‘This murder is a terrible thing now, wouldn’t you say?’
He stood chatting to the sisters as they drank the Sunday morning cup of coffee in the dining-room.
Sister Joan repressed a smile. Father Stephens would have uttered mellifluous phrases about the world waiting for the Christ Child. Father Malone was more firmly earth anchored.
‘Has there been one?’ Sister Katherine asked.
‘Have you not heard? I’d have thought Sister Joan would be in the thick of the investigations as usual!’ He glanced towards her. ‘I had it from the Reverend Jackson when he came round for a bit of a chat after supper. The poor girl was a Protestant, God rest her soul. Her parents are travelling down tomorrow to identify her officially and stay over for her funeral. Yes, strangled she was, in broad daylight on the industrial estate. It’s a violent world we live in and no mistake! Of course, I asked him to let me know at once if there was anything I could do. The Reverend Jackson is a fine preacher. It’s a pity he was reared in the wrong faith.’
‘But surely Protestants will get to heaven too,’ Sister David said, with a hint of mischief.
‘All good living people who obey the Creator will enter heaven,’ Father Malone said firmly. ‘The only difference is that while the Jews and the Muslims and the Protestants have a long, weary walk to the golden gates we Catholics will whizz past them in a bus.’
‘Who was murdered, Father?’ Sister Martha asked.
‘A Miss Sinclair. Jane Sinclair. Only twenty-two years old, and a nice, quiet girl by all accounts. Not a regular churchgoer more’s the pity. However she probably hadn’t been brought up to it. Many young people aren’t these days. It’s my belief that we should look nearer home when we start sending missions to the heathen. That industrial estate, now, takes the overflow from the council estate, but it’s been thrown up in a hurry. Half the buildings are empty. And the rubbish in the streets you wouldn’t believe. The Reverend Jackson and I have hopes of starting up a youth club, somewhere the young people can come to play records and ping-pong and find out that having a bit of crack means having a good gossip and not sticking a needle in your arm.’
‘You’re wasting your time, Father,’ Sister Perpetua said bluntly. ‘They’ll tear any youth club down within a couple of weeks.’
‘Ah now, Sister, that’s a mite harsh!’ he protested. ‘There are some good people in every place. A lot of them just lack a focus, you know. They get rid of their energies by battering one another. Only this morning I saw a lad with a cut across his nose and a black eye lounging near the old town hall. You know the place I mean. It was turned into three good-sized houses when the council had the new town hall built.’
‘Did you know the boy?’ Sister Joan asked.
‘Only by sight. He always waves and shouts something bold when he sees me. Not the way a good Catholic lad would behave but then he’s not one of my flock and his noticing me at all might count for nothing or a very great deal — the Lord works in very mysterious ways!’
‘You don’t know where he lives?’ Sister Joan persisted.
‘He hangs out near one of the office complexes that’ve sprung up, Sister. If you’re troubled about his injury it’s a credit to your tender heart, but believe me, these young people bounce back like tennis balls. That can’t be the time! Father Stephens will think I’ve been kidnapped. The problem is that I cannot tear myself away from such charming company!’
Sister Joan glanced at Sister Gabrielle who frowned and shook her head slightly. Evidently the previous night’s events were not yet to be related.
The afternoon would give her the opportunity, she decided. First she’d work on the readings she was due to give during the coming week, and then she’d take Lilith for a ride.
At the chapel door Sister Gabrielle tugged at her sleeve, muttering out of the side of her mouth like some elderly gangster, ‘Mother Dorothy has enough to worry her, Sister. We’ll say nothing for the present.’
‘Very well, Sister.’
‘I’m going to have a little nap,’ Sister Gabrielle said in her ordinary voice. ‘I’m getting too old to sit up all day!’
She clumped back down the corridor. Sister Joan went up to the library.
The mist had cleared from the top of the moors but from the windows she could see long trails of thick white vapour swinging gently like sheets out to dry on the lower slopes. It was dim enough to require a light in order to see what she was doing. She sat down at the desk and opened the file in which Sister David was writing her account of the French saint.
‘I’ve brought the translation of the trial for you to look at, Sister.’
Sister David came in, weighed down with volumes.
‘Thank you, Sister. I have the Sackville-West biography in my own cell. Is it all right for me to use your notes?’
‘Oh, please do! I’m delighted to think they may help out,’ Sister David said at once. ‘There’s a Sackville-West here somewhere to save your using your own copy.’
She had glided to one of the tall bookcases and was on her knees. One day Sister David would find the time to update the catalogue in the library but Sister Joan wouldn’t have cared to hazard a guess when.
‘Oh, how interesting!’ Sister David sat back on her heels. ‘I didn’t even know this was here! Look, a booklet about the Tarquins, Sister. They go back a long way, to the Crusades, I believe, though they say nowadays the Crusaders weren’t as noble as I was taught to believe. The whole matter calls for some fresh research.’
Her face was bright at the prospect. People who declared that ink ran in Sister David’s veins failed to realize that it was passionate ink. Other women dreamed of lovers or fame, while everything that wasn’t concentrated in her spiritual life was focused by Sister David on dreams of dusty manuscripts in dead languages that might shine a torch into the darkness of the past.
‘May I have a look at it later?’ Sister Joan asked.
‘I’ll leave it here for you. I must go now and leave you in peace. I promised Sister Katherine to help her sort out the Christmas decorations. She likes to get them ready in plenty of time.’
Sister David vanished. Sister Joan glanced at the booklet, then heroically turned her attention back to the job in hand.
Her pen flew, making notes. She wanted to pick out anecdotes that made the saint more human — a tough young peasant with a salty wit who didn’t spend all her time on her knees listening to voices or charging up and down a battlefield on a horse!
She called her friends by nicknames and liked to jest with them, but she wept often too over the cruelty of war and the sad state of the poor and dispossessed. She herself might have grown very rich after she had relieved Orleans and many gifts of money and horses were made to her. She bought herself some fine court clothes and gave all the rest to the poor. All she cared about were the banner she had made and the sword the Archangel Michael had given to her and the two rings, one gold engraved with the name of Jesu and one silver engraved with the name of Maria which her brothers had given to her, but when she was captured all those things were stolen from her and yet she still was rich in her faith.
It was shaping very well, Sister Joan decided, laying out the bits of paper from which she could mark relevant passages. She’d been at it for over an hour and her back was aching.
‘Sister, Mother Dorothy wants to know if you’re taking Lilith out again today,’ Sister David had reappeared.
‘Yes. Did she wish to see me?’
‘Only to remind you to take off your jeans when you got back,’ Sister David said.
‘Our prioress can see round corners, I’m convinced of it,’ Sister Joan chuckled.
‘How are you getting on?’ Sister David came to the desk.
‘Quite well. I’ve marked the extracts I want to read.’
‘Would you like me to type them out for you, Sister, then you won’t have to carry a pile of books up to the dining-room,’ Sister David offered.
‘It would be a
great help but I don’t want to put you to trouble,’ Sister Joan began.
‘It’ll be a pleasure to do,’ Sister David said with evident sincerity. ‘Don’t forget the booklet you wanted to read.’
‘Thank you, Sister.’
Picking up the booklet Sister Joan went back to the main part of the house, and went up to her cell to put on her jeans. While smoothing the skirt of her habit down over them she found herself paying silent tribute to Mother Dorothy who, without any loss of face, had made it possible for her to ride down into town again and, if she wished, continue her investigations into a case of which nothing much had been confided to her. Mother Dorothy was showing her a considerable degree of trust. Sister Joan made up her mind to remember that the next time the prioress irritated her.
She had put the booklet on the shelf. Privately printed, she guessed, probably an attempt by someone with a sense of family to leave a modest record for posterity.
It was something to be looked at later. She reached for her cloak and went down to the stable where Lilith deigned to greet her with a whinny to mark another walk on the second successive day. There was no sign of Alice. Sister Joan guessed she was over at the postulancy cadging titbits.
Outside the air was still unseasonably mild. Mounting up she cantered past the walls that enclosed the garden and the little cemetery where past sisters of Cornwall House slept their last sleep and headed for the track that dipped down towards the council estate, with the industrial estate blotting the landscape beyond.
Father Malone had mentioned a lad with an injured nose and a black eye. It was of course entirely possible that the injuries weren’t due to Sister Gabrielle’s walking stick but in her own experience stray remarks made in innocence usually led somewhere.
The old town hall had been turned into private dwelling places nearly fifteen years before but would always be known in local parlance as the old town hall. What were now three substantial houses were situated in a road that ran parallel to the main street that marked the demarcation between the council estate and the older part of the town. It was a pity that the old and the new couldn’t be melded together with more taste, she mused, guiding Lilith across the road and dismounting.
A Sunday afternoon hush hung over the town, a hush intensified by the mist which wreathed and twisted about the corners of the buildings and distorted the faint chiming of bells from a nearby church. It was hardly likely that the lad with the facial injury would still be hanging about, she reflected, as she walked along the road. In any case he wasn’t likely to admit that he’d sneaked into the convent chapel. Another thought struck her. Surely a mugger would have wrested the stick from Sister Gabrielle and pushed her to the ground. Sister Gabrielle was a tough old lady but an old lady for all that! Yet the lad had fled. A prospective thief with a conscience or one whose heart wasn’t in his occupation?
A couple of girls came round the corner, both wearing jeans and bright tartan jackets. Friends, she surmised, who liked dressing in similar styles because they weren’t yet confident in their own separate identities, lipstick expertly applied, eyes eager for experience.
‘Don’t worry about Lilith!’ she called cheerfully, as they made to cross the road. ‘She’s over twenty years old and wouldn’t hurt a fly!’
The girls hesitated, glancing at each other in an embarrassed fashion that made her feel amused and a little sad. It was clear that it wasn’t only nervousness of the pony that had caused them to begin to swerve away. Some people seemed to think that religious vocations were infectious.
‘Is that old for a horse?’ one of the girls asked.
‘Pretty middle-aged for some but horses are a bit like people,’ Sister Joan said pleasantly. ‘They’re as young as they feel. Now I’m seventy-three but you’d never guess it.’
‘I bet you’re not!’ the other girl said and giggled.
‘I’m nearly thirty-nine.’
There was a little silence, then the first girl said politely, ‘You look awfully good for your age.’
‘Thank you.’ Sister Joan refrained from smiling. ‘Do either of you ride or is it all motorbikes these days?’
‘We don’t ride motorbikes,’ the taller of the girls said. ‘Some of the boys do but we don’t often get to go on them.’
‘I daresay they’re expensive to run,’ Sister Joan nodded. ‘You don’t have a youth club or anything round here?’
‘A youth club!’ The younger of the two girls sounded as shocked as if Sister Joan had recommended a brothel. ‘No, nothing like that. We watch telly and hang out down at the Casbah — that’s a café. It’s open on Sundays.’
‘Is that where you’re going now?’
She sensed a drawing back, a sudden trepidation that shivered between them.
‘We’re on our way home,’ the older girl said firmly. ‘We live next to each other. We ought to hurry, Patsy. Your mum’ll be fretting.’
‘You live in Cemetery Road?’
They had been coming away from the housing estate.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the one who wasn’t named Patsy, ‘but we’re not supposed to talk to strangers, not with—’ She had broken off abruptly and her companion finished the sentence.
‘That strangler around. Mrs Dalton was telling my mum all about it. Awful it was.’
‘My name’s Sister Joan. I’m from Cornwall House.’
‘Anyone can say that,’ Patsy said with a hint of truculence. ‘Anyone can dress up as a nun and go round strangling people.’
‘And make their getaway on an elderly pony?’ Sister Joan grinned and then nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s best to be safe and go everywhere together until he’s caught. I heard there was another person attacked last night — a boy?’
The two girls looked at each other.
‘She means Jeb,’ said the one who wasn’t named Patsy. ‘D’ya know Jeb?’
‘If he siphons petrol out of vans and then charges for guarding the vehicle while the owner goes off to buy some more petrol, then I know Jeb,’ Sister Joan said wryly.
‘That’s Jeb!’ Patsy giggled. ‘Right little bugg — beggar Jeb is! Fancy you knowing him.’
‘I only met him once,’ Sister Joan said. ‘He seems very nice.’
‘Nice?’ Patsy looked at her doubtfully. ‘He’s OK I suppose.’
‘I was hoping he wasn’t too badly hurt,’ Sister Joan said.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Would you happen to know where he lives?’
‘He’s got a squat somewhere behind the old town hall. Comes and goes.’
‘Thanks. I might pay a call on him.’
She turned Lilith’s head towards the narrow entry that ran down the side of the converted houses.
‘Will you be all right by yourself?’ Patsy said suddenly with a rather touching motherly air.
‘I’ll be fine honestly,’ Sister Joan said. ‘God bless now!’
She was further touched to hear them muttering the salutation in an embarrassed fashion before they bounced off together.
The road that ran behind the old town hall ended in a cul-de-sac. To the left gates hung askew at the entrance to a large, overgrown garden which fronted a detached two-storey house. Sister Joan stood at the broken gates and looked at the building with a considering eye. It was a modern house despite the creeper that crept over the walls and the trees that shielded the windows from the light. Several of the windows were cracked and there were some tiles missing from the roof. It looked neglected, sad.
‘It could very well be a squat,’ Sister Joan said to Lilith and guided the pony on to the long grass, tethering her loosely to the branch of a lilac tree that leaned out, crooked and unpruned, from the hedge.
She walked on up to the front door and lifted the greeny-bronze knocker two or three times, disturbing a small colony of bats that rose and circled about the roof, their wings dipping in and out of the hanging sheets of mist.
Sister Joan, mindful that she ought to love all God’s c
reatures, loved bats in absentia, and hastily gave the door a hefty shove which precipitated her into a hall with a staircase opposite and the open doors of a long drawing-room on the left. Her hand felt for a switch and a light sprang into being. Obviously nobody had bothered to turn off the electricity.
The floors were bare of carpets but the odd items of furniture that stood about were of good quality. She crossed to the double doors and looked in. The curtains at the bay windows were closed and the big room had a spare unused aspect.
‘Jeb! Jeb, are you here? It’s Sister Joan!’
Standing in the middle of the hall again, calling, she felt her voice bounce back at her from the bare walls. There was no other sound.
At the right a door opened into an L-shaped room which curved round into a kitchen. Switching on lights as she went she walked through and looked at the grease-stained cooker, the sink which held a couple of dirty cups, the curling crust of a piece of toast on the table. In the refuse bin in the corner were a couple of coke tins and the remains of a packet of crisps.
‘Jeb!’ Going out into the hall again, switching off the lights in an automatic habit of economy, she called more loudly.
Overhead something creaked. A floorboard settling for the evening? A cautious footfall?
‘Jeb, there’s nothing to worry about! I want a few words with you, that’s all!’ Switching on the stair light she went swiftly up the still carpeted treads on to the broad landing. It widened into an upper hall with doors around it.
The first door was open. She pushed it wider and almost fell over a large holdall placed just within. Regaining her balance she snapped on the light and looked round at the mattress and sleeping bag, the pile of disordered blankets. Jeb, if this was Jeb’s squat, had made himself a kind of home here.
The next door resisted her efforts. It was either jammed or locked. She looked into the next room where a pile of rugs occupied most of the space, and into the fourth where several items of furniture, chairs and stools and occasional tables, were all jumbled up together. Jeb was clearly out. No doubt hustling and hawking his less than legal business in places like Nightingale Court. She thrust open the bathroom door, pulling the cord that operated the light switch, and stared at Jeb.
A VOW OF POVERTY an utterly gripping crime mystery Page 10