A Vow Of Chastity

by Veronica Black

‘And school finishes?’ He glanced up.

  ‘At 3.30 on a normal day — sometimes a little earlier or later. It takes me about half an hour to clear round, lock up and ride home.’

  ‘So long? The school’s only a couple of miles from here, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t indulge myself with tearing gallops across the countryside,’ she said coldly.

  ‘And the holy water would have been taken sometime before Wednesday evening. Did anyone notice how much water was left on Tuesday evening?’

  ‘The aspergillum was full on Tuesday and almost full on Wednesday — it is used for Benediction and the blessing before grand silence, and refilled as necessary. There was a trace of water in the stoup. I recall thinking that Sister David must refill it.’

  ‘From the cans?’

  ‘Yes, but they were due to be refilled anyway,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘Usually Father Malone comes up to bless the water, but on Thursday morning he rushed off before Sister Margaret could ask him, so she drove over later in the morning to the presbytery.’

  ‘That seems clear enough.’ He frowned at his notes. ‘Mother Dorothy, I want you to ask your nuns to sit down and go back over the entire week in their minds. Did any of them notice anyone hanging round the convent? As the outer door to the visitors’ parlour was kept unlocked the person must have entered through that way.’

  ‘And that door is at the side, not overlooked by any windows other than the storerooms above the chapel wing. Anyone could have come and gone.’

  ‘You didn’t notice anyone following you home on Monday afternoon?’

  Sister Joan shook her head. ‘One or two cars passed me in the distance on the road beyond the moor. I didn’t pay them any attention.’

  ‘The community is in a state of grief and shock,’ Mother Prioress said. ‘Will it be necessary for you to question them immediately?’

  ‘Not if I can avoid it, Mother Dorothy, but make sure they start thinking hard about the events of this week. About Sister Margaret?’

  ‘When the pathologist has made his report we shall expect her to be brought here to be laid in the convent cemetery,’ the Prioress said. ‘I have telephoned her parents and they will be here in a few hours. For the present Sister Teresa will take over the duties of lay sister, with help from the rest of the community.’

  ‘I can have the bod — Sister Margaret brought back here by tomorrow evening.’

  ‘The funeral will be on Monday. In the afternoon since Petroc Lee is to be buried in the morning, and both Sister Joan and Sister David ought to be present as well as myself. Thank you, Sergeant.’

  ‘I doubt there’ll be any surprises,’ he said, rising and beginning to collect up his notes. ‘She was clearly killed by a blow to the temple with some heavy object. I’m hazarding a guess that when we find the missing candlestick we’ll have the murder weapon. Possibly she heard someone trying to get in at the side door, opened it and whoever was there rushed past her, seized the first heavy thing to hand and hit her with it as she was re-entering the door.’

  ‘Her coif and veil were half off,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Then possibly Sister Margaret was on her way through the door and the other yanked her back by her veil and struck her as she turned.’

  ‘Sister Margaret was a plump woman,’ she frowned. ‘She was physically quite strong.’

  ‘Suggesting the attacker was a heavily built man. We shall know more about that when we know the angle at which the blow was struck. Meanwhile, Mother Dorothy, please accept my condolences. I am treating the two deaths as connected for the moment but there is also the possibility that they are not.’

  ‘Sister Joan, please see the officers to the door,’ Mother Dorothy instructed.

  On the front step Detective Sergeant Mill paused, waving his companion ahead. ‘I brought back the rosary, Sister. No prints on it except Sister Margaret’s. Not as many of those as I’d have expected either. Looks as if someone wiped it clean. Oh, and there are none of the lad’s prints on it. So it was put into his pocket after he died.’

  ‘You had it mended.’ Taking it from him she held it up.

  ‘It was described and photographed in its original state in case it ever figures as evidence. I reckon it’s no use to her now.’

  ‘It will be buried with her, according to custom. Thank you.’

  ‘Sister.’ Nodding, he looked for a moment as if he wanted to say something else, but instead turned and went down the steps towards the police car.

  ‘Mother Dorothy.’ Turning back into the parlour she spoke abruptly. ‘May I use the car?’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘I want to go over to the school and check the place. Nobody thought of searching there, and there may be something — it’s better than sitting still.’

  ‘You will have to make greater efforts to control your restlessness, Sister,’ the Prioress said severely. ‘However it may yield some result. Please be back in time for study period.’

  ‘If I need to drive anywhere else—?’

  ‘If you consider further driving absolutely necessary,’ Mother Dorothy said wearily, ‘then you have my permission, Sister. I would remind you that your first duty is to your sisters here.’

  ‘I thought of going to see the parents to tell them—’

  ‘I imagine the police will do that if and when they consider it necessary.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’

  Going out to the car, passing the kitchen where a red-eyed Sister Teresa was washing dishes, she felt her restlessness mount into impatience. If she could have talked to the parents perhaps an unguarded word, an expression inappropriate for the occasion, might have given her a clue that the police might miss. On the other hand her own efforts might well hamper them.

  The school building looked as if it were crouching in its hollow with the green buds of the gorse springing around it. That, she reminded herself, would have to be cut back before much longer. A car was approaching, swerving nearer and stopping, as she alighted from the old jalopy.

  ‘Sister Joan, glad I caught you!’

  ‘Mr Lee, what happened to the pick-up?’ she enquired.

  ‘Flat tyre, so Gideon Evans lent me this. Keeps it very nice, Gideon does, but I’m not at home in it so to speak.’

  I was on my way to the convent. Someone told me there’d been police cars and an ambulance heading in that direction early this morning.’

  ‘I very much fear‚’ she said gravely, ‘that the person who killed Petroc has — well, Sister Margaret was found dead this morning in the little corridor between the chapel and the visitors’ parlour.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’ He spoke almost angrily. ‘Not Sister Margaret, not — why, she was one of the nicest women you could hope to meet. Sensible and understood how folk ticked — not a bit like a — begging your pardon, Sister. What happened?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. Apparently she opened the side door and someone rushed in and killed her.’

  ‘How? She was a bonny woman and would’ve fought back.’

  ‘She received a blow to the temple hard enough to kill her instantly. There is a candlestick missing from the altar — what is it, Mr Lee?’

  ‘A big silver candlestick? Heavy? With a square base and bits of wax in the top where a candle had been?’

  ‘Yes. Have you seen it?’

  ‘Not more than a couple of hours ago. I was taking a look through the scrap — a big pile of stuff was collected recently and with all the grief over Petroc nobody’s sorted it out yet. There was a candlestick lying on top. My Tabitha said she’d seen it lying at the edge of the camp and put it on the pile.’

  ‘What did you do with it?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘I set Tabitha and Edith to polishing it,’ he said, looking anxious. ‘I was going to ask around because I’d have sworn it was good silver, but then the pick-up wouldn’t start, and it went clean out of my head. I’d better tell someone or perhaps you’d—?’

  ‘Mr L
ee, this time you have to make your own report,’ she said firmly. ‘The police have been very decent — releasing your brother before time—’

  ‘As they should him being innocent and Petroc his only boy — all right, Sister, I’ll drive straight into Bodmin and let them know.’

  ‘If someone else had thrown it on the scrapheap,’ she detained him to ask, ‘wouldn’t the camp dogs have barked?’

  ‘Them animals is always barking. Nobody pays them heed.’

  ‘I see. Mr Lee, I was so sorry about Petroc.’

  ‘No sorrier than his killer’s going to be when I get my hands on him.’ The dark face was grim. ‘You think the same person did in — killed Sister Margaret too? You ought not to be wandering about by yourself, Sister.’

  ‘Oh, I’m perfectly safe,’ she assured him. ‘Do go and report that candlestick now.’

  Unlocking the door, she stepped into the little hall with the cloakroom off at one side and the classroom ahead. With its chemical toilets which the Council emptied every other week, its wood-burning stove, its paraffin lamp to be lit only on the darkest winter morning it was a far cry from the technology of more modern schools but she had liked it the moment she had laid eyes on it the previous year. There was an air of cosiness about the long room with its two groups of desks, the swivel blackboard, the children’s drawings tacked up on the wall. The familiar scent of chalk and polish hung on the air.

  She moved from desk to desk, lifting each lid. The children usually carried their books to and from school and the shelves at the side held the supply of textbooks — all, she reflected, slightly out of date but when she had suggested buying new ones Mother Dorothy had demurred.

  ‘We are not made of money, Sister. I am aware that Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe but the actual country is still in the same position on all the maps and you are at liberty to ink in corrections.’

  All the children had scratched their names on the inside lids of their desks. It was, she pondered, tracing the spindly capitals of Petroc with a sad finger, their way of staking out their territory. Even the Penglows had put their names. The great mystery was that no teacher ever caught them in the act of doing it. No, Samantha Olive hadn’t inscribed her desk lid. No need to establish herself or no sense of identity? Whatever the reason only the names of previous pupils marked the smooth inner surface of the wood.

  She went to the main desk from which she surveyed her class every morning and took out paper and pen. The list of questions unravelled from her hand.

  (i) Who has been sneaking into the chapel to take candles, flowers and holy water and why?

  (ii) Why have the children been so unnaturally good all term?

  (iii) Where did Sister Margaret lose her rosary and what made her remember?

  (iv) What ‘evil’ did both old Hagar and Mr Holt sense?

  She crumpled up the paper and aimed it neatly into the wastepaper basket as the outer door opened and Detective Sergeant Mill walked in.

  ‘I saw that old wreck your community laughingly refers to as a car,’ he said without greeting. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Sister Joan?’

  ‘I’ve a perfect right to be here. I do teach here, you know? Anyway I thought it possible there might be something in one of the children’s desks that might help—’

  ‘We already looked,’ he said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When Sister — the little nun who looks like a rabbit was deputizing for you.’

  ‘Sister David and she’s very efficient. She’s also a Latin scholar.’

  ‘Thanks for the reference.’ He let amusement creep into his smile. ‘Seriously, did you fancy that we wouldn’t look here?’

  ‘I didn’t think — and Sister David never mentioned it.’

  ‘Does Sister David have to report to you?’ he enquired.

  ‘No, of course not.’ She frowned, thinking that Mother Dorothy might have mentioned the fact that the desks had already been searched, or had she thought that Sister Joan might find something the police had overlooked? More probably she had decided to let her come here in the hope that it might assuage her restlessness.

  ‘We found nothing you wouldn’t find in any school‚’ he told her. ‘I take it that you haven’t either?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ she admitted.

  ‘You’ve been making notes.’ He stooped to the wastepaper basket and smoothed out the paper.

  ‘Amateur stuff,’ she said uncomfortably.

  ‘But quite acute. Have the kids been unnaturally good?’

  ‘Like angels. Very unnatural.’

  ‘Any ideas why?’

  ‘Nothing to speak of.’

  She hadn’t the right to point him in any particular direction.

  ‘What’s this about “evil”?’

  ‘Old Hagar up at the camp and Timothy’s father both commented, independently, that they were conscious of the presence of evil. I suppose you don’t believe in that?’

  ‘You can’t be a policeman and not believe in the reality of evil,’ he answered sombrely. ‘Man is a sick animal, Sister Joan. Make no mistake about that.’

  ‘And can also rise near to the angels,’ she said.

  ‘You’re an idealist, Sister.’ He smiled at her in a companionable fashion. ‘Also it may not be such a good idea for you or any of the community to go wandering alone in lonely places. I’m only assuming the two deaths are connected but the modus operandi was different in each case. So why not drive back to the convent and do — whatever nuns do all day?’

  ‘I have some visits to make first. Sergeant, have you seen Padraic Lee?’

  ‘Not this morning. Why?’

  ‘He is very probably waiting for you down at the station then. His little girl found a heavy candlestick this morning, flung on the edge of the camp. She assumed it was scrap metal and took it to the wagon.’

  ‘He brought it to the station?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘He didn’t know that anything had happened to Sister Margaret. Tabitha — his daughter is busily cleaning the candlestick up.’

  ‘Damn and blast!’ he exploded.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Mill!’

  ‘Sorry, Sister Joan, but it’s enough to make a saint swear. I’d better get down there at once. How did you happen to know?’

  ‘Mr Lee was driving past and saw the convent car.’

  ‘Get your visiting done,’ he said curtly, ‘and then get back to the convent.’

  ‘“Get thee to a nunnery”?’ she queried with a flash of mischief.

  ‘That’s the burden of it, Sister. Thanks for the information.’

  He went out, and she sat for a moment listening to the car drive away. He had taken her paper with him. She wondered if her own list of queries had stirred anything in his mind, or did he see her as a meddling amateur?

  There had been another question she hadn’t written down. The oddly sinister little rhyme that Samantha had produced for the homework task lingered like a bad taste.

  They say daffodils are trumpets.

  I say daffodils are strumpets,

  And lads are bad and girls black pearls

  And little roses full of worms.

  In the deserted classroom the words had a chilling ring. She shivered slightly and hurried to lock up and get into the car.

  Driving up to the greenway she thrust down the doubts that were crowding into her head. Ought she to have mentioned the rhyme to Detective Sergeant Mill? Did she have the right to direct his thoughts towards people who might be completely innocent? Children often went through a morbid phase when they were nearing puberty.

  She parked below the crest in a dip of the land that effectively concealed the car from any casual glance. On Saturdays people often went out shopping or into town. She would have her words ready should it prove otherwise with the Olives.

  ‘I’m very sorry to trouble you but I suppose you have heard of the very tragic event early this morning at the convent. I was wondering if you would care to give something t
owards a wreath for Sister Margaret?’

  In daylight the big house lost its sinister aspect and became a large, bleak stone building that needed repointing and painting. She walked up to the front door and pulled the bell rope vigorously, hearing the echoing jangle within the house. Nobody came to open the door; no head poked out of a window. She rang the bell again with the same result and then walked slowly round to the back.

  Here was a yard with a wash house and line. There was a washing machine in the wash house, its gleaming white incongruous against the dirty whitewashed walls.

  The back door was locked. Sister Joan scowled at it. When one contemplated action it was frustrating to be defeated by an inanimate object.

  ‘The coal chute?’ She asked herself the question aloud as she looked around. There was no coal chute but there was another door, its surface pitted with woodworm, its padlock not completely secured.

  If I hadn’t entered the religious life I’d have made a splendid burglar, she decided, wrenching the padlock open and pulling at the door.

  Steep steps led into blackness and the air was musty. The opening of the door admitted sufficient light to reveal another door at the bottom. She went down cautiously, glad that the grey habit of her order reached only to the ankles and didn’t trail on the ground. The door at the bottom of the stairs creaked when she turned the knob and pushed it ajar.

  This was the cellar which was unsafe according to what the Olives had said. She hoped the day’s adventure wouldn’t end with herself buried under a pile of rubble. So far, and making allowances for her limited vision in the deep gloom, everything seemed solid enough.

  There was nothing there but a small, bare, very grubby cellar, with a further flight of stairs leading up to the ground floor. She mounted the stairs and opened the door, finding herself in the corridor that led past the main staircase into the front hall.

  This was the door from which the new au pair, Jan Heinz, had emerged on the evening she and Sister Margaret had come visiting. She went to the foot of the stairs, looking up, listening to her own heartbeats in the silence of the house.

  Then she was climbing the stairs, uncomfortably aware that the fact nothing in the rule specifically forbade the Daughters of Compassion to break into empty houses, was no excuse at all. Only her motive mitigated her fault.