A Vow Of Chastity

by Veronica Black

  ‘You picked up the candle‚’ Sister Joan said carefully.

  ‘And then I ran‚’ Samantha said simply. ‘I went by way of the camp and threw the candlestick there. I had my gloves on. You have to wear gloves when you’re taking things, you know. That’s very important, I kept the candle but it didn’t match the others so I put it in the furnace.’

  ‘You’re very bright for your age.’ She kept her voice level, mildly interested.

  ‘Yes, I have a very high IQ and I think that’s nice. It would make me very useful in a convent.’

  ‘So bright that I can’t understand why you didn’t ask someone for help if you were frightened about what was going on. People listen to children these days. There is a Help Line you can ring.’

  ‘But if I’d done that,’ Samantha said, ‘the welfare people would have taken me away. I like having pretty things and my own room and being able to wander about without people going on at me about where I get to and what I do. And it would be very wrong to tell on your parents. Only, sometimes—’ Her brow creased and she hugged herself as if an icy wind had ruffled the borders of her rose-patterned pyjamas. ‘Sometimes it’s like there’s another Samantha inside me that gets so frightened and wants to be safe. Isn’t it funny, Sister?’

  ‘No,’ said Sister Joan. ‘No — it isn’t very funny.’

  ‘The point is,’ Samantha said, ‘what are we going to do about it all. Was it you went into the cellar and dropped the photo album? I found it on the floor and I put it back. I didn’t tell on you, Sister. And of course you can’t tell on me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re a nun and I just confessed to you. People can’t tell what they hear in confession if they’re nuns, can they? I heard that somewhere.’

  ‘Priests can’t tell, Samantha. Priests are bound by the seal of the confessional. Confessions made to anyone else, even nuns, don’t count. You’re not a Catholic or you would understand that. I can tell. It’s my duty to do so.’

  ‘But then I won’t be able to go into a convent when I’m eighteen.’ Panic flashed into the small face. I’ll be safe in a convent and my chastity won’t be spoilt. I can leave the other Samantha outside—’

  ‘The other?’

  ‘The one who goes out and picks the pretty children and invites them home for Daddy to play with while Mummy’s in bed with someone or other. She likes pleasing her daddy because then he leaves her alone. Nobody really loves him, you see, because he’s got a club foot just like the Devil. So the children have to be brought to him and then afterwards he and I watch the videos and sort through the photos, and then some of them get sold. But I didn’t want it to be Petroc, Sister. He was a nice boy. Don’t you think he was a nice boy? If he got dead then nobody could spoil him, could they?’

  And Lucifer, thought Sister, wasn’t a Dutch au pair but the child standing near to him when she and Sister Hilaria had stopped on their way to the dentist. The novice mistress had been referring in her usual, disconnected way to the child when she spoke of Lucifer. In the speech patterns of a woman whose mind was nearer heaven than earth had lain the answers to the questions.

  ‘You are — a very sick little girl,’ she said slowly. ‘You have to understand that you are a very sick little girl, Samantha. You need — help. You need—’

  In olden days they would have burned her at the stake, recognizing evil in the flowerlike soul of a corrupted child. In these more enlightened times they called it sickness and treated it with medicine — or were these times more enlightened?

  ‘I need to be protected,’ Samantha said. ‘I hoped you’d do it. That’s why I wrote that little verse. I thought it might give you a clue, that it might help you to — stop me — stop the other Samantha, you see, and then I can go into the convent and be pure all my life. But you won’t help me. You’ll run off and tell on me, and then the welfare people will take me away. You’re just a bitch, Sister Joan. A dried-up, frustrated old bitch — just like my daddy said. He laughs about you, Sister. You and that fat cow you brought with you to talk about stupid school projects. You’re a — oh, excuse me. That really isn’t very polite, is it?’

  ‘Not in the least polite,’ said Detective Sergeant Mill as he pushed the door wider and entered the room.

  Samantha had jerked around, staring at him. Then with a swift, convulsive movement, headed towards Sister Joan, burying her face in the grey skirt of the habit.

  ‘Sergeant—’ Sister Joan looked up into a face from which all disrespectful teasing had fled.

  ‘You must detach yourself, Sister,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I know.’ She looked down with pity wrenching her heart and then spoke steadily. ‘Get up, Samantha. If you are going to enter the religious life you must learn to do as you’re bidden by your superior in the religious life, you know.’

  A policewoman had come in. Somewhere in the house sounded a babble of voices, the thudding of feet.

  Samantha lifted her head. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, her eyes shining.

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ she said meekly, and rose, her smile widening as she glanced towards the detective. ‘They can’t keep me for ever, can they, Sister? Not a child of eleven?’

  ‘Take her down to the station,’ he said curtly to the policewoman. ‘Watch her. She’s paranoid.’

  ‘Yes, Detective Sergeant. Come along, Samantha.’ The policewoman put out her hand.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Samantha said sharply. ‘You look to me like the sort of woman who goes with men. Don’t you touch me. I can walk all by myself.’

  Walking out, she looked back briefly as she reached the door and her face was filled with all the laughter of childhood.

  ‘Your prioress was still up,’ he said to Sister Joan. ‘She saw you through the window, galloping off hell-for-leather across the moor and telephoned me. I’d just got back with the search warrant—’

  ‘You got it then?’

  ‘Kiki Svenson rang the station late last night with a garbled tale of having run off when she found out the sort of fun and games that’s been going on here. I took a tip from you and came in via the cellar. I’ve got to get back to the station. There are charges to be made, arrangements — shall I run you back to the convent first?’

  ‘I’ve tethered Lilith below the greenway. I need some fresh air.’

  ‘You look,’ he said as she rose shakily, ‘as if you need a stiff brandy.’

  ‘I think,’ she said, trying to smile, ‘that I’ve broken quite enough rules recently.’

  ‘I’ll be along later today to fill in the pieces. Ride carefully, Sister Joan.’

  ‘Yes. Detective Sergeant.’

  She went past him into the hall. Police cars were driving away, two officers coming from the cellar with piles of videos and albums. A bewildered and beautiful Jan Heinz went past, protesting volubly in Dutch. victim or willing accomplice? They were all, she thought, hurrying towards the gate victims of one kind or another.

  Fourteen

  ‘It is rather difficult to know where to start, Sister Joan.’ Mother Dorothy cupped her chin in her hand and frowned at the younger woman.

  ‘I have been greatly at fault, Reverend Mother,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘You have certainly broken a great many rules — not only the rule on which our order is based but legal rules. To enter a private house in such an unauthorized fashion is really quite shocking. Think of the scandal if you had been charged.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘If you had sought permission — but then you knew such permission would not be given. So you went ahead and followed your own instincts, forgetting that we lead a life that is based not upon individual instinct but the moral law. You did right to tell me in private. These matters are not for general confession.’

  Sister Joan, on her knees, glanced up and caught a faint quirk on her superior’s grim mouth.

  ‘The entire community would be scandalized,’ Mother Dorothy was continuing. ‘I fear that y
our heart frequently rules your head, Sister, and I also fear that you set up your own will too often against the will of the community. We can only be grateful that God turned your ill-considered actions to the solving of the crime.’

  ‘Perhaps the end did justify the means?’ Sister Joan ventured.

  ‘An excellent maxim for a Jesuit. You are not a Jesuit so spare me your clever comments.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘As to penance — your notion of rushing off to spend a period in retreat is simply a desire to escape. Who is going to run the school when you are gone? Sister David has quite sufficient to do already and I certainly cannot spare any of the others. What effect will it have upon your pupils with whom you had planned to do this project? They will already have lost two of their fellows and your sudden leaving will make them even more insecure.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘The trouble with you, Sister, is that you seldom do think. You rush into things. That is a sign of spiritual immaturity. This desire for retreat is an example of that. Selfish indulgence were you to undertake it at the present time. On the other hand you certainly need a period of self-examination. During the summer vacation might be arranged. At our retreat up in Scotland — for a period not exceeding one month.’

  ‘Thank you, Reverend Mother.’ Sister Joan beamed at her.

  ‘As for a more immediate penance — since a retreat cannot ever be considered such — you will not leave these premises save to go to the school until the end of the summer term. Is that absolutely clear? I put you on your honour.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘Then God bless you and give you more sense of what is fitting for a Daughter of our order. Now go and let the detective sergeant in for he has just driven up beyond the window. Oh, and Sister—’

  ‘Reverend Mother?’

  ‘You are dealing with that particular temptation in a praiseworthy manner — so far. Remember that we do not lock ourselves away from human affection. We seek to transcend it. Show the detective sergeant in and then you may stay. Since you are involved you had better hear what he has to say.’

  ‘I hoped to get away sooner,’ he apologized as Sister Joan opened the door. ‘This has been a fair old day, Sister.’

  ‘Indeed it has, Sergeant. Please, come into the parlour. Reverend Mother is waiting.’

  He looked weary but satisfied.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Mill, good afternoon.’ Mother Dorothy inclined her head slightly. ‘Sister Joan has told me part of what has happened. I find it unutterably shocking.’

  ‘Child abuse always is, Mother Dorothy,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Was the child, Samantha—?’ She paused, deep distaste on her face.

  ‘Not physically. Thank you.’ He took the chair she indicated. ‘She was the bait as far as we have been able to ascertain. Julia Olive is singing like a canary — says her husband forced everything on her. She seems to have consoled herself with a string of young men and to have enjoyed the creature comforts his trade brought her while closing her eyes to what was going on. We’re waiting for an interpreter so we can question the Heinz lad, but I’m personally convinced that he hadn’t much to do with anything. He’s far too recent on the scene and this appears to have been going on for years. They lived out in India after their marriage; then a couple of years back they moved to London where he built up a very lucrative little porno business until the Vice Squad starting nosing round and he came down here.’

  ‘To taint the landscape,’ Mother Dorothy said.

  ‘Well put, ma’am.’ He nodded approval. ‘Now round here we have poaching, the odd break-in, senior schoolkids getting hold of some grass — marijuana or sniffing glue, an occasional domestic killing — but on the whole we’re a law-abiding community. I was transferred here nearly a year ago from Taunton and the situation’s much the same there. Straight crime and not too much of that.’

  ‘Have the Olives been charged?’

  ‘With offences against the Public Decency Act. That’ll hold them for the moment. We have to make enquiries in detail further afield before we can throw the book at them. Oh, I’ve entered in my report that we searched the house after “information received”.’ That means that Sister Joan won’t be required to give evidence. It’ll be tacitly assumed that we got a tip off from the underworld.’

  ‘Sister Joan would certainly not wish for any publicity,’ Mother Dorothy agreed. ‘The child—?’

  ‘Paranoid, though I’ve no doubt the psychiatrists will have some fancy new term for it.’ He grimaced briefly. ‘She’s chatting away about what she did to anyone who’ll listen. Her parents let her wander about all over the place, no supervision. She insists that her father had nothing to do with Petroc Lee’s death. She rigged it up, gave the boy the wine, sugared and doctored, and killed him by mistake. Clive Olive hasn’t admitted any involvement as yet but it seems fairly clear that he found the body and drove over to the convent with it. Left it in your lap, so to speak. Macabre.’

  ‘Very.’ She snapped off the word like a thread of cotton.

  ‘She — Samantha Olive, I mean — had put the rosary she found in the boy’s pocket, but later on I think she started to worry in case Sister Margaret remembered where she’d dropped it. She came back to the chapel — she says to pray, but the door was locked. She made a statement about that.’ He reached into his pocket and took out a typed paper. ‘Here it is. We’ve only just got this since we had to have a lawyer over before we could take it officially. The lawyer advised her not to say anything, but nobody could’ve stopped that little — lady from boasting of her exploits. Now, where is it? — yes, here we are — I couldn’t get in and I started rattling the handle. Then Sister Margaret opened the door. She asked me what I wanted and I said that I wanted to pray. Then she said, “But you’re the Olive child, aren’t you? Samantha? I would like a little talk with you, dear.” I guessed she knew that I’d picked up the rosary she lost so I ran past her and grabbed one of the big candlesticks from the altar. She was by the door still and she started towards me, but I tugged hard at her veil and got past. She tried to grab me but she slipped and fell on her knees. I hit her with the candlestick and she just fell over. I picked up the candle and I ran. I thought it was silly to keep the candlestick so I went home by way of the Romany camp and threw it towards the scrapheap. I put the candle in our furnace at home because it didn’t match the ones I already had. I like things to match nicely. I think it’s simply disgusting to be untidy.’

  ‘She will be committed to a mental home? Treated?’

  ‘Certainly kept in protective custody — for other people’s protection‚’ he said wryly. ‘I don’t have much faith in these clever doctors, you know. Granted she had a rotten start with parents like those two but she’s their flesh and blood, after all.’

  ‘And evil is a reality that takes no account of chronological age.’ The Prioress nodded gravely.

  ‘I wondered — for my own satisfaction more than anything what alerted Sister Joan to the identity of the killer.’

  ‘I really wasn’t sure, Detective Sergeant Mill,’ she said. ‘All the little pieces were floating around and I couldn’t fit them together. But then Sister Hilaria had made a comment when we were on our way to the dentist — we stopped off briefly at the gate of the old Druid place and Samantha came out with the Dutch boy. Sister Hilaria seemed to be looking at him and as we drove off she said she’d been thinking of Lucifer, so for a time I wondered if — but then I realized that Sister Hilaria speaks as her thoughts wander, without any apparently logical pattern. She could have been referring to Samantha.’

  ‘Isn’t Lucifer supposed to be male?’ He cocked an impudent eyebrow.

  ‘The angels are androgynous, Sergeant,’ she said primly.

  ‘How dull for them. Also he was supposed to be beautiful — well, yes, that would fit. Samantha Olive is one of those children who may well grow up to be stunningly lovely
. When she smiles — there’s an other-worldly quality there.’

  ‘Not,’ said the Prioress, ‘a world with which I would care for any of my nuns to be intimately acquainted.’

  ‘I reckon not. Well, ladies, that’s about it. It’ll be months before the case comes to court. Now I’d better be getting back. I’ve a report to write up.’

  ‘We haven’t offered you any tea or coffee,’ Mother Dorothy began.

  ‘Nothing for me, thanks. We’re awash with tea and coffee down at the station. You’ll be at the boy’s funeral tomorrow?’

  ‘Sister Joan, Sister David and myself. In the afternoon Sister Margaret will be laid to rest in the convent enclosure. Her parents are staying in Bodmin — very nice people and naturally deeply upset.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a religious man,’ he said, ‘but I’d like to pay my respects in the chapel before I leave if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Sister Joan will escort you. Sister, relieve Sister Katherine for the next couple of hours.’

  ‘Sister Katherine?’ He glanced questioningly at her as they left the parlour.

  ‘She is our linen mistress,’ Sister Joan reminded him. ‘She does the most exquisite embroidery.’

  ‘You sounded envious.’

  ‘Only of her opportunities. I love embroidery myself but the rest of us are more useful doing plain sewing and knitting. Sometimes it is very good for our humility to hold our talents in abeyance for a time.’

  ‘If you ever say that again,’ he advised as they went into the chapel, ‘try to sound more convincing.’

  In the candlelit chapel Sister Katherine rose, gliding out with bowed head as Sister Joan made the gesture of dismissal.

  ‘She looks very peaceful. The dead usually do,’ he said briefly.

  ‘That’s only her shell,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Sister Margaret is probably very busy at this moment elsewhere.’

  ‘I’ve enough problems in this world without worrying about the bare possibility there might be a next one. Too many responsibilities, too few pounds in my pay packet at the end of the month, a hefty mortgage, two boys to educate. I don’t get on with my wife, Sister. Nothing tangible. Just mutual boredom and incompatibility.’