A VOW OF POVERTY an utterly gripping crime mystery

by Veronica Black

  ‘There’s a note to say the price can be lowered through mutual agreement.’

  ‘I see.’ Sister Joan hesitated, then said, ‘When does Mr Monam come in? I might be able to negotiate with him personally.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t come in at all,’ Jane Sinclair said. ‘At least he hasn’t since I joined the firm.’

  ‘But surely—?’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t Mr Monam’s office,’ the other said. ‘I actually work for the Falcon Typing and Telephone Answering Service, taking messages for people, typing the odd invoice, that sort of thing. Mr Monam must be a client of theirs.’

  ‘But surely — you’ve met him?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to him on the telephone. Late yesterday afternoon. He rang up and said that if anyone came in and asked for an estimate I was to give it to them.’

  ‘He didn’t give you the estimate?’

  Jane Sinclair shook her head.

  ‘There are various files in the cabinet,’ she said. ‘I’ve only worked here a couple of days so I’m still finding my way round. To tell you the truth I don’t think I’ll stick the job for very long. It’s a bit lonely being stuck here all day in an unlocked office.’

  ‘Surely you can lock the door?’

  ‘There’s no money kept here, only the telephone and the typewriter is an old one,’ Jane Sinclair said. ‘I was a bit nervous when you knocked at the door. You’re the first person who’s come since I started.’

  ‘How did you get the job in the first place?’

  ‘I’ve been temping — you know, doing temporary secretarial work. Then the manager of the Falcon Company rang my agency, saying someone was needed in the Nightingale office, so I came along here.’

  ‘And met the manager?’

  ‘Mr Shrimpling, yes. He told me what I had to do and then left. The company’s a fairly new one and the last secretary left to get married and they wanted someone in a hurry. It’s quite legitimate; the agency always checks these things.’

  ‘I’m sure it is.’

  ‘Office rents are so high these days that lots of small firms use these kind of places to do business, take messages and so on,’ Jane Sinclair was continuing.

  ‘And you have a list of the clients?’

  ‘That’s confidential, but yes I do have a list. Mr Monam’s name is on it.’

  ‘I see.’ Sister Joan bit her lip, obscurely uneasy without knowing why.

  ‘His is the last name on the list,’ Jane Sinclair said, opening up a little. ‘He became a client yesterday as a matter of fact. He registered with the Falcon Company and asked me to take messages.’

  ‘So his name wasn’t on the original list that Mr Shrimpling gave you?’

  ‘I rang him up to check that G.T. Monam was registered and Mr Shrimpling said to add his name to the client list myself. Someone rang earlier to ask.’

  ‘A friend of mine,’ Sister Joan said, beginning to rise. ‘You wouldn’t have had anything to do with the printing of the circular, I suppose?’

  ‘Sorry.’ The other took another glance at it. ‘It looks a bit smeary and amateurish,’ she said.

  ‘Yes it does. Well, thank you for your time anyway.’

  ‘It was a nice change to have someone to talk to,’ Jane Sinclair confessed. ‘You know most of these offices are empty and there’s no security in the building. Just about anybody could stroll in.’

  ‘One last thing!’ Sister Joan wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘If Mr Monam only registered as a client with the Falcon Company yesterday afternoon how did the estimate come to be in the files? Someone must have called round with it.’

  ‘Nobody came — at least not while I was here,’ Jane Sinclair said. ‘I left at five-thirty and went home.’

  ‘Leaving the door unlocked?’

  ‘It can be locked from the outside, but the key’s a bit stiff when you try it on the inside. Yes, I locked the door, but it wouldn’t be hard for someone to break in. But why should they?’

  ‘Do you have an address or phone number for Mr Monam?’

  ‘No. I suppose Mr Shrimpling might have one. I can give you the address of the main Falcon office if you like.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  Writing it down neatly, Jane Sinclair said, ‘It is a bit funny when you come to think of it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Funny’ wasn’t the word that Sister Joan would have used.

  Three

  There had been no time to pursue her enquiries. Feeling slightly guilty at the steps she had already taken she drove back through the industrial estate and turned off on to a side road that would bring her eventually out on the moor. The estimate was too high anyway. It was better to get Padraic and Luther to cart away anything they might be able to find a use for, and forget the badly printed circular, but the small discrepancies nagged at her. Apart from anything else it seemed decidedly odd that within hours of her being told to clear out the storerooms someone had registered with the Falcon Service and managed to get a circular pushed through the front door of the convent and a copy of the estimated charges into the files of a locked office. However, since it was none of her business, she had no reason to make any further enquiries.

  Having lugged her purchases out of the van, she hurried up to lunch. As always she was struck when she entered the huge room leading off the upper landing by the contrast between what it had once been and now had become. Once large banquets had been served here on long tables resplendent with white embroidered cloths and delicate china and crystal glasses. The guests — it was said that King Edward VII when Prince of Wales had been a visitor here — had talked and drunk their toasts and toyed with the food on their plates before the ladies, at a signal from the hostess, had risen and retired into the drawing-room through the double connecting doors to drink coffee while the gentlemen settled to their port and brandy. Now only the polished floor and the silk panels on the walls remained. One long table with benches and stools ranged along both sides and a chair for the prioress at the head, a wheeled table on which the simple courses were set out, and a lectern with the book being currently read aloud on it comprised the whole of the furnishings. Bowls of soup, sandwiches of tomatoes and beansprouts and a large dish of pink fleshed pears had replaced the myriad courses previously enjoyed. Everything had the beauty of absolute simplicity. Only the choice of book jarred slightly. Sister Hilaria whose week it was to read had chosen the story of St Lawrence who had been grilled alive. It was an unhappy coincidence that Sister Teresa had provided toasted sandwiches.

  Lunch over, the nuns dispersed to continue their tasks until the daily discussion at four o’clock. Sister Joan left the table and went down the stairs and up into the storerooms again. From her place in the library Sister David waved an abstracted hand.

  The roll of moth-eaten brocade still held the sepia-tinted photograph she had found the previous day. Sister Joan drew it out and stared at it again, the same shiver rippling through her. The Tarquins had been an ancient family, tracing their line back to the fourteenth century, tempering their political and religious convictions to the prevailing wind. In such a long line there must have been villains and saints, but it was disconcerting to come across a tangible reminder of one, assuming the sentence on the back of the portrait referred to the front. She pushed the picture back and walked on along the narrow aisles between the piles of boxes and broken furniture.

  It would be a good idea to clear out the larger pieces first and establish a working space for herself. She disentangled a couple of cobwebbed kitchen chairs and carried them on to the landing. Both chairs were broken and neither of them had ever been designed by Chippendale or Sheraton. They’d do very well for firewood in the kitchen and the infirmary, the only parts of the convent that were heated. They were also light enough to take down the spiral stairs.

  By four she had carted a decent amount of potential firewood into the stable. A couple of sagging sofas and a Victorian conversation seat with torn fringing would h
ave to be winched down from the windows or broken up into smaller pieces. It was a great pity that a wall blocked access from library and storeroom to the upper floor of the rest of the house.

  ‘I see that you’ve been busy, Sister.’

  Mother Dorothy lifted her brows as Sister Joan came into the parlour.

  ‘Yes, Mother Prioress.’

  Too late she realized she hadn’t bothered to don an apron and her habit was covered with specks of dust.

  ‘You will want to confess a fault against cleanliness at general penance,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘but for now you’re excused from our discussion while you tidy yourself.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother Dorothy.’ Sister Joan genuflected, started to wipe her hands on her skirt, spotted her superior’s face and thought better of it.

  She hurried to the kitchen, rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed the grime off her hands and forearms. A clothes’ brush removed most of the dust and bits of fluff from her habit, and she rubbed her shoes with an old piece of towelling. As she came out of the kitchen again the telephone rang.

  ‘Cornwall House. Sister Joan speaking.’

  Usually it was the lay sister who answered the telephone but the rules about it were fairly relaxed.

  ‘Oh, you’re the sister who came in this morning!’ a voice said.

  ‘Jane Sinclair?’

  ‘From Nightingale Court, yes.’ The other sounded rushed and nervous. ‘Could you meet me, Sister? I’ve found out something rather peculiar but I don’t want to talk about it over the telephone.’

  ‘I can’t walk in and out of the convent whenever I feel like it,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I have to get permission from the prioress.’

  ‘I could meet you tomorrow morning at the café in the High Street,’ Jane Sinclair said. ‘The one with the hanging baskets outside — do you know it?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Can’t you give me some idea?’

  ‘I’d rather not. You might think I’m being silly anyway. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning? It’s my day for going in late. Do try and get permission, please.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I wish you’d tell me—’

  ‘It’s about the cemetery,’ Jane Sinclair said.

  ‘The cemetery?’

  ‘The resurrection — the Tarquin family graves — oh, I can’t explain over the phone. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sister.’ The receiver was replaced before Sister Joan could answer.

  She hung up frowningly and retraced her steps to the parlour thoughtfully. Jane Sinclair had sounded frightened and bewildered. What that had to do with the cemetery and resurrection she couldn’t begin to imagine. Perhaps the secretary was merely one of those people who thought nuns were romantic and who tried to scrape acquaintance with them by any means possible, but she had seemed to be just an ordinary, not very quick-witted young woman.

  Fortunately the need to ask permission for another trip into town was removed the next morning when Sister Teresa asked her after breakfast if she would collect some groceries from town.

  ‘I ought to have asked you to get them yesterday,’ Sister Teresa said, ‘but Sister Gabrielle wasn’t too well during the night and I came over from the postulancy just in case I was required but thank God, I wasn’t. Only it sent the groceries clean out of my head, and I do hate driving the van. I barely scraped through my driving test and I haven’t done any at all since I came into the order.’

  ‘Provided Mother Dorothy agrees I’d be glad to go into town,’ Sister Joan said promptly.

  ‘That’s awfully kind of you.’ Sister Teresa’s round young face was filled with the most guileless gratitude. ‘Yes, Mother Dorothy said I could ask you. She wasn’t very pleased at my forgetfulness. It isn’t as if we can afford to use unlimited amounts of petrol.’

  She sighed as she spoke as if the lecture she’d received had overcast her spirits, but a moment later she was humming under her breath as she scrubbed the step. Sister Teresa wasn’t a person who held on to misery or made a great parade of her conscience.

  Sister Joan drove into town with a remarkably clear conscience. The errand had obviously been engineered by Providence, saving her from having to explain anything to Mother Dorothy who almost certainly would have refused leave to waste any petrol on a wild goose chase.

  As she passed the track branching off towards the Romany camp Padraic hailed her from the saddle of a suspiciously new-looking mountain bike.

  ‘Good morning, Sister! You started clearing out the rubbish yet?’ He pedalled up to the van as she braked.

  ‘I’ve made a start but it’ll be weeks before everything’s done. Padraic, did you mention to anyone that we were clearing out the storerooms?’

  ‘I didn’t but Luther’s been gabbing about it,’ Padraic said. ‘Very proud that he’s going to be helping out when the time comes. It wasn’t a secret, was it?’

  ‘No, of course not. I just wondered because we got a circular through the door advertising a scrap merchant and silversmith.’

  ‘Both of them at once?’ Padraic’s lean brown face displayed surprise.

  ‘Apparently. A Mr Monam. Do you know of him?’

  ‘Monam? No, never heard of him.’ Padraic was clearly running a list of names through his head. ‘No, that’s a new one on me. Some Johnny-come-lately, if you ask me. I’ll get you the best prices and I won’t do you down. You know that, Sister.’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Though I doubt if there’s anything worth selling up there. Where did you get the bicycle?’

  ‘This?’ Padraic looked down at the gleaming machine as if he hadn’t noticed it before.

  ‘That,’ Sister Joan said firmly.

  ‘I found it. I found it.’ He shot her a beatific smile.

  ‘And now you’re on your way to the police station to hand it in. That’s very public spirited of you,’ she approved. ‘Constable Petrie will be delighted.’

  ‘You’re a hard woman, Sister Joan.’ He admitted defeat with a grin and a wink. ‘Yes, I’m handing in lost property. Public spirited!’

  ‘Good!’ Sister Joan drove on, stifling a chuckle. Padraic Lee was a lovely man but articles that fell off lorries were liable to stick to his fingers.

  She bought the groceries that Sister Teresa had listed, stowed them in the back of the van, and walked back to the High Street. Strictly speaking she should have asked for permission to drink a coffee in town but Mother Dorothy had always made it plain that the sisters were expected to use their own judgement. At this particular moment Sister Joan’s judgement informed her that she’d better find out what Jane Sinclair had to say to her.

  The café was almost empty at this comparatively early hour. She sat down in a chair at a window table and ordered a black coffee. It was just gone ten so the secretary would be there at any moment.

  She had sipped her coffee slowly and twenty minutes had gone by. Obviously Jane Sinclair had thought better of keeping the appointment, unless she’d been summoned early to work, in which case she’d very likely ring the convent again and try to fix another appointment for which permission was hardly likely to be given.

  Sister Joan paid for the coffee, went back to the van and turned it in the direction of the industrial estate.

  It was a windless day, the air still and warm and clammy. Torn posters on the billboards that lined the streets hung limp and dead, painted slogans peeling, and the few people around moved sluggishly as if the energy were being sucked out of them.

  She parked in Nightingale Court and ascended in the lift, following the arrows along the upper corridor to the office she had visited the previous day. The door was closed and the card with G.T. Monam wasn’t in the bracket at the side. She knocked briskly and waited. Nothing. Stepping back she raised her voice,

  ‘Miss Sinclair, are you there? It’s Sister Joan!’

  No answer.

  She tried the handle but the door was locked. Jane Sinclair had mentioned it could be locked from outside. Clearly she wasn’t there. Held up somewhere? In
any case there was no more time to be spent on looking for her. Sister Joan took out her small notepad and biro, scribbled her name on it, adding, ‘Sorry I missed you’, slid it under the door, and turned away. If Jane Sinclair decided to contact her again then she’d have to insist on being given the information over the telephone. Going down in the lift again she suppressed a feeling of annoyance. People who didn’t keep appointments were not her favourite people.

  The van was unmolested. Despite the generally run-down appearance of the district its citizens must be fairly law-abiding. She climbed in and started the engine. The engine coughed, spluttered and died. Peering at the petrol gauge, she was dismayed to find it on Empty. She’d filled up recently and there ought to have been plenty left.

  ‘Sister! Sister!’

  Someone was tapping on the side window. A brash young face with spiky yellow hair and a safety pin tastefully slotted through an earlobe grinned at her.

  ‘Yes?’ She wound down the window a few inches.

  ‘Your petrol’s been siphoned off,’ the teenager said.

  ‘I rather guessed that,’ Sister Joan said ruefully. ‘Did you see who did it?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say if I had,’ the youngster said. ‘Name’s Jem. Jem Cuttle.’

  ‘Sister Joan.’

  ‘There’s a garage not far off. Someone’d come out with a can of petrol,’ Jem Cuttle said. ‘I could watch the van for you in case the wheels get nicked.’

  ‘For a consideration I suppose?’ She was already climbing down.

  ‘A pound?’ The lad looked hopeful.

  ‘Fifty pence,’ Sister Joan said, fishing for a coin. ‘You’ve got a nice little racket going here, haven’t you? Next time pick on someone with more money. Nuns never have any.’

  ‘Turn second left then first right. The garage’s there,’ Jem Cuttle said, grabbing the fifty pence. ‘You want me to look after the keys?’

  ‘No, thank you very much.’ She clutched them firmly as she turned away.

  It took several minutes to locate the garage and buy a can of petrol. Money was being wasted at an alarming rate, she thought, trailing back to Nightingale Court where, not greatly to her surprise, she found the van abandoned and no trace of the youthful entrepreneur. By the time she had replenished the tank, driven round to the garage to return the can, and got herself back on to the main road again the morning was well advanced. At the café she parked briefly and went in without much hope to see if Jane Sinclair was waiting for her. The tables were occupied by customers, mainly housewives taking a break from their shopping, but there was no sign of the fair-haired young secretary.