The Janus Stone

CHAPTER 9

‘So you were resident at the Sacred Heart Children’s Home for how long?’

‘Three years. I came when I was thirteen. I left when I was sixteen. Father Hennessey got me an apprenticeship. I owe him everything really.’

The speaker, a mild-looking man in his forties, looks at Nelson and smiles. Nelson forces himself to smile back. This is the third ex-resident of the children’s home who has offered an unsolicited testimonial to the kindness of Father Hennessey. As Clough put it, half an hour ago, ‘perhaps the buggers have been brainwashed.’

While Nelson and Clough are interviewing former residents of the children’s home, Detective Constable Judy Johnson, another of Nelson’s team, is on her way to interview Sister Immaculata, a nun who used to work at the home and is now in a Southport old people’s home. As Nelson hates Southport and Clough hates nuns, it was considered that this visit needed ‘a woman’s touch’.

‘Mr Davies,’ Nelson leans forward, ‘during your time at the home was there any ill-treatment of inmates… sorry, residents.’

‘No, never,’ Davies answers. Too quickly? wonders Nelson.

‘No corporal punishment?’ asks Clough. ‘Quite common in the seventies.’

‘No,’ says Davies quietly, ‘Father Hennessey believed in kindness.’

‘What about the nuns? The sisters. Could they be strict?’

Davies considers. ‘They could be strict, yes. No physical violence but some of them had sharp tongues. A few were kind. Sister James. Sister Immaculata. But some of the others… they were good women but not kindly women, if you know what I mean.’

‘So what were the punishments for bad behaviour?’ persists Nelson.

Davies smiles. ‘Well, for really bad behaviour you got sent to Father Hennessey but that usually turned out to be more of a treat than anything else. He’d get you to help clear out his cupboards or weed the kitchen garden. Some of my happiest memories of SHCH are of working on that garden.’

Nelson sighs and changes tack. ‘Did you know two children called Black? Martin and Elizabeth Black.’

Davies frowns. He has an anxious, squashed-looking face at the best of times. Now his face is positively pleated in thought. ‘Yes,’ he says at last, ‘they went missing. It was just after I came to SHCH. Martin was about a year younger than me. He was very clever, I remember.’

‘Do you remember anything about their disappearance?’

‘Well, there was a big to-do at the time. We used to have a free hour at the end of the day and I remember that I’d actually been talking to Martin. There was a craze for collecting football cards and we were filling in our scrapbooks. Elizabeth was there too, playing with some stuffed animal. A dog, I think it was. She took it everywhere with her. After a while she wandered off and Martin went to find her. That was the last I saw of him. Then one of the sisters rang the bell for bedtime and they were nowhere to be seen.’

‘What happened next?’

‘Father Hennessey went out to search. Then he must have called the police. I remember being interviewed, being asked when I last saw Martin and Elizabeth. The police were around for a few weeks, asking everyone questions. I remember Sister Immaculata being angry because they interrupted us when we were saying the rosary. Then everything went back to normal. We still prayed for Martin and Elizabeth but we didn’t really talk about them. We forgot. You know what kids are like.’

‘When the police were at SHCH, do you remember them searching the grounds? Digging?’

‘No,’ says Davies slowly, ‘I don’t remember them digging.’

He looks up suddenly. ‘Is that what all this is about? Have you found a body?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ says Nelson.

‘They’re knocking it down, aren’t they?’ says Davies. ‘I walked past the site the other day.’

‘They’re developing it, yes.’

‘It’s a shame. It was a lovely house. Like a mansion, I always thought.’

‘Yes.’ Nelson looks at Clough. ‘Mr Davies, would you be prepared to come to the site and look around? You might be able to tell us where things were. Which rooms were which, that sort of thing.’

‘Yes,’ says Davies, ‘I’d be happy to.’

He gets up to leave, shaking hands with both policemen. At the door, Clough asks, ‘You say Father Hennessey got you an apprenticeship. What trade was that?’

Kevin Davies smiles, the creases in his face turning upwards. ‘Oh, I thought you knew. I’m an undertaker.’

Judy Johnson is pushing a wheelchair along Southport seafront. The tide is out and the sand stretches into the far distance, bands of gold and white and silver, dotted with tiny figures carrying nets and buckets. As she watches, three racehorses canter into view, their necks arching as they fight their bits, the sand flying up behind them. Judy stops for a second and Sister Immaculata turns and says, ‘Red Rum was trained here. Did you know that?’

‘No.’

‘I had a bet on him in 1976. That was the year he came second. Typical.’

‘Was it each way?’ asks Judy, a bookie’s daughter.

‘No, on the nose. Typical.’

The horses are galloping now, stretching out joyfully across the sand, manes and tails flying. The jockeys hover over their necks, seemingly balanced in mid-air. Judy had wanted to be a jockey once. Before she got interested in boys.

The old people’s home turns out to be a convent that looks after aging nuns. The sister in charge suggested that Judy take Sister Immaculata out ‘for a walk’.

‘That way she’ll get fresh air and you can have some privacy.’ A mixture of kindness and absolute authority that Judy remembers from her own (convent) schooldays.

Judy stops by a bench, puts the brakes on the wheelchair and goes to sit beside the elderly nun. She knows from the police records that Sister Immaculata (real name: Orla McKinley) is seventy-five but the veil covering her hair and her high-necked habit serve to mask the most obvious signs of age. Her face is curiously unlined, the blue eyes still sharp. Only the hand, pointing now at Southport Pier, betrays its owner’s age. It’s a mummy’s hand, skeletal and misshapen.

‘Sister Immaculata,’ begins Judy, ‘you worked at the Sacred Heart Children’s Home from 1960 to 1980.’

‘It wasn’t work, it was a vocation,’ says the nun sharply.

‘I’m sorry. But you were resident at the home?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of a place was it?’

Sister Immaculata is silent, looking out over the miles of pale sand. But Judy notes that her hands are shaking slightly. Age? Infirmity? Or fear?

‘It was a beautiful house. Lovely grounds. The sort of place where you can’t imagine bad things happening.’

Judy holds her breath. She mustn’t mess this up. The boss expects her to get results. That’s why she has been sent instead of Clough, who’d probably have accused the nun of satanic abuse by now and be on his way for an early lunch.

‘What sort of bad things?’ she asks gently.

The nun looks at her sharply, eyes narrowed.

‘Two children vanished. Isn’t that bad enough for you?’

‘Martin and Elizabeth Black?’

‘Yes. They disappeared. Vanished. Into thin air.’

Judy shivers. It sounds a little like a fairy tale and she has always found these particularly terrifying. Two children go into the woods and bang! they are eaten by a wolf or enticed into a gingerbread house or given a poisoned apple by a close female relation. Vanished. Into thin air.

She struggles to make her voice sound businesslike. ‘How well did you know Martin and Elizabeth?’

Sister Immaculata seems to have recovered her poise. ‘I taught Martin,’ she says, ‘didn’t have much to do with the younger children. That was Sister James, God rest her soul. But I remember Martin. Father Hennessey thought the world of him but he was always trouble, in my opinion.’

‘In what way?’

‘He was clever. Very interested in history. Gladiators, dinosaurs, that sort of thing. Science too. He was always trying some far-fetched experiment. Father Hennessey encouraged him, even made a laboratory for him in the basement. Gave him books to read. But he was the sort of boy who used his intelligence to make trouble. Always asking questions in class. Sacrilegious questions about the Holy Ghost and the Blessed Virgin.’ She nods her head in pious reflex.

‘What did Father Hennessey think about that?’

‘He made excuses for him. The children had a tragic start in life. Their mother died. The only other relative was a drunken father in Ireland. Martin was always talking about his father, making him out to be some sort of hero. That’s why, when they disappeared, we thought they might have gone to Ireland.’

‘Did it come out of the blue, their disappearance?’

‘Well, we thought Martin might have been plotting something. He’d been stealing food for weeks. Father Hennessey knew but he didn’t want to confront the boy, not until he knew what was in his mind. I think he regretted that later.’

‘What did you think?’ In Judy’s experience, everyone likes to be asked their opinion and it seems nuns are no exception to this rule.

‘I thought he needed a good hiding. But Father Hennessey wasn’t having any of that. No physical punishment, that was the rule. Not even a clip round the ear for cheekiness. Not like it was when I was at school.’ She broods for a minute, lower lip stuck out.

‘I told Father Hennessey that Martin Black was trouble but he wouldn’t have it. Just said the boy needed love and attention. Love and attention! Look where that got him. He ran off, taking his poor innocent sister with him. Probably got themselves killed.’

‘Is that what you think happened?’ asks Judy.

Sister Immaculata is silent for a moment and Judy sees now that she has a rosary in her hands. She is twisting the beads between her arthritic fingers. ‘Yes, I think that’s what happened. The world is a dangerous place for children.’

‘What did Father Hennessey think?’

Sister Immaculata looks her full in the face, the blue eyes slightly amused. ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, girl? Father Hennessey is a saint. And saints cause a lot of trouble for the rest of us.’