Vow of Adoration/Vow of Devotion/Vow of Fidelity

by Black, Veronica

  ‘Oh, confession or not,’ Sister Joan said calmly, her insides jerking, ‘I think I’ve just about worked everything out now.’

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ Dodie said as they went out together. ‘Colin never killed anybody. He’s not a murderer whatever else he might be. You won’t tell the police about the tie-pin you found?’

  ‘It’s against the law to withhold evidence,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘But surely you owe something to your old friends?’

  They were crossing the dark tennis court and a gust of wind caught them both, whirling dead leaves in its wake, lifting the hem of Sister Joan’s habit, spiralling through Dodie’s neat, greying curls.

  ‘Old friends?’ Sister Joan heard the snap of irritation in her own voice. ‘Old friends who don’t contact me for years and then decide to involve me in something about which I know nothing! That isn’t friendship: that’s exploitation!’

  ‘Colin didn’t do it,’ Dodie repeated. ‘He couldn’t have done it!’

  ‘Why not?’ They had reached the steps and she stopped and turned, her voice low and vehement. ‘Colin likes little boys, doesn’t he? He never consummated the marriage with you! Did you know about his sexual tastes before you adopted the children?’

  ‘No, of course not! I thought he had – difficulties but I never knew that!’ Dodie exclaimed.

  ‘Otherwise you’d not have risked adopting children? Is that why they’re in boarding-school? Is that why you stay with him?’

  ‘He’d never have hurt our own children,’ Dodie said defensively, ‘but one can never be sure. I felt I ought to stay.’

  ‘What happened ten years ago?’ Sister Joan demanded. ‘Something did.’

  ‘Colin was on a big work project,’ Dodie said. ‘He was working on it with a man called Henry Clare. He and his wife came to dinner once. They were nice people. They talked about their adopted son quite a lot. They were proud of him. I talked about our two. Simon was two and Cecily was four months old. Her adoption had just gone through. I remember they talked about all the tests they’d taken and I had to sit there, nodding and agreeing as if I’d taken the same tests myself, and all the time wanting to say – our situation isn’t like yours. My husband has never slept with me. But, of course, I served coffee and chatted and envied them, because it was clear Henry Clare loved his wife, and I said nothing. I said nothing.’

  ‘And then their child disappeared,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘A few weeks later. Colin came home from work and told me. He seemed genuinely sorry. I think he was sorry.’

  ‘Because he’d killed Johnny Clare?’

  ‘No!’ Dodie said, nervously defiant as they reached the shallow steps. ‘No, Colin wasn’t like that! He was sick – it is a sickness, isn’t it? He used to knock me about from time to time and one day he told me that he was really punishing himself for what he did. He begged me to stay with him, not to leave or tell anybody. He said he’d get treatment.’

  ‘When did he confess that?’

  ‘When Johnny Clare’s body was found,’ Dodie said. ‘Honestly, he didn’t mention that had made him confide in me, but I guessed it. I guessed he’d had something to do with it – not the actual killing but helping to bury the body perhaps. The Clares had given up hope and gone back to New Zealand, and there was no way that Johnny could’ve been brought back to life! And then there were the children, my children! How could I possibly bring them into it – all the publicity and the – so I said nothing.’

  ‘And then Sally died?’

  ‘I read about that,’ Dodie said. ‘I wrote to Derek to tell him how sorry I was.’

  ‘He seems to be pretty devastated by it still,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘He couldn’t believe that it’d been an accident,’ Dodie said tensely. ‘He wrote back, thanking me for my letter, saying that he thought Sally might have been having an affair or something and had committed suicide because she was unhappy.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then I – oh, what’s that?’ Dodie had stopped dead again, her small, trim figure poised as if for flight.

  Ahead of them where the shrubbery petered out into rough grass that bordered the low wall of the enclosure gardens there were discs of light spraying the ground and voices.

  ‘Sister Joan, is that you?’

  Detective Sergeant Mill strode forward, lowering his torch. ‘Who’s with you?’

  ‘Dodie – Mrs Mason.’ Sister Joan, for the first time in their acquaintanceship, wished he had delayed his arrival for a few minutes. At her side she could feel Dodie shrink into silence again.

  ‘Dorothy Mason.’ He sounded quiet and formal, his voice devoid of feeling. ‘I’m here to arrest you for the murder of your husband, Colin Mason. You don’t have to say anything but what you do say will—’

  His words beat against the rising wind. At her side Dodie gave a little cry as if she had just pricked her finger on something.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Mill, is there anything I can do?’ Sister Joan asked. ‘Dodie has the right to a lawyer.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind telling you,’ Dodie said. ‘I couldn’t take the beatings any longer, you see, and I couldn’t go on pretending that we lived a neat, normal little life. I put a massive dose of sleeping powders in his nightcap just before we came down here.’

  ‘On Friday night?’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

  ‘Was it Friday? Yes, I believe it was,’ Dodie said. ‘He never woke up again. I packed my case and took a bus to where I’d arranged to meet Derek and Paul to come down here. I suppose it doesn’t matter now if you give the police the tie-pin, Joan.’

  ‘It’s here.’ Sister Joan took it out of her pocket.

  ‘You see it wasn’t Colin who killed the little Boswell boy,’ Dodie said. ‘Colin had been dead for ages by the time that happened.’

  ‘You’ll have to come down to the station, Mrs Mason. We’ll provide a solicitor for you,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind making a statement,’ Dodie said. ‘It’ll be a relief in a way.’

  Constable Petrie had stepped forward to take her arm. In the torchlight his young face looked embarrassed, as if escorting a woman to the police car interfered with his rosy vision of ladies.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Detective Sergeant Mill’s voice warmed slightly as he looked at Sister Joan. ‘We tried to contact Colin Mason and were informed his body had just been found. Obviously his wife left the tie-pin by the body in the hope of incriminating her husband. It was bad luck for her that the body was found and the time of death so firmly established. We’ll ask for a good local solicitor and make no objection to bail.’

  He turned away and went towards his car, leaving her standing there in the half dark.

  She felt cold and sick. If Dodie had only had the courage to seek help years before, to take her children and herself to some place of safety and to forget her suburban pride, so much pain might have been averted.

  Footsteps pounded across the rough ground before the steps. Barbara called, ‘Are you both all right? We don’t think anyone ought to go wandering about alone!’

  ‘Where’s Dodie?’ Derek, keeping pace with Barbara, stopped to look round.

  ‘I thought I heard a car!’ Fiona, slowed down by her high heels, was bringing up the rear.

  ‘The police came,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Where’s Dodie?’ Fiona had caught them up and stood, clutching a flimsy jacket round her.

  ‘The police came,’ Sister Joan said numbly. ‘She’s gone to make a statement.’

  ‘Dodie?!’ Fiona’s voice emerged as a small squeak.

  ‘She’ll not say one word about her husband,’ Derek said gloomily. ‘She’ll alibi him until the end of time.’

  ‘They can’t think that Dodie had anything to do with anything!’ Barbara said. ‘You ought to have stopped them, Joan.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ Sister Joan said irritably. ‘I can’t tell the police w
hat to do! You must think nuns have some special power denied to ordinary citizens!’

  ‘I don’t know about the rest of you,’ Derek said, ‘but I feel like a stiff drink. This place is getting on my nerves. Fiona? Barbara?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Fiona said promptly.

  ‘Joan?’ Barbara gave her a questioning look.

  ‘It’s nearly time for chapel,’ Sister Joan said. ‘You three go – and don’t get any ideas about storming the police station to rescue Dodie.’

  They went past her, Derek with an arm protectively about each of the two women. That left Paul with Serena. She turned abruptly and retraced her steps, hurrying across the rough ground, down the steps again and across the old tennis court. It was irrational but she needed to be sure.

  The front door of the postulancy was ajar. She entered the narrow hallway quietly, hearing a murmur from the recreation room. Surely they weren’t settling down to a peaceful game of Scrabble, unaware of the conflicting emotions dizzying the mind!

  They weren’t playing Scrabble. At the door Sister Joan paused, instinctively holding her breath. Not that it would have mattered if she’d arrived with trumpets and a band, she thought, staring at the two interlocked figures. Unclothed they might have posed for a sculpture representing ‘The lovers’.

  She turned and went out again, leaving the front door open, her own mind swirling with thoughts. Plump, lazy, good-natured Serena either had the power to effect an amazing conversion in Paul Vance’s sexual make-up or she had been missing something all along!

  She was going to be late for chapel. She hastened her pace, almost running by the time she reached the main house.

  The others were coming down by the main staircase from their hour of recreation. She drew a deep breath, composed her face to bland sweetness, lowered her eyes, and fell in with the others.

  In the chapel there was usually peace even when the world outside pressed down upon one’s spirits. Genuflecting, kneeling in her accustomed place, her fingers lightly clasping the rosary at her belt, her lips moving in the familiar recitation, she was outwardly indistinguishable from her companions.

  Where had it all begun? Ten youngsters coming together to study art, each one with hopes and dreams, each one with a private space into which they allowed only a few.

  Think of them as they were! Think!

  Serena had been lazy and untidy, coasting through life on her father’s money. Paul had been pleasant and ambitious and – normal. Paul had been normal. Paul, she thought suddenly, had been heterosexual all along! So for some purpose of his own he had elected to – she believed the phrase was ‘camp it up’. These days every shade of sexuality was regarded as ‘normal’. Twenty years before matters were different. ‘Coming out of the closet’ required real courage. Barbara and Bryan had had a fleeting affair and Barbara had fled to New Zealand to bear her child. Johnny Clare, adopted by the Clares who couldn’t have children of their own, nice people who’d kept in touch with Barbara. Henry Clare had worked with Dodie’s husband, with Colin Mason who’d hankered after small boys. And Colin Mason, hearing about the Clares’ little boy, had lured him away and killed him – no, Dodie had insisted that her husband would stop short of killing and, in any case, Colin Mason couldn’t have killed Finn Boswell. Whoever had killed Finn had given his name as Colin and Luther had heard it, had seen the man, his face muffled in a scarf ‘for the toothache’. Someone had said something recently. Someone had said something that didn’t fit.

  They were on the third decade of the Mysteries and she hadn’t paid the smallest attention. Faithfulness to one’s former comrades ought not to supersede fidelity to the spiritual life she was vowed to follow. She wrenched her attention back to the words and the spirit of the words, the stained-glass images of the ancient story flowing into her mind.

  ‘As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, amen.’ Mother Dorothy’s calm, even tones finished the Gloria.

  Rising from her knees, Sister Joan felt, not a sudden blaze of illumination, but the unexcited certainty of knowledge. It had come into her mind during the very time when she wasn’t thinking about it.

  The full story wasn’t yet clear but she knew who had killed Johnny Clare and Finn Boswell, Bryan and Serge and Patricia Mayne, and Sally too.

  Mother Dorothy had given her permission to talk during the grand silence if she considered it necessary. Whether she would avail herself of the permission or not she didn’t yet know, but she would certainly listen.

  She left the chapel, the drops of water from the asperges still spotting her veil, and went through to the kitchen where Sister Teresa and Sister Marie were just going into the two lay cells that opened off it. They nodded, smilingly, in her direction, Sister Marie indicating Alice who, against all the rules, was tucked up in her basket instead of patrolling the grounds like the guard dog she was training to be.

  She signalled to Sister Teresa to lock up behind her, unbolted the kitchen door, and stepped into the yard. The cobbles under her feet gleamed under the moon and as she stood still, accustoming her eyes to the darkness, the bulk of the stable, the outline of Lilith drowsing in her open stall, the scent of the fresh hay that had been piled within, the sounds of the wind as it rose and fell, scudding the wisps of dark cloud across the stars, became clear and immediate, real and familiar.

  She had said she would be in the stable. Accordingly she entered and seated herself on the hay, her back against the wall, her skirt tucked modestly down, her hands folded.

  There was a shadow thrown against the wall of the house by some trick of the light. A footfall sounded. Without moving, without raising her voice, she issued her invitation.

  ‘You had better come in and tell me all about it.’

  ‘You knew it was me?’

  ‘Not with any certainty. Not until you said that Dodie would alibi her husband. I hadn’t mentioned her husband. Nobody had.’

  ‘But his tie-pin was left by the body.’

  ‘And only Dodie and I knew that I’d found it. The only other person who knew was the one who put it there in the hope of incriminating him, not knowing that he was already dead.’

  ‘Dead!’ Derek took another step into the moonlight. ‘What the devil are you talking about? Dodie’s being questioned right now.’

  ‘About his murder,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Dodie killed him? You’re lying!’

  ‘No, it’s the truth,’ Sister Joan said. ‘She couldn’t endure her ill-treatment any longer and she fears for her own children, so she killed him before she met you and Paul and travelled down here for the retreat. You knew Colin Mason, didn’t you?’

  ‘Since I killed the Clare boy,’ Derek said. ‘You know how it is. After we left college we all went our own ways and only ran into one another from time to time. I ran into Dodie and we had a cup of coffee together. She told me she was married, had children, painted pretty pictures for greetings cards. What she didn’t know was that I knew her husband already. He and I, from time to time, frequented the same places. You know what I mean.’

  ‘I can guess,’ Sister Joan said with distaste.

  ‘After that I contacted Colin again, mentioned I’d met his wife and that she was an old fellow-student of mine. I’d married Sally, of course. Nice girl Sally! Oh, in case you’re wondering we had a perfectly satisfactory sex life. What is it they say? A woman for children, a boy for pleasure? Not that we ever managed to have children! Sally was disappointed about that. She compensated for it by taking over all my business affairs. At one time I was doing fairly well with portrait commissions, but then the recession came and we opened the fine arts shop. That just about kept our heads above water. I was very fond of Sally.’

  ‘You didn’t kill her?’

  ‘I loved her!’ he repeated, anger crackling in his voice. ‘You’re so damned narrow-minded you can’t imagine that, can you? Sally was an integral part of my life! She didn’t know about the other. But she found out, I think. Yes, she found out.�
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  ‘That you’d killed Johnny Clare?’

  ‘Colin Mason knew the Clares. That was a real stroke of luck. It led me straight to the boy. It was so simple. Colin helped me bury the body and after that, for safety’s sake, we drifted apart. And then the body was found six years later and the case was suddenly news again. Colin contacted me and we agreed to stay quiet. Always the best course of action. But Sally found out. Not everything but sufficient to make her worry, and the worry must have preyed on her mind because she went up to the top storey of that car-park, squeezed past the warning notice and jumped, fell, who knows?’

  ‘Sally had asked Barbara to meet her,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Had she? I didn’t know that. I knew they saw each other occasionally, of course. I knew that. Maybe she simply couldn’t bring herself to talk to Barbara after all and decided to – telling someone that she thought I might have been involved in the murder of that boy wouldn’t have changed what had happened.’

  ‘That boy was Barbara’s son,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘Of course I knew!’ Derek took another pace forward. ‘Bryan told me. He told me after Barbara told him about the child. He was pleased to think he’d sired a son. Bryan was pleased to think he’d sired a son! God, I never even guessed they’d ever slept together. He’d betrayed me with that mouse!’

  ‘Betrayed you?’ Sister Joan felt a long shiver run through her. ‘Are you saying that you and Bryan went to the same places?’

  ‘Never!’ Derek’s handsome dark head went up. ‘Bryan was a decent man. Fond of kids but forget anything else! In college we were – very close. Under age, of course, but we’d agreed that as soon as it was legally viable we’d live together. Discreetly, naturally. You didn’t blazon those matters abroad in those days. But by the time we left college he’d gone off the idea. He went off by himself and lived alone, and I couldn’t understand why. And then I met Serge and we got drunk together and Serge let it out. All the time Bryan was making promises to me he was sleeping with Barbara!’

  ‘Once. It happened only once.’