Vow of Adoration/Vow of Devotion/Vow of Fidelity

by Black, Veronica

  ‘They have to investigate,’ Sister Joan said uncomfortably.

  ‘And one must assist them in the course of their enquiries. However even the loss of the T’ang horse and the ashlar seems less significant when one has just heard of a sudden death. Mrs Rufus had her funny little ways but she was a very nice woman.’

  The two police officers came back in. Detective Sergeant Mill sat down, switched on the tape recorder again, and said, ‘Interview is resumed at—’ He glanced at his watch and recorded the time.

  Sister Joan, watching, wished she were elsewhere. Alan Mill had become the cool, sharp, impersonal inquisitor, his human side concealed.

  ‘Mr Peter, I strongly advise you to have your solicitor present before we proceed,’ he said.

  ‘Are you accusing me of something?’ Michael Peter’s head reared up.

  ‘Not yet, sir, but this interview is being taped in the presence of Constable Whitney and Sister Joan and may constitute evidence. I want you to understand that.’

  ‘Oh, do get on with it, Detective Sergeant Mill!’ Michael Peter said snappishly.

  ‘Yesterday you retired to bed at about eleven o’clock. This morning, having overslept, you decided to open your antique shop this afternoon, had your breakfast and then found two items of value missing from the house and the glass of the French windows in the study smashed. The alarm hadn’t triggered because you’d neglected to activate it last night. Am I right so far?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Peter, the glass that broke in the window is outside on the path.’

  Sister Joan felt her hands clench into fists.

  ‘Outside?’ Mr Peter looked blank.

  ‘Anyone breaking the glass from outside would get shards of the stuff on the carpet inside. Anyone breaking the glass from inside would force the glass outside where in fact it is. You see my point, sir?’

  ‘I’ve nothing further to add,’ Michael Peter said.

  Detective Sergeant Mill glanced at Sister Joan and resumed, his tone becoming more casual. ‘I understand that you’re here alone at the moment? Your wife isn’t with you?’

  ‘She’s on holiday.’

  ‘May I ask where?’

  ‘Touring France with her parents and her sister.’

  ‘And their names are—?’

  ‘Jessica and John Hayes. Her sister is called Caroline.’

  ‘Have you ever met any of them?’

  ‘Not yet. Crystal – that’s my wife and I met and married very quickly. Letters have been exchanged but so far I haven’t met them.’

  ‘You’ve been married a year?’

  ‘Ten months.’

  ‘Isn’t it a trifle unusual not to meet any of your in-laws for so long a time?’

  ‘There’s no mystery about it,’ Michael Peter said irritably. ‘Crystal didn’t get on with her parents. This trip to France was intended to be a kind of reconciliation.’

  ‘She left at Easter?’

  ‘I drove her to the station myself. She was meeting her parents in London.’

  ‘You didn’t drive her all the way?’

  ‘I use my car only for short, necessary journeys. I paid for her rail ticket by cheque. I imagine that can be checked out.’

  ‘And you’ve heard nothing since?’

  ‘I—’ Michael Peter hesitated, then said flatly, ‘No.’

  ‘And you don’t find that very worrying?’

  ‘I assumed that they’re travelling and haven’t time to write.’

  ‘Or telephone?’

  The antique dealer was silent again.

  ‘Let’s turn to Mrs Rufus,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

  ‘What has Mrs Rufus to do with my wife?’

  ‘Mrs Rufus was found dead yesterday in the cemetery. To put it in layman’s terms the back of her skull had been crushed by an extremely heavy spherical object – an ashlar perhaps?’

  ‘Good God!’ Michael Peter’s expression had changed. There was alarm and there was horror written across his face. ‘That’s dreadful! Dreadful!’

  ‘She had gone to the cemetery with flowers which she obviously meant to put on the grave of the man found dead in the old chapel near here.’

  ‘Sister Joan found the body. Mrs Rufus informed me. Why did Mrs Rufus put flowers on the grave?’

  ‘Because at heart she was a very kind person,’ Sister Joan said, unable to bear having to keep silence a moment longer. ‘She took some flowers for the grave of a man who hadn’t had any friends or relatives at his funeral. She knelt down to place the flowers on the earth and someone crept up behind her and smashed in her skull.’

  ‘With my ashlar? That’s a terrible thought.’

  ‘And of course quite impossible,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said, ‘since Mrs Rufus was killed yesterday morning and your burglary didn’t occur until last night. It did occur last night, didn’t it, Mr Peter?’

  ‘I think that I’d like to have my solicitor present,’ Michael Peter said. ‘Switch off the tape!’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ Detective Sergeant Mill did so. ‘Do you want to continue this interview down at the station or here?’

  ‘I’ve never been in a police cell in my life.’ Michael Peter reared his head again, cracking his knuckles unpleasantly. ‘I’ll telephone for my solicitor.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to have an informal chat without the tape recorder or a solicitor here?’ Sister Joan ventured. ‘If you can explain—’

  ‘That’s highly irregular, Sister,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

  ‘I know but—?’ She sent him a pleading glance.

  ‘Very well, but there’ll have to be a formal interview sooner or later.’

  ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Michael Peter said.

  ‘Go with him, Constable.’ Detective Sergeant Mill waited until the door had closed behind them, then looked at Sister Joan.

  ‘Why are we playing good cop bad cop?’ she enquired.

  ‘Is that what we’re doing?’ He smiled slightly. ‘Well, perhaps. What’s your own reading of the affair?’

  ‘I’m in a complete muddle,’ she said frankly. ‘Michael Peter didn’t go to bed at eleven last night – unless he got up again and came to the convent to walk round in the yard.’

  ‘You’re sure it was him?’

  ‘Positive. I only caught a glimpse of him but he’s a fairly unmistakable figure.’

  ‘I agree with you.’

  ‘And as you said if Mrs Rufus was killed yesterday morning it couldn’t have been with the ashlar if the ashlar and the T’ang horse were only stolen last night.’

  ‘By someone who breaks the window from the outside and manages to get all the broken glass in the garden. If there wasn’t murder involved I’d say that this was an insurance scam.’

  ‘Michael Peter has certainly been lying,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but I do find it hard to believe he’s dishonest. He was very generous when he sold me the chalice for Father Malone.’

  ‘How much did it cost?’

  ‘Seven hundred and fifty pounds. It is real silver and very beautiful.’

  ‘But not spherical in shape?’

  ‘No, and anyway it’s hidden away in the presbytery until the presentation at the children’s home, so it couldn’t have killed Mrs Rufus. It’s irrelevant.’ She broke off as Michael Peter came in, with Constable Whitney bearing the coffee tray in his wake.

  ‘I think that I ought to be frank with you, Detective Sergeant Mill,’ the former said.

  ‘On or off the record?’ Detective Sergeant Mill enquired.

  ‘You can switch it on. And don’t go through that spiel about my rights again. As I haven’t done anything then I don’t need a solicitor.’

  ‘Very well.’ He switched it on and looked at the older man. ‘Let’s start again, shall we?’

  ‘Where?’ There was an edge of weary sarcasm in the other’s voice.

  ‘You went on business to London a few days ago?’

  ‘Yes I did.’ Michael
Peter looked disconcerted at the change in direction. ‘I met Sister Joan on my way to the station.’

  ‘You were carrying a large suitcase.’

  ‘I often do carry luggage when I go away.’

  ‘You didn’t stay overnight?’

  ‘No. As it happens I returned on the same day.’

  ‘Without the suitcase?’

  ‘I – yes.’

  ‘A large suitcase corresponding to the description of the one you were carrying was found on the embankment between here and London and handed in at the station,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘It was found to contain a large number of garments, very expensive garments for a woman. Perhaps you’d like to start by telling us about that.’

  ‘The suitcase was mine. The clothes belonged to my wife.’

  ‘You will get the opportunity of seeing these items for yourself and identifying them formally. Perhaps you’d like to tell us why you discarded them?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t bear to have them in the house any longer,’ Michael Peter said.

  ‘One suitcase full? Didn’t your wife have more clothes than that?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘She took everything else with her.’

  ‘To France?’

  ‘France!’ He half rose, then sank back in his chair, his face twisted into a grin as he stared at her. ‘France! Why don’t you stop playing games with me, Sister? You know Crystal never went to France. You knew it when you came into my shop expecting to get something cheap for your wretched parish priest!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Sister Joan said blankly.

  ‘Oh, don’t play the innocent with me, Sister!’ he said. ‘You wanted a bargain and you found a way to force one out of me, didn’t you? You guessed my wife wasn’t in France and you made that clear to me – very clear by looking in a meaning way at my desk.’

  ‘What desk?’

  ‘My Napoleon desk. French. You made a comment. Something apparently innocuous but it let me know that you’d guessed and were willing to keep quiet for a price.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Her blue eyes blazing, Sister Joan sprang to her feet. ‘How dare you insinuate that I’d actually stoop to a bit of discreet blackmail in order to get what I wanted? How dare you impute motives to me that I never had? I remember the desk, and I believe that I did pass some casual comment about it but I was just making light conversation! You must live in a very murky world if you think that things like blackmail are common, or that nuns will stoop to anything to get a bargain!’

  ‘If I was wrong then naturally I apologize,’ Michael Peter said stiffly.

  ‘I should think so!’ Sister Joan sat down with a decided thump.

  ‘The interesting point,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said, his face carefully unsmiling, ‘is that you interpreted the remark as blackmail and you promptly paid up. You did sell Sister Joan the chalice very cheaply, didn’t you?’

  ‘So you already knew that your wife wasn’t in France,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘I don’t know where Crystal is,’ Michael Peter said heavily. ‘She left at Easter. I did drive her to the station. She said that she was going away for a few days to think things over. Our marriage wasn’t entirely happy. She was bored here. Crystal likes to go out to the theatre or dancing. I’m somewhat set in my ways.’

  ‘Where exactly was she going?’ Detective Sergeant Mill asked.

  ‘London. She said something about going to see her father. She said that she didn’t know if she was ever coming back. She had most of her things with her and I gave her sufficient money. She couldn’t accuse me of being ungenerous.’

  ‘And that was the last you heard?’

  Michael Peter nodded.

  ‘But why did you tell Mrs Rufus that she’d gone to France?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘It was the first thing came into my head. If I’d said she had gone to visit her father, even Mrs Rufus would’ve begun to wonder if she stayed away too long. Were she touring in France that gave me time to decide what to do – what to say.’

  ‘You didn’t want Mrs Rufus to know that she’d left you?’

  ‘I have my pride,’ he said.

  ‘But surely you worried about her?’

  ‘I went to London a month ago. I had business there anyway so I went to the flat where she’d lived with her father. He’s something of an invalid. Was. If is. The man in the chapel—?’

  ‘He was almost certainly John Hayes,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

  ‘I was afraid of that. I wrote to him and asked him to come down and meet me. He was receiving treatment on a fairly regular basis at the Florence Nightingale Heart Unit, and I sent the letter there.’

  ‘Why not to his home address?’

  ‘I thought his wife might get hold of it,’ Michael Peter said.

  ‘Jessica Hayes died some years back,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

  ‘That’s not possible. Crystal was very fond of her mother. She often spoke of her. I didn’t want to upset Mrs Hayes by letting her know that Crystal and I were having any problems, so I sent the letter to the hospital and asked them to hold it for him. Then I went to London to his home address—’

  ‘Had you received a reply to your letter in the meantime?’

  ‘Nothing, but he had received it. I rang the Heart Unit just to be sure. Then I grew tired of waiting so I went up to London. It was a complete waste of time. They’d moved house and apparently left no forwarding address. I guessed then that Crystal wouldn’t come back to me. You say her mother is dead? I cannot understand why she would do that.’

  ‘Your wife seems to have been a rather unusual kind of person,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘You never met her,’ Michael Peter said, ‘so you can’t presume to judge. She’s a lovely young woman, a lovely person. We hit it off at once when we first met. It was at a trade fair and she was the most beautiful thing there. I couldn’t take my eye off her.’

  For an instant he looked younger, more vulnerable. Sister Joan said, ‘You were in love with her?’

  ‘I adored her,’ he said simply. ‘You know I’ve never had much success with the ladies. Had I been a Catholic I daresay I’d have ended my days in the religious life, the last refuge of the unloved.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you think?’ Sister Joan began.

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’ Detective Sergeant Mill sent her an amused glance. ‘So you had no luck with ladies, Mr Peter?’

  ‘Not that I tried very hard. Mother was the most marvellous company right up until her death, and she loved this place so much. “I’m your queen of the castle, aren’t I, Michael?” she used to say. She was too. I couldn’t have brought another woman into the house while she lived here. It would’ve hurt her feelings terribly. Mrs Rufus, being married and not sleeping in, was different, of course. She and Mother got on very well. Now, where was I?’

  ‘Not having any luck with the ladies,’ Sister Joan said sweetly.

  ‘None at all,’ he said. ‘Not that I tried very hard, but it was five years since Mother had died and it does get very quiet in the evenings. And then I met Crystal and it was as if we’d known each other for years. I adored her.’

  ‘But she was bored here, sir?’ Constable Whitney asked.

  ‘I offered to take her to the shop with me. She’d have made a splendid saleslady, but she never wanted to go into town. I took her to the shop, of course, and she loved all the things there, but she considered it unwise for husband and wife to spend twenty-four hours a day together, and she was probably right. She stayed in the house instead.’

  ‘And then she left?’ Detective Sergeant Mill leaned his chin on his hand and regarded the other steadily.

  ‘I pretended that she’d gone to France. I almost believed it myself. Then when I found the Hayes family had moved I knew she wouldn’t come back. It was a terrible shock even though I’d begun to feel that she never would come back. I wouldn’t have given her a divorce, you know. Oh no, Mother reared me to have some
what traditional values. She prided herself on the fact that no divorced woman had ever crossed her threshold.’

  ‘So you put the rest of her clothes in a suitcase and threw it out of the train?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ Michael Peter looked indignant. ‘Flinging things from moving vehicles is a most dangerous practice. It can cause very nasty accidents.’

  ‘I wish you’d tell that to some of the younger generation who live on the estate,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Alighted a couple of stations up the line, waited until the platform was deserted, and then climbed a little way down the embankment and left it there. Then I caught the next train back. I had to wait a very long time for it, so I had a light meal on the station. Not a very appetising meal.’

  ‘What made you say that the dead man found in the chapel was John Hayes?’ Detective Sergeant Mill enquired.

  ‘I rang up the hospital a couple of weeks ago. I learned that he was due in for further treatment and I asked him to telephone me – that is to say I gave my home number to the receptionist at the Heart Unit. He never rang and he never came. When I rang again a couple of days ago – Saturday it was – they told me that he’d called briefly at the unit, taken down my number, and gone away saying that he’d be back later, but hadn’t returned at all. After that I began to put two and two together. A man with no identification dying of a heart attack so near to my house seemed like an odd coincidence.’

  ‘You didn’t mention your suspicions to the police, sir,’ Constable Whitney reproached.

  ‘Then I would’ve had to go into detail concerning my private life, my marital problems. I’m a very private man and—’

  ‘So you’ve told us,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘You ought to have come forward, sir. I take it that John Hayes didn’t ring you or come to the house?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘Then you’d be very surprised to learn that his credit card, and his watch and his pen with his name on it were found here in your house?’

  ‘Here? Where?’

  ‘Hidden in the centre of a toilet roll in your shower-room,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I came across them accidentally when I used your toilet on Sunday.’