Himself(68)

He flings himself on her settee, puts his feet up on her table and takes a good look at his sparring partner.

The Widow appears benign enough in her pastel cardigan and pleated skirt with the gold cross over her spotless blouse. But then there is the grim line of her shoulders and the iron tilt of her chin and the spite in her eyes. Mahony sees that she is locked down and bolted. If she were a castle she would have wound up the drawbridge and woken the archers by now.

Mahony smiles. ‘Well now, Annie, this is nice.’

Annie speaks softly. ‘I told you to leave town, didn’t I? You’re filth, just like your mother was.’

‘Away with you! That’s just who I want to talk to you about. So you knew her well? Me mammy?’

‘Your mother was a whore.’

Mahony lights a cigarette and inhales fast and deep. ‘That’s no news to me, Annie. I came for something fresh. Let’s start with what happened to her?’

‘Your mother left town, that’s all there was to it.’

Mahony’s face sets hard. ‘Come off it, Annie.’

‘Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘But you put up a lot of money to bribe my arse out of town. That tells me you must have a very guilty conscience.’

Annie narrows her eyes. ‘I’m saying nothing.’

A dead old lady meanders into the room and settles on the settee next to Mahony. She draws out her knitting with a friendly nod.

Mahony speaks slowly, like a courtroom hero with the odds stacked against him but who’ll be winning anyway. ‘Now, Annie. Just tell me what happened to my mother and I’ll leave right now and never bother you again.’

‘Or what?’

Mahony shrugs, his eyes cold.

Annie looks straight at him. ‘She got what she deserved.’

The dead old lady shakes her head and tuts.

Mahony smiles. ‘What did she deserve? Don’t be shy now.’

Annie holds out her hands. ‘How could I possibly say?’

‘Did you kill my mother, Annie?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Because you’re no murderer, are you, Nurse Farelly?’

Annie stares at him. ‘Get out or I’ll call the guards.’

‘And tell them what?’ Mahony takes a drag on his cigarette. ‘Maybe we could entertain them with some of the highlights of your nursing career.’

The dead old lady nods and points at Annie, then she draws her knitting needle over her faint throat. Mahony admires the gesture; it shows spirit.

Annie sits down in an armchair opposite, smoothing her skirt around her knees with careful deliberation. Mahony watches her closely; she doesn’t look in the least bit rattled. After all, he has nothing on her, just a hunch. So a few old people died at the nursing home? Well, that’s hardly news. He sees that she’ll bluff without flinching and give nothing away, unless she wants to. If they were playing poker he’d be leaving without his wallet.

‘So you want to know the truth about your mother? I’ll tell you about your mother,’ she says, her face impassive.

‘I’ve an ear for the truth now, Annie.’

‘She lived with her drunken mother on the edge of town. She had grown up fatherless, running wild. One day she marched into town with her head held high and her stomach grown big and said that she was going to have a bastard and that she wanted to be treated like everyone else. Of course all of the decent people would cross the road rather than talk to her and she had already been banned from every one of the shops.’ Annie pauses, a smile plays on her lips. ‘She said if she didn’t get the respect she deserved she’d tell the town who had fathered her bastard.’

‘And did she?’

‘She didn’t. She had the baby and she wound her neck in and waited, like a snake about to strike. So the good people of the town decided to act first.’

‘What did they do?’

‘They petitioned the priest but he would not help them. Instead he urged forgiveness and acceptance, charity and understanding, and if that wasn’t possible, he said he’d come after anyone who so much as looked sideways at her.’

‘And what did the town say to that?’

‘They said that she’d bewitched the old fool.’ Annie absently touches the gold cross at her neck. ‘So the town decided to take matters into their own hands. They would round up the bastard and give it to a decent Catholic family. And they would bring the girl to a place where she could do no more harm.’

‘What place?’

‘An asylum.’

Mahony looks out. In the garden a starling is dragging a worm out of a trim lawn. It tugs and then hops away, jerking its wings ready to attack again.

‘They went up to the cottage late one night, planning to come upon her in surprise.’ Annie leans over and bangs on the window. The bird flies away.

‘Who went?’

‘I wouldn’t know. As they entered she rushed at them like fury and escaped into the forest leaving her bastard behind, filthy dirty, underfed and too weak to cry.’

Annie’s eyes are milled metal, hard-set. But Mahony can take her stare; it glances right off him.

‘They found an old woman rocking herself in the corner of the room, drunk out of her mind. It took them a while to recognise her for the respectable woman she once was. “Has she done this to you?” they asked her. “Yes,” she said and pointed to the door. “But that one is not my daughter; my own baby has gone. The devil climbed in at the window and took her and left his own behind in the crib.”’