by Jo Spain
Just then, Sister Concepta arrived in the hall and polite introductions were made.
The nun turned to Laura and said, quietly, ‘I wondered if you’d like to help me look for that file you wanted? It’s been playing on my mind, and I’ve time to spare before we head to the village.’
Laura cast Tom a pleading look.
What could he do but nod?
‘Just don’t take too long. And while you’re there, get a feel for the number of women who were in the laundry.’
Tom gave Ellie final instructions and went with Ray and Michael to Mother Attracta’s office.
The room was decorated far more opulently than anything they’d seen so far. The desk was large and ornate, with a comfortable and expensive-looking leather chair behind it. The other furniture looked equally tasteful and of antique value. Bookshelves covered the walls.
The Apple Mac that sat on the desk was incongruous amid the old-fashioned, library-style setting.
‘Can we get that picture on Sister Concepta’s phone uploaded on to that?’ Tom asked, pointing to the computer.
‘Already done,’ Ray said. ‘She did it for us while you were with the priest. Anything of use from him?’
‘He’s not telling us everything,’ Tom answered.
Ray looked thoughtful. ‘Right . . . well, there’s nothing of any import in this room. We checked the safe, just money and chequebooks. There’s nothing missing and, according to Sister Concepta, nothing has been moved.’
The inspector walked behind the desk. He touched one of the keys, and the photo filled the screen.
Tom studied every detail, hoping something would jump out at him. It wasn’t great quality, but in the bigger picture he could see the vivid red of the sprayed blood, and the smashed glass on the table and floor. As he examined the image, it occurred to him that none of the sisters had said they heard glass smashing the night the nun was taken.
He absent-mindedly pulled out the chair and sat down, still staring at the photo.
Mother Attracta had hit the vase with her hand. That would explain the glass shards Emmet had found in her skin. The heavy vessel must have smashed against the wall. He closed his eyes and imagined the nun holding her hand up to the light switch and then bringing it down, hitting the side of the vase. It smashes against the wall. The plaster and water muffle the sound of the glass, but shards fly everywhere.
Opening his eyes, he pored over the photo again.
Mother Attracta’s hand had been cut. But had the glass hit her killer? Had he or she raised a hand to protect face and body?
Tom sat back.
‘Michael,’ he said. ‘Tell Ellie to look for two types of blood. I think the glass from the vase may have hit Attracta’s attacker.’
Michael headed out.
‘The light in the corridor was turned off on purpose, Ray.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The killer turned it off when Attracta was in the corridor. She picked up the candle to guide her back to the door. The fuse had already blown a couple of times, so she knew what to do.’
Tom closed his eyes again, imagining the scene.
‘When she came out of the door, she turned and placed the candle on the table. She lifted her hand to the switch – because you switch off a light before you replace a bulb or fuse. That’s when she was knocked out.’
He opened his eyes. Ray was staring at him.
‘But wouldn’t she have turned the light off, anyway?’
‘No, Sister Concepta said they left it on at night.’
‘So, you think the killer tripped the fuse previously to see how she’d react?’
‘Exactly. Everything about this murder was planned with careful precision. There was nothing random about it.’
Chapter 28
Laura watched as Sister Concepta gingerly pulled out boxes from tall stacks.
It was like witnessing a giant game of Jenga.
‘You’re sure it was around 1964?’ the nun asked, opening first one box, then another, shaking her head when she failed to find what she was looking for.
‘Or 1963. Isn’t there some kind of system?’ Laura was perched on a couple of boxes in the absence of a seat. There were so many files. How could they ever establish how many women had been through the laundry?
She felt entirely unprofessional. Here she was investigating her own family history while her colleagues were focused on finding Mother Attracta’s killer. She couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that she had found out about Peggy for a reason. It couldn’t just be coincidence, she reasoned.
Sister Concepta tucked a stray hair back under her headdress.
‘This is the system,’ she replied. ‘These rooms are the only ones in the house that Mother Attracta left alone. All these folders used to be kept in filing cabinets.’ Concepta shrugged. ‘I suppose at some point it was decided they were historical documents, and they were boxed up and left to gather dust.’
They had turned on the light to illuminate the windowless room. On the wall, a bricked-up alcove stood where once there had been an opening to the glass corridor and garden beyond.
‘Why did you fill in the window?’ Laura asked, puzzled. ‘It seems so strange – to block out the natural light.’
Sister Concepta stopped what she was doing and stood up straight, placing her hands on her hips and stretching her back.
‘I really don’t know what was going on in Mother Attracta’s head. I think she considered knocking down this wall completely, and enlarging the rooms out to the front, when we stopped using the corridor as a conservatory. We didn’t have the money to do it. But she wasn’t happy with the windows remaining, and had them bricked up.’
‘When did she have all this done?’
‘It was just after I came here. To be honest, I got the sense she just didn’t like the windows. I know . . . it sounds peculiar.’
‘What issue could she possibly have with windows?’
‘I can’t explain it. Maybe she saw something through one of them? Ridiculous, huh?’
‘Maybe she just didn’t like her reflection, and you’ve a vivid imagination,’ Laura said.
Sister Concepta smiled and resumed her search.
The detective shifted uncomfortably and got up off the hard boxes she had been sitting on. ‘May I?’ she asked Concepta, indicating the top box with her hands primed to open it.
The nun nodded distractedly.
The first folder Laura took out was dated February 1975 and was the file of a woman named Sheila O’Neill.
Laura scanned through the details. Sheila had been seventeen when she entered the laundry for a period of ‘reflection and prayer’, after having a baby out of wedlock. She had been given the house name ‘Bridget’. When Laura read the name she felt a lump form in her throat, thinking of her own friend back in Dublin.
Someone had written in pen, in long sloping handwriting, that ‘Bridget’ had:
. . . kicked and screamed, even biting one of the sisters who restrained her, and threatened more violence and to run away. It was explained to her that as her father had brought her to the house there was nowhere for her to run away to. In the words of her own kin, nobody has room for a slut like her.
The detective’s stomach tensed as she read the offensive word. She imagined Sheila, frightened, abandoned, pining for her baby, and being told nobody wanted her any more.
She flicked through the next few pages and saw a litany of punishments recorded in ledger style as ‘Bridget’ adjusted to her stay. In the middle of the file, in different handwriting this time, someone had written:
Despite being here for six months now with no word from her mother or father, Bridget still asks daily when she will be allowed to go home. It has been explained repeatedly to Bridget that this is not a prison but somewhere she can earn the forgiveness of her family for the grave sin she inflicted on them. The girl’s repetitive questions can only stem from some kind of mental handicap.
Towa
rds the end of the file, Laura noted a decline in punishments. She had almost reached the end, dated 1977, thinking that maybe Sheila had adapted to her circumstances. But the final page filled her with joy. In March 1977, Sheila had escaped from the laundry. A note said her family were contacted but hadn’t heard from her.
The detective hoped that life had worked out well for the young woman. Sheila must have realized that the best way to break free was to keep her head down and then seize whatever chance made itself available to her.
Laura replaced the file. Her hand was on the next one, ready to take it out, when she hesitated. They wouldn’t all have happy endings.
She was flicking idly through the remaining files when something caught her attention. The bottom of the box was white, not brown cardboard, as she would have expected. She reached in and pulled out a photograph. On the back, a list of names was written along with the date: 1976. A group of about thirty women of all ages was pictured standing outside the front door of the convent. There was the large oak front door. Adjoining the outer wall of the room in which she now stood was the glass corridor, filled with large palm plants and other greenery.
Two nuns stood in the middle of the group, and another at either end. The photo was colour but it had faded, and the individuals in it looked drained. The girls’ grey smocks looked dreary, and most of them wore their hair short and clipped to the side. Some of them were smiling, but most stared at the camera without expression.
Laura brought the picture closer and studied the nuns.
Even though it was thirty-four years old, she thought she could identify Mother Attracta standing on the edge of the group. She was younger and her figure was rounder, but she had the same harsh features with which she had aged. Her thin-lipped smile was broad. There was nothing forced about it, but it didn’t make her look any more pleasant.
Laura was examining the other nuns when Sister Concepta exclaimed, ‘I think this could be the box.’
For just an instant, Laura had felt a flicker of recognition at something in the photo. She stared at the picture, casting her eyes up and down the windows behind the group, trying to see what had jumped out at her. She didn’t know what had aroused her subconscious, however, and the appeal of the nun’s find won her attention.
‘This is from the second half of 1964,’ Sister Concepta said, lifting a file from the box.
Laura replaced the photo and walked over. Her stomach felt queasy with anticipation.
‘You said her name was Peggy Deasy, didn’t you? Would it have been Margaret, and she was Peggy for short?’
Laura nodded uncertainly. ‘Yes, I suppose it could have been.’
‘Margaret Deasy, September 1964,’ Sister Concepta said. ‘There’s nothing else here close to that name, but the address should confirm if this is your aunt.’
The atmosphere was electric as Laura held out her hand for the file.
*
Tom and Ray were examining the wing that housed the nuns’ bedrooms. In the empty corridor that ran along the length of the cell-like bedrooms, the inspector knocked on, then opened, the door of the fifth room – he had counted the windows last night.
Ray waited silently in the hall, as Tom stepped inside.
The room was minimalist but not entirely bare. On the chest of drawers beside the bed stood a photo of a man and a woman on either side of a young Sister Bernadette.
A brief glance around the room was sufficient.
‘What was that about?’ Ray asked, when they had moved on.
‘I saw someone standing in that window last night looking over at our wing.’
‘And whose room is it?’ Ray asked.
‘Sister Bernadette’s.’
Ray whistled. ‘I slept with my door locked last night. Never thought I’d be spooked by a bunch of nuns.’
Tom smiled. ‘Me, too.’
They walked further down the hall, their shoes echoing on the hard wood.
‘Why would she have been looking over?’ Ray asked.
‘Nosiness? Guilt? Planning her next kill?’
Mother Attracta’s bedroom was next.
Tom and Ray turned over every inch of the spartan room. Like her office, it revealed nothing of any interest.
There were few personal items. No family pictures. Her wardrobe consisted of grey, blue, black and brown skirts – some tweed, some pleated, some plaid – with blouses of varying bland colours and cardigans. Three full habits hung on the rail, at a slight remove from the other clothes. It was a depressingly minimalist collection for a lifetime.
‘What has made you suspicious of the priest?’ Ray asked, as he flipped through the nun’s bedside Bible.
‘I can’t put my finger on it. He’s hiding something, I’m sure of it. He said they were friends, but given what we’ve learned about Mother Attracta, I can’t help but wonder if she was capable of blackmailing him over something she’d discovered.’
Ray looked around the tiny room and sighed. ‘It’s dismal, isn’t it? These bedrooms – they’re like cells.’
Tom stood still.
If he’d been a larger man, he could almost have reached both sides of the room with his arms outstretched. And yet . . .
‘Compared to the dormitories, I suppose these rooms were five star,’ he replied.
Ray raised one eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘It’s a sanctuary, isn’t it?’ Tom continued. ‘Having your own room. Somewhere private. Imagine those girls locked in those dormitories every night, forced to use chamber pots with seven other people in the room. The nuns really did everything to deny them a little dignity.’
‘When you put it like that.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I have this feeling that the laundry is somehow connected to the nun’s death. I don’t want to talk about it too much in front of Laura, but if I’d been her aunt’s father, and I’d found out what happened to her, I’d have been tempted to make her tormentors pay.’
Ray nodded. ‘I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, but couldn’t it also be the case that a nun who came here later found out what happened in the laundries and wasn’t happy about it? We’ve already met two who fit that description – Concepta and Bernadette.’
‘Yes,’ Tom replied, thoughtfully.
An idea was scratching at the edges of his brain.
It was just a wisp, but there it floated.
He’d ruminate on it for a while.
Chapter 29
Sister Concepta handed the file to Laura. Her hands shook ever so slightly as she took it.
‘I am sorry for the things that went on in the laundries. You can put some of it down to the times, but not all personal responsibility can be abdicated.’
Laura bit the inside of her cheek, and nodded slightly. Sister Concepta was too young to be seeking absolution for acts committed in the past, but the gesture was appreciated.
‘Do you mind me staying here and putting some of these boxes back?’ the nun asked. ‘I’ve left it all a little precariously balanced. I can let you make copies of that, but I need to keep the original. If there is to be an investigation, we’ll need the files.’
Laura indicated she didn’t mind. She placed the file on a box and turned to the front page.
She braced herself when she saw her aunt’s name written beside the date: 9 September 1964. That was the day Peggy had entered this place. The address underneath confirmed it was the correct file. Laura recognized her mother’s old homestead.
What Mrs Brennan would give to be reading this file.
Everything else in the room receded as Laura turned the pages slowly.
Peggy had entered the convent in a state of trauma. Her given house name was ‘Annette’. She had been examined for pregnancy and, when none was found, was told she should thank the Lord for her good fortune and repent of her sins.
The young woman was assigned a bed and told her job in the laundry would be to repair clothes. The priest who had driven her there had informed the Reveren
d Mother that Peggy was an excellent seamstress.
Laura could feel her heart thudding. She turned the page and swallowed as she saw the lists of ‘infringements’ Peggy had been accused of in her early days and weeks. Continuously breaking silence in reflection time, being aggressively disobedient, refusing to eat, causing damage to the door in her dormitory, spitting at a sister, deliberately ripping garments she had been assigned.
The list was endless.
Laura was torn between pride at her aunt’s blatant disregard for the nuns’ authority and horror at what she must have endured.
Beside each transgression, a punishment was listed. Sent to bed without dinner, kneeling in prayer for three hours, cleaning blocked toilets, five lashes on the back of the legs, washing sanitary towels, hair cut. As she read each sanction, Laura winced, as though it was her own flesh being slapped, her own hair being pulled and shorn.
On the fourth page she found a handwritten note among the typed words. From the previous file, she knew there was a disturbing dichotomy between the meticulously typed log of details and disciplinary actions and the malicious, hurtful tone of the handwritten notes. She cast her eyes over the writing with trepidation.
Despite repeated efforts to settle Annette into life here at the convent, she may not be suitable to our peaceful ways. This young woman has displayed signs of a troubled mind, which is beyond our assistance and may require professional treatment. She has accused several sisters of unkindness towards her, ranging from imaginary pinches and smacks to spiteful words that cannot be either repeated or written by a person of good conscience. We can expect nothing more from a girl who made up such vicious lies about two upstanding young men because she had no self-control.
She has started to harm the body God has given her in the most disgusting form of self-mutilation. We have removed everything we think she could be using for this, yet she still finds ways of tearing the flesh from her arms. We hope the good medical people can remove Annette, but we will persist in our endeavours to help her find inner peace.