Page 42 of Hidden Daughters

‘Why are you asking these questions? I only wanted you to see if you could find out what happened to Mary Elizabeth and our child.’

‘I know, but…’ What did she really want to ask him? ‘Did you know someone had started making a documentary about the nearby laundry?’

He remained silent, his face like the stone walls around him. He gazed fixedly out over his land. The seagull squawked overhead again before disappearing down to the sea.

‘Bryan?’ A cool breeze fluttered over Lottie’s face, and she found herself shivering.

‘Is it this documentary woman that’s dead then? Up at the cottages?’

‘No, it’s not her, but she may have been there.’

‘I heard there was someone renting one of the cottages and asking a lot of questions.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

He shifted as if the question made him uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think I ever seen sight nor sound of her.’

‘What did you hear then?’

‘That she was interviewing people.’

‘Okay.’ She kept her eyes on him, saw the tremble on his chin, his Adam’s apple wobbling. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’

He was mute again.

‘Bryan? What else? I need the full picture if I’m to find out about your girl.’ She didn’t add that she wanted to find out anything he might know about the murdered woman or Imelda Conroy.

‘She was trying to link the goings-on at the convent with what went on in Knockraw.’

‘The woman making the documentary? That seems logical enough.’

‘It may, now that I’ve voiced it. But it was the first time anyone had come here with evidence.’

‘Evidence? Of what?’

‘I don’t rightly know, but she talked about things I hadn’t heard spoken of in years.’

‘Go on.’

He turned to face her, and she noticed an ashen hue on his weather-beaten face.

‘This Conroy woman, Imelda, she did come to talk to me.’

Lottie felt her mouth hang open. ‘Ah Bryan, why didn’t you say so at the start?’

‘I don’t know how it can be relevant if it’s not her who was murdered.’

‘What did you talk about?’

He continued his steely glare towards the horizon as he spoke. ‘She asked me if I knew of a man who’d been in a religious order back then. She thought he was a priest, or someone whomasqueraded as one. That’s what she said, and it reminded me…’

He paused for a moment, sucking air into his lungs before continuing. ‘He was maybe early twenties, but to us lads, being nothing more than kids, teenagers, he was an auld fella. He was based at Knockraw, but this is the thing… he used to take girls from the convent at night.’

‘He rescued them?’ Lottie shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. She’d heard stories about some of the laundries where locals had helped girls escape and get to England.

‘No.’ His tone turned as sharp as a shard of broken glass. ‘He did not rescue them.’

‘Tell me, Bryan.’ She spoke in a whisper, dreading what he was about to say.

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