A June of Ordinary Murders (44 page)

The ground rose as they came towards Greenhills House. The byroad was little more than a laneway with high ditches, indicating that the land had been drained on both sides. The banks were heavily grown with thorn hedges and occasional single trees; alder and sycamore. Here and there a copse of beech or chestnut stood tall, signifying tenure over time.

‘There she is, Ladies and Gintlemin.'

Bracken pointed with the stem of his pipe towards a drab, grey building, now visible through a copse of trees. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile along the laneway.

‘Greenhills House,' he announced.

He halted the trap before the main door. A pair of Doric columns flanked granite steps. Green and yellow weeds sprouted from the cracks between the stonework. The paint on the columns was peeled with age. A crescent of what might once have been lawn formed a grassy meadow in front of the building. Greenhills House gave every appearance of decay and neglect.

Lily and Maria, reluctantly acting out their assumed roles as would-be benefactresses, elected to walk in the grounds and to give the impression of examining the gardens.

Lafeyre and Swallow climbed the steps.

‘Now,' Swallow said, ‘remember, I'm doing the talking. You play along.'

His haul on the doorbell was answered after a minute by a thin young man wearing a shabby, dark suit with a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles sitting on his nose.

‘Good afternoon, Sirs. You must be the inspectors. I'm Baxter, the monitor. Please, come in.'

Swallow nudged Lafeyre as they stepped inside. The interior smelled of rotting vegetables. In spite of the warmth of the day there was a pervading sense of dampness.

‘So, you're the monitor?' Swallow inquired, endeavouring to assume an expression both grave and knowledgeable that he imagined would be appropriate to an inspector of the Board of Educational Charities.

‘Yes, Sir. I'm on duty this afternoon. The children have had their lunch and I'm supervising them in drill. Unfortunately, the Guardian, Mr Pomeroy, is not here at the moment, but he told me to be ready for your visit. Although he didn't say you'd come on a Saturday…'

His voice trailed off.

‘We wouldn't usually come on a Saturday, Mr Baxter,' Lafeyre said pleasantly, deciding to play up his adopted role. ‘But as it happened we had other business in the area … charitable business, of course. And we have two ladies of a generous disposition with us who might wish to help out … financially, that is, if they are sufficiently impressed. They are now looking at the grounds and the gardens.'

‘That is ver … very … edifying,' Baxter stammered. ‘Unfortunately, the grounds aren't at their very best at this particular time. We had a gardener who became ill and he … wasn't replaced. Shall I have someone accompany the ladies?'

‘I don't believe that will be necessary,' Swallow said reassuringly. ‘They would prefer, I am sure, to be allowed to conduct their examination at their own pace and in privacy.'

‘Would you like to see the drill class?' Baxter inquired eagerly. ‘Because of the good weather we'll be outdoors. Or perhaps you'd like to visit the dining hall and kitchen. There's only an assistant cook there, it being Saturday, but the children…'

‘Not at all,' Swallow intervened, ‘we won't interrupt what I'm sure is your fine drill-instruction, Mr Baxter. We would, however, like to spend just a little while examining some of the files and records. There are some questions which we have to answer for our colleagues at our next meeting.'

‘Then you'll want to go to the office, I assume,' Baxter replied efficiently. ‘I have the keys and I can bring you there. Will I have the assistant cook prepare some tea?'

‘No, thank you,' Lafeyre smiled, ‘that won't be necessary. If you can just show us to the office that will be sufficient, thank you. And you may continue with your work.'

Baxter led them along bare boards, down a sunless corridor into a wing of the house that overlooked the gardens. He opened the door to a high-ceilinged room with grimy bow windows giving out onto a yard. Spreading black patches on the wall and ceiling showed where damp had penetrated. Swallow saw that all of the windows were nailed shut. There was a table with two or three hard chairs.

He reasoned quietly that if these were the conditions in which the officials worked, the lot of the children in Greenhills House could not be a particularly happy one.

Baxter pointed to the shelves that lined three walls of the room.

‘All of the files and records are there, gentlemen, as you expect, in chronological order. Is there any particular category you would like me to identify for you?'

‘We will want to look at admissions and discharges,' Swallow said. ‘That's what the Board is concerned about above all else, as you'll understand. It's a question of making sure that the house is providing value for money in terms of your numbers here.'

‘Of course,' Baxter replied. ‘The more recent records are on the right and they go back year by year, moving to the left as you face the shelves.'

He made a little bow and backed out the door, closing it behind him. Lafeyre moved across the room and put his ear against the upper panel.

‘He's gone,' he grinned at Swallow. ‘They were certainly expecting us.'

Swallow nodded. ‘It's amazing what can be done with a couple of sheets of paper with a crown on them.'

They set about scouring the shelves, following Baxter's guidance, for the records that they hoped that might yield some information on Sarah Hannin. After just a minute, Lafeyre called out.

‘I think this is the section that we want, Joe. “
Records of admissions 1855-1880
”.' He drew down a leather-bound journal, date stamped on the spine.

‘This covers admissions in the years 1860 to 1863.'

The ruled columns on the left side showed names of children and their dates of admission. Lafeyre leafed through the book, moving through the entries for 1860 and 1861. At 1862, he slammed an open page.

‘There she is, Joe.'

He tapped the line. Swallow read the entry.

Family Name: Hannin

Christian Name(s): Sarah Mary

Gender: Female

Date of Birth: June 5th 1862

Date of Admission: October 10th 1862

Date of Discharge: September 1st 1875

General Health: Good

There was a supplementary information panel on the opposite page, but in Sarah Hannin's case, the spaces provided for the place of birth, the names, addresses and occupations of parents were blank.

Swallow reckoned they were fortunate to get even the basic details. Compulsory registration had begun little more than a decade ago. Getting this amount of information on what was almost certainly an illegitimate birth more than 20 years previously was not to be taken for granted.

His eyes ran down the page, scanning the other enrolments at Greenhills House in the year 1862. He gasped at an entry three lines down.

Family Name: Downes

Christian Names (s): Louise Cecilia

Gender: Female

Date of Birth: July 1st 1862

Date of Admission: October 12th 1862

Date of Discharge: September 1st 1875

Unlike Sarah Hannin, the spaces on the supplementary information panel were neatly filled in.

Lafeyre's eyes had also travelled down the page. Swallow was fractionally ahead of him, but their exclamations were simultaneous as they read the entries.

‘Christ almighty,' Swallow said.

‘As God is my judge,' Lafeyre rejoined.

They read the supplementary panel.

Place of Birth: Rotunda Hospital, Dublin

Family name: Downes

Christian Names: Louise Cecilia

Mother's Christian Names: Cecilia Margaret

Mother Native of: King's County

Putative Father: T. Fitzpatrick

Profession, Rank or Trade of Father: Not stated

Mother's address at time of Admission: 106 Merrion Square, Dublin.

‘Ces Downes's daughter, Louise Thomas, was raised here in this place too,' Swallow exclaimed. ‘And the father has to be Thomas Fitzpatrick. Look at the address.'

He ran his finger back along the entries.

‘I knew it … I knew there was a connection between these damned cases.'

Swallow realised he was almost shouting.

‘There had to be a link between the two women,' he told Lafeyre. ‘And this is it, here. Or part of it. They were both here in this institution and they're both connected back to Fitzpatrick.'

‘But who'd want to murder two women and a child simply because the women were in the same institution?' Lafeyre asked.

Swallow's eyes had been travelling up and down the open record book. Half a dozen entries below, he registered something else.

‘Harry, look at this. There's more.'

He ran his finger down the page.

Family Name: Fitzpatrick

Christian Name(s): John Michael

Gender: Male

Date of Birth: July 30th 1863

Date of Admission: November 10th 1863

Date of Discharge: September 1st 1876

General Health: Good

Place of Birth: Rotunda Hospital, Dublin

Mother's family name: Downes

Mother's Christian Names: Cecilia Margaret

Mother Native of: Kings County

Putative Father: T. Fitzpatrick

Profession, Rank or Trade of Father: Not stated

Mother's address at time of Admission: 106 Merrion Square, Dublin

‘There was a son too,' Lafeyre almost whispered the words.

‘Let's try to get all of this straight,' Swallow tapped his forehead as if to concentrate his powers of reasoning.

‘We have two girls – two children – one of whom was the daughter of Ces Downes and Thomas Fitzpatrick, discharged from this orphanage here in 1875.'

‘That's it,' Lafeyre agreed. ‘There was a relationship between Fitzpatrick and Ces Downes. They have a daughter and a son – Louise and John Michael.'

‘So where does Sarah Hannin fit in?'

‘I don't know,' Lafeyre answered. ‘Louise and Sarah were enrolled here at the same time. Maybe they became friends.'

Swallow nodded. ‘Maybe. We know that Louise went to England. Sarah went into service at Fitzpatrick's. I wonder what happened to the boy, John Michael.'

‘Did I ever tell you the story of how Pisspot Ces Downes got her name?'

‘No, but I suspect you're about to.'

‘The received version is that she was a servant in a Dublin house who was accused of stealing by the housekeeper. She took a cast-iron chamber-pot and brained the woman. She never fully recovered. Nor was Ces ever charged.'

‘How's that connected to what we see here?'

‘I don't know. But my guess is that if the story is true it happened at the Fitzpatrick house and that even then there was some sort of a cover up.'

At that moment the sound of wheels and hooves came through the windows. Swallow peered out to see a side-car coming on the drive to the house.

‘Damn. It may be Pomeroy or God knows who else. We'd better get ourselves out of here.'

Swallow slipped the
Record of Enrolments
under his jacket. He saw Lafeyre's look of alarm.

‘We need evidence,' he said tersely. ‘I'll worry about making it legal when I have to.'

The approaching vehicle swung across the drive past Bracken's waiting car. He raised a finger in salute as it swept in behind the house. Swallow and Lafeyre had a momentary sighting of a heavy-set man with a florid, angry face staring quizzically at Lily and Maria who had just walked back from the garden.

‘He's gone to the back entrance,' Swallow said. ‘Come, we're off.'

They moved smartly along the corridor to the front door. Then they were quickly aboard Bracken's car and moving down the driveway.

As they swung through the gates, Swallow turned to see the man he assumed to be Pomeroy emerge on to the front steps of the house. At that distance he could not judge if the expression on the Guardian's face was fury, alarm or both.

THIRTY-SIX

Lafeyre and Swallow were silent until Bracken's car rounded the bend and Greenhills House with its guardian had disappeared from sight. Lily looked from one of them to the other in alarm.

‘Will someone please tell me what's going on? Has there been some sort of trouble?'

Swallow put a finger to his lips indicating silence and pointed to the driver's back. Maria said nothing. She had learned through sharing her recent life with a policeman not to ask questions at certain times. She judged that this was probably one such time.

‘Later. I'll explain later. All went well.'

Lafeyre tapped with his foot at the picnic basket on the floor of the car. ‘What about lunch?' he grinned, trying to defuse the tension. ‘We haven't eaten since breakfast.'

Swallow's instinct told him it would be better to put distance between themselves and Greenhills House. But he knew Lafeyre was anxious to rescue some element of outing from the day's business.

‘Not a bad idea,' he said. ‘It'd be a pity to waste such a fine day and all of Maria's picnic preparations.'

He tapped Bracken on the shoulder. ‘Can you find us a nice spot on the Heath where we might stop to eat our lunch?'

Bracken pulled his ear as if for inspiration. ‘I can, Sir. We have a high bank just a bit ahead of us. Nice and shaded and there's a fine view of the countryside. D'ye want me to pull in there for a stop?'