Another long silence. Vincent raised his head, startled, looked at them as if they’d just appeared in the room. ‘Got to go,’ he said breathlessly. ‘A lot on, blokes.’
He rose unsteadily and left the room, bumped against the door jamb. They heard him muttering as he went down the passage. A door slammed.
‘That’s probably it,’ said Finucane. He stood on Vincent’s cigarette.
Outside, in the rain, Cashin said to Finucane, ‘The holidays. He’s talking about a Moral Companions camp, Fin. His whole life, we need his whole life. That’s ASAP. Tell Villani I said that.’
‘Not staying then, boss?’
‘No. Also the files at the hall. Someone needs to pull out everything that refers to Port Monro. Call me with what you get. Ring me, okay?’
‘Okay. First to know, boss.’
‘And for fuck’s sake get some sleep, Fin. You’re a worry to me.’
‘Right. They stay dead, don’t they?’
‘You’re learning. It’s slow but you’re learning.’
It was long dark by the time he switched off and saw the torch beam coming down the side of the house, saw the running dogs side by side, heads up, big ears swinging. They were at the vehicle before he could get out. He had to fight their weight to open the door. A spoke of pain ran down his right thigh as he swung his legs out.
‘Thought we’d lost you,’ said Rebb, a hulk behind the light.
Cashin was returning the dogs’ affection, head down, allowing them to lick his hands, his hair, his ears. ‘Got stuck in the city,’ he said. ‘I reckoned you might do the right thing by these brutes.’
‘No brute food left,’ said Rebb. ‘I took the little peashooter of yours for a walk. Okay?’
‘Good thinking.’
‘The other bunny’s in the oven. Used the olives in the fridge. Also a tin of tomatoes.’
‘What do you know about olives?’ said Cashin.
‘Picked them in South Australia, worked in a place they pickled them. Ate olives till they came out of my ears. Swaggies eat anything. Roadkill, caviar.’
‘I need a drink,’ said Cashin. ‘You left anything to drink?’
‘I’m leaving in the morning.’
Cashin felt tiredness and pain expand within him, fill him. ‘Can we talk about that?’
‘I’ll drop in if I come this way again.’
‘Come in and have a drink anyway. Farewell drink.’
‘Had a drink. Knackered. I’ll shake your hand now.’
He put out a hand. Cashin didn’t want to take it. He took it.
‘I owe you money,’ he said. ‘Fix it up tomorrow. Promise.’
‘Leave it on the step,’ said Rebb. ‘Haven’t got it, I’ll pick it up next time. Trust you, you’re a cop. Who else can you trust?’
He turned and walked. Cashin felt a loss for which he was not prepared. ‘Mate,’ he said. ‘Mate, fucking sleep on it, will you?’
No reply.
‘For the sake of the dogs.’
‘Good dogs,’ said Rebb. ‘Miss the dogs.’
A DARK DAY, the vehicle climbing a rainslicked road towards a hilltop lost in mist. In the gate of The Heights, up the driveway, the poplars dripping.
Cashin took the left turn, the road that wound around the house at a distance, ended at the redbrick double-storey building. He parked on the paving in front of the wooden garage doors, switched off, wound down his window. The cold and wet blew in. He sat in the quiet, engine clicks the only sounds, thinking about why this was a pointless thing to do.
He thought about Shane Diab’s parents coming to see him in hospital, when he was out of danger. They didn’t sit, they were awkward, their English wasn’t good. He didn’t know what to say to them, he knew their son was dead because of him. After a while, Vincentia saved him and they said goodbye. Shane’s mother touched him on the cheek, then, quickly, she kissed him on the forehead. They left a white cardboard box on the cabinet beside the bed.
Vincentia opened the box, held it up, tilted it to Cashin. It was a square cake, white icing, a cross in red. It took him a while to see that names formed the bar of the cross: Joe+Shane.
He gave the cake to Vincentia. Later she told him the nurses on the shift shared it, a fruit cake, very good.
Cashin got out, walked around the building to the double doors in the centre. The mist was turning to rain.
There were about a dozen keys on the ring Erica Bourgoyne had given him. The seventh one worked. He unlocked the door, went down the corridor. The pottery studio was dark, the shutters closed. He found the light switches and high up tubes flickered, lit the room. The storeroom door was directly opposite. He crossed.
The storeroom had a swept brick floor, gardening tools pinned on a pegboard, arranged on shelves like exhibits. A ride-on mower, a small tractor and a trailer stood in a line, showroom clean. A prim room, it spoke of organisation and discipline.
To Cashin’s right, the painting leant against the wall, face averted, its slashed V held in place with masking tape. It was bigger than he remembered.
He went to it, gripped the frame and awkwardly lifted it, turned and settled it back against the wall. He could not see the painting properly before he had taken several steps back.
It was a painting of a moonlit landscape, a pale path running through sand dunes covered with coastal scrub towards a group of buildings in the distance, hints of lights in windows. Most of the canvas was of a huge sky of wind-driven grey-black clouds lit by a near-full moon.
Cashin knew the place. He had stood where the painter stood, on the top of the last big dune, looking towards the now-ruined buildings and the highway and the road that snaked up from the highway, went up the hill to the Kenmare road and driveway to The Heights,.
He went closer. In the path were what appeared to be figures, a short column of people, three abreast, walking towards the buildings. Children, they were children, two taller figures.
The painting was unsigned. He turned it around. In the bottom left corner was a small sticker. On it was written in red ink:
Companions Camp, Port Monro, 1977.
‘THE COMPANIONS camp,’ said Cashin. ‘At the mouth.’
There was a long silence. Cecily Addison, standing at the mantelpiece, staring at him. He never knew how long to meet Cecily’s gaze because it was possible that she was not seeing him.
‘You seem like a good person to ask,’ said Cashin.
Cecily’s head tilted, her eyelids fluttered. She took on the look of someone having her feet massaged. ‘May I ask what this is about?’
‘Charles Bourgoyne.’
‘I thought that was over.’
‘No.’
A last long draw on her cigarette, a raised eyebrow. ‘Well, what do you want to know, my dear?
‘What kind of camp was it?’ Cashin said.
‘For boys. Orphans and the like. Boys in homes. Foster children. The Moral Companions gave them a holiday, a bit of fun. Lots of Cromarty people helped out, including my Harry. It was a good cause.’
‘And it burned down.’
‘In 1983. Tragic. Mind you, it could’ve been worse. Just three boys there on the night. And the man in charge. The Companion, that’s what they called themselves. He couldn’t save them. Overcome by fumes, that was the coroner’s verdict.’
‘Where were the other kids?’
‘On some cultural jaunt.’ She stretched an arm, dropped her cigarette into the vase on the mantelpiece. ‘They used to take them to Cromarty. Music, plays, that sort of thing. Still a lot of that then. People didn’t sit at home in front of the television watching American rubbish.’
‘What caused the fire?’
‘I think they said it was the boiler in the dormitory building, the double-storey A timber building. The boys were sleeping upstairs.’
Cashin thought about the blackened brick foundations, the charred floor joist. He had stood where the boys had died.