A VOW OF ADORATION an utterly gripping crime mystery

by Veronica Black

  A tall, good-looking man, black hair lightly winged with silver, ducked out from beneath the tarpaulin and stood for a moment looking at her before he strode forward.

  ‘I had a feeling that someone was missing from the scene!’ he exclaimed. ‘How are you, Sister Joan?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Mill!’ Her pleasure beamed out spontaneously. ‘I thought you were on holiday.’

  ‘There’s a limit to the amount of holiday that I can endure,’ he said wryly. ‘Are those flowers meant for this grave?’

  ‘They were‚’ Sister Joan said. ‘I was the one who found the body.’

  ‘So Constable Brown told me with great disapproval. Wait a moment, Sister.’ He went back beneath the tarpaulin for a moment, re-emerged and stepped over the tape. ‘I’m not required here for the moment. The photographer’s just finishing up and then we’ll move her to the path. lab.’

  ‘Her?’ Sister Joan looked at him as they began to walk slowly along the path.

  ‘Her name’s Mary Rufus. She lived over on the new estate. Widow.’

  ‘So she didn’t go to Torquay‚’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘We met. She housekept for Michael Peter, the antique dealer.’

  ‘Tall, grey-haired chap. Looks like Don Quixote. I suppose you know him too?’

  ‘Only slightly. Alan, what happened?’

  ‘A lady came to put flowers on a relative’s grave and found Mrs Rufus lying on the new grave. The back of her head had been stoved in. Very nasty. There were some flowers scattered round her. Did she have any connection with the body you found?’

  ‘I went to Michael Peter’s house to ring the police after I found him‚’ Sister Joan said. ‘She was a nice woman. Grim on the outside but kind-hearted within. I suppose she felt sorry for the dead man and decided to put some flowers on his grave. That’s why I’m here myself.’

  ‘Give the flowers to me. I’ll see they’re put on the grave.’ He took the blooms, his expression poised between curiosity and affectionate amusement. ‘What’s all this about Torquay?’

  ‘Michael Peter told me that she was going there for the day.’

  ‘So either she changed her mind but took the day off anyway or she gave him an excuse that wasn’t true in the beginning or—’

  ‘Or Michael Peter lied.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know yet‚’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘We haven’t found the murder weapon yet.’

  ‘If it crushed her skull it must’ve been very heavy.’ Sister Joan crossed herself, thinking of Mrs Rufus who had been grumpy but kind-hearted and who had craved a bit of company during the long hours in the lonely house.

  ‘Or the killer was very strong and very determined‚’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘What’s your interest in all this, Sister?’

  ‘It’s a long story and I’m due back at the convent.’

  ‘And I’ve got to finish up here before I start interviewing people and taking statements. Have you anything to tell me that can’t wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t think so‚’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘Right then! Can you come down to the station first thing tomorrow? We’ll have a long chat then.’

  ‘I’ll be there at nine‚’ she promised.

  ‘I’ve had Sergeant Brown wished on me. Excellent officer.’ He looked gloomy. ‘It seems Petrie has the measles!. How are they all up at the convent? How are you, Sister?’

  ‘We’re all much the same. Sister Mary Concepta is a bit frailer but the doctor’s coming on Friday to check her over.’ When Alan Mill asked after people he genuinely wanted to know. It was a facet of his personality she found particularly pleasing.

  ‘And you? Would I be right in guessing that something’s going on?’

  ‘Something I can’t fathom‚’ she said frankly. ‘I’m awfully glad you’re back.’

  ‘Yes.’ His dark eyes rested briefly on her face. ‘Yes, I’m glad to be back myself. You accused me once of being a workaholic. That’s not strictly true. I find myself looking at my job as a kind of respite from holiday periods.’

  ‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Actually I did. The boys are growing up fast though and they don’t really want dear old Dad trailing after them and cramping their style. My wife worries about them.’

  ‘Very natural surely?’

  ‘I suppose.’ He made a little grimace, then seemed to shake it off. ‘Sister, I’d better get back and give a few final instructions re the mopping-up operations. You’ll be at the station tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Climbing up into the van she felt a surge of optimism. Now that Detective Sergeant Mill was back life seemed brighter. It only meant, of course, that she now had a sympathetic ally in the Force.

  ‘One more thing!’ He put his hand on the half-open window.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You weren’t surprised when you heard that Mary Rufus had been killed.’

  ‘I think that I was expecting it‚’ Sister Joan said, and let in the clutch.

  Before she made her statement she needed to talk to Caroline. It was too late now to hold back, to try to discover more. This second death was no accident. Caroline must come with her to see Detective Sergeant Mill.

  The door of the schoolhouse was ajar. Sister Joan took out the bag of groceries she’d bought and swung herself down from the van, calling as she approached the door, ‘It’s only me — Sister Joan! Are you there?’

  There was no reply and when she pushed the door wider she walked into an empty building. Empty but not untenanted, she thought, looking round and seeing the half-finished cup of cold tea on the table, the blankets tossed on the narrow bunk bed, the cold water with a scum of soap on it in one of the washbasins.

  ‘Caroline? Caroline!’

  She raised her voice, knowing there was nobody there.

  The girl had probably plucked up her courage and decided to go out after all. It was just bad luck that she’d chosen this particular time. Sister Joan frowned as she went outside again and looked round.

  Nothing moved in the light spring breeze except the tall grasses that waved sunglinted spears beyond the shorter turf that bordered the stony track that led in one direction into the town and in the other to the convent. At the side of the building the old car in which Brother Cuthbert loved to tinker while his mind was on higher matters stood, fenders rusting, the boot wedged slightly open.

  She found herself walking towards the car, each step slow and unwilling. There was a dry taste in her mouth as she leaned down and released the piece of wood that held the door of the boot ajar, then stepped back as it sprang upwards to reveal a small pile of clothes.

  They were familiar these garments: a shapeless brown sweater and a matching skirt with the hem ripped away from its stitching now, and the smell of drying blood on both garments. She put out her hand and touched the stiffly dried wool. The skirt and the sweater were here, but there was no Caroline. There was no Caroline at all.

  NINE

  ‘Sit down, take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened.’ Detective Sergeant Mill nodded to the chair at the side of his desk. ‘Do you want me to telephone the convent?’

  ‘No — yes.’ Sister Joan sat down. ‘It won’t matter if I’m a little late but Sister Perpetua was waiting for some things from the chemist. Perhaps I’d better—’

  ‘Are they in the back of the van?’

  ‘In a large carrier bag, yes.’

  ‘Give me your keys. I’ll have Constable Whitney take the stuff up to the convent and tell them you’re likely to be late.’

  ‘Constable Whitney?’

  ‘Wished on me from Penzance while Petrie’s hors de combat. Drink the tea.’

  He took the keys and went out briskly. Sister Joan drank the tea shiveringly.

  ‘You’ve had a shock.’ Detective Sergeant Mill came back into the office and sat down. �
��Not another body, I hope?’

  ‘A torn skirt and a sweater with drying blood on them, in the boot of the old car at the side of the schoolhouse,’ Sister Joan said. ‘They belong — belonged to Caroline Hayes—’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The daughter of the man I found dead in the old chapel. She’s renting the schoolhouse from us until — for a week or so. Brother Cuthbert went to Scotland.’

  ‘Hold on a minute!’

  He rose again and went out. She could hear voices in quick consultation.

  ‘Constable Brown and the Special are on their way to cordon off the area,’ he said, returning. ‘You’d better bring me up to date as succinctly as possible.’

  ‘I found the body in the old chapel when I was out exercising Lilith and I went to the nearest house, which happened to be Michael Peter’s house, though I didn’t know it then,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I phoned the police from there. The man had died of a heart attack and he had no identification on him.’

  ‘That much I already know.’

  ‘Caroline Hayes turned up to ask me for help. She’d read my name in that awful newspaper article and got the idea that I was some kind of private detective. She told me that she was worried about her sister Crystal. Crystal got married last year to Michael Peter and came to live in Cornwall, but neither Caroline nor her father had been asked to the wedding and though Crystal had written to them in the beginning she hadn’t communicated since Easter. She’d sent an initial C, a piece of jewellery — Mr Hayes had given his daughters one each and they’d made a private arrangement to send the other the initial if they ever needed urgent help. Crystal had sent the initial just before Easter but Caroline and her father were moving house and the mail was delayed.’

  ‘So she came down to Cornwall with her father?’ He was making rapid notes.

  ‘No, she didn’t want to worry him because of his bad heart so she said she was going on holiday with friends while her father was receiving treatment in hospital. It seems that he decided to come down here independently to try and see Crystal and something happened. He didn’t keep his appointment at the Heart Unit because I checked it out.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Sister Joan went on, rapidly recounting the visit she had paid to the Peter house, the finding of the watch, credit card and pen in the toilet roll.

  ‘Do you have them still?’

  ‘They’re here.’ She took them out of her pocket and laid them on the desk. ‘Oh, and I found this in the old chapel, scuffed under the earth. It looks as if he jotted down the name and telephone number.’

  ‘You should’ve handed these in at the station.’

  ‘I was going to do that but Constable Petrie wasn’t here and you were on holiday and, quite frankly, I didn’t have much confidence in the officers who were here. I found that strip of paper after the old chapel had been searched, and when Caroline Hayes came to the station to report her sister missing they didn’t seem to take her seriously.’

  ‘Had she been to the house or the antique shop to ask where her sister was?’

  ‘She didn’t want Michael Peter to know she was in the area. She thought it’d make him cover his tracks more thoroughly.’

  ‘She sounds,’ said Detective Sergeant Mill, with deep disapproval, ‘like a most hysterical young woman. Why on earth leap to the conclusion that Michael Peter had any tracks to cover when she hadn’t even been up to the house?’

  ‘Because she’d received the initial I suppose. She’s a very highly-strung kind of person, very nervy. She asked me to make a couple of enquiries on her behalf.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Michael Peter told me that his wife was touring France with her family.’

  ‘So this sister does exist.’

  ‘There’s a photograph of Crystal and Caroline in Michael Peter’s house, and I sent off to St Catherine’s House to get their birth certificates. Caroline mentioned where they were born and their star signs. I do try to check up, you know,’ she said reproachfully.

  ‘In the absence of an efficient local police force?’ His grin was still disapproving. ‘Anyway you’ve told me now. We’d better get up to the schoolhouse. You can tell me the rest on the way.’

  ‘There isn’t any “rest”,’ she protested, going through the door he held open.

  ‘There’s Mrs Rufus.’

  ‘Yes.’ Walking towards the police car, she bit her lip, remembering. ‘She worked as housekeeper for Michael Peter. Full-time but she doesn’t sleep in and she doesn’t go up to the house on Sundays. Oh, she doesn’t — didn’t drive. Mr Peter picks her up in the morning, drops her at the house and goes on down to the shop. Then in the evening he picks her up again and runs her home. She mentioned his wife. Said she played pop music and painted her nails.’

  ‘Sexual jealousy?’ He nodded towards the seat belt.

  ‘Hardly!’ Sister Joan said, fastening it. ‘Mrs Rufus was a respectable widow. She’d worked for Mr Peter and his mother before the old lady died. And Michael Peter just isn’t the kind of man to inspire a sexual passion.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said, ‘how many unsuitable people do inspire a sexual passion. And Crystal Hayes married him, didn’t she?’

  ‘For money? His business is very successful. Caroline told me that her sister worked for various escort agencies and as a conference hostess — I think that she may have been a . . . not exactly a prostitute but a good-time girl. Caroline was very loyal about her but that was the impression I got. Anyway Mrs Rufus told me that Crystal was on holiday with her family in France, but probably she was only repeating what Michael Peter had told her.’

  ‘You mentioned Torquay.’

  ‘Michael Peter told me that she was taking today off because she wanted a day in Torquay. He was obviously lying.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘She might’ve planned to go to Torquay and decided to take a few flowers to the cemetery first. Did she strike you as the kind of person who’d take flowers to the grave of an unknown man?’

  ‘Hard rind, soft centre,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Neatly put.’ He slowed the car as they neared the schoolhouse. ‘Is there anything else you haven’t told me?’

  ‘A large suitcase full of very expensive women’s clothes was found on the embankment. The young constable let me see them. Caroline Hayes told me they sounded like the kind of clothes that her sister liked to wear. A couple of days ago I met Michael Peter on his way to the station with a very big suitcase. He said he was going up to London on business. The suitcase I saw looked exactly like the one he’d been carrying. That’s about it.’

  ‘I think we’ll be having a word with Mr Michael Peter,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said, stopping the car.

  ‘Alan.’ Sister Joan touched his arm as he prepared to alight. ‘I wasn’t deliberately withholding evidence from the police. Everything was so nebulous, so indistinct. As far as I could see a crime hadn’t even been committed then. I told Caroline that I believed the dead man was her father because I thought that would spur her to go to the police. It was evident that something was going on that required investigation. She told me that she would. I offered to go with her.’

  ‘This was before Mrs Rufus’s body was found?’

  Sister Joan nodded.

  ‘When I learned what had happened I drove straight to the schoolhouse. I was going to insist that she came down and spoke to you. Then I found the clothes.’

  ‘Let’s take a look.’

  He came round to open the door for her.

  The inevitable tape had already been stretched round the old car and Constable Brown was standing guard, his expression hardening into disapproval as he saw the newcomers.

  ‘Sister Joan, take a good long look and tell me if this is what you found,’ Detective Sergeant Mill instructed.

  Ducking beneath the tape she approached the rusting vehicle.

  ‘Yes. There was a piece of wood wedged in the door of the boot holdi
ng it open a couple of inches. I pulled it out and the boot sprang up. There’s the piece of wood.’

  ‘Plastic bag, Constable. Not that I expect any prints on it. Criminals never leave any these days.’

  ‘You might find mine,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I wasn’t wearing gloves.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t go round committing crimes. Are those the clothes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As you found them?’

  ‘Not exactly, no. I picked them up. I’m sorry but it was instinctive. They’re the clothes Caroline Hayes was wearing the last time I saw her. The hem of the skirt has partly come down and there seems to be drying blood on both garments. I simply dropped them back into the boot, jumped back in the van and drove to the police station.’

  ‘Did you knock at the door of the schoolhouse?’

  ‘The door’s open,’ Constable Brown interposed.

  ‘It was open when I arrived here,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I went first to the school — I don’t know why we keep calling it that when it hasn’t been used as a school for ages! — and the door was open. I called to Caroline to let her know that it was only me, but there wasn’t any answer so I went in.’

  ‘Can you describe the interior before we take another look inside?’

  ‘There was a half-empty cup of tea on the table,’ Sister Joan said. ‘It was cold, and the blankets were just piled anyhow on the bed. I went into the cloakroom. One of the basins was half-full of cold soapy water. I touched the side of the cup to test for heat but not anything else. Oh, except the door. I pushed that wider.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll eliminate your prints. Come inside and tell me if it still looks as you saw it.’

  Stepping inside, looking round, she shook her head. ‘It all looks the same,’ she said. ‘I can’t see that anything has changed.’

  ‘The key’s on the inside of the lock.’

  ‘There’s only the one key,’ Sister Joan explained. ‘Brother Cuthbert gave it to me for Mother Dorothy, and then when we rented the place to Caroline Hayes I gave her the key.’