With Our Blessing

by Jo Spain

  He sighed. ‘My apologies. Let’s get you some tea and we can talk.’

  ‘Do they have a little sitting room we could retire to? I like to be comfortable when I’m analysing.’

  Tom thought of the nun’s main sitting room, into which he could fit half of his own downstairs rooms. It was a space Linda would find suitably charming.

  He first checked the room was empty. He didn’t want the psychologist discommoding the nuns just yet. The inspector wasn’t sure any of them would be able to withstand a probing from Linda.

  He deposited his guest, and left to fetch the tea.

  No matter how hard he watched the kettle, the water still boiled. He returned to the sitting room within minutes.

  She had made herself comfortable on the couch, legs tucked under her. The parka had been discarded, revealing a white blouse dotted with little black skulls. The hat rested on the chair beside her; she was stroking it like a pet. Her wild hair, now liberated, sprung in every direction, like a cartoon electrocution.

  The overpowering scent of her pungent perfume had already permeated the room, and he coughed as it hit the back of his throat. Everything about the woman was overwhelming.

  She was flicking through Sister Clare’s copy of Wuthering Heights.

  ‘Very disturbing, but so well observed. Phenomenal, considering how sheltered the author was.’ She tossed the book to one side and held out her hand for the hot drink. ‘Lovely, darling. You missed your vocation. Now, tell me what you have so far in your little mystery.’

  Though he knew Linda described everything as little, perhaps because she herself was larger than life, it still managed to irrationally irritate Tom.

  He filled her in on the twists and turns of the investigation.

  She rolled her eyes upon learning the nuns had cleaned up the murder scene in the hall, and snorted when he described the priest’s attic.

  He finished by telling her how everything was pointing towards Sister Bernadette but that he was still looking into the backgrounds of former laundry girls.

  ‘Hmm,’ she responded, and stared into the distance.

  He looked out at the darkening sky and ignored the low growling of hunger pangs from his stomach.

  ‘Any thoughts, Linda?’ he asked, after another minute of her nodding her head and saying ‘hmm’ had passed.

  ‘Oh, lots of them, Tom. It’s not as challenging as I’d hoped, I’m afraid. I envisaged it being much more sinister and twisted.’

  He grimaced. ‘Most people would find the facts of this beyond shocking.’

  She sighed. ‘The locals might be shocked to find out about the priest’s little indiscretions, Tom, but it’s hardly earth-shattering. I suppose the people who enter religious life these days feel that they have some kind of vocation or other, serving the great sky-fairy.

  ‘Back when half these people joined –’ she waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the sitting-room door – ‘it was rarely a choice. In families then, one son got the farm, one joined the gardaí and the last poor sod was sent to the seminary. Women who weren’t married either found one of the few jobs for a spinster fast, or ended up in a convent.

  ‘Unless you have a true vocation, being forced to join religious orders is like a form of torture. Expecting men and women to go against nature – it turns people insane. And by nature, Tom, I mean good, honest carnal knowledge.’

  Tom wasn’t entirely convinced that everyone who ended up living a life without sex turned insane, but he recognized a kernel of truth in what Linda was saying.

  ‘You rolled your eyes when I said the nuns had cleaned the hall after they found the blood and smashed glass. You weren’t shocked by it?’

  ‘Good God, Tom. Of course I wasn’t. You didn’t attend a convent school but you can’t be that unknowing of the world. Nuns are obsessed with cleanliness. I remember a girl in our class used to have the most amazing nosebleeds. I’m talking projectile. We had a sister who taught us. What was her name? Never mind. It’s irrelevant. Anyway, all the while this little one . . . Eithne!’

  ‘The girl was called Eithne?’

  ‘No. The nun. I can’t remember the girl’s name. Just the nosebleeds. Anyway, she’d be standing there, screaming, blood spurting everywhere and the nun would be running around the classroom like a headless chicken, mopping it up and roaring at us to get the girl a towel. The point is, she was more concerned about the mess than the girl, Tom. Anyone taught by nuns knows the saying – cleanliness is next to godliness.’

  ‘From what I’ve told you, do you think it’s possible a laundry resident could have done this?’

  She reclined on the couch, appraising him intently. ‘I thought you were concentrating on this Sister Bernadette. She certainly meets the profile. There’d be no great surprise for someone in my profession if an individual like that, who had seen so much violence themselves over the years and been too insignificant to do anything about it, just snapped.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘And the theatrical presentation of the first victim – very religious, very . . . martyred. A converse insult, no doubt. But I find the Magdalene proposition far more interesting.’

  ‘I’m sure you do. Could someone harbour vengeful thoughts for that length of time, though? The laundry was closed twenty-five years ago. Why snap now? Would anybody have picked up her behaviour changing, do you think? Is the perpetrator slowly unravelling?’

  ‘So many questions, Tom.’

  He could see her brain spinning with theories.

  ‘About twenty years ago, as part of my training, my professor sent me to London,’ she said, eventually. ‘I assisted in studying a man who had walked into an estate agent’s and shot the owner, another man, in the head. He’d walked out, gone home and said nothing. He had tea with his family, bathed the kids and put them to bed and then sat down to watch the evening news with his wife.

  ‘They’re watching this news and next thing a CCTV still of him is flashed on screen. He’d taken no precautions, made no effort to hide his identity, and a security camera had captured him full face. So the wife’s looking at the telly and then looking at him, going through all the motions of laughing at the coincidence, to realizing it’s him – from shock to rage to numb – and then the police are battering down the door and he’s arrested.’

  Tom glanced covertly at the clock on the wall. As interesting as this was, he was concerned that Linda and Emmet were going to be having an involuntary reunion any minute now.

  ‘Anyway, why would a seemingly normal chap, totally law-abiding, no obvious connection to the victim, walk in, shoot him and slope off home to have tea with his missus?’

  ‘You tell me.’ There had to be a point. Somewhere.

  ‘Thirty years earlier, the estate agent had brokered a deal for the man’s grandparents’ house on behalf of the man’s father. But he diddled the father out of the cash. He was never found guilty of it and went on to establish a successful business – probably financed by ripping off early clients.’

  ‘Seems a bit of an overreaction to being swindled.’

  ‘Well, after he’d been defrauded, the man’s father’s life spiralled. He lost his job, lost his home, turned to drink and generally got hit with all the crap life can throw at you. He really could have done with his inheritance to soften all his misfortunes. His son saw and suffered through all this.’

  Linda sighed before continuing. ‘The father died young enough; he was in his early fifties. A broken man, a broken life. The day my subject went in and shot the estate agent was the twentieth anniversary of his father’s death. He’d been planning to shoot him since the nineteenth anniversary. He’d obtained the gun and monitored the office so he’d know what time of day the agent was there. He very particularly wanted to shoot him in the workplace. Poetic justice. He’d done all this without his wife ever realizing anything was amiss. Never missed a day’s work, a family event or incurred so much as a speeding ticket.

  ‘So, Tom, what I’m saying is this. If i
t was one of the women who had been incarcerated here, she could have been planning this for a very long time. Something could have triggered this decision in her, but it might just be that now is the time. She could be functioning completely normally. She could in fact be living in the village, unrecognized because she’s aged. She might have managed to get close to her victims. You may have met her.

  ‘Revenge is a powerful motivator, and most people who enact the ultimate fantasy plan it clinically. Have you checked that one of the sisters in here isn’t a former laundry inmate?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have, actually. I can’t get my head around this – that someone could continue acting normally after cutting out someone’s tongue, carving words in their flesh and then crucifying their dead body.’

  ‘Well, Tom, I can’t stand the sight of blood. But my husband’s a cardiac surgeon who spends half his day up to his elbows in people’s chest cavities. Your killer may just have a strong stomach.’

  This was something Tom had already considered. And Linda’s choice of words had jogged a memory. Something someone else had said recently about having a strong stomach. Sister Bernadette, in fact.

  Linda noisily slurped the dregs of her tea.

  ‘The man in London,’ Tom said. ‘Why didn’t he care about getting caught? It sounds like he had a good life, so why not try to get away with it?’

  Linda cocked her head. ‘There were a couple of factors. The first was that, aside from wanting to kill the man who’d destroyed his father’s life – and, therefore, his family’s – he was a good man. He wanted to do the time for the crime. There was no plan in his head beyond getting revenge. That was the end game.

  ‘The second was that he wanted people to know what his victim had done to deserve execution. The agent was a seemingly respectable businessman. If he’d been murdered and the police couldn’t catch the man’s killer, motive may never have been established.’

  Tom frowned in concentration. ‘So, do you think our killer wants to be caught? Why go to such great lengths to conceal his or her identity?’

  ‘Well, if it is a former inmate, she no longer needs to be apprehended so she can tell you what the nun and the priest did. You’ve done a good job of establishing that yourself. And presumably she had to keep her identity safe so she could carry out the second murder. Has it crossed your mind that there might yet be a third?’

  That, of course, had worried him and every member of his team since the second victim had been found. He had been clinging to the blind hope that perhaps their killer, whether it was Sister Bernadette or someone else, had specifically targeted just these two victims.

  It had also just dawned on him why Father Seamus had been stuffed in the closet. By hiding the body, the killer ensured the house was thoroughly searched, hence the expeditious discovery of the attic’s secrets.

  ‘Linda, could it have been someone other than one of the women in here? I mean another family member – a father, or brother?’ he asked.

  The psychologist tapped a finger on her chin and considered. ‘Perhaps, Tom. My London case notwithstanding, the usual reaction of a father or a brother to that kind of situation, sexual violence in particular, would probably be immediate and public. You can imagine them marching up to the priest’s door and beating him to a pulp in the middle of the village. And it’s unlikely that the nun would be targeted. Her actions wouldn’t incite as much rage in a father as the thought of the priest raping his daughter.’

  Tom knew she was right.

  ‘But there is another possibility . . .’

  A car pulled slowly into the driveway.

  Tom’s face must have given away who the new arrival was, because Linda swung around on the couch and stared out the window.

  ‘Is that who I think it is?’ she asked.

  He sighed. ‘Yes. Linda, you were saying . . .’

  ‘That man. My blood pressure is rising, and there’s concrete and glass between us. I’ll tell you what, Tom. I might just drive to the B&B and check in, then come back and talk to your nuns. Give him time to finish.’

  She was muttering now, cheeks flushed, shoving her wild hair back under the ridiculous fox hat.

  ‘Hold up! Your theory about another possibility?’ he asked again, frustrated.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Another family member. A child. Like in the London case. Oh God, there he is at the door now. Is there a back exit?’

  Tom felt like a light bulb had been switched on over his head. That had been the idea loitering on the edge of his consciousness for a while now.

  Not a laundry girl – but the child of one.

  Chapter 48

  Tom brought his focus back to the psychologist, who was complaining volubly about Emmet McDonagh’s imminent arrival.

  ‘Tom, are you listening to me? I do not want to meet the oaf. Get it together.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Linda. There’s no way out of here without bumping into him. You’re adults; can’t you just say hello and goodbye like normal people? What the hell happened between you two, anyway?’

  She shook her head crossly. ‘There is no such thing as a normal person, Tom. And what happened between us is for the grown-ups to know, and none of your business. Aha! Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’

  She moved to the window and unlatched it, just as Tom heard the front door opening and closing.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’ he exclaimed, as she straddled the sill. ‘Linda, I might be busy later. I want to ask you more questions.’

  He hadn’t wanted her there in the first place, and now he didn’t want her to leave.

  Irony was a bitch.

  She gave him a pitying look. ‘Tom, stick with your Sister Bernadette theory. You know it’s always the most obvious suspect. The revenge fantasy is pleasing to someone in my profession, but you have this case worked out. Are you looking for a reason not to arrest this nun?’

  The look on his face must have confirmed her suspicion.

  ‘Just because you like someone doesn’t mean they aren’t guilty. See you later, darling.’

  Linda ducked her head under the window sash, though the unfortunate fox sustained a mild concussion on the way, and swung her other leg through.

  Looking left and right, she crossed the garden like a spectacularly uncamouflaged member of a SWAT team.

  Tom pulled the window down, shutting out the freezing cold air.

  ‘Certifiable,’ he murmured.

  *

  Emmet accosted Tom in the hall, just minutes after his erstwhile lover had made her escape.

  ‘Ellie says Linda McCarn is here.’ The forensic scientist scowled accusingly.

  Tom rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve just missed her.’

  He was saved from further interrogation about Linda by Ciaran’s arrival.

  ‘Tom, we need you.’

  Emmet waved Tom away. ‘Go. You’ve your hands full.’

  ‘Great. Get yourself some lunch; one of the sisters will take care of you.’

  Tom followed the sergeant into Mother Attracta’s office.

  Ronan was still sitting at the desk. ‘Well, Inspector, I’ve found what you need.’

  Tom perched anxiously on the edge of the desk. ‘Give me some good news, Ronan.’

  ‘I was right. The emailer used Mother Attracta’s computer. I’ve traced the original message that confirmed the Yahoo! account had been set up. It was in Mother Attracta’s trash. It had been binned, but the trash hadn’t been emptied. That gave me the date and the time the computer was used.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘On 8 October 2009.’

  Tom whistled. Over a year ago.

  ‘She set up the mail just after 2 a.m. on that day,’ Ronan continued. ‘But here’s where it gets interesting. She didn’t just create an email address that night—’

  ‘You keep saying “she”, as though you know who she is,’ Tom interrupted.

  ‘I do.’

  Tom turned to Ciaran, astonished
.

  ‘I told you he was good,’ Ciaran said, rocking on the balls of his feet.

  Ronan continued. ‘She spent a half-hour pulling up various articles on Magdalene Laundries. They weren’t new articles. She’d visited the sites before. Then she also spent some time searching through online booksellers. She pulled up some books similar to the article searches but didn’t buy any of them. Now, here’s what gave her away.’

  Tom could feel the air grow dense with the weight of his own expectation.

  ‘She visited another website on the night of 8 October. She’d signed up to it years ago to receive regular news updates on a specific area. She had to register with her own name when she signed up.’

  ‘She used her real name?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Yes. There was no reason not to.’

  ‘Do you want to know what the website was?’ Ciaran asked.

  ‘I’d rather know her name.’

  ‘Yes, but if we told you that it concentrated on religious life in Latin America . . .’

  Tom felt his spine tingle. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to see Ciaran and Ronan looking at him expectantly.

  ‘Sister Bernadette,’ he said.

  In that moment he felt a surge of pity for the nun. The woman seemed so fundamentally good. Had she been driven to do something so utterly wrong?

  And in addition to that, he felt an overwhelming sense of anticlimax.

  Something in his gut had been leading him down a different road – one on which the crime had been committed by someone from the laundry’s past, not the convent’s present.

  But there was no denying everything pointed to the most unlikely suspect he’d ever encountered. A very pleasant nun.

  ‘Ciaran, can I talk to you outside for a moment?’

  ‘Sure. Ronan is just going to do some checking for us on Catherine Farrell. Even if it turns out not to be relevant, she’s a mystery I’d like to solve.’

  ‘You’ll get a job with us if you’re lucky, Ronan,’ Tom said, standing up.

  ‘It’s interesting work, Inspector, but I can earn more in a week, doing what I do, than most guards would in a year.’