A Demon Summer

by G. M. Malliet

  “The lord’s wife has been informed and is raising hell—Lady Lislelivet. From her point of view, it must not be death from natural causes, to benefit her to the utmost.”

  “You mean, for insurance purposes.”

  “Right,” said Cotton. “She’s not saying, but that’s my guess. It needs to be accidental death. Murder would also pay out, but if she looks like a suspect, and the spouse always does, then she really wants this thing investigated and solved pronto.”

  “It is a point in her favor, anyway, said Max. “That she is calling for investigation.”

  “That is precisely what I would do in her shoes—if I were guilty. I would get on my high horse and pretend to rally the forces of law and order. And alert the media.”

  “What a stirringly cinematic image,” said Max. “Well, I do see what you mean. Although unless she has an accomplice on the inside here, I don’t see Lady Lislelivet as having a direct hand in this. For one thing, you’d have to have all the mountain-climbing ability of a billy goat. I’m assuming we’re talking about the possibility of a break-in from outside.”

  Cotton shook his head. “Unlikely. Given good weather, maybe. Given the storm of last night, no. You’d be risking your neck, that is certain. Those rocks would be slippery, and you’d be looking at a nearly vertical climb in some spots.”

  “I need you here soon,” said Max. “I’ll try to contain the little crowd of visitors, but I’ve no authority.”

  “I’d say you operate under the highest authority, Max. But I do see what you mean. We’ll be there ASAP.”

  Chapter 22

  DCI COTTON

  If a serious sin be hidden in the conscience of one of the sisters, she shall reveal it only to the abbess or to one of the spiritual elders of the nunnery.

  —The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

  “I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on things,” said DCI Cotton, as if picking up where their phone conversation had left off.

  “I know. I know,” said Max. “I feel bad enough already, but thanks for bringing it up.”

  They had agreed to meet in Max’s Spartan guest room once Cotton had surveyed the situation and set his team in motion. It promised a modicum of privacy; the other male guests of the nunnery were several doors away and engaged in dressing for the day. Daylight had begun to penetrate the room but hesitantly, as if not sure of its welcome on such a dolorous occasion.

  Cotton had pulled up to the nunnery in a squad car, looking immaculate as if he had been ready and waiting for the middle-of-the-night call that brought him here. Not for the first time, Max was driven to speculate on Cotton’s private life. He did not particularly seem to have one. Given the finicky perfection of his wardrobe, Max thought he might spend a lot of time laying out his clothes, even starching his shirts and ironing them. It was an absurd speculation. The man was far too busy for such self-indulgent homesteading behavior. Wasn’t he?

  Right now he was worrying a thread on his jacket that threatened to come loose. Cotton had a precise and orderly mind if one not as intuitive as his friend Max’s. While Cotton did not tip over into Mr. Monk–like habits, still he took an inordinate amount of pleasure in, for example, going through his spice rack and discarding tins that had passed their expiration date. Generally he would do this as he thought through a crime scene in his mind. A policeman’s life did not allow much time for home cooking, regrettably, for Cotton was a good cook who could be an excellent one, given time to practice.

  “Just to get the parish notices out of the way,” said Cotton, “why don’t you fill me in on your impressions since you got here?”

  “I’m not sure any clear impressions have formed,” said Max. “Only questions. And the biggest question I have—other, of course, than why Lord Lislelivet was murdered—is why he was here to begin with.”

  “You mean since, according to him at least, his last visit nearly killed him.”

  “Precisely. What would make him dare attempt a return engagement? It must have been something important. Unless you buy his story of a sudden and overwhelming interest in religion, which I don’t.”

  “Neither does his wife. I had a brief word with her. She’s following this investigation with bated breath, in between appointments with her manicurist.”

  Cotton summarized the essence of Lady Lislelivet’s statements and beliefs.

  “It doesn’t sound like she liked her husband very much,” said Max. “So I wonder why she’s pushing now for an investigation into his death—apart from the reasons we discussed.”

  “I had it verified,” said Cotton. “His life insurance policy has a double indemnity clause. I am not sure she wanted it to be murder—although I gained the definite impression she wouldn’t mind—but she did want it to be an accident. Death from natural clauses is worth half as much. So she’s already started calling round her husband’s fellow nobs to put pressure to bear on the right people. Said she just couldn’t sleep until she knew the truth, etcetera, etcetera. Cry me a river. I don’t think anyone believed her, but finally to get rid of her they agreed to put pressure on the right places in their turn.

  “She is completely hung up on the value of his insurance policy, and not troubling overmuch to hide the fact. So, yes, let me go out on a limb and say there is no love lost there. For now, if you could just give me a rundown on the main characters here. Not excluding the nuns, I’m sorry to say. We can’t pretend they are too above the fray to contemplate murder.”

  “No, I don’t suppose we can,” said Max. He proceeded to summarize what he knew or suspected about the guests of the abbey and then gave Cotton a short rundown on the sisters to whom he had spoken. Beginning with Abbess Justina Berry, the superior of Monkbury Abbey, with her Renoir-pink appearance and her natural leader’s gaze on the far horizon. He then talked about Dame Hephzibah Laffer, the elderly portress of the abbey—surely, Max added, far too feeble to engage in such a crime.

  “Early days, yet,” said Cotton. “Let’s discount no one for the moment.”

  Max went on to describe Dame Tabitha Hoppringle—the guest-mistress, nicknamed Dame Tabby, with her mysterious catlike visage and imposing build. Cotton perked up at this.

  “Just what we need for this case. Someone able to heft that body in the well. He was a small man in every way, but still.… There’s little question he was dead when he went in. They’re confirming that. Rather helpful that his watch was broken, pinpointing the time as just after nine.”

  “I think you’ll agree that sort of helpfulness is most suspicious.”

  Max was thinking: for thousands of years the site of the well had been revered as a healing center by pagans and Christians alike. There was something blasphemous in stuffing Lord Lislelivet down that same well to which the sick had come to pray for a miracle cure, carried on litters by desperate families; where the blind had been led to wash their eyes, where women had come to pray for safe delivery in childbirth. Did the murderer know the sacred history of the place? Or was it just a convenient dumping spot, a failed, hasty attempt to hide the body?

  Max told Cotton about Dame Ingrid Castle, known as Dame Fruitcake, she of the red face, hazel eyes, and red hair, her round features scattered with freckles. He spoke of Dame Olive Chandler, the petite sacrist and librarian with her vast knowledge of the abbey. He spoke of Dame Petronilla “Pet” Falcon—the infirmaress, responsible for the care of the sick and dying at Monkbury Abbey, with her expert knowledge of plants and herbs.

  “We’ll be looking closely at that,” said Cotton.

  There was Dame Sibil Papelwyk to tell about, the cellaress of the abbey, with her innate ability to keep untangled the many threads of the abbey’s money-making schemes.

  “But I’ve not yet had a chance to talk with her,” Max told him. “I had planned to see her today. I guess it’s a bit late now.”

  “It’s never too late,” said Cotton. “We have to solve this before all hell breaks loose, close the door on spe
culation.”

  Max next spoke of the dying Dame Meredith Fitzwilliam—formerly the cellaress, now a patient in the abbey’s infirmary. Of Sister Rose Tocketts, with her ex-military background, now a novice preparing for admission to the order. Of Mary Benton—a postulant preparing for the novitiate.

  “No one seems to have high hopes that she will make it,” Max added.

  “Dame Meredith?”

  “No. I meant the postulant. She is having trouble getting the hang of how things are done here.”

  Finally Max told Cotton about Abbess Genevieve Lacroix—a visitor from St. Martin’s, the motherhouse in France.

  “Those are the main players on the cloistered side. There are others, of course. Enough to keep your team busy for a long time.”

  “On it,” said Cotton. “I’ve had a word with the abbess already. She has promised full cooperation.”

  “Hmm.” Max viewed that promise with skepticism. For one thing, during his time with the abbess, he had been reminded of nothing so much as Lady Baynard of Chedrow Castle, that aristocratic lady so proud of her lineage. The abbess, Max suspected, would cooperate insofar as it kept scandal away from her nunnery. She would pretend at cooperation so well no one would notice the wool being pulled over their eyes.

  Furthermore, the nuns might all hang together in an us-versus-them mentality. In fact, everything in their training and mind-set would be to deny the desires of the individual in favor of meeting the needs of the group. Of protecting that group. He had become familiar with this sort of thinking in his work with Chinese spies run by the Ministry of State Security. While the motives of spies for other countries were usually money or ego, in the case of spies for the Chinese, as a general rule, pure loyalty or idealism came into play. No one had to pay them or massage their egos. They did it, for lack of a better word, for love.

  Cotton, for his part, was remembering his initial meeting with the abbess. He had held out his warrant card in its case, and she had taken it from him, almost as if she meant to keep it. She’d pulled a glasses case from within the folds of her skirt and carefully threaded reading glasses onto her ears, jabbing beneath that thing they wore wrapped around their heads. She had studied his photo with all the care of an Eastern bloc border guard confronted with a suspected drug smuggler—eyes moving from his photo to his face and back again—before handing the card back to him with a disarming smile.

  “I guess we first have to tease out what Lord Lislelivet was really up to,” said Cotton. “I know he came here with concerns about money—”

  “That was more the concern of the Goreys and the rest. But yes, I’d say all the ‘civilians,’ shall we call them, were showing a keener-than-average interest in the wealth of the place.”

  “I thought nunneries were supposed to be poor,” said Cotton.

  “In fact they are, if you confine yourself to looking at their personal, individual worth. The nuns aren’t allowed to own anything much beyond what they wear on their backs.”

  “Those odd purple frocks,” said Cotton.

  “Habits,” Max corrected him. “Quite. But the order itself is quite wealthy.”

  “So collectively they are rich.”

  Max shook his head. “No. Not at all. Think of it as a large corporation, one without an employee-owned philosophy. Or a commune would perhaps be a better example. All work equally, all share equally. Everything is provided them out of the common bank. But they own nothing of their own. Monkbury Abbey owns it.”

  “No wonder the abbey became so wealthy.”

  “Once the religious orders began to settle down in one place, they became wealthy. If they had stuck to begging and the mendicant way of life, I suppose history would have been rewritten.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “The early Franciscans were hunter-gatherers. The Benedictines were settlers. Once they acquired land, there was no stopping them.”

  Cotton suddenly turned his head toward the window. “What is that sound?”

  “It’s the sheep,” replied Max. “They want their mothers. Or maybe it’s the mothers wanting their lambs.”

  “Oh.” Cotton looked rather crestfallen to hear it.

  “Sometimes,” said Max, newly up in his sheep husbandry, “it’s just that the mothers have been taken away to be shorn. They’ll all be reunited later.”

  “Oh! That’s good.”

  Max decided against telling Cotton the bit about how sometimes the mothers just didn’t care about these reunions. Given his untidy upbringing, that might come a bit too close to home for Cotton. Max, wondering if he could work the reunited sheep theme into a sermon, watched as Cotton took his mobile phone from his pocket, studying the display for signs of a signal. He actually gave the gadget a little shake, as if stirring the ingredients inside would help.

  “Unbelievable,” Cotton said at last. “What century are we in? Anyway, there is one thing to be grateful for. If these women own nothing of their own to speak of, it makes searching their rooms a breeze.”

  “Their cells, yes. This,” and Max swept one arm round the spare little room, “this is a palace by comparison.”

  Cotton, a minimalist to his fingertips, could only admire and approve this philosophy. But the thought of being unable to update his wardrobe at will with a new shirt or tie was chilling.

  “By the way,” said Max, “I’m sure it will not be news to you that this whole thing will be a massive violation of their privacy. How you’re going to get around the sort of objections you are bound to face I’m not sure. It might be as well to bring the bishop’s office in on this.”

  “Abbess Justina used those very words. ‘Violation of privacy.’”

  “It seems a shame, but there’s not a lot of choice.”

  “I’ve just had what might be considered rather a Lucifer moment,” said Cotton, “but I don’t really see why God would ask anyone to give up so much and do without so much. I mean, what sort of God would ask that level of sacrifice?”

  “Most people feel that way. But every tax time I am reminded that I really need to simplify my own life.”

  “In the dead of winter,” observed Cotton, “I’d be spending a lot of time looking for a thermostat—that I can tell you. And in this heat I’d bet the habits are deuced hot to wear. I won’t bother to ask if they have air-conditioning.”

  “No,” said Max. “Perhaps in the infirmary. Heaters and air conditioners are just one more thing to maintain and repair.”

  “‘Here be dragons,’” quoted Cotton. “This whole setup is so medieval, I expect to encounter some mythical creature at every turn in one of the corridors. And it’s so dark.”

  “I think that is intended less for atmosphere than for conserving energy.”

  “Of course. They’re probably living off the power grid.”

  “There’s that, and also it is just part of their philosophy. Not wasting anything.”

  Cotton, who had taken a notebook from his ever-present briefcase, scribbled a new heading with his biro and said, “I gather that the drill is: drawbridges up after…” He began shuffling through his previous notes, presumably from his conversation with the abbess.

  “After Compline would be usual,” said Max.

  “That’s right. That’s what she told me—the very, very old nun who seems to serve as the meet-and-greet person.”

  “Dame Hephzibah.”

  “The portress. Right. It’s a wonder they haven’t been robbed blind over the years. The poor thing can hardly see nor hear, can she? If they were worried about security, they might have chosen someone a little less, well, ancient.”

  Max smiled at him. “Somehow, I think that, all things being equal, Dame Hephzibah doesn’t miss a whole lot of real importance.”

  “Right,” Cotton said again. “She claims she saw a yellow monk last night.”

  “Where?”

  “What does it matter where? She was hallucinating. Imagining things.” Off his look, Cotton elaborated: “She claims sh
e saw a yellow monk walking about the cloister garden.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Max.

  “And a white nun. Max, she probably sees angels, too.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me, either. Anyway, the portress is supposed to be someone of mature years. Someone who doesn’t roam about the place when he or she gets restless or bored, the way a younger person might.”

  “Well, she certainly fits the bill. She looks like she’s been planted here since the first Crusade.”

  “I don’t think they were worried about security. At least, not until recently.”

  “From her vantage point at the gate house, could she see much of the cloister?”

  “She could,” said Max. “But in truth, the question would be, was she awake to see anything? I myself was asleep and didn’t wake until the doctor’s headlights woke me. Maybe it was the same with her.”

  “Just so I’m clear on this,” said Cotton. “After the service they call Compline, the Great Silence descended on the place.”

  “Like a shroud,” said Max. “The silence is total.”

  “And the nuns were locked in for the night.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. I’d say the world was locked out. The door wouldn’t open until morning, except for a late-arriving guest in need of refuge, like the doctor.”

  “So just when everyone was snug in their beds, there was a cry? A shout?”

  “Hard to describe,” said Max. “I was just coming round from sleep, myself, but it was sort of a shriek.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Ah,” said Max. “That’s an astute question. There was nothing to say it was Lord Lislelivet crying out.”

  “The autopsy should tell us more about his condition when he went into the well.”

  “Lifting dead weight would be a problem,” said Max. “For some of the nuns, anyway. But this way of life has kept most of them hale and hearty. Even Dame Meredith could just about tackle a small man like Lord Lislelivet if she surprised him.”