Facebook. Lottie logged in.

She listened to the hum of the refrigerator and the murmur of the television show Sean and Chloe were watching in the sitting room. Katie was out, again. Probably with Jason Rickard.

As she sipped a glass of water, sitting in her kitchen armchair, a friend request popped up. She idly tapped the icon. Father Joe’s picture appeared. She put down the glass and uncurled her legs. Hit the accept tab. The chat box sprang up. He was online.

• hi.
• where are you?
• rome.
• what are you doing there? you’re a murder suspect?
• very funny.
• superintendent corrigan will have a fit. your bishop will have a fit.
• i hope to be back before either misses me.
• how do you propose to manage that?
• i said my mother was ill and had to visit her in wexford.
• what are you doing in rome, anyway?
• being an amateur detective.
• you’re funny. do you know we found another body?
• i heard it on the news.
• do you know who it is?
• no. who?
• father angelotti.

There was no reply for some time. But the application showed he was active. Then he replied.

• that’s terrible. i don’t understand.
• neither do i. can you see if anyone in rome knows why he was here?
• i’ll ask around. lottie?
• what?
• remember you asked if i could find out anything about st angela’s records?
• yes.
• i looked up our archive but there was nothing online. the records are in hard copy.
• where?
• normally records like this are archived by each diocese. but I cross-checked, thinking st angela’s might have been forwarded to the dublin archdiocese which is normal procedure.
• and?
• i talked to the archivist there. they had the records at one time. but he said that st angela’s records were transferred to rome.
• by who? why? that’s not normal, is it?
• not normal, no. I don’t know who requested the transfer and i’ve never come across this before but i’m going to find out what i can.
• when were they moved?
• don’t know that either. i’ll check.
• i hope you don’t get in trouble.
• i won’t. i hope i find something interesting.
• thank you.
• And i’ll try to find out if anyone knows anything about father angelotti.
• thank you, father joe.
• joe.
• okay. joe. goodnight.
• ciao, as the italians say.

They both signed off.

Rome. Lottie wondered what was going on. Why move St Angela’s records if that wasn’t normal procedure? She took an A4 notepad from Sean’s school bag and a pen. At the kitchen table she wrote down all she knew so far. None of it made sense. She looked at the names wondering if they were connected or if it were all a random mess.

The front door opened and shut.

‘Where are you coming from at this hour of the night?’ Lottie asked as Katie sauntered into the kitchen, taking off her damp jacket.

‘What’s that?’ Katie asked, looking at the pages strewn on the table.

‘Work,’ Lottie said.

‘I figured that. Why have you Jason’s dad’s name written there?’

‘So, now I do know him?’ Lottie studied her eldest daughter. Her eyes, though rounded with thick black eyeliner, were clear.

‘Jason told me you called to his house this morning.’

‘Where were you?’

‘In his room. I had to stay there because there was some business meeting going on downstairs.’

The little shit Jason had lied.

‘Who was at this meeting?’ asked Lottie.

‘How do I know? I was confined to barracks, as Dad used to say when he sent me to my room.’ Katie opened the fridge door and scanned its meagre contents. ‘Why were you there anyway?’

‘Because I want to get to the bottom of this weed thing. It’s serious, Katie.’

‘Mother! I’m not a child.’

‘You’re my child and I’m not going to have you dying in some doorway with a needle in your arm. And I can guarantee Jason Rickard will run a million miles from you when he loses interest.’

‘Whatever! I’m going to bed,’ she said, pulling the wrapper off a cheese string.

‘Did you eat today?’

Katie waved the cheese from the fridge at her and hurried out of the room before Lottie could further admonish her.

Sitting at the table, she mulled over Tom Rickard and who else might have been at the meeting. Why did he have to conduct business at his house? He had a perfectly grand office in the centre of town. Was something underhand being discussed?

Gathering up the pages, she put them in her bag and sat on her armchair with her legs curled up. Closing her eyes, she fell into a fitful sleep and dreamt about black crows circling a bleeding statue of a woman with a blue nylon rope tight around her neck. One of the crows swooped low, stabbed its feathery body into a cot, before flying away with a squealing baby wedged in its beak.

Lottie awoke suddenly, a cold sweat sending rivulets between her breasts.

2nd January 1975

Sally saw the boy sitting in the window as she followed the nun up the steps and through the door to the sound of the car leaving her behind.

The hallway was cold and the floor threw up a wax-polish smell. Panic threatened to overwhelm her as the nun disappeared down a corridor. With her baby. A door banged and she followed the echo.

A baby cried and she wondered if she would be able to recognise the sound of her own child and wasn’t at all sure that she could. She inched along, stepping on the wooden patterns until the floor changed to multi-coloured mosaics. She paused outside a door before turning the handle. Her knickers were sopping, the blood trickling down her legs staining her white knee-socks red. Her tiny breasts were sore and leaking. She wanted to curl up in her own bed and die.

She twisted the handle and opened the door.

Three rows of iron-barred cribs, five to a line and a baby in each. The nun stood in the centre of the room and turned, casting her arms wide. Sally wondered which cot held her baby. They looked like dolls. Little dolls in cages.

‘These are the devil’s work, children of sin, spawn of Satan,’ the nun snarled.

Sally felt her knees buckle and blood ooze between her legs.

The black robes swished towards her, smelling like the drawer in her dead granny’s wardrobe. Most of the nuns in her school wore shorter skirts and some even ventured to show a lock of hair. This one, shrouded in old-style robes with a stained white cotton apron tied at the waist, was tall and her transparent skin wore a washed-out threatening face.

‘Where is my baby?’ Sally asked, anxiously looking along a row of cots, straining to see behind the nun. All the babies were now quiet, some asleep, others awake – their little eyes pleading towards the cracked ceiling.

‘It is not yours any more,’ the nun said. ‘They all belong to the devil.’

Sally gathered her strength and with fear fuelling her momentum, she pushed past the nun, ran to the end of the room and back. Tears blinded her. Frantically, she searched for her baby. But which one was hers?

‘Where’s my baby?’ she cried. ‘Tell me.’

The room began to swirl. The stink of dirty nappies and sour milk clogged her nose. Babies began to wail, disturbed by her scream.

As she hit the floor, she saw the blue and white statue at the end of the room. The Virgin Mary, a serpent wrapped around her swollen belly choking the life from the infant before it was even born.