“ ‘About this time,’ ” Daniel read, tilting the page so I could see, “ ‘a young girl of the village found herself in an unfortunate situation, and named William March as the father of her unborn child. Whatever the truth may have been, the people of Glenskehy, who were then well trained in morals unlike these present times’ ”-“morals” was underlined twice-“ ‘were shocked at her loose conduct. It was the strong-belief?-of all the village that the girl should remove her shame from their midst by entering a Magdalen convent, and till this should come about they made her an outcast among themselves.’ ”
No happy ending, no little dress shop in London. Some girls never escaped the Magdalen laundries. They stayed slaves-for getting pregnant, getting raped, being orphaned, being too pretty-till they went to nameless graves.
Daniel kept reading, quiet and even. I could feel the vibration of his voice against my shoulder. “ ‘The girl, however, either despairing of her soul or unwilling to perform the prescribed penance, took her life. William March-whether because he had in fact been her partner in sin, or because he had already witnessed too much bloodshed-was greatly affected by this. His health failed him, and when he recovered he abandoned family, friends and home to begin anew elsewhere. Little is known of his later life. These events may be taken as a lesson in the dangers of lust, or of mixing outside the boundaries of one’s natural level in society, or of…’ ” Daniel broke off. “I can’t read the rest. That’s all there is about William, anyway; the next paragraph is about a racehorse.”
“Jesus,” I said softly. The room felt cold all of a sudden, cold and too airy, as if the window had slammed open behind us.
“They treated her like a leper till she cracked,” Rafe said. There was a taut little twist to one corner of his mouth. “And till William had a breakdown and left town. So it’s not just a recent development, then, Glenskehy being Lunatic Central.”
I felt a slight shudder run down Daniel’s back. “That’s a nasty little story,” he said. “It really is. Sometimes I wonder if the best thing would be for ‘no pasts’ to apply to the house, as well. Although…” He glanced around, at the room full of dusty battered things, the ragged-papered walls; the dark-spotted mirror, down the corridor, reflecting the three of us in blues and shadows through the open door. “I’m not sure,” he said, almost to himself, “that that’s an option.”
He tapped the edges of the pages straight and put them carefully back in their case, closed the lid. “I don’t know about you two,” he said, “but I think I’ve had enough for tonight. Let’s go back to the others.”
“I think I’ve seen every piece of paperwork in the country that has the word ‘Glenskehy’ on it,” Sam said, when I phoned him later. He sounded wrecked and blurry-paper fatigue; I knew the note well-but satisfied. “I know a lot more about it than anyone needs to, and I’ve got three guys that fit your profile.”
I was in my tree, with my feet tucked up tight into the branches. The feeling of being watched had intensified to the point where I was actually hoping that whatever it was would jump me, just so I could get some kind of fix on it. I hadn’t mentioned this to Frank or, God forbid, Sam. As far as I could see, the main possibilities were my imagination, the ghost of Lexie Madison and a homicidal stalker with procrastination issues, and none of those was something I felt like sharing. During the day I figured it was imagination, maybe with some help from the resident wildlife, but at night it was harder to be sure. “Only three? Out of four hundred people?”
“Glenskehy’s dying,” Sam said flatly. “Almost half the population is over sixty-five. As soon as the kids are old enough, they pack up and move to Dublin, Cork, Wicklow town, anywhere that has a bit of life to it. The only ones who stay put are the ones who have a family farm or a family business to take over. There’s less than thirty fellas between twenty-five and thirty-five. I cut out the ones who commute for work, the unemployed ones, the ones who live alone and the ones who could get away during the day if they wanted to-night-shifters, fellas who work alone. That left me with three.”
“Jesus,” I said. I thought of the old man hobbling across an empty street, the tired houses where only one lace curtain had twitched.
“I suppose that’s progress for you. At least there’s jobs for them to go to.” Flick of paper: “Right, here’s my three lads. Declan Bannon, thirty-one, runs a small farm just outside Glenskehy with his wife and two young kids. John Naylor, twenty-nine, lives in the village with his parents and works on another man’s farm. And Michael McArdle, twenty-six, lives with his parents and does the day shift in the petrol station up on the Rathowen road. No known links to Whitethorn House anywhere. Any of the names ring a bell?”
