by Jo Spain
‘Did you just say you’re pregnant? What? Who did this?’
‘You don’t know him, he’s just a lad from her college,’ Louise answered.
‘Just a lad? What lad? You didn’t even tell us you had a boyfriend.’
Tom was fuming.
Maria looked at him scornfully.
‘He isn’t my boyfriend. And last time I checked you didn’t need to be married for ten years before you could have sex.’
There it was. The sex word. He cringed.
As did his daughter, evidenced by her clapping her hand to her mouth.
‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ Large tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
Tom wondered what he could do or say to stop the deluge from starting. Part of him wanted to comfort her. The other part wanted to go get a firearm and hunt down the man who’d stolen his daughter’s virtue. He tensed his fists and felt the anger wash over him. Then he inhaled deeply and breathed out slowly.
He mustn’t lose it. Not with her already crying.
‘Maria, I’m just –’ he had to choose his words carefully –‘surprised. I need time to process this.’
He didn’t ask her if she’d considered her options. He couldn’t even deal with the fact she was pregnant, let alone have that conversation. He presumed that if she was at the point of telling him, she’d already made the decision to keep the baby.
He sat there, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. He and Louise loved children and had wanted more after Maria. But first money, then their careers, and finally nature had conspired to leave them a one-child family. So they had invested everything in Maria – her education, after-school activities, Disney holidays and the rest. Louise had taken a career break to be a full-time mother and had only recently returned to college to revisit her old love, English literature.
They’d done their best, and Maria had won a coveted place in Trinity College, studying medicine.
And now she was pregnant.
Maybe they’d overindulged her a little, as one-child parents are prone to do, but she’d turned out well. A little immature, maybe, but smart and beautiful. And kind. That’s why her recent moody behaviour had seemed so out of character.
Tom wasn’t worried so much about his daughter’s studies. His main concern was that her life had just ended. There’d be no more nights out. No travel. No casual dating. No more being a young woman without a care in the world.
He was heartbroken for her. And that was why his anger dissipated so quickly. It wasn’t his future that had been torpedoed. Even though he sensed he was being overly pessimistic – after all, many single mothers with less family support than Maria went on to achieve their dreams – he couldn’t ignore the fact that this would make life tougher for her.
‘She feels defensive,’ Louise cut in. ‘She was so stressed about telling you.’
Now he felt defensive. He imagined the two of them having secret talks about how to manage the old man, the stuck-in-the-past prude who wouldn’t know how to deal with the situation. That was the way of it when you lived with two women and had no other males in the house to back you up. At times like this, he felt like a hunted animal.
‘I don’t know why you would be afraid to tell me this,’ he protested, puffing his chest out a little. ‘I’ve seen a lot, you know. I’m a modern man.’
Louise and Maria snorted simultaneously, and he glared at them resentfully.
‘When we go into the lingerie section of Arnotts, Tom, you act like a furtive pervert,’ said Louise. ‘You’re as modern as my father was.’
He was about to object when he realized the futility. That was fair enough. He did think lingerie departments were the domain of women and should be kept that way. Maybe he was a little old-fashioned.
‘How pregnant are you?’ he asked.
Maria rolled her eyes. ‘Have you never heard the saying “You can’t be a little bit pregnant”?’
‘I meant how many weeks, months? I do know a bit about pregnancy, Maria. I had some hand in your mother’s.’
‘Eughh, gross.’
‘I think the fact we are having this conversation means we are beyond the point of you thinking your parents are gross, my dear.’
Louise stood up. ‘Tom! Be the adult. I’m getting a glass of wine . . .’ She paused. ‘She’s fourteen weeks.’
Tom’s eyes flew to his daughter’s stomach. Nothing had changed; no wonder he hadn’t noticed anything. Yet he felt guilty. She hadn’t been herself. Now he knew why. Some detective he was.
‘Make it two glasses,’ he said to his wife.
Maria sat there, chewing her nails. He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time since arriving home. She had bags under her beautiful brown eyes – her mother’s eyes – her skin was pale and her usually glossy hair was lank. She actually looked thinner.
She must have been worrying herself sick.
Tom swallowed the lump in his throat. Standing up, he leaned over and wrapped his arms around his little girl. He said nothing, just held her.
They had a lot of talking to do, but not now.
She rubbed a runny nose on his shirtsleeve.
Time rewound.
Then he leaned down and kissed her head. ‘It will be okay.’
She whimpered. ‘Thank you, Dad.’
Louise cast him an approving look from the oak kitchen counter as she poured two large glasses of Barolo.
Day Two
Saturday, 11 December
Chapter 9
Sister Concepta was far younger than Tom had expected. Although she wore the clothes of an older woman – in fact, remarkably similar attire to their victim – she could only be in her mid thirties at the most. She wore a nun’s headdress, but the hair peeping out from beneath it was dark brown. She was quite an attractive woman, with large intelligent blue eyes, a strong nose and full lips.
Right now, she looked anxious and he was pleased to see someone had fetched her a cup of tea.
‘I’m sorry I could only come up today, Inspector. I had to wait for the morning bus. My sisters nominated me to make the trip. I’m the youngest in the convent, and they decided that must also mean I have the strongest stomach.’
Tom shook his head, indicating she did not need to apologize. Despite her apparent nervousness, the woman’s voice was sensible and strong.
‘I hope this is not too unpleasant for you, Sister.’
Tom pulled out a chair nearest to the nun for Laura. He’d brought her along to have a friendly female face in the room.
He and Ray sat down facing Sister Concepta.
‘So, you believe the description of the woman we found matches the head of your convent, Reverend Mother Attracta. When did she go missing?’
The inspector tried to make his voice as kindly as possible, as though this was a routine missing person’s case and they weren’t discussing a woman who lay on a cold slab, just metres away.
‘We think she went missing on Wednesday night. We only noticed her absence on Thursday morning. She’s always last to retire, so I don’t know for sure if she made it to bed that night or not. But I don’t think she did.’
‘We couldn’t find a missing person’s report that matched the victim, Sister. Didn’t you alert anyone on Thursday?’
‘We did. We told Father Seamus.’
Tom sat back, puzzled. ‘Father Seamus? And did he inform the police?’
‘Well, he must have, mustn’t he? Why wouldn’t he?’
Why not, indeed?
‘Sister Concepta, what’s your local police station?’
‘Kilcross village.’
Tom nodded at Ray, who stood up and went to check if Kilcross garda station had received a missing person’s report that had somehow not been added to the national listings.
‘Tell me what happened on Thursday morning, Sister.’
‘I got up at 5.30 a.m. and said prayers in my room. At 6 a.m. I went down for breakfast. The dining room hadn’t been set. Nor
mally, one of the other sisters does that the night before, but on Wednesday evening Mother had said she would set out the breakfast things before she went to bed.
‘There had been a row. Sister Mary had smashed a plate and . . .’ The nun’s face reddened and she clasped and reclasped her hands nervously. ‘I apologize, you don’t need to know all that.’
‘Everything will be relevant if we are talking about the same woman, I can assure you. A minor tiff for one person can be the end of the world to another; someone can storm off in a fit of pique . . .’ Tom held his hands out and shrugged.
‘Of course. Sorry, I’m not telling you how to do your job. It’s just those kind of . . . interactions . . . they’re not out of the ordinary in an environment such as ours.’
Tom raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘A group of women living together, day in, day out. By choice, but not related.’
‘You’re not a closed order, are you?’ Laura asked. She had heard of religious orders whose members didn’t interact with the outside world.
‘Gracious, no. We work closely with the local community. We do take solemn vows but we aren’t strictly cloistered.’
Tom cleared his throat. If Reverend Mother Attracta wasn’t their victim, they were wasting time. That morning’s team meeting had proved fruitless, so a lot of hope was resting on a positive ID here.
Sister Concepta took the hint.
‘Anyway, I thought I’d check just to see if she was ill or something before starting breakfast. I went to her room first. The bed was made but the room just didn’t seem slept in, you know what I mean? Then I found it.’
The nun shuddered at an unpleasant memory.
Tom and Laura leaned forward simultaneously. ‘Found what?’ they said in unison.
‘I found blood in the hall and the vase of lilies was smashed.’
‘Blood? What are we talking about – a splash, a drop, lots?’ Tom was suddenly very alert.
‘Sort of a spray. Across the wall. The vase from the hall table was smashed on the floor and there was water splashed everywhere. If I’d gone into the hall first I’d have seen the mess, but there’s another door leading to the kitchen and dining room from our quarters—’
‘Let’s backtrack for a moment,’ Tom interrupted. ‘You realized Mother Attracta was missing, you found a disturbance, including blood in the hall, and your first reaction was to tell this Father Seamus? Not the police?’
Sister Concepta’s cheeks flushed. ‘I know you might find our ways strange, Inspector. The other sisters were with me by then. We were very worried, but Father Seamus is our first point of call for most situations. From plumbing to finances to . . . well . . . a break-in.’
‘Or kidnap and murder?’ Tom shook his head.
‘We didn’t know what had happened to her. It made sense to contact him. That was the consensus, anyway,’ the nun added, defensively.
‘Consensus? Did anybody think the police should be contacted?’
Sister Concepta met his eye. ‘Maybe some of the younger sisters.’
He didn’t need to ask; she meant herself.
The door opened and Ray came back in, shaking his head.
‘Your local garda station has no record of a missing person.’
The nun looked dismayed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t worry, Sister,’ Tom said. ‘I think it’s time to confirm whether or not Mother Attracta is indeed our victim.’
Chapter 10
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ the inspector said, when they’d returned to the interview room.
The city morgue stood beside the garda station and it had taken barely a half-hour for them to bring the nun there, confirm the identity and return.
Sister Concepta shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, please, it’s not my loss. I mean –’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s a terrible shock, but we weren’t that close. I . . .’ she trailed off, struggling to find the appropriate words.
‘Still, it’s upsetting to see someone you knew like that. It’s an unnatural way to die.’
The nun clung on to her second cup of tea tightly, like a lifebelt.
‘Sister, before we proceed, can you tell me, do you have contact details for the Reverend Mother’s family? They need to be informed. Maybe you have already let them know that she is missing?’
‘No,’ the nun shook her head. ‘She has no family, Inspector. Well, none that we know of. Maybe there are cousins or other relatives, but she had no siblings, you see. And her parents are long dead. We are her family, I suppose.’
‘I see.’
‘I could only see her face,’ the nun said. ‘What happened to her? Was she . . . was she strangled?’
‘She was stabbed, Sister. I don’t want to upset you with all the details.’
‘I just don’t understand how this could have happened. Who would have . . .? Why?’
The nun looked momentarily staggered. But then she took a deep breath, straightened up in her seat and leaned forward, resolutely.
‘How can I help?’
‘Just tell us as much as you can,’ Tom said. ‘Did anything out of the ordinary happen before Mother Attracta went missing? Was there anyone suspicious hanging around the convent or your village? What were her relationships like with the other sisters?’
Tom could see that the nun was concentrating hard on his questions. But when he asked the last one, a little twitch in her cheek told him what he wanted to know.
‘For example, you mentioned a row with a Sister Mary. Did the Reverend Mother often argue with others?’
‘I was always taught not to speak ill of the dead . . .’
There was a pause before the inspector continued the conversation.
‘What is the name of your order, Sister?’
She looked startled at the change in questioning.
‘The Sisters of Pity.’
The name jogged something in his memory. Like the vast majority of Irish people, Tom’s entire family had been educated in religious schools. Maybe one of his sisters had attended a school run by this order.
Sister Concepta dropped her eyes to the floor. ‘Mother is . . . sorry . . . she was . . . a difficult woman.’
A sigh. Sister Concepta wanted to get this off her chest.
‘You must understand, she was of her age. She grew up and lived in a society where religious orders were consulted, obeyed – even feared, in fact. They were powerful. When I joined the Church, it was a different time. I felt it was my vocation to carry out God’s mission on earth. To serve people, not be served.’
Tom smiled politely. He didn’t understand this strange compulsion of hers, but he respected it.
‘I suppose a psychologist might look at me and say it was less a vocation and more me seeking to belong somewhere. My parents passed away when I was young and I’m an only child. The Church provided me with a family and a purpose.
‘When Reverend Mother became a sister . . . I don’t know . . . perhaps she was just like me. She’s been in the convent since 1963. But sometimes, if you are left in charge of people and traditions for a long time, well . . . what’s that saying? “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Mother Attracta could be rude. And thoughtless. And vicious.’
Her last words, spoken quietly and calmly, were nonetheless loaded with hostility. Tom struggled to hide how taken aback he was.
Ray didn’t win his struggle. ‘You really disliked her,’ he said.
‘Most of the older sisters are used to her, but I could never –’ Tears filled the nun’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It’s wrong of me to say such things. Now . . .’
Tom inclined his head and spoke softly. ‘It’s crucially important we establish what Mother Attracta was like and how she lived her life, Sister. I can’t have people sugar-coating her personality for me. If she had enemies, I need to know. And I appreciate your frankness.’
He could see the nun found solace in his words. She screwed up her eyes
to think about his previous question.
‘We’re getting the convent ready for Christmas,’ Sister Concepta offered. ‘We do a lot of work with local schools and hospitals at this time of year. There hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary that I can think of, though. Nobody hanging around. No strangers. No big rows.’
The pause before the last sentence was almost indiscernible, but there it was.
Something happened recently, but she wasn’t saying what, Tom thought. Was life really that sedentary and unremarkable in the convent?
‘I need to give it proper consideration, Inspector. I’m not sure I’m thinking straight at the moment.’
‘All right, Sister. I think that’s enough for now. You’ve had a shock. Go back to the convent and give your memory of the last few weeks and months a proper going over. Try to remember everything, even things that may appear trivial or insignificant to you. I can’t stress that enough. It’s crucial that you and the other members of the convent realize quickly that nothing will be left secret in this murder inquiry. Nothing.’
His eyes bored into hers. She broke the connection first.
‘We will have to come down to the convent, most likely before the day’s end,’ Tom said. ‘Just one more thing. Were any of the other sisters missing on Wednesday or Thursday?’
The nun’s eyes widened.
‘I honestly couldn’t say,’ she replied. ‘There are twenty-one of us . . . I mean, there were. We don’t do everything together, and it’s a large building. I don’t recall seeing everyone. But I’d only notice if someone was missing when we are gathered for meals. Everyone was there for dinner on Wednesday night, but we didn’t sit down formally on Thursday after our discovery. I’d have to think about that, too.’
Tom nodded. ‘Please do,’ he said.
*
Ray let out a low whistle when she’d left.
‘For someone who’s been taught not to speak ill of the dead . . .’
Tom nodded. ‘It was a harsh view of our victim, but only one opinion. Even if she was . . . convincing.’
‘Twenty nuns,’ Ray said. ‘And the priest. I can’t see it being a woman, though. And surely a nun wouldn’t be capable of such savagery?’