‘How did – she get into the house?’
‘She had a key, of course, that deactivated the alarm. It was very easy to sneak in and leave the things there.’
‘And then she came to me?’ Sister Joan kept her voice soft.
‘She didn’t want to be married to Michael Peter any longer. He’s dull and boring and always going on about his stupid mother. If she just left him he’d never divorce her and he’d get to keep all the pretty ornaments. But if Michael Peter was sent to prison then she could come back and live in the house. And so she came to you.’
‘But not to the police.’
‘I asked a policeman – his name was Mill – or he said something about a Mill for directions to the convent. I know I told you that I’d gone to report my sister’s death but they’d have investigated that, wouldn’t they? And I didn’t want to tell a big lie. I only tell white lies. So in the end I plucked up courage and asked you for help. Caroline asked you for help.’
‘You’re not Caroline?’
Sister Joan was edging away, her eyes on the other’s face.
‘I’m Crystal,’ the girl said patiently. ‘Caroline was only pretending to be me. I was missing according to her and she feared that Michael Peter might’ve done me some harm. But that didn’t seem to be working, so Caroline decided there had to be a real murder. Mrs Rufus always went to the cemetery on the anniversary of her husband’s death. She used to go very early in the morning to have a quiet time with her memories. Michael Peter told Crystal that. Told Caroline who was pretending to be Crystal.’
She shook her head slightly and a lock of her fair hair caught on a crust of dried blood on her earlobe.
‘So Caroline stole the ashlar?’
‘She sneaked in the house and took the marble ball and the pretty horse that stood on the sitting-room table and put them very carefully in the wheelie bag that Mrs Rufus kept in the pantry and wheeled them away. When Mrs Rufus went to the cemetery on Monday morning Caroline met her there and told her that it was her father who lay in the unmarked grave, and Mrs Rufus came over and bent down and the rest was easy. She was a very trusting woman, as trusting as Crystal. It isn’t wise to trust people or love them too much. Don’t you agree, Sister?’
‘Crystal loved Caroline?’ Sister Joan ventured.
‘Crystal adored Caroline.’ The girl gave another deeper sigh. ‘She tried very hard to be kind to her, to get her to wear pretty things and use make-up. She used to say “You’re not much older than I am, Caro. Get yourself a life!” She even tried to get Caroline interested in the animal rights cause. Too too boring! You can guess what Caroline did the minute she married Michael Peter!’
‘Persuaded him to buy a jacket for her with real sable cuffs?’
‘Exactly! It wouldn’t fit in the case when she left but she knew she could always come back and get it later on. The problem was that nobody was connecting the unknown man in the chapel with Michael Peter at all. So Caroline went back and buried a strip of paper with his name and telephone number on it, but the police didn’t make a second search and I don’t think that he’s been arrested for Mrs Rufus’s death yet either.’
‘The law can work very slowly sometimes.’
She had moved almost imperceptibly to the next tableau. The crinolined ladies at the ball sat with fans suspended, their heads tilted coquettishly.
‘Most people are stupid,’ the girl said. ‘Even Caroline can be foolish sometimes. Mrs Rufus bled, you see. The blood sprayed up out of the back of her head like a red fountain and went all over the sweater and skirt. It was lucky she had taken off her coat or that would’ve been soaked too. She put it back on and walked up to the place where she was staying.’
‘The little schoolhouse.’
‘She hurt Crystal then. She took a sharp knife that was meant for cutting bread and she slashed at her ear. She slashed at my ear, Sister, and it bled and bled and mixed with the blood that Mrs Rufus had sprayed. It was all over the skirt and the sweater so she took them off and stuffed them in the boot of the old car, and put a wedge to hold the boot open a bit, in case someone missed them. They were proof against Michael Peter, don’t you see? Then she put on the brown coat and tied a scarf over her head and took a train to the next town and bought a lovely white dress and stayed the night in an hotel there. That was rather clever of her actually. People were out looking for someone who was hiding out in a barn or on the moor and all the time she was sitting in a very respectable hotel room, not being noticed by anybody at all.’
‘And where is Caroline now?’ Sister Joan asked.
‘I don’t know. That’s what scares me so.’ The eyes were wide and anxious. ‘I hid here because I hoped that you might come to search by yourself. The newspaper article said that you worked on hunches and so I just prayed that you’d come and find me before she did. The police were here when I arrived so I just wandered off down the alley and sat on a bench until they went. Then I let myself in. Michael Peter gave Caroline a key ages ago but she never used it. I deactivated the alarm so that you could get in more easily. You won’t let Caroline get me again, will you?’
‘What exactly did Caroline do to Crystal?’ Sister Joan asked.
‘She pushed me under a train,’ the other said. ‘It was rush hour and very crowded and nobody saw what really happened. Sometimes I think that perhaps Caroline didn’t really mean to do it. She loved me, you see. She absolutely adored me! Even when she was wishing she was me – but that’s a form of adoration too, isn’t it, Sister? Dad was so upset! He acted as if he’d lost the only daughter he had. Well, he adored her more than anyone in the world, you know. He didn’t seem to notice that Caroline was still alive, that it was Caroline who stayed home when Mum died and helped in the house and ran his errands and took him over to the Heart Unit when he was due for treatment. Caroline did all that but he only ever talked about me, how I cared so much for poor dumb creatures.’
‘Perhaps Caroline has gone for good,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Oh, she’ll come back if she can.’ The other tugged at her fair hair. ‘She won’t stay hid for long. When I make a friend she comes out of hiding then and spoils it all for me. My ear stings so. It bled and bled.’
The golden curls were slipping sideways, catching on the crusted blood, then breaking free in a cascade of flaxen ringlets.
‘Well,’ said the girl, looking at the wig in her hand, ‘that’s enough of that nonsense! I’m here looking for my sister Crystal. She’s somewhere around. Always in the back of my head. Always worrying about my lack of a social life, always urging me to strike out on my own as if I could just walk out on Dad. She hardly ever visited you see. Once a month was a record for her! And when she did condescend to float in it was, “And what has my beautiful daughter been doing with herself lately? Caro, get a cup of coffee for your sister! Hurry up! Crystal can’t stay long”. And I’d make the coffee and nobody noticed if I brought in three cups or two. But nothing was said. Nothing was ever said. You liked Crystal, didn’t you, Sister? You liked my sister better than you like me. People always do.’
‘I never met her,’ Sister Joan said, dry mouthed.
‘She isn’t really dead,’ Caroline said. ‘She’s in my head, right at the back. She likes to come out now and then. But she’s scared of me. Isn’t that odd? My own little sister is afraid of me. Are you scared of me, Sister?’
‘No,’ said Sister Joan. ‘No, I’m not scared of you.’
‘Then you’re a fool,’ Caroline said. ‘You like Crystal better than you like me. I know that. I want someone to like me. Mrs Rufus didn’t like me. She thought that I’d married Crystal’s husband for his money.’
‘Michael Peter is your husband.’
‘Oh, don’t be so stupid!’ The wig was tossed to the floor. ‘Do you think that I’d really marry an old fogy like that? It was Crystal who married him and serve her right! She had loads of men friends – lovers I think – though you’d never get Dad to believe it! It served h
er right to be landed with Michael Peter! I got to live in the pretty house and wear the expensive clothes but she had to put up with his fumbling after the lights were switched off! I knew she wouldn’t be able to endure it for ever but in the end she wasn’t around any longer. There was just me in that lonely place with that housekeeper woman complaining because I liked pop music and when there was nothing to do I used to paint my nails. I thought that if I did that then Crystal might come back but she stayed away and I was worried about Dad, by himself in the new flat and writing to enquire when was I going to visit him? So I went to see Dad and brought him to the chapel. ‘What on earth are we doing here, Caroline? And why have we had to walk such a long way? Why not get a taxi? What the devil’s going on?” So I told him that I was really Crystal disguised as Caroline and that Caroline had pushed me under the train. And he began to sweat and gasp and I just stood there looking at him and thinking that now there might be a way to get that wretched old fogy that Crystal had married indicted for murder or something. Crystal was coming back soon you see, and before she comes I get muddled in the head sometimes. But that didn’t stop you liking her, did it, Sister?’
In another moment she would snap and run screaming down the long carpet past the stiffly poised waxwork figures. Not all stiffly poised! Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement as a tall officer slid silently from his position, and rocked slightly as a figure stepped out from behind.
‘Caroline Peter?’ said Detective Sergeant Mill.
‘I’m looking for my sister. I’m looking for Crystal,’ she said.
‘I think you’d better give me that bread knife, don’t you?’ He sounded cool as ice.
‘It’s Crystal’s.’ She dropped it on the carpet and shivered. ‘Crystal uses that.’
‘Caroline Peter, I’m arresting you for the murder of Mary Rufus. You don’t have to say anything—’
The routine warnings were given. Sister Joan heard the snap of handcuffs as Constable Brown stepped from behind another figure. The young woman in the white dress stood very still. Then she raised her head and said anxiously, ‘I’m looking for my sister Crystal. She got married last year and we haven’t heard a word from her since Easter.’
Constable Whitney came through the door and bent to pick up the knife and slide it into a plastic bag.
‘Get that to the lab. boys, Constable.’ Detective Sergeant Mill nodded at him. ‘Come and sit down for a minute, Sister. You look a trifle shaken up.’
‘I didn’t know she had a knife,’ Sister Joan said, taking the proffered chair. ‘It was tucked through the sash and hidden by the folds of the gown. If I’d realized that – I don’t think that I’d ever have come here.’
‘Why did you come?’ he enquired.
‘Impulse – instinct – I don’t know.’ She shrugged slightly. ‘I’ve been racking my brains about all this and there comes a point when you have to stop reasoning things out and begin acting as the spirit moves. I had kept the key that Michael Peter gave me, and I think that subconsciously I knew that I’d need to use it again sometime. And this was the logical place for her to come, wasn’t it? After it had been searched?’
‘Yes.’ He pulled up another chair and sat down, his expression serious and thoughtful. ‘Did you know that Crystal, the real Crystal, was dead when you came?’
‘I’m not that heroic,’ Sister Joan said wryly. ‘I did guess that she wasn’t the original Crystal when the specialist at the hospital mentioned having treated John Hayes and of having met his daughter Crystal who was an animal rights activist. There was a jacket with sable cuffs in the suitcase that Michael Peter threw away, and I knew that anyone keen on animal rights would never have worn it. I thought Crystal might be back in London. Then when I saw the figure in the coffin I thought it wiser to go along and address her as Crystal. How did you—’
‘You applied to St Catherine’s House for their birth certificates.’
‘To make sure there were really two sisters.’
‘What you didn’t know,’ he said, ‘and what we only recently found out was that Crystal Hayes died eighteen months ago. She fell on to the line in front of an approaching train. It was rush hour and nobody saw clearly what had happened. The coroner brought in a verdict of accident.’
‘And Caroline couldn’t deal with the fact that the sister she both adored and hated was dead. She had to make her alive again. She had to give Crystal a wealthy husband and a beautiful house. But it was Caroline who had to put up with the husband and live in the house. I think she decided to confess and brought her father down originally to do that, but somewhere along the way she decided to tell him privately. He was in bad health. There was the possibility the shock might kill him, and then she could tie it up to Michael Peter and – but where has she been since Easter?’
‘I’d wager she’s been living as Caroline, helping her father to move house, blocking any queries that might come from her husband down here in Cornwall. But her father got the message that Michael Peter had left at the Heart Unit and then she probably decided to bring him down here. He must’ve been under the impression that they were coming to beard Michael in his lair. Who knows how her mind was working or what she said?’
‘She enlisted me on her side,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Very cleverly too. She’s very intelligent and very cunning. I’ve no doubt she read the newspaper article some time before and kept it in mind. She went to the station and asked for directions to the convent, so in that way she could block your insisting she went to the police. If Brown had actually informed me that he hadn’t recorded her request because she had only asked the way somewhere then we’d have been a whole lot further forward but Brown didn’t repeat the conversation verbatim and I assumed that he was talking about her reporting her sister missing – that’s a lesson to me not to assume too readily!’
‘But it wouldn’t have saved Mrs Rufus?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘Caroline had made up her mind that Mrs Rufus had to go. You know the poor woman probably went and put the flowers on her husband’s grave and then went over to look at the unmarked grave and decided to leave a few flowers there. And Caroline came up behind and smashed the ashlar down on her head.’
‘That wasn’t what she told me.’
‘She wanted to display how clever she was to lure Mrs Rufus to the grave, but the housekeeper would’ve recognized her and started asking questions. She wouldn’t have turned her back and knelt down. We found the ashlar by the way. In the wheelie bag along with the T’ang horse under the desk in the outer office. She intended it to implicate Michael Peter. Then with him safely locked away in jail she could turn up again as Crystal with some excuse for her long absence and take over the house and the business. If you’re feeling all right now, Sister, I’ll drive you home.’
‘I’m feeling fine and I have to go up to the hospital to see if Sister Mary Concepta is better yet. Alan, what will happen to her now?’
‘She’ll be found unfit to plead and placed in a secure mental hospital. There won’t be any trial, Sister.’
‘And in the end she came here.’ Sister Joan looked round at the silent waxy figures and shivered. ‘When she first pretended to be Crystal she kept her own appearance, so why the wig?’
‘Because only Crystal could tell what had really happened on that railway station? The human mind is a peculiar thing, Sister.’
‘Some would call it conscience,’ Sister Joan said, and stopped suddenly as they moved towards the back stairs. ‘How did you get here? Were you here all the time?’
‘When you tried to open the front door with the back-door key you triggered an alarm that rang down in the station,’ he said. ‘We were here within a couple of minutes. Even the police can move silently when it’s necessary. And we had the key to the front door.’
‘God bless the police,’ Sister Joan said fervently as they went down the stairs.
It had been an excellent surprise. Fa
ther Malone had accepted the chalice with a beaming face and the children had clapped enthusiastically when he had promised to show them his photographs of his pilgrimage to Lourdes, Santiago and Rome. He had also expressed warm thanks to Mr Michael Peter for selling the chalice at such a generous price. It was unfortunate that Mr Peter had locked up house and shop and put both on the market, prior to travelling abroad for his health.
Sister Joan drove back to the convent feeling that pleasant things ought to happen more often. It was full summer now and very hot. The town water supply was said to be threatened by the drought and there was talk of standpipes. There was always talk of standpipes if the summer lasted for longer than a fortnight.
The grass was browning at the tips and the air had a scorching dusty feeling. The van windows were open but the steering wheel felt hot and sticky. She slowed down as she neared the old schoolhouse, her spirits rising further as she saw a familiar figure tinkering with the old car.
‘Brother Cuthbert, you’re back!’
Scrambling down from the van she hurried towards him.
‘Like a thief in the night, Sister! How are you? The door was open so I simply walked in. Isn’t it glorious weather?’
He shook hands, his freckled young face flushed with heat and pleasure.
‘Some wouldn’t agree, but I like the heat,’ Sister Joan said. ‘They allowed you to return here then?’
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