Swallow started to feel a strange ease, very gently at first. It did not displace his sorrow or his anger, but he could sense the strength and the support and the friendship of the two men sitting with him as they narrated the tragedy. His tragedy and Maria’s tragedy and their lost child’s tragedy. Nothing could be done to change what had happened. He could not alter the past. Not a whit of it could be changed. What was important now was what would happen next. And he could influence that.

Mossop broke the silence.

‘You’ll remember now, boss, what I told you about Mr Mallon’s orders. You’re to do nothing . . . nothing at all. You’re to talk to him straight away after you’ve been to visit your missus.’

Swallow did not answer.

He stood.

‘I think I should go to see Maria now. Will you take me to her please?’

Chapter 37

There was a sense of unreality about the short train journey from Kingstown Harbour into the city. It was impossible, Swallow told himself, that only a few days previously he had travelled outward along this railway line, past these same houses and villages, full of joy and celebration with Maria and their guests, making for their wedding celebration at the Royal Marine Hotel. The waters of the bay were a dark foreboding grey this morning, with the tops of the waves flecked white by the wind. The city itself seemed threatening.

At the Westland Row terminus they took a cab to the Dublin Lying-In Hospital, the Rotunda, above Sackville Street, and forming the southern side of Rutland Square.

Maria was in a quiet ward of twelve beds, close to the hospital chapel. In contrast with the noisy wards on the ground floor, filled with the squalling sounds of new life, there were no babies here. The patients here were women whose babies had been stillborn or whose pregnancies had been lost. Swallow could sense the atmosphere of emptiness, sadness almost, once he walked through the door with Harry Lafeyre.

Lafeyre spoke to the nurse on duty and led Swallow to the end of the ward.

Maria was half-asleep, half-awake. The first thing that struck Swallow was the paleness of her complexion. Even in the morning light he could see that her face was waxen white, her eyes sunken into dark sockets under her forehead.

‘She’s been asking for you all the time, Joe,’ Lafeyre had told him as they travelled. ‘She’s been very agitated, so don’t be surprised if she becomes upset. It’s not because she doesn’t want to see you. Quite the opposite.’

Her eyes opened wide when he touched her hand. Lafeyre stepped back to afford them privacy.

‘Maria, dearest. It’s me. Joe,’ he told her quietly. ‘I’m here and you’re safe now. All is well.’

She said nothing at first. Her eyes searched his face as if disbelieving his presence.