Indian Summer

by Sara Sheridan

  She was about to continue when her audience shifted and Mirabelle realised there was somebody behind her. She turned.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

  ‘Inspector Robinson.’ Mirabelle kept her voice calm. There was something about Robinson. He always seemed to loom. It was most unpleasant.

  ‘Can’t keep away from a crime scene, can you, Miss Bevan? Last night we find you next to Father Grogan’s murdered corpse and now I come across you at the children’s home.’

  ‘This isn’t a crime scene, thank you, Inspector,’ Mirabelle said.

  Robinson didn’t manage to reply before Lali’s eyes filled with tears. Pete pulled himself up on his elbows and one or two of the children stopped playing on the grass nearby and gaped. ‘Father Grogan’s murdered corpse?’ Lali sobbed. ‘What do you mean?’

  Mirabelle reached for the little girl’s hand. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. A younger girl on the grass began to cry and one of the boys threw a red rubber ball at the ground and stepped closer to watch the unfolding drama.

  Robinson decided to take control of the situation. He drew his identification card from his inside pocket and held it up. ‘I’m Inspector Robinson of Brighton Police Force,’ he announced. ‘I’ve come to ask questions because Sister Taylor is missing and she was one of the last people to see Father Grogan alive. Did any of you kids see either the sister or the father last night? It may be important.’

  Two of the children crossed themselves and the girl who had started crying let out a strange sound – a mixture between a gasp and a sob. ‘Has Sister Taylor been murdered too?’ Lali breathed.

  Mirabelle put her arm around the girl’s shoulder. ‘No, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Sister Taylor’s fine.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Robinson snapped.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Can’t you see you’re upsetting the children?’

  He had certainly quietened them. You could have heard a pin drop on the stone terrace. It seemed even the birds had stopped making any noise. Across the garden, the children’s eyes turned towards the row of beds. The silence was only broken by the sound of Nurse Frida’s steps on the paving stones.

  ‘Inspector Robinson!’

  Robinson’s spine straightened visibly.

  ‘I thought I had made it plain that the children were going to be told what has happened after lunch.’

  Robinson’s shoulders rounded as the nurse turned outwards, ready to make her announcement, as if the terrace was some kind of stage. There was no question who was really in charge.

  ‘Children,’ Nurse Frida said. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Father Grogan passed away last night.’

  ‘Do you mean, he’s dead?’ one boy shouted.

  ‘Yes, Harry. I do. We’ll have special prayers after lunch,’ the nurse continued. ‘It’s a terrible shock and I know you will all be upset. Father Grogan was a wonderful man who gave generously of his time and helped us all when we had difficult days. I know that this may now be one of them because he is no longer with us. Let’s be kind to each other this morning, shall we?’

  It was as if a blanket of calm had been laid over the assembled youngsters. A boy and girl, who, Mirabelle noted, could not be much more than six years of age, held hands.

  ‘The copper said he was murdered,’ one of the older boys said blankly. ‘Done for. What about that?’

  Mirabelle noticed that the little girl who had been crying now had a lip that was wavering in a most extraordinary fashion.

  Nurse Frida’s eyes narrowed. She held Robinson and Mirabelle in her gaze. Such was her presence that Mirabelle had to hold herself back from saying that she wasn’t the one who had announced the priest’s death to the children.

  ‘I think it would be best if you both waited for me in the office,’ the nurse said, icily, and stepped back to let Robinson and Mirabelle leave. As they walked through the empty ward, Mirabelle heard her addressing the children. She was leading them in prayer.

  Chapter Six

  A good marksman may miss

  The office was a small room to the rear which appeared to double as a night station. Behind the desk, there was a locked cabinet that Mirabelle assumed contained medication. The room smelled so strongly of bleach that it came into her mind it must be the cleanest place in the home. Next to the window there was a small sink and next to that a kettle and a large, half-empty glass jar of biscuits. On the other side, there was a bed upholstered in green vinyl with a low run of pale tiles on the wall behind. It looked as if it might be used for examinations, but Mirabelle supposed that a nurse might snatch some sleep there if she was working nights.

  ‘It’s boiling in here,’ Robinson said as he heaved open the window and sat heavily on a chair by the desk, clearly unrepentant. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

  ‘It’s been hot all summer.’ Mirabelle kept her tone neutral.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here. You know that, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘I promised the children …’

  Robinson’s eyes widened and she gave up.

  ‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘McGregor wants a statement from you.’

  ‘Do you want to take it?’

  Robinson shook his head, as if this was out of the question. ‘The super’s got it in for you himself. He’s heartsick, I guess.’

  ‘You don’t have to be hateful, Robinson. You know we haven’t been seeing each other.’

  Robinson leaned forward in his seat. ‘You don’t have to be a busybody, Miss Bevan. It’s been quiet without you. Pleasantly quiet.’

  They each turned away from the other, just slightly.

  ‘The kids will be upset,’ she said quietly after a moment or two. ‘We probably could have managed that better.’

  Robinson got up and looked out of the window. On this side of the house there was nothing to see but a short stretch of brick wall. ‘The father was here directly before he died. Last night, you said you’d followed him.’

  ‘I did. He left after eight p.m. and proceeded back to the priests’ house. Do you know what the poison was yet?’

  Robinson turned. ‘You’d like me to tell you, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mirabelle. ‘And the contents of his stomach.’

  The inspector breathed out heavily. ‘You can’t help yourself.’ He raised his eyes. ‘Look, the super might go for this whole thing,’ he gestured towards her, ‘but as far as I can see you’re just a sad old spinster who sticks her nose into other people’s business ’cos she doesn’t have enough business of her own.’

  Mirabelle’s temper rose. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, the super and I no longer go for each other, Inspector Robinson. And it can’t have escaped your attention that I’m good at this. Better than you, in fact, on several occasions.’

  ‘A broken clock is right twice a day.’ He sounded truculent. Robinson had always resented her hit rate. Her guess was he disliked women more generally, and competent women in particular.

  ‘Why are you here anyway?’ she asked.

  Robinson’s tongue found his cheek. ‘You don’t know, then?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘The sister’s missing. She didn’t go home to her flat last night.’

  Mirabelle didn’t admit that Lali had told her. ‘I assumed the staff must live in,’ she said.

  ‘One nurse does. But the sister and three others live locally. She left here last night at nine at the end of her shift. Nobody’s seen her since.’

  Mirabelle leaned against the desk and thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that is odd.’

  ‘Not if she poisoned the old buffer, then panicked and bolted.’

  ‘The sister?’ Mirabelle couldn’t help but remember the woman’s balled hands, white at the knuckles, outside Vespers. What had she come to talk to Father Grogan about that was so urgent?

  ‘Is the poison that was used something she had access to?’ Mirabelle asked.

&n
bsp; ‘Nice try!’ Robinson laughed. ‘Trying to get me to tell you.’

  This sparring match was interrupted by Nurse Frida’s arrival. She sat behind the desk and glared at the two of them.

  ‘Do you think the children will be all right, Nurse Frida?’ Mirabelle enquired.

  ‘They are very upset,’ Frida said. ‘Which, given how they found out the news, is quite understandable.’

  Robinson was finding this difficult. He now had to deal with two competent women and, worse, neither of them liked him.

  ‘They had to find out sometime,’ he snarled. ‘Look, I’m here to get information, that’s all.’

  Frida was not prepared to back down. ‘A sorry would be nice, Inspector Robinson. I’m trusted to look after my charges. They are patients, some of them seriously ill. And for day-to-day purposes, they are parentless. It’s my job to protect every one of them and you’ve made that difficult. I think you ought to apologise.’

  Robinson nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. We’re unlikely to get anything useful from them, if I’m honest. A bunch of kids. It’s just when I saw her here, it got my dander up. I mean what’s she doing here?’

  ‘She?’

  ‘He means me.’

  Nurse Frida waited, but it seemed the inspector had nothing more to say and, moreover, that he was going to hold out for an answer to his question. ‘Miss Bevan came to read to Peter Hawkins and Lali Watts. She very kindly brought a book,’ the nurse said crisply. ‘Peter Pan.’

  ‘Miss Bevan was the person who found Father Grogan’s body.’ Robinson’s tone was judge and jury.

  ‘Oh.’ The word dropped from Nurse Frida’s lips like a stone plopping into a pond.

  ‘I have to protect everybody, you see,’ he continued smugly. ‘Not only the children. That’s my job, Nurse Frida. One man’s dead and a woman is missing.’

  Mirabelle cut in. ‘I can explain. I followed the father last night,’ she said. ‘The inspector is making it sound as if I killed him. I didn’t. I found his body, that’s all.’

  ‘You followed him?’ Frida sounded shocked.

  ‘I had been following him all afternoon. I had a hunch something was wrong – just a few things out of place – and I was right, wasn’t I? I just wasn’t quick enough to help. Do you have any idea where Sister Taylor might have gone, Nurse Frida?’

  Nurse Frida crossed her arms. ‘I told the inspector. I don’t know. They even sent an officer to check her bedsit on Cromwell Road, but it seems she didn’t go home last night. It’s most irregular. She had had words with the father, you see. Maybe she went to walk it off and was overcome with guilt.’

  ‘Guilt about what?’ Mirabelle asked.

  ‘Whatever they had argued about.’

  ‘And you think that she …?’

  ‘Did something foolish? It’s a terrible thought. Or maybe she was just embarrassed by it. Maybe she ran away.’

  Mirabelle considered this explanation of events. It wasn’t impossible but a reason would have been helpful. ‘Sister Taylor visited Father Grogan before Vespers last night. She had gone to him, it seemed to me, for help,’ she said.

  Nurse Frida sniffed. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Robinson got out his notepad.

  ‘I was there,’ Mirabelle said.

  ‘Of course you were,’ Robinson snorted. ‘Well, tell me about it.’

  ‘Like I said, I was following him. The two of them spoke for more than five minutes in the vestry before the service. Sister Taylor seemed upset. She was very insistent. Whatever it was about, she considered it urgent.’

  ‘A confession?’ Robinson murmured.

  ‘Rita Taylor wasn’t Catholic, Inspector.’ Frida’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘She didn’t believe in that kind of thing.’

  ‘It struck me as odd,’ Mirabelle said. ‘She had been at the service with the children in the morning, so she had seen him only a few hours before and yet she felt the need to go back to the church.’

  ‘You don’t think they were …’ Robinson’s voice trailed. He gestured. ‘You know.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ Nurse Frida sounded horrified.

  Mirabelle raised her eyes. Robinson always took the lazy route in his deductions. Put a man and a woman together in any situation and he would manufacture a love affair out of it.

  ‘You’re right, Nurse Frida. I imagine if what Inspector Robinson is thinking was the case,’ she said, ‘the two of them would have arranged to meet after Sister Taylor’s shift to discuss whatever was on her mind. It would have made far more sense than Father Grogan coming down here and confronting her at work, with the other nurses in close proximity.’

  Frida got up and closed the window. ‘Miss Bevan is right,’ she said. ‘Sister Taylor was a nurse of the highest probity. Father Grogan was a saint in my opinion. The idea that they were having some kind of liaison,’ she wrinkled her nose as if the word itself was sour on her tongue, ‘well, they wouldn’t have. But if they were, they could have gone to her bedsit. Or the vestry, I imagine. Or Father Grogan’s house. Somewhere more discreet.’

  ‘And you didn’t catch a single word?’ Robinson sounded incredulous.

  ‘I told you before. I don’t know what they were arguing about. We left them to it.’ She checked the watch pinned to her uniform. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you can’t go on reading to the children, Miss Bevan. Not if you have a connection to this whole business.’

  ‘What connection?’ Mirabelle enquired.

  ‘Father Grogan’s death. That’s what you’re implying, isn’t it, Inspector?’

  Robinson grinned. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Mirabelle objected. ‘I have no more connection than Inspector Robinson here. I just want to help.’

  ‘I’m a detective,’ Robinson said. ‘I’m supposed to be here. You’re a member of the public.’

  Mirabelle ignored him. ‘We need to find Sister Taylor. That has to be the priority.’

  ‘That’s police business, not yours,’ Robinson objected.

  Mirabelle glared.

  Nurse Frida stood up. ‘Well, Miss Bevan, why don’t I see you out?’

  Mirabelle didn’t fight. There was no point. If Nurse Frida wanted her gone, she could hardly stay.

  Back in the hallway, at the foot of the stairs, a boy in brown shorts sat holding a moth-eaten teddy bear. ‘Frank,’ Nurse Frida said, ‘you know you aren’t allowed to have teddy during the day. Put him away and go back to the garden with the others. Run along now.’

  Frank got to his feet and looked aggrieved. Mirabelle stared after the child as he rattled through the empty ward, coughing every second step.

  ‘That was a bit much,’ she said. ‘Sending him out like that. Poor kid.’

  ‘Miss Bevan, I am going to ask you not to visit again.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything, Nurse Frida. I liked Father Grogan.’ This, Mirabelle admitted to herself, was stretching the truth. She remembered the first time she’d met him, years ago, when she was looking for Father Sandor. She hadn’t liked him, not really. ‘He was good with the children, wasn’t he?’ she checked. That was the company way. Jack always used to say, ‘Keep them talking. People will tell you everything.’ In Mirabelle’s experience, he had been right.

  Nurse Frida opened the front door. ‘Of course the father was good with them. He loved it here,’ she said. ‘He never rushed. He always had time to spend. He’d get them colouring or read them Bible stories. These children have been through a lot. By the time they get to us they are over the very worst, but still. They loved him. You saw how upset they were.’

  ‘I’m sorry he’s dead,’ Mirabelle managed to get out. That much, at least, was true. ‘Nurse, can I ask, did he eat or drink anything when he was here?’

  ‘Miss Bevan, the inspector has made it quite clear that this is none of your business.’

  ‘He’s not a good detective,’ Mirabelle said. ‘Please. Tell me.’

  Frida consider
ed this. ‘Tea was over,’ she relented. ‘I don’t recall him eating or drinking anything. Well,’ she said, ‘goodbye.’ And she held open the door.

  Mirabelle walked down the steps and loitered on the pavement. She didn’t trust Robinson and his second-class deductions. The puzzle kept on at her. Where might Sister Taylor have gone last night when she left the home, she wondered. If she had turned left she would have passed the Sacred Heart and the priests’ house. But if she had left the home at nine sharp, as Frida said, and taken that route, Mirabelle would have seen her. She hadn’t broken in and found Father Grogan’s body until just after half past the hour and there was no question that Sister Taylor would have had to pass the hardware store. No, Mirabelle decided, the sister must have turned right, in the direction of her bedsit on Cromwell Road. Even if she never got there.

  Chapter Seven

  The life of the dead is in the memory of the living

  The end of Cromwell Road near the railway station was peppered with houses that had been split into bedsits on the upper floors and shops beneath. The shops mostly stocked items one might need on one’s way home from the railway station. Newspapers, milk and bread. There was a shoe repair kiosk and a greasy spoon café, which looked as if it had been abandoned. The buildings felt run-down. Shabby curtains with faded, patchy linings half covered the grime-streaked windows, and in a couple of places partitions had been built that split a window in half. On the pavement, a thin terrier basked in the sunshine and ignored Mirabelle as she passed. Mirabelle felt sorry the café was closed. She could have done with a cup of tea.

  Nurse Frida had not mentioned a particular number on the street, so Mirabelle simply rapped on one of the doors. Nobody answered so she tried another, and almost immediately an old woman in a floral housecoat appeared. ‘Yes, dear?’ she said. Her hair was in rollers held in place by a highly patterned cotton square tied in an elaborate knot. Her teeth looked like nails that had been hammered into her jaw. There was a quarter-inch gap between them. Her eyes were dark holes in the snow.