Security. Alice. She’d been up at the convent for quite a considerable period and Alice hadn’t put in an appearance. The puppy was always bounding about in the vicinity of the kitchen and the yard, eager to take a walk with anyone who happened to be around. Alice would certainly have come running up, tail wagging, to investigate the police cars, to greet herself. Father Stephens would have to wait a little longer for his lunch. First she’d find out where Alice was.
She turned in at the main gates and parked the car neatly at the side. If she advertised her return she was likely to get bogged down in explanations and questions. She might even cause unnecessary alarm if she started a hue and cry after the puppy. Better to have a wander round before she went into the main house.
She set off at an angle across the grass, skirting the main paths and heading for the postulancy. Alice loved exploring the shrubbery, chasing imaginary foes, stalking birds she never succeeded in catching, burying her bones for future enjoyment.
‘Alice! Alice, where are you?’ She raised her voice, pausing to disentangle a length of briar from her cloak. ‘Alice? Here, girl!’
She had pushed her way through the damp shrubbery and reached the perimeter of the tennis court. The rain was still falling lightly but the breeze was mild and the last shining surfaces of the ice had gone.
‘Were you looking for Alice, Sister?’ Sister Hilaria hove into view, her cloak flung untidily about her shoulders.
‘I didn’t see her earlier this morning,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Oh, have you been here already today?’ Sister Hilaria blinked at her. ‘I’ve been in the postulancy with my charges. We had a splendid Lenten meditation. Sister Marie said she had glimpsed a policeman in the grounds, taking photographs of the tree that was damaged. Did Mother Dorothy decide to report it after all? Or has something more serious happened?’
‘I’m sure Mother Dorothy will tell you about it,’ Sister Joan said. The prospect of trying to explain all the ramifications of recent events to the dreamy novice mistress was too daunting.
‘You were looking for Alice you said?’
‘I haven’t seen her this morning,’ Sister Joan said.
‘We had her in the postulancy,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘You know animals are very sensitive to spiritual influences. Mother Dorothy is not inclined to agree with me on that point but I felt that Alice might benefit from our meditation at some level of her nature. It is now generally accepted that domestic animals have simple souls. Probably all animals have souls of some kind. It makes me happy that we are vegetarian though I’m a trifle uneasy about fish even if Our Blessed Lord did catch them — unless those stories are symbolic for the souls of men.’
‘So Alice is with you?’
‘Since our meditation began after breakfast this morning. She lay down and went straight to sleep like a lamb — or perhaps I could say a very good little dog!’
‘Then I was worrying about nothing,’ Sister Joan said, relieved.
‘Not that Alice has reached perfection yet by any means,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘She has great propensity for digging up plants in an effort to get at her bones. And she will insist on presenting whatever she finds to us. Roots, stones, mouldy old biscuits, syringes—’
‘Syringes!!’
‘One to be exact. She trotted into the meditation with it and laid it at my feet like a gift,’ Sister Hilaria said, chuckling. ‘It was covered with dirt and soil.’
‘Where did she dig it up?’ Sister Joan asked sharply.
‘I’ve no idea — somewhere round here, I expect.’ The novice mistress looked round vaguely. ‘Certainly close enough for her to hear my voice when I called her.’
‘What did you do with the syringe?’ Sister Joan held her breath.
‘Took it away from her of course. The point might have injured her. And it was absolutely filthy, of course too. Sister Elizabeth washed it for me and put it in the cupboard. I meant to ask Sister Perpetua if she ever used a syringe. I didn’t think she did but one finds it so difficult to keep up with the speed of events these days.’
‘If Detective Sergeant Mill comes over to speak to you will you give it to him?’
‘Yes, of course I will, Sister,’ Sister Hilaria said, ‘but I can’t think why he would want to speak to me. I know nothing about the damage to the tree.’
‘But you do have some knowledge of evil,’ Sister Joan said.
‘And of its coming.’ Sister Hilaria’s somewhat prominent eyes clouded over slightly. ‘There is a great deal of it about these days. The darkness rises up, I feel. Do you want me to fetch Alice?’
‘No, as long as she’s all right. I have to get back.’ Sister Joan nodded and turned away, retracing her footsteps to the driveway where her car waited.
Settling herself behind the wheel she started up the engine and drove fast through the gates out on to the track. Sister Hilaria would completely forget about the syringe within the hour and the syringe was important. Sister Perpetua certainly didn’t own one. But someone had buried it near the postulancy. Someone had slashed the tree and destroyed the holly bushes.
She reached the main road again, turned towards the town centre and slammed on her brakes as a policeman on traffic duty shook an admonitory finger at her.
‘Sorry, Officer!’ She stuck her head out of the window.
‘Trying to book yourself an early place in heaven, Sister? Remember the speed limit,’ he called.
‘Sorry.’ She drove on more carefully, reminding herself that one of her first tasks was to curb her own impulsiveness.
‘Sister, you’re very late.’ Father Stephens greeted her coldly as she hurried into the house.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Father. I was delayed up at the convent. I’ll get your lunch directly. Will you have the warmed-over stew or would you prefer an egg on toast?’
‘Anything quick,’ he said irritably. ‘I have some sick calls to make this afternoon, and Father Timothy wants to telephone his old seminary and write some letters before he takes confession.’ Father Stephens went, heavy-footed and disapproving, into the dining-room.
Sister Joan pulled off her cloak and went into the kitchen, grabbing a saucepan and filling it from the tap, putting in four eggs, switching on the cooker and toaster, slicing bread. All actions to be performed automatically while her mind grappled with other things.
‘You haven’t forgotten the Sacrifice of Penance, Sister?’ Father Timothy, coming through the hall, paused at the kitchen door.
‘No, Father, I’ll be at confession later. Thank you for reminding me‚’ she said bleakly.
No doubt he was saving up a humdinger of a penance especially for her, she mused gloomily.
‘I’ve been hoping we might have some suitable applicants for the post of housekeeper‚’ Father Stephens said, looking at her with rather more favour when she carried in the eggs and toast. ‘I was a little short with you just now, but it does seem that you seem to be running backwards and forwards between two points and not fully devoting yourself to either of them.’
‘One cannot serve God and Mammon,’ she said.
‘A singularly inappropriate remark,’ Father Timothy said with a wintry little smile.
‘Sorry, Father.’ She set down the food and went back into the kitchen to collect the coffee pot, thinking resentfully that she seemed to spend a lot of time these days apologizing to people. Perhaps a good solid bout in the confessional would do her some good.
‘Are things going smoothly in the convent?’ Father Stephens asked as she poured the two coffees.
‘I — think so, Father. I doubt if my absence is much missed. Sister Jerome and Sister Teresa seem to be managing very well between them.’
‘And you’ve heard no further developments concerning these recent most unfortunate affairs? Mrs Fairly’s death and the two young women?’
‘The police take their own time, Father. I daresay we’ll be told when something happ—excuse me.’
She broke off
as the telephone rang in the study.
‘Get that, will you, Sister? If it’s someone applying for the post I’ll be able to interview them later this afternoon,’ Father Stephens said. ‘About six.’
‘Our Lady of — oh, Detective Sergeant Mill!’ She broke off as his voice interrupted her at the end of the line.
‘Sister Joan? Good, glad I’ve caught you. We just got the autopsy report on that first body.’
‘Yes?’ Instinctively she had tensed herself.
‘Healthy until he was axed to death, non-smoker, liver in good condition, but there’s something more. He was a diabetic, Sister. Traces of insulin in the blood and the marks of frequent injections. The pathologist had noticed them before and wondered if he was a junkie. Now we should be able to find out who he was fairly soon. Merely a question of checking all those in the area who get regular supplies of insulin from their local GP and finding out who’s gone missing. I’ll be in touch.’
He had rung off before she could answer him, leaving her clutching the phone.
Thirteen
‘Is everything all right, Sister?’ Father Stephens had come into the study and was frowning at her in a concerned fashion as she turned.
‘Thank you, yes. That was Detective Sergeant Mill,’ she said after only a momentary pause. ‘It may be necessary for me to call in at the police station a little later.’
‘Does that mean supper will also be delayed?’ he enquired.
‘No, Father. I’ll be back in good time.’
‘If you must you must, I suppose,’ he said with somewhat heavy patience.
‘I’ll see to the clearing-up first,’ she said placatingly.
There was little point in rushing off to the police station at this moment. The phone call had been a hurried one, probably, she guessed, because Detective Sergeant Mill was on the verge of driving back to the convent to interview Sister Jerome again. She would look in at the station later in the hope that he might have returned. By then he might have much more to tell her.
Meanwhile there were the dishes to be washed, the carpets to be vacuumed and the surfaces dusted. Mrs Fairly had been dead for such a little while and yet the lack of her careful housewifery was already becoming apparent.
‘I’d better get on with my parish visiting then.’ Father Stephens, mercifully refraining from asking any more questions, turned and went out.
From the dining-room his voice issued cheerfully.
‘Would you like to come with me, Father Timothy? We’ll be back before you need to go into the confessional. You can ring your seminary later.’
‘Very well, Father.’ Father Timothy answered flatly, without intonations of any feelings one way or the other.
‘What I would not enjoy very much,’ Sister Joan muttered under her breath, ‘would be to be ill and to have Father Timothy visit me on the same day.’
Through the back window the square bulk of the refuse bin partly blocked the light. Now, at least, she had an excuse to go out into the back and wheel it down the side path to the front gate where it would be emptied later.
The front door closed behind the two priests and, waiting a few moments to give them time to reach the garage, she opened the back door and went out.
The empty box she had wrapped up so carefully in brown paper and Sellotape had been removed. She dislodged a couple of the black plastic sacks in case it had been pushed further down but there was no sign of it.
She had been correct in her assumption then. The handbag had been roughly wrapped and put in the bin because there hadn’t been time to investigate it on the night of Mrs Fairly’s murder. Someone had gone there, either after nightfall or during one of her absences from the presbytery to remove it and examine it at leisure.
She wheeled the bin out to the front gate and went back indoors. Whoever had taken the parcel from the bin must know by now that the handbag had been found and a trap set. Sooner or later someone would show his hand.
The rain had stopped and a faint warmth blew on the breeze through the open window of her bedroom. She had made her bed automatically on waking according to conventual habit but she was fairly certain that the two clerics hadn’t.
Their rooms were at the other side of the square hallway. Father Stephens had kept his own room, she supposed, noticing a rather touching collection of family photographs on the wall. A cherubic baby in a romper suit held by two proud parents looked as if even then he had been thinking about his Easter sermon; a small boy with his fair hair neatly slicked down held a trophy for something or other; a chubby teenager sat on the arm of a chair with his hand on his father’s shoulder; an earnest theological student stood taller than both parents, smiling into the camera. The room was neat even though the bed hadn’t been made, a red rug splashing brightness across the floor.
She made the bed, folded the pyjamas, noting with amusement that Father Stephens favoured a rather jazzy design, and went into the slightly larger room which Father Malone had clearly occupied until recently. The bookcase held his battered collection of old Rider Haggard and John Buchan novels; a pencil sketch of St Patrick exiling the snakes from Ireland hung over the dressing-table, and in a niche between two walls a highly coloured plaster statuette of St Brigid, the ‘Mary of the Gael’ stood with clasped hands.
The bed had been made, the coverlet smoothed over a curiously flat surface.
Sister Joan stared at it for a few seconds, then abruptly stooped to look under the bed. As she had thought the mattress was stowed there. Father Timothy had elected to sleep on the wooden base. At least he couldn’t be accused of preaching penance when he didn’t practise it, she thought. His suitcase stood against the wall. She opened the wardrobe door and looked at the black suit and soutane hanging there next to a brown dressing-gown. There was no overt sign of family photographs or any personal possessions. Perhaps he hadn’t put them out yet. She closed the door of the wardrobe and bent to the suitcase. It was unlocked and held only a couple of thin towels.
He had had two suitcases, she recalled, one full of paperback books. That was the one she had carried for him and thought very light considering its contents. Presumably he’d put it somewhere else. She took a last look round and went into the room next door. Father Malone had taken his own shabby luggage with him and there were no cases in Father Stephens’s room either save a neat weekend case.
The guest bedroom? She went in, looked round and saw Father Stephens’s larger case, his initials on the handle, against the wall. Where had Father Timothy put his extra suitcase and the paperback books it had held?
The airing cupboard, the bathroom and the upstairs broom cupboard held nothing that resembled books or suitcase. Going downstairs she looked rapidly in the cupboards there with the same lack of results. There remained the sacristy. She opened the door, marking with a frown that nobody had troubled to lock it, and looked round at the shelves and cupboards with their consignments of surplices, missals, candles and packets of incense. No suitcase anywhere. Only the richly embroidered copes hanging in the largest cupboard, and on the wall a list of parish notices. The room was still and stuffy, the scent of burnt wax and incense lingering.
‘Eureka!’ She uttered the word in a tone of triumph as she suddenly saw it, balancing on top of a low cupboard with a pile of altar cloths covering it. There was a stool in the corner. She pulled it into position, climbed onto it, lifted down the cloths, put them on the table, climbed up again and lifted the suitcase down. It was empty. The light weight of it told her that even before she set it down and knelt to the lock.
The case opened easily and she lifted the lid, sitting back on her heels with a disappointed shake of her head as she stared at the empty interior. If it had held books they had been removed. On the handle the initials M.T. were almost rubbed away.
She lifted the case back up to the cupboard and replaced the cloths. There was no reason why Father Timothy shouldn’t put one of his cases in the sacristy. It was obviously an old one, shabbier than the
one in his room. Brushing dust from her hands she went thoughtfully back into the house. Something was nagging at the back of her mind but she couldn’t formulate it into a thought.
On the study table near the telephone a pad held useful telephone numbers, scribbled messages. She went in and sat down to look at it. Father Malone’s neat, crabbed hand filled the pages, reminders to get his hair cut and buy toothpaste interspersed with odd numbers jotted down at various times, a list of first communicants and — yes, here it was — Our Lady of Good Hope Seminary and the number next to it.
She lifted the receiver and dialled, wondering when Father Malone would get round to acquiring a more modern instrument. At the other end the ringing had a curious echo, as if it reflected the stone-clad spaces within the seminary. The ringing stopped.
‘Our Lady Of Good Hope Seminary. Father Anselm speaking.’
It was a cheerful voice with a Lancashire accent.
‘This is Sister Joan. I’m calling from Father Malone’s parish in—’
‘Yes, of course.’ The voice broke in breezily. ‘We were in contact with Father Malone recently. What can I do for you, Sister?’
‘You’ve not heard anything of events down here?’ she began.
‘Events? Father Malone left for his sabbatical, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. Yes he left. I meant events reported in the newspapers.’
A VOW OF PENANCE an utterly gripping crime mystery Page 15