Vow of Penance (12 page)

‘In the car-park behind the station. There wasn’t sufficient room to leave it outside the surgery.’

‘Can you remember whether or not the boot was locked?’

‘I didn’t check.’

‘It never is locked,’ Mother Dorothy put in. ‘The key’s difficult to turn unless you have the trick of it, so we don’t trouble.’

‘Can you recall exactly where you parked the car?’ Detective Sergeant Mill asked.

‘Yes. Yes I can.’ She closed her eyes briefly for an instant, then opened them again. ‘At the very far side in the right-hand corner. There’s a tunnel there, a kind of walkway connecting the car-park with the station. I left it there.’

‘You didn’t see anybody in the car-park when you were leaving the car or coming back to it?’

‘There were some people about. I didn’t take much notice.’

‘And you didn’t open the boot?’

‘I didn’t open the boot.’ She spoke flatly without emphasis.

‘And you didn’t see anyone approach the altar during
the meditation?’

‘I saw nobody. Nobody!’ Her voice rose slightly.

‘That will do for the moment, Sister.’ Mother Dorothy had risen. ‘Would you be good enough to start the soup for lunch? You can write up the results of your meditation later on.’

‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’ The stiff figure bent briefly for the blessing and was gone, closing the door firmly behind her.

‘She can tell you nothing more.’ Mother Dorothy turned to fix Detective Sergeant Mill with a quelling glance. ‘Sister Jerome came to us only recently with the highest recommendations from our London house. The idea of her being involved in murder is quite out of the question.’

‘You know anything of her before she entered your Order?’ he enquired.

‘Our previous lives are of no concern.’

‘Not to the Order perhaps. However – excuse me a moment. I want to check up.’ He was gone, striding out rapidly. Through the open door Sister Joan heard his voice raised cheerfully, ‘The side door’s unlocked, Petrie! Wipe your boots before you tramp in, there’s a good fellow!’

‘Sister Jerome couldn’t possibly kill anybody,’ Mother Dorothy said, looking at Sister Joan. ‘Believe me, Sister, but if she has such violence in her then I am very wrong in my assessment of human nature.’

‘I’m not accusing anybody of anything,’ Sister Joan said.

‘One hopes not. Accusations are not our business.’ Mother Dorothy hesitated, then said unexpectedly, ‘Since you’ll be expected back at the presbytery soon you’d best take your leave. You can go through the kitchen if you’ve a mind to say goodbye to anyone.’

‘Mother Dorothy, shouldn’t Detective Sergeant Mill be told about the slashing of the oak tree near the
postulancy?’ Sister Joan asked.

‘You really think the information might be relevant?’ The prioress thought for a moment, then said, ‘Very well, I will tell him myself before he leaves.’

‘There’s something more, Mother,’ Sister Joan said tensely. ‘The flowers in the front garden of the
presbytery
were all sliced up and the heads cut off on the morning after I arrived there.’

‘Not teenage vandalism?’ Mother Dorothy shook her head and answered her own question. ‘No, not that. There is a connection, I feel. I will tell Detective Sergeant Mill. Have you heard whether or not a new housekeeper has been appointed yet?’

‘I’m sure that Father Stephens will do his best, Mother.’

‘One trusts that he will. Very well, Sister, you may go now. Keep in touch with me, please.’

‘Yes, Mother.’ She knelt for the blessing and went out.

A fine thin rain was blurring the windows and blowing through the open front door. Outside another patrol car had arrived and two policemen were conferring in the front seats. The routine of official investigation would be set in motion, threatening to disrupt the conventual routine. She turned and went through into the kitchen. Sister Perpetua was in the infirmary, settling the two old ladies who, judging from Sister Gabrielle’s garrulous tones, had been stimulated rather than upset by the arrival of the police. To her relief Sister Teresa wasn’t in the kitchen. Presumably she had gone to her cell to write up her meditation. Sister Jerome was chopping
vegetables
, the big kitchen knife rhythmically moving up and down on the board.

‘Sister Jerome.’ She paused within the door.

‘Sister Joan.’ The other went on chopping the vegetables.

‘You seem to be keeping the ship afloat while I’m not here,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I hope Sister Teresa is helping. I find her a nice girl.’

‘Sister Teresa does her fair share of the work,’ Sister Jerome said grudgingly. ‘As to her being nice or not – surely we are not encouraged to have personal friendships? That, at any rate, has always been my understanding.’

‘In an ideal world,’ Sister Joan said. ‘However one cannot help liking some more than others even if one loves them all equally. It must have been a great shock for you to learn that you probably drove the car round yesterday with a dead body in the boot.’

‘A very great shock.’

Chop, chop, chop went the knife.

‘Unless the poor woman was put there later. There isn’t any way in which she could have been killed by one of the gardening implements you bought?’

‘I had nothing to do with—’

‘No, of course not,’ Sister Joan said quickly. ‘What I mean is that if you left the things in the back of the car and went to have your coffee before starting home someone might have used one of them – that car doesn’t lock very securely at the best of times.’

‘I didn’t buy an axe,’ Sister Jerome said.

‘No, of course not. How did you know it was an axe?’

‘You just – the police officer said—’ The chopping slowed, stopped.

‘No, Sister. Nobody has mentioned an axe. What made you say “axe”?’

‘You think you’re very clever, don’t you, sister?’ The other raised her coifed head, staring at her with hostile dark eyes. ‘Clever Sister Joan who helps out when a crime is committed! Oh, I know you don’t talk about it yourself but others do. We were all told about your exploits in the London house. Such a clever nun, to balance her spiritual life with her amateur sleuthing! And now you’re doing it again, aren’t you? But not with me. Not with me!’

‘Sooner or later they’ll take all our fingerprints and match them with any found on the axe handle.’

‘They’ll not find mine there. I wasn’t such a fool as to pick it up with my bare hands and—’ Sister Jerome stopped dead.

‘You wrapped your sleeve around it?’ Sister Joan said.

Sister Jerome stood, head flung back, fury gradually dying out of her face, to be replaced by a great weariness.

‘It was under my seat in chapel,’ she said and sat down tiredly on a kitchen chair. ‘When I knelt down my foot struck against something. I waited until the others were deeply into their meditations before I stooped lower and pulled it out. Even in the dim light I could see the dried blood along the edge. It had been put under my seat deliberately. I didn’t know what to do, but then Mother Dorothy got up and left the chapel, so I took it up and went up to the altar and laid it there. I decided that God could deal with it.’

‘It was used to kill two, possibly three people. Did you know that?’

‘I knew nothing – nothing!’ Sister Jerome said vehemently. ‘I guessed it hadn’t been employed to slaughter chickens. It was an evil thing – an obscene thing. I could feel that, feel that I was going to be blamed, blamed for something I hadn’t done, didn’t know anything about! I couldn’t let that happen. It was very easy. My footsteps can be very light when I choose. Very light! I’ve had plenty of practice at that.’

‘Nobody looked up?’

‘Nobody did so much as flicker an eyelash,’ Sister Jerome said. ‘It took me a few seconds, no more. I returned to my place.’

‘But you didn’t tell Detective Sergeant Mill? Why not?’

‘Why should I? He’d only twist it against me! Now I suppose you’ll run and tell him like a good little assistant!’

‘I’ll say nothing unless it becomes absolutely necessary,’ Sister Joan said. ‘It would be better if you
told him or Mother Dorothy yourself but I’ll say nothing. Not for the moment anyway.’

She walked past the other, opened the back door, and went into the drizzling rain, not in the least confident that she was doing the right thing.

‘Sister Joan, can you give me a lift back into town?’ Detective Sergeant Mill came round the corner as she was getting into the car.

‘Did your own car break down suddenly?’ she asked warily.

‘One of the lads will drive it back when they’ve finished in the chapel. No, I want to talk to you, Sister.’

‘I can’t tell you anything more at the moment,’ she began.

‘“Can’t” or “won’t”? Is there someone else who can?’

‘I’m not the keeper of anybody else’s conscience.’

‘Meaning you could if you would?’

‘Meaning I would if I could,’ she corrected. ‘I’m not trying to keep anything from you, but there are some things that others could tell you more cogently.’

‘I’ll come back and have a quiet chat with Sister Jerome. Thank you, Sister.’ He had opened the door and was lowering himself into the passenger seat.

‘I haven’t told you anything,’ she said.

‘Your face did while I was questioning her. You haven’t achieved custody of the eyes yet, have you? She’s hiding something, isn’t she?’

‘Nothing that would materially alter whatever theory you’re building up,’ she said carefully, putting the car into gear. ‘Sister Jerome will, I think, talk to you herself when she’s thought things over.’

‘That’ll have to do for now, I suppose.’ He shot her a
glance as she rounded the corner and headed for the gates. ‘I’m sure you’ve been told before that you’re a very obstinate woman.’

‘Occasionally. It’s more caution than obstinacy,’ she defended herself. ‘I would never withhold material from the police that was vital but I have to use my own judgement sometimes in balancing what is important against what isn’t.’

‘You might try giving me that task.’

‘I do whenever I can,’ she protested, ‘but there are times when my spiritual duty must come first.’

‘As when Mother Dorothy orders you not to mention that a tree and several bushes were vandalized in the convent grounds?’

‘Ah! she’s told you then?’ Sister Joan allowed herself a small sigh of relief.

‘While you were in the kitchen taking your leave of Sister Jerome. The incident ought to have been reported, you know.’

‘There’s so much vandalism these days that Mother Dorothy felt it would only be wasting your time to say anything. And we didn’t know then about anybody being killed.’

‘True, but it still ought to have been noted.’

‘The flowers in the front garden at the presbytery were all destroyed too. I found them, chopped up and dropped back into the border on my first morning there.’

‘You didn’t mention that either.’

‘I told Mother Dorothy and advised her to report the damage done to the tree.’

‘Which she finally did.’

‘Do you think they are all connected?’ she ventured.

‘We’ll know that when we compare the slashes on the tree with the blade of the axe,’ he said. ‘I’ve got someone checking on that now, but I think we’ll find they match.’

‘Nothing matches,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Some things do and the rest will when we find the connection. There’s the damage done to the trees – and to the flowers you tell me now – the injuries inflicted on that first victim, the axe blows to Miss Potter and Miss Hugh – so the axe is a factor, a link. We have to find other links and make a chain strong enough to confine a very dangerous person.’

‘The train down from the north?’

‘Two of the victims were travelling down to where another victim had been killed, and the first victim was found by the side of the line – probably ambushed in the old tunnel and dragged to the side of the track. There would have been a lot of blood that first time. Anyone catching a train would certainly have been very conspicuous, so we must assume they went somewhere to clean up first. There’s a conduit runs along by the line so they could have washed themselves there. The water flows fast so it’s unlikely to bear any traces—’

‘When will they know who the first victim was?’

‘Thanks for saying “when”,’ he said dryly. ‘Oh, they’ll do dental checks, identikit portraits based on the shape of the skull etc. The truth is that people do disappear without trace, Sister. Every year hundreds of people walk out of their homes and are never heard of again. Ninety-five per cent of them are runaways trying to leave some intolerable situation behind and make a fresh start, and if we’ve no reason to think a crime is involved there isn’t one single thing we can do about it. The remaining five per cent may be suffering from genuine amnesia, but there’s always the odd one who’s come to an unfortunate end.’

‘But relatives and friends report them as missing, don’t they?’

‘Those who have relatives and friends. Nobody has reported this particular man as a missing person. He may have been a loner, a dropout from normal society. We just don’t know.’

‘What do we know?’ she demanded.

‘Male, Caucasion, mid-thirties, fairish hair, about five-eight in height, slim build, traces of manual labour on hands – callouses, that kind of thing, no scars or tattoos. The results of the final autopsy should be here very soon. They’re letting me have them as soon as they have them. Did Sister Jerome find the axe under her seat?’

‘Yes, she—’ Sister Joan gripped the wheel and shut her mouth tightly.

‘Sorry, Sister.’ He looked only marginally contrite. ‘The axe left a faint indentation in the carpet. Is that what she’s been hiding?’

‘Well, since you figured it out already—’ She bit her lip and went on resignedly. ‘She didn’t know what to do. The community was in the middle of a Lenten meditation and she had an axe under her seat! I think she was panicked by the thought that she might be blamed for what’s been happening – not that she knew about everything but she certainly knew the tree and the holly bushes had been damaged and she must have feared being blamed for that. So she took the axe and put it on the altar. Nobody looked up or took any notice.’

‘Did Sister Jerome arrive before or after the tree was vandalized?’ Sister Joan frowned, trying to sort events into chronological order.

‘After, I think,’ she said. ‘No, wait a moment. She arrived in the morning before Father Malone left and Father Timothy got here. I saw Father Malone off at the station, took Father Timothy back to the presbytery, then drove back to the convent. Sister Jerome was here then and shortly afterwards the damage was discovered. I don’t think anyone could say when exactly it had been done. Sometime between the start of the grand silence on the previous night and when it was first seen the next morning.’

‘So Sister Jerome might have gone out earlier and done it herself?’

‘She hasn’t got a cast-iron alibi you mean. None of us has. Within the rule there is great freedom of thought and a considerable freedom of action. We come together for our prayers and meditations and for meals and recreation but each nun has her own particular duties, most of them solitary.’

‘Park in the lay-by for a minute or two and run through them for me.’

‘The duties?’ She drew up obediently. ‘Mother Dorothy is prioress for another three and a half years when we have the elections; Sister David is her secretary and sacristan – she keeps the chapel supplied with candles etcetera, and she’s writing a series of short books for children on the lives of the saints. Sister Hilaria has charge of the two postulants, Sister Marie and Sister Elizabeth; and Sister Perpetua is infirmarian. She takes care of Sister Gabrielle and Sister Mary Concepta. Then Sister Katherine deals with all the laundry and makes lace and embroidered vestments for sale and Sister Martha tends the garden and sells some of our produce at market. Oh, and Sister Teresa is helping out as lay sister just before she goes into seclusion before her final profession. And I can’t see any of them being mixed up in any of this. Not Sister Jerome either!’

‘And you’re exiled to the presbytery.’

‘Only for a week – less than a week now. Until a new housekeeper is engaged.’

‘I would feel happier,’ he said slowly, ‘if you were back at the convent.’

‘Nobody is likely to come after me with an axe – though Father Stephens may be tempted if I’m delayed much longer and he has to wait for his lunch.’

‘Mrs Fairly was killed in the presbytery,’ he reminded her. ‘Killed in her own bedroom.’

‘I’ve thought about that‚’ she said. ‘You know the front door is locked and the back door is bolted last thing at night but the presbytery is joined to the church via the sacristy and I don’t think anyone troubles to lock the sacristy door and, of course, Father Malone like ourselves with our chapel likes to leave the church door open in case anyone needs spiritual comfort.’

‘So anyone could get in if they were aware of that.’ He made an exasperated sound. ‘Dear God, but when this is over I shall insist on our security officer giving you and the priests a talk on the dangers of modern life. You’re all living in the Middle Ages.’

‘There was violence then too. Look, we can’t live in fortresses, Detective Sergeant Mill! At the convent we have Alice – she’ll grow up into a splendid guard dog, I’m sure.’

‘I’ll still arrange for that pep talk,’ he said grimly. ‘Look, I can walk from here. It’s only a couple of minutes. I’ll file my report, grab some lunch and then get back to the convent and see if Sister Jerome’s ready to talk to me. If she’s done nothing then she’s no reason to be worried. You’ll take care?’

‘Yes, of course. Oh, one thing more! I almost forgot – but twenty years ago some vandal damaged the trees in the convent grounds with an axe. It wasn’t the convent then, of course. It still belonged to the Tarquin family.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I’m going through stacks of old newspapers up in the storerooms, cutting out items relating to the immediate area and clipping them together. We’re planning on having a big scrapbook just for our own interest.’

‘Was the culprit caught?’

‘I don’t know. I only glanced through the first report of it in the local paper.’

‘Thank you, Sister. For the lift too. Take care.’

He got out of the car and walked off rapidly towards the town centre. So many little pieces, she thought,
apparently disconnected and yet connected somewhere. Mrs Fairly had remembered something about Sister Jerome but had died before she could keep her
appointment
. She had gone up to her room, taken with her the cup of tea with its splash of whisky she indulged in every night, drank some and felt odd, sleepy and disorientated, and then before she could summon help someone had entered her room and injected her with insulin. Insulin of all things! One couldn’t just buy that over the counter of the local pharmacy. There was no lock on the bedroom door. Making a mental note to check that the door through into the sacristy was locked later that day, she started the engine again, uttered a small exclamation, and backed on to the moorland track again.

Security. Alice. She’d been up at the convent for quite a considerable period and Alice hadn’t put in an
appearance
. The puppy was always bounding about in the vicinity of the kitchen and the yard, eager to take a walk with anyone who happened to be around. Alice would certainly have come running up, tail wagging, to
investigate
the police cars, to greet herself. Father Stephens would have to wait a little longer for his lunch. First she’d find out where Alice was.

She turned in at the main gates and parked the car neatly at the side. If she advertised her return she was likely to get bogged down in explanations and questions. She might even cause unnecessary alarm if she started a hue and cry after the puppy. Better to have a wander round before she went into the main house.

She set off at an angle across the grass, skirting the main paths and heading for the postulancy. Alice loved exploring the shrubbery, chasing imaginary foes,
stalking
birds she never succeeded in catching, burying her bones for future enjoyment.

‘Alice! Alice, where are you?’ She raised her voice, pausing to disentangle a length of briar from her cloak. ‘Alice? Here, girl!’

She had pushed her way through the damp shrubbery and reached the perimeter of the tennis court. The rain was still falling lightly but the breeze was mild and the last shining surfaces of the ice had gone.

‘Were you looking for Alice, Sister?’ Sister Hilaria hove into view, her cloak flung untidily about her shoulders.

‘I didn’t see her earlier this morning,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Oh, have you been here already today?’ Sister Hilaria blinked at her. ‘I’ve been in the postulancy with my charges. We had a splendid Lenten meditation. Sister Marie said she had glimpsed a policeman in the grounds, taking photographs of the tree that was damaged. Did Mother Dorothy decide to report it after all? Or has something more serious happened?’

‘I’m sure Mother Dorothy will tell you about it,’ Sister Joan said. The prospect of trying to explain all the ramifications of recent events to the dreamy novice mistress was too daunting.

‘You were looking for Alice you said?’

‘I haven’t seen her this morning,’ Sister Joan said.

‘We had her in the postulancy,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘You know animals are very sensitive to spiritual influences. Mother Dorothy is not inclined to agree with me on that point but I felt that Alice might benefit from our meditation at some level of her nature. It is now generally accepted that domestic animals have simple souls. Probably all animals have souls of some kind. It makes me happy that we are vegetarian though I’m a trifle uneasy about fish even if Our Blessed Lord did catch them – unless those stories are symbolic for the souls of men.’

‘So Alice is with you?’

‘Since our meditation began after breakfast this
morning
. She lay down and went straight to sleep like a lamb – or perhaps I could say a very good little dog!’

‘Then I was worrying about nothing,’ Sister Joan said, relieved.

‘Not that Alice has reached perfection yet by any
means,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘She has great propensity for digging up plants in an effort to get at her bones. And she will insist on presenting whatever she finds to us. Roots, stones, mouldy old biscuits, syringes—’