intenton helping himself that we were able to melt away into the background. Later I realised I had blisters on my arms from the splashes.

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