Blood on the Bones

by Evans, Geraldine

  'Bodham, now in his middle years, never married, childless and without anyone in the world to call his own, furious and upset, must have contacted Mother Catherine demanding to see her a second time.

  ‘Forewarned by a phone call from her dying sister of the reason for Bodham's insistence: that her thirty-year-old lies were about to come out, Mother Catherine would have specified a time for a visit while the other nuns were attending one of the more lengthy daily Offices. She must have intercepted him at the gate and let him secretly into the grounds to speak to him privately.’

  Rafferty imagined she had hoped to dissuade her son from claiming her as his mother as it would reveal her double deceit to the world: that she wasn't pure in mind, body or spirit. And that she had, in fact, adopted, for her own ends, the identity of a holy nun who had died in harrowing circumstances in order to make her illegitimate son think she was dead.

  But, as he quietly explained, her hastily put together attempt at deception ultimately failed and her son knew all. He was a threat to her reputation, her holy life and her newly elevated position as Mother Superior. With turmoil threatening everything she had made of her life since her disastrous early pregnancy, she had reverted to the impetuous, act first, think later, person she had been in her youth.

  ‘I think she must have distracted him in some way, got him to turn away from her and, before she knew what she was going to do, her son lay dead at her feet, his skull caved in by a handily placed rock.’

  Rafferty knew he could no longer put off the dénouement. He tapped Llewellyn on the shoulder, said, ‘Come on,’ and climbed out of the car. They walked, silently, side by side, to the main door of the convent. Sister Ursula must have seen their faces through the grill, for she hobbled towards them, more bent over than ever, and opened the door to their summons. She gazed sadly at them, but didn't speak.

  It was the first indication that Rafferty's earlier feeling of unease was about to be validated.

  He glanced at Llewellyn. Both instinctively quickened their pace as they approached the corridor that led to Mother Catherine's office. As they turned the corner, Llewellyn nodded towards the office door and the crowd of brown-garbed nuns gathered at its entrance.

  It was then that Rafferty acknowledged that his foreboding earlier that morning had been correct. He could only surmise that, after he had questioned them again, Sisters Rita and Perpetua had been sufficiently intrigued to repeat the question he had put to them to the rest of their community.

  Certainly, to judge from the unseemly and unaccustomed noise pouring forth from the gaggle of nuns clustered outside Mother Catherine's office as they approached, the ‘something’ that both Llewellyn's voices and Rafferty's had anticipated in an all too awful inevitability, had come to pass.

  As was confirmed only a few seconds later.

  The letter clutched in Sister Rita's, rough, gardener's hand, was pretty explicit. It had been addressed jointly to Sister Rita and Rafferty.

  There was a second letter, addressed to the Bishop of the Diocese, clutched in Sister Rita's other hand. She hadn't attempted to open that one.

  Sister Rita not being one to stand on ceremony, hadn't waited to share the contents of the first letter with Rafferty, its co-addressee. But when she saw him, Llewellyn hovering at his elbow, she handed it over without a word.

  And as Rafferty swiftly scanned the handwritten sheets, with Llewellyn peering over his shoulder, he knew that his conclusions had been correct in every aspect.

  ‘It's a terrible, grievous thing, to lose a child.’ Rafferty's speed-reading slowed at this point. 'And I was distraught at having to give my baby up. But times were so very different when I gave birth to my son. It was a shameful thing to bear an illegitimate child back in the fifties.

  'But, even more shaming than bearing an illegitimate child, is for that mother to know that she is responsible for her own child's death.

  ‘Whatever the times or the mores of society, that will always be an unforgivable act. I have begged God's forgiveness. Maybe, with his infinite mercy, He will forgive me. But I cannot forgive myself. I deserve eternal damnation. And I know the only way I can be certain of such a totally deserved punishment is to commit the sin of self murder. In this way, I hope to spend all eternity in atonement for my wickedness.’

  Rafferty gazed for a few moments, through the open office door, at Mother Catherine's body. It was slumped across her desk, in one of the uncomfortable chairs that Rafferty's rear end remembered so well.

  She had removed her veil and habit and wore ordinary clothes. Presumably, as she faced death, she had been willing to acknowledge that she no longer had the right to wear the robes of a religious.

  ‘Let's get the scene locked up, Dafyd,’ Rafferty instructed. He turned to address the sisters, whose expressions exhibited varying degrees of shock. Even now, he wasn't sure whether their shock was for the deceit practised on them by the ‘Mother’ Catherine they had all looked up to so much, or whether it was for the unbearable thought that she would spend all eternity paying for her sins.

  Strangely, or, perhaps, not so strangely, he found himself taking refuge in religion. And as he again adopted the role of priest to the sisters, he found not one of them questioned his authority.

  ‘Sisters,’ he said. ‘May I suggest you take yourselves to the chapel to pray for her immortal soul?’

  Quietly, led by Sister Rita, they trooped up the corridor, their sandals slap-slapping in a sadly muted harmony on the stone slabs of the floor.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘As I said earlier, I rather suspect she wanted to be caught,’ Rafferty commented again, several hours later as, with the body of the Prioress removed to the mortuary, he and Llewellyn packed up the gear in their borrowed office at the convent before heading back to the station.

  'Why else leave a clearly pricey watch on the dead man's wrist? Why mention it when she must have suspected I would find out she hadn't seen it? And then, why put him in a grave so shallow that it was inevitable some animal would disturb it? Why duck out of accompanying Sister Rita to the grave herself to confirm the facts when she could have deputed any of the older nuns the task of calming the hysterical novice, Cecile? And why were the missing spare set of keys to the convent not replaced?

  'If they had been taken by either Father Kelly or Dr Peterson, both men had ample opportunity to replace them. The fact that they remained missing from their hook so long after the murder encouraged me to speculate on the reason why. I could only conclude that the killer wanted to be caught and was providing me with clues to their identity.

  ‘And who more likely than a guilt-ridden religious to act in such a way? Now you know why I felt certain down to my lapsed Catholic bones that one of the sisters was the killer.’

  Rafferty was careful to keep to himself the fact that he had only found answers to all these questions long after his religious prejudices had already prompted him to latch on to one – any – of the sisters as the guilty party.

  But at least this murder and the woman who had inflicted such a violent death had cured him of his brief flirtation with the Catholic faith. Never again would he allow it to tempt him back to the fold. He still hadn't told Llewellyn of his near conversion and he didn't do so now. As Abra had advised him in what seemed a lifetime ago, there were some things a man was best advised to keep close to his chest.

  ‘You want to know what I think, Dafyd?’ Rafferty didn't wait for the Welshman's response, aware, even after his latest successful search for the truth, that his intellectual sergeant didn't always find his thoughts either impressive or admirable. 'I think that what she had done truly horrified her. How could it not? Her mind must have been in turmoil when her dying sister warned her that her son would be in contact and would turn up at the convent again. And that this time, he would not swallow the lies she had previously told him.

  'If she did have some sort of religious vocation, which I have my doubts about, she must have suffered a 'crisis of
faith'. How could she not, after what she had done? And then there was her fear of exposure and the revelation of the many deceptions necessary after her hasty, ill-thought-through adoption of Sister Catherine's identity.

  'I suppose, too, before the murder, she had been worried about losing the position of 'Mother', which with the death of Mother Joseph, seemed as guaranteed as anything can be in this life.

  'But after she killed her son, I think all these things were eclipsed by her distress at what she had done. I imagine, when her son raged at her for her dreadful deceit, she must have suffered some kind of brainstorm. After all, she had lived a lie for years. It must have been a dreadful strain for her. I think it was that final stress of her son's bitter accusations that made her forget her God, pick up that heavy rock and bring it crashing down on his head.

  'Almost as soon as she had hit him she must have been overcome by horror at what she had done, not able to believe that the man lying at her feet was dead, her only child, and that she was responsible. Worse, that her killing of her own child was a sin that no amount of praying could ever put right.

  ‘Hardly surprising that she should feel that taking her own life, although yet another sin under her Catholic faith, was the only suitable retribution. That old ‘eye for an eye’ syndrome. She had taken another's life, so she had to sacrifice her own. It just took her a while to build up to it.'

  ‘The Catholic faith is a harsh one, is it not?’ Llewellyn observed quietly after they had carried their final boxed-up statement forms and other police investigatory paraphernalia to the car and put them in the boot. ‘With a harsh, demanding, unforgiving doctrine.’

  Llewellyn put his hand on the handle to the vehicle's boot, but before he closed it, he told Rafferty, ‘I have some insight now into why you have chosen to remain lapsed all these years.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Rafferty muttered. It wasn't an invitation.

  Nor was it one that Llewellyn took up. Instead, he changed tack entirely.

  ‘I've been meaning to ask you about those blackmail letters you received. Did you manage to find some resolution there, too?’

  ‘Don't worry about them, Dafyd. They've been squared away. The letters and the blackmailer both.’

  It was the second resolution. Fortunately, it was one that Llewellyn chose not to question him about further.

  It occurred to Rafferty as they climbed in the car that a man would be a fool indeed not to also square away his and Abra's futures.

  He didn't want to risk her being enticed way by a man who was slightly less of a fool than himself.

  And although he acknowledged that his ma had saved his bacon, his sanity and his career, he still found the thought of having two Mrs Raffertys in his life a traumatic one. Certainly, it was a decision not to be taken lightly.

  But, then again, he acknowledged as he turned the car and headed for the police station, and even though marriage lines had never stopped anyone straying, he wasn't a man to shy away from a challenge.

  About the Author

  Geraldine Evans has been writing since her twenties, but never finished anything. It was only hitting the milestone age of thirty that concentrated her mind. She then wrote a book a year for six years, only the last of which (Land of Dreams), was published. As well as her popular Rafferty & Llewellyn mystery series, she has a second mystery series, Casey & Catt and has also had published an historical novel, a romance and articles on a variety of subjects, including, Historical Biography, Writing, Astrology, Palmistry and other New Age subjects. She has also written a dramatization of Dead Before Morning, the first book in her Rafferty series.

  She is a Londoner, but now lives in Norfolk England where she moved, with her late husband George, in 2000.

  Blood on the Bones is the ninth in her 15-strong humorous Rafferty & Llewellyn mystery series. She is currently working on the next in the series. She also hopes to put out a tenth ebook later in 2013.

  You can learn more about Geraldine Evans and her novels at http://www.geraldineevans.com

  Other eBooks

  DEAD BEFORE MORNING

  A Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery novel

  By Geraldine Evans

  Available from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Android, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, etc.

  First in the fifteen-strong Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series.

  Detective Inspector Joseph Rafferty is investigating his first murder since his promotion. What a shame the victim is a girl with no name and no face, found in a place she had no business being – a private psychiatric hospital. With everyone denying knowing anything about the victim, Rafferty has his work cut out, so he could do without his Ma setting him another little problem: that of getting his cousin ‘Jailhouse Jack’ out of the cells. Although he has no shortage of suspects, proof is not so plentiful. It is only when he remembers his forgotten promise to get his cousin out of the cells that Rafferty gets the first glimmer that leads to the solution to the case.

  Links

  Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EYUHN8

  Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004EYUHN8

  * * *

  DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

  A Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery novel

  By Geraldine Evans

  Available from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Android, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, etc.

  Second novel in the fifteen-strong Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series.

  When beautiful Barbara Longman is found dead in a meadow, uprooted wild flowers strewn about her and, in her hand, a single marigold, Inspector Joe Rafferty at first believes the murder may be the work of the serial killer over the county border in Suffolk. But then he meets the victim's family – and, after liaising with the Suffolk CID, he rapidly comes to believe that the killing is the work of a copycat … one much closer to home, someone among the descendants of the long-dead wealthy family patriarch, Maximillian Shore. Everyone, it seems, had a motive: Henry the grieving widower; the victim's brother-in-law, Charles Shore, the ruthless tycoon; Henry's first wife, the Bohemian Anne, who has lost the custody of Maxie, her teenage son, to the saintly Barbara. Even the long-dead patriarch, Maximillian Shore, seems, to Rafferty, to have some involvement in the murder, though how, or why, Rafferty doesn't understand until he finally grasps the truth behind the reasons for the killing. A truth sad and dreadful and which had been evident from the start, if only he had had the eyes to see.

  Links

  Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0042P53NS

  Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0042P53NS

  * * *

  DEATH LINE

  A Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery novel

  By Geraldine Evans

  Available from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Android, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, etc.

  Third novel in the fifteen-strong Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery series

  Jasper Moon, internationally renowned ‘Seer to the Stars’, had signally failed to foresee his own future. He is found dead on his consulting-room floor, his skull crushed with a crystal ball and, all, around him, his office in chaos.

  Meanwhile, Ma Rafferty does some star-gazing of her own and is sure she can predict Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty's future – by the simple expedient of organizing it herself. She is still engaged on her crusade to get Rafferty married off to a good Catholic girl with child-bearing hips. But Rafferty has a cunning plan to sabotage her machinations. Only trouble is, he needs Sergeant Llewellyn's cooperation and he isn't sure he's going to get it.

  During their murder investigations, Inspector Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn discover a highly incriminating video concealed in Moon's flat, a video which, if made public, could wreck more than one life. Was the famous astrologer really a vicious sexual predator? Gradually, connections begin to emerge between Moon and others in the small Essex town of Elmhurst. But how is Rafferty to solve the case when all of his suspects have seemingly unbreakable alibis?

  Links

  Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/
dp/B004T3FQR6

  Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004T3FQR6

  * * *

  THE HANGING TREE

  A Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery novel

  By Geraldine Evans

  Available from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Android, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, etc.

  Fourth novel in the fifteen-strong Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery series

  ‘The original crossroads used to run by here,’ Sam told Rafferty. ‘Legend has it that this was the old Hanging Tree.’

  When Inspector Rafferty first hears the report that a bound and hooded body has been seen hanging from a tree in Dedman Wood, he dismisses it as a schoolboy hoax, especially when police at the scene find nothing out of the ordinary.

  But his anxiety rises sharply when the witness turns out to be a respectable local magistrate, who identifies the corpse as Maurice Smith, a man once accused of four child rapes. Thrown out on a legal technicality, Smith's case had become a cause-celebre which had generated much ill-feeling within the community.

  Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn visit Smith's home – to discover he has mysteriously disappeared. And in his flat they find a threatening letter, and fresh bloodstains …

  Then the body turns up again in the woods. Could there be a self-appointed executioner at work, meting out his own form of justice on the legendary Hanging Tree?

  Links

  Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004T3FQR6

  Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004T3FQR6

  * * *

  ABSOLUTE POISON

  A Rafferty and Llewellyn mystery novel

  By Geraldine Evans

  Available from Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Android, iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, etc.