‘I haven’t seen her since we left her behind at Chapman Farm, in 2002. She stayed behind, with our younger sister. That’s actually part of the reason I said I’d see you,’ said Niamh. ‘I’d just like to know… if you happened to find out what happened to her… I wrote to the church a few years ago, trying to find out where she was, and I got a letter back saying she left in 2003. I don’t know whether it’s true. Maybe she couldn’t find us after we got out, because Dad took us to Whitby, where we’d never lived before, and he changed our surname. Maybe she didn’t want to find us, I don’t know, or possibly Dad told her to stay away. I think he might have heard from her, though, or from the UHC, after we left, because he got a few letters that made him really angry. Maybe they were forwarded from our old address. Anyway, he’d tear them up really small so we couldn’t read them. We were forbidden from ever mentioning Mum, after we left Chapman Farm.’
‘What made your father take you away, do you know?’ asked Strike.
‘I only know what he was saying as he dragged us out of there. It was night-time. We had to climb out over fences. We all wanted Mum to come with us – we were begging Dad to let us fetch her, and Maeve was calling for her, and Dad hit her. He told us Mum was a slut,’ said Niamh miserably, ‘which was just
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Robin, who really couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Oh, I’m all right,’ said Niamh, who no longer looked young, but far older than her years. ‘Compared to Oisin and Maeve, I’ve done fine. They’ve never got over the UHC. Maeve’s always at the doctor’s, constantly signed off sick from work, on tons of different medication. She binge eats, she’s got really big and she’s never had a stable relationship. And Oisin drinks far too much. He’s had kids with two different girls already, and he’s only twenty-three. He works really menial jobs, just to get drinking money. I’ve tried to help, to look after both of them a bit, because I’m the only one who made it through the whole thing kind of intact, and I’ve always felt guilty about that. Both of them are angry at me. “It’s all right for you, you married a rich old man.” But I coped better, right from the moment we got out. I could remember our pre-church life, so the change wasn’t such a shock. I caught up at school quicker than the other two and I’d had Mum around longer… but to this day, I can’t stand David Bowie. The UHC used to play “Heroes” all the time, to get people revved up. It doesn’t even have to be that song. Just the sound of his voice… when Bowie died, and they were playing his music non-stop on the radio, I hated it…’
‘Would you happen to have any photographs of your mother?’ Strike asked.
‘Yes, but they’re very old.’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’re just trying to tie names to faces at the moment.’
‘They’re upstairs,’ said Niamh. ‘Shall I—?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Strike.
Niamh left the kitchen. Strike helped himself to a biscuit.
‘Bloody nice,’ he said, through a mouthful of chocolate chips.
‘Don’t give him any,’ said Robin, as Basil the dog placed his front paws on Strike’s leg. ‘Chocolate’s really bad for dogs.’
‘She says you can’t have any,’ Strike told the fox terrier, cramming the rest of the biscuit into his mouth. ‘It’s not my decision.’
They heard Niamh’s returning footsteps, and she reappeared.
‘That’s Mum,’ she said, passing a faded Polaroid to Strike.
He guessed it had been taken in the early nineties. Fair-haired Deirdre Doherty looked up at him, wearing a pair of square-framed glasses.
‘Thanks,’ said Strike, making a note. ‘Would you be all right with me taking a picture of this? I won’t take the original.’
Niamh nodded and Strike took a photograph on his mobile.
‘So you were at Chapman Farm for three years?’ Strike asked Niamh.
‘That’s right – not that I knew it until we got out, because there are no clocks or calendars in there.’
‘Really?’ said Robin, thinking of her Thursday night appointments with the plastic rock.
