A VOW OF ADORATION an utterly gripping crime mystery

by Veronica Black

  She longed to reply she was more interested in finding his wife at that moment but murmured politely in response and was treated to a long discourse of infinite tedium on the benefits of organic farming as they traversed the two fields and approached the long, low, stone house with its neatly planted rockery.

  ‘Is your house old?’ she found the chance to say as they entered the front door, leaving Lilith tethered to the gate.

  ‘Almost a hundred years old,’ he said. ‘It was a farmhouse but the people moved to the city and I bought it and extended it. Personally I hoped to maintain its character both inside and out but housekeepers demand electrical gadgets and plastic stuff.’

  ‘It’s still a lovely house.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He looked pleased. ‘I spent a long time over the renovations and redecoration. My mother was still alive when we moved here, and she always took a keen interest in the place. Now, make yourself comfortable and I’ll get the coffee.’

  He loped out into the hall and Sister Joan perched herself at the table and folded her hands sedately in her lap. Every nerve in her body longed to rush through the house looking for what Sister Gabrielle had optimistically termed clues, but she forced herself to stillness and outward tranquillity. There was simply no point in alerting Michael Peter to the possibility that she was on an investigation.

  ‘Here we come!’ He came in with a tray on which a silver coffee jug with cups, sugar bowl and cream jug were set. ‘Will you do the honours, Sister, while I get the buns?’ He strode kitchenwards again, while she poured the coffee, savouring the fragrant aroma, admiring the fluted china with its border of gold rosebuds.

  ‘Sugar but no cream for me. Thank you, Sister. They’re raspberry buns. Mrs Rufus makes them from a recipe my mother gave her.’

  He sat down opposite her.

  ‘Mrs Rufus was here then? When your mother was alive, I mean?’

  ‘She came part-time,’ he said, sipping his drink. ‘Of course her husband was still alive then and so she didn’t work full-time. Mother was very feeble towards the end and really ought to have had a trained nurse but Mr Rufus died quite suddenly and Mrs Rufus agreed to come full-time, except on Sundays when I was free to take care of Mother myself. The two of them got on splendidly together, but then everybody adored Mother. She knew more about the antique business than anyone I ever met and she wore her great knowledge so lightly. You’d have loved her, Sister Joan. Right up to the end she was quite sound of mind, you know. Sharp as a needle when it came to a bargain. Do have a bun — or isn’t it allowed?’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll be a hanging matter when I tell Mother Dorothy,’ Sister Joan said, biting into the feathery sponge and feeling the sensual trickle of raspberry preserve on her tongue.

  ‘I do like to see a lady eat.’ Michael Peter gave her the wide smile that looked more like a grin of pain. ‘My wife — Crystal enjoys her food. She has a very sweet tooth, and she’s one of those fortunate ladies who can eat anything and not gain an ounce.’

  ‘She’ll be enjoying the food in France then.’

  ‘In France? Oh, yes indeed. That should be quite a gourmet treat. More coffee, Sister?’

  She was sure she’d exceeded her permitted quota for the day but so far she’d found out nothing.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Peter. I was just admiring the cups.’

  ‘Not antiques,’ he said, watching her refill her cup. ‘Mother had them made for her specially by a friend. It was her seventieth birthday and her name, of course, was Rose. Such a lovely gentle name.’

  ‘Like Crystal,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Crystal.’ He echoed the name after her, his hand suspended in the act of raising his cup to his lips. ‘Bright and sparkling, many faceted, and delicate. Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Did your mother—?’ Sister Joan hesitated.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t meet Crystal until five years after Mother passed away,’ he said. ‘No, another woman here all the time wouldn’t have suited Mother at all. Not living here as part of our little family so to speak. No, we were very happy here but then Mother passed on and even with Mrs Rufus looking after everything so splendidly it wasn’t the same. Nobody to chat with in the evenings.’

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘At a trade fair. She was one of the hostesses, giving out the sales lists, directing people to the various stands. We talked a great deal. She listened more than talked if I’m to be honest. I was very — taken. Yes, very taken. Most thankfully she seemed equally taken with me. I suppose I represented a father figure to her, poor girl. Her own relations with her parents were not ideal. They favoured the sister, you see.’

  ‘You haven’t met them?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘They were abroad when we married — in Canada, I believe. It was a very quiet wedding. Registry office. You don’t approve of that.’

  ‘Not for Catholics,’ Sister Joan admitted. ‘But you make the vows to each other so it probably doesn’t really matter where they’re made.’

  ‘As you say, Sister.’ He took a bun and bit into it.

  ‘And she still went off on holiday with them?’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She didn’t have a good relationship with her parents but she went on holiday with them?’

  ‘To France, yes.’ He stared at her for a moment. ‘Ah, yes, I see what you mean. To tell you the truth, Sister, I was a little surprised about that myself, but Crystal said it was an opportunity for them to get together and talk, really talk. And of course she was always on good terms with her sister. Wait! I’ve a photograph of them.’

  He leapt up rather like a jack-in-the-box and went out of the room. Sister Joan drank the last of her coffee and waited, hearing his feet padding down the stairs and across the shining hall.

  ‘Here we are!’ he said. ‘It was taken a couple of years back. Rather a nice one, I think, don’t you?’

  ‘Very nice,’ Sister Joan agreed, the two young women, had arms linked affectionately, as they faced the camera. Crystal was fair-haired with a short, curly style and a sweet, guileless face — not a face with much strength of character, she guessed, but one that would certainly captivate a lonely, middle-aged bachelor. Not one of whom his dear sweet mother Rose would have approved. Next to her sister Caroline looked serious and a little disapproving.

  ‘She’s very lovely, isn’t she?’ He took back the photograph and looked at it. ‘I wish we had had more photographs taken — of ourselves together, for example. However—’

  ‘You don’t have any snaps of her mum and dad? I love looking at family snapshots,’ Sister Joan said brightly.

  ‘I’m afraid not. Just this one. Crystal wanted us to begin a whole new life together, unencumbered by the past. Well, Sister, I mustn’t keep you from your religious duties.’

  ‘I’ve outstayed my welcome,’ she apologized, rising hastily, ‘but I found it a very pleasant change to sit and chat. In fact I had been thinking of riding over here today anyway to call on Mrs Rufus — she was very kind in letting me use the phone the other day—’

  ‘For which you insisted on paying. Quite unnecessarily so, Sister.’

  ‘And then I remembered she’d mentioned she didn’t work here on Sundays and as I don’t have her address—’

  ‘Number fifty, Walnut Avenue. It’s just behind the sports centre on the new estate.’

  ‘Well, perhaps another time then.’

  ‘Or call here,’ he invited. ‘As I told you Mrs Rufus does find the day rather long without any company. You haven’t forgotten about my little exhibition?’

  ‘The costumes, no. I shall look forward to it.’

  ‘I shall enjoy showing you round. Perhaps on Tuesday?’

  ‘I’ll ask Mother Prioress for leave.’

  ‘And if I have to go away on business,’ he said, ‘then I shall leave the key to the extension to the shop at the hairdresser’s next door. You must feel free to look round by yourself. Indeed
I suspect you might even appreciate it all more if you went round by yourself and soaked up the atmosphere.’

  ‘May I use your toilet before I start back?’ Sister Joan broke in to ask.

  ‘The toilet? Oh, of course! Forgive me, Sister, but one doesn’t usually think of nuns having to — it’s the door on the half landing upstairs.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The stairs curved round on to the half landing and then curved round again to a long passage with doors opening off it along one side. Sister Joan wished she could explore further. Were Crystal’s clothes still in the wardrobe? Had she and her elderly husband even shared the same room or had the marriage been one of companionship only? In her mind she was trying to build up a picture of the pretty young woman who would marry a man like Michael Peter, but the pictures wavered and shrank.

  She went into the toilet and closed the door. It comprised a shower cubicle as well as a basin and a lavatory, the floor tiled, warm pink shading to cream on the shower curtain and a window blind. It had a luxurious air very much in contrast to the strictly utilitarian bathrooms at the convent. A shelf held aromatherapy oils, talcum powder and bath crystals. She imagined sponging herself down with the huge sponge that hung from a hook on the wall, spraying herself with the cologne — no, it wasn’t sex that she missed, she thought with amusement. It was creamy white soap and bath oil and all the luxuries of Delilah.

  Flushing the lavatory she jumped slightly as the noise momentarily deafened her. The old outgrown childish superstition that if you flushed the loo with the door closed the ceiling would fall down jumped into her mind, and she took a hasty step towards the door, her foot catching on a wastepaper basket in the corner. Fortunately it was made of wicker, causing no noise as it tilted and spilled its contents on the floor.

  ‘No harm done.’ She knelt to pick up the odd rolls of tissue paper, realizing that it wasn’t for waste but for extra supplies.

  They were pushed down inside one of the plump rolls of pink tissue. Sister Joan tugged them out with difficulty and stared at them as they lay on her palm: a credit card with the name John Hayes written neatly on the appropriate place, a man’s watch with a broad leather strap and a fountain pen with the initials J.H. stencilled along the barrel. The inside of the toilet roll had been carefully scooped out to contain them. It really began to look as if that death in the abandoned chapel hadn’t been natural after all.

  SEVEN

  Her dilemma was two-fold. If she went to the police then the whole story of Caroline’s quest for her sister would have to be told and the dead man identified. Michael Peter, if he was the guilty party, would immediately cover his tracks. On the other hand what proof was there of any crime? The autopsy on the dead man had revealed an enlarged heart. Even if he were proved to be John Hayes there might have been a quite innocent reason for his credit card, watch and fountain pen to be hidden in the scooped-out middle of a toilet roll. He might’ve called at the house, left the things there himself, and been on his way back when he’d suffered his heart attack. But why leave the things hidden there anyway? As a silent threat to Michael Peter? Had he suspected his son-in-law of doing away with Crystal and, lacking positive proof, hoped to draw out the other into betraying himself? And ought she to tell Caroline Hayes or not?

  It was illegal to withhold evidence from the police, but the various items didn’t constitute evidence of anything in particular since officially no crime had been committed.

  There was also the problem of whether or not to tell Caroline. That young woman presented a puzzle of her own. She had come down to Cornwall to enquire after her sister, had been worried enough to go to the police, had turned to herself for help on the strength of a newspaper article she had read, and now hid herself from view in the old schoolhouse and seemed terrified of her own shadow. No, it was better not to volunteer any information until after the reply to her enquiry at St Catherine’s House had arrived.

  Having decided to remain undecided Sister Joan thrust what she had found into her capacious pocket and went, outwardly serene, down the stairs to where her host loomed by the open front door.

  ‘Thank you again, Mr Peter,’ she said. ‘I look forward to seeing your costume display.’

  ‘My pleasure, Sister.’

  His handclasp was dry, rasping slightly like horsehair. She untied Lilith, mounted and set off, swerving westward and riding in a wide arc so that she had no need to pass too close to the schoolhouse.

  ‘Did you visit Miss Hayes?’ Mother Dorothy enquired as they trooped in for the cup of tea and buttered scone that was Sunday’s treat.

  ‘No, Mother Dorothy. I rode over to the Peter house. Mrs Rufus wasn’t working there today but Mr Peter was kind enough to invite me in so I’ve had my tea and bun,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Very well, Sister.’

  Sister Joan bit her lip as her superior moved way. So many compromises had to be made between absolute truth and expediency, she thought. Yet how could she confide fully in Mother Dorothy who would take the sensible, objective view and insist that all suspicions should be relayed in the proper quarter? Why on earth had Detective Sergeant Alan Mill chosen now to take his wife and two sons on holiday? He and his wife didn’t even get on very well together, Sister Joan thought crossly. He had told her once briefly that his wife resented his job and didn’t share his interests. There had already been a trial separation. She’d cut him short, wanting their own relationship to remain on the casual, semi-professional level, and he’d volunteered nothing about his private life since, but she missed his advice now, his keen intelligence, and the trust he placed in her opinions. As for Constable Petrie! Measles at his age!

  ‘You look uncommonly irritable, child,’ Sister Gabrielle remarked, her stick tapping the younger nun rather painfully on the shoulder.

  ‘I’m supposed to be centring my life round the adoration of God,’ Sister Joan said, ‘and all I do is get involved in stupid situations that have nothing to do with me, and take up all my thinking. There are moments, Sister, when I feel completely useless.’

  ‘Welcome to the human race,’ Sister Gabrielle said and tapped her way onward up the stairs.

  Sister Joan went along to the kitchen where she relieved her feelings by chopping the carrots and turnips ready for supper, uneasily aware that both Sister Teresa and Sister Marie would thank her gratefully and ignore her explanation that she was only letting off steam.

  Monday morning brought renewed optimism as it usually did. Dressing in the early morning greyness of her cell, Sister Joan reminded herself that this morning her letter of enquiry to St Catherine’s House where every birth, marriage and death since 1827 was logged would reach them, and hopefully fall into the hands of someone who recognized that ‘urgent’ meant ‘speedy’.

  Each day was a new day, she thought, opening her door and walking down the passage with a spring in her step and a cheerful expression on her face which earned a puzzled frown from little Sister David who considered that mornings should be taken more soberly.

  Today it was Father Stephens who offered the Mass, the first rays of sun haloing his head. Father Stephens offered the Mass as if he had just been inspired to create the ritual, his rich voice rolling out the phrases like waterfalls of velvet and silk. His genuflections breathed adoration. If he held his pose long enough he might turn into a stained-glass figure, Sister Joan thought, and hastily got custody of her eyes and of an emerging giggle.

  Father Stephens hardly ever stayed for a cup of coffee or a chat. This morning was no exception but as she came down from the scanty meal Mother Dorothy beckoned her into the parlour.

  ‘I have an errand for you, Sister. Father Stephens has been saving part of his salary in order to buy a new communion cup as a surprise for Father Malone. The old one is only silver washed and Father Malone has often said how nice it would be to have real silver.’

  ‘Father Malone said that?’ Sister Joan arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Or would have done had he t
hought of it,’ Mother Dorothy said with a slight smile.

  ‘I didn’t think it mattered what the cup was made of. The outward aspect doesn’t always have to reflect the inward intention.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister. I asked you to undertake an errand and you kindly give me a lesson in theology,’ Mother Dorothy said without emphasis.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Reverend Mother.’

  Prostrating herself to kiss the floor, Sister Joan wished she could learn to curb her too impulsive tongue.

  ‘What you are thinking,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘is that Father Stephens fancies having a real silver cup. Am I correct?’

  ‘Forgive me, Mother, but I can’t help feeling that Father Stephens is more interested sometimes in looking good on the altar than in adoring God,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘I thought you more perceptive, Sister.’ Mother Dorothy looked amused. ‘Father Stephens is still very young in many ways. Of course he adores himself. If we don’t then how can we adore God? We begin with the image and rise to the reality. Now are we going to have another choice bit of pseudotheological cant or are you ready to go on the errand?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘He intended to buy the cup himself but then it occurred to him that he might be noticed entering an expensive shop and the surprise would be spoiled. He wishes to have the children from the Children’s Home present the cup when Father Malone next visits them, and to have his own part in it kept secret. He recently inherited a decent sized legacy from a great uncle and is spending part of it together with what he had already saved on the silver. Real silver, Sister. I have the money here. Seven hundred and fifty pounds. It won’t buy a new cup of solid silver but it might purchase one that is secondhand but can be duly cleaned and consecrated. You have met Mr Peter who has rather a high-class establishment in town so I’m told. With your powers of persuasion you might be able to strike an equitable bargain with him. You have the whole morning ahead of you, Sister.’