Vow of Penance (14 page)

‘Yes.’ Sister Joan nodded.

‘Your turn, Sister. You said you had something to tell me.’ He was looking at her keenly.

‘I suppose the poor man who was found up north by the railway track hasn’t been identified yet?’

He shook his head. ‘We’ve pieced together a reasonably good description of him from forensic evidence, but there’s no official report of anyone of that description missing that’s been officially logged.’

‘You said over the telephone that insulin was found. Was he killed by insulin?’

He shook his head again. ‘No. As far as they can determine the first blow on the back of the head killed him. The other injuries were inflicted in a kind of frenzy. They’ve found traces of blood matching his in the tunnel by the by. The insulin had been injected
before his death and the needle marks show he was an habitual user. It’ll take some time to check through medical records but eventually we’ll get a result.’

‘I can save you the trouble,’ Sister Joan said tensely. ‘Our new priest, Father Matthew Timothy, is a diabetic. I checked with the seminary.’

‘But Father Timothy’s down here,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said blankly.

‘I thought he might have been the dead man,’ she confessed. ‘Nobody from the seminary would have missed him because he’d officially left anyway, and since they don’t get a popular newspaper they wouldn’t know about the murder either.’

‘And?’

‘Father Timothy was escorted to the station by Father Philip, another priest at the seminary,’ she said, ‘so he can’t be the dead man. But there’s something else: Father Anselm to whom I spoke said that some tools had been stolen from a garden shed in the seminary grounds the night before Father Timothy left and some bonsai trees and plants were destroyed at the same time. Father Timothy had been cultivating them.’

‘Has he mentioned this?’ Detective Sergeant Mill asked sharply.

‘He left before anyone told him about it.’

‘Two diabetics?’ He bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘It’s a common condition but even so – the arm of coincidence does seem to be getting rather long, doesn’t it? How did you manage to get all this information? This Father Anselm?’

‘I asked a few questions.’

‘Evidently the right ones. Is there anything else, Sister?’

She hesitated, stirring her coffee round and round, watching the tiny bubbles rise to the surface and break.

‘Mrs Fairly’s handbag was missing,’ she said at last.

‘It wasn’t among her belongings?’

‘I packed everything away ready for when her niece came. I just didn’t think of a handbag at the time,’ she confessed. ‘It’s so long since I carried one myself. I only thought of it later.’

‘You say it was missing? I take it that you’ve found it?’

‘In the refuse bin,’ Sister Joan said.

Detective Sergeant Mill sat up straighter.

‘What made you look there?’ he demanded.

‘I didn’t. I was putting out a refuse sack into the big bin and there was this square brown paper parcel tucked in among the bags. The size and shape were right so I took it out and the handbag was inside. Whoever killed her needed to examine that handbag for some reason but perhaps there wasn’t time so they made a parcel and put it in the bin meaning to collect it later. The refuse isn’t collected until later today.’

‘Where’s the handbag now?’

‘I gave it to Padraic Lee to look after for me.’

‘Why not bring it to the police?’

‘Because finding it gave me an idea as to a way I might find out who’d put it in the bin.’

‘How? You haven’t been mounting guard over it!’

‘I put an empty box in the refuse bin, wrapped up in brown paper,’ she said. ‘I thought it might force whoever found it to reveal themselves.’

‘Of all the stupid, amateur—’ He scowled at her. ‘Sister Joan, didn’t it enter your head that you were putting yourself in very grave danger? Not to mention Father Stephens and Father Timothy who might equally well have found it originally?’

‘I had to think of something on the spur of the moment so I came up with that,’ she said, flushing, ‘and if you’re going to grumble that I’ve left it a bit late to tell you what I did your own reaction is the answer. I knew that you’d disapprove.’

‘Well, at least you’ve told me now.’ He was clearly trying to control his irritation. ‘Sister, we have the
resources to deal with something like this. There might have been prints on the handbag. You had no business to suppress evidence.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She fiddled with her coffee spoon.

‘We’ll get on to it now. I don’t suppose much harm has been done.’ He was preparing to rise but she broke in.

‘It’s gone.’

‘What!’ He sat down again.

‘I looked in the bin today after lunch when I wheeled it round to the front ready for collection and it’s gone – the parcel I put in. Someone took it.’

‘And by now will know that the empty box was substituted for the handbag. Sister, hasn’t it entered your head that you’ve put yourself in some danger?’

‘Isn’t that one way to bring the killer into the open?’ she argued.

‘An exceedingly reckless way – or are you under the impression that your habit protects you? You’ve set yourself up at the very least as bait.’

‘Not exactly,’ she said slowly. ‘If they guess I took it, and it’s reasonable to suppose that they might, they’re not going to do anything to me until they find out where I’ve hidden the original handbag. I’m positive they were searching in it for something.’

‘I’d better drive out to the Romany camp and take charge of it,’ he said. ‘Sister, it would be wiser for you to leave the presbytery and return to the convent immediately. I can leave a couple of men there to patrol.’

‘Then I’ve gone to a lot of trouble for nothing,’ she said coldly.

For an instant their glances met and locked. Then Detective Sergeant Mill gave an unwilling grin.

‘If it was anyone except you, Sister – you presume on the respect I have for your abilities you know. All right! Stay at the presbytery for the moment. The first
intimation you have that something is wrong, that someone is getting ready to accost you and you don’t wait around to find out. You ring me immediately. Have I your word on that?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said promptly.

‘So where does that leave us?’ He sat down again, ticking off items rapidly on his fingers.

‘Three instances of mindless vandalism,’ she
contributed
. ‘The bonsai trees at the seminary, the tree at the convent and the flowers in the presbytery garden. The insulin.’

‘A diabetic priest and a dead body of a diabetic, a woman killed by insulin injection and an empty syringe dug up at the convent,’ he nodded. ‘A handbag that was taken, stuffed into the refuse bin to be examined later. Those are the common factors but what we have to sort out is the common link.’

‘You haven’t mentioned the murders,’ she said.

‘Oh, they’re the obvious link,’ he agreed. ‘All apparently motiveless which would suggest a random killer, a maniac, but committed in different ways – one brutally mutilated, another injected with insulin after a cold-blooded attempt to mislead us into thinking it suicide, a young woman hit over the head while travelling by train and thrown out and her friend killed by a similar blow after she arrived presumably, since her body was found stuffed into the boot of the car that Sister Jerome was using. The last three victims are connected by very slender threads. Sylvia Potter was Mrs Fairly’s niece and she shared a house with her fellow schoolteacher, Miss Hugh. Why did they all become victims and what the devil do any of them have to do with a man who was almost certainly engaged in manual labour at some time and who regularly took insulin for his diabetic condition?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I’ve thought about it until I feel dizzy.’

‘Don’t come up with any more bright ideas, Sister,’ he begged, his grin down curving. ‘Are they looking for a new housekeeper at the presbytery?’

‘Yes, of course, but it takes a little time to find the right person.’

‘And meanwhile you’re stuck there instead of being safely tucked up in your convent where you ought to be. I’m going to have to interview Father Stephens and Father Timothy rather thoroughly. They may have seen or heard something that throws light on everything. They may know something important without being conscious that they know it. When are they likely to be in?’

‘They’re out sick visiting this afternoon and then Father Stephens is coming back to interview prospective housekeepers and Father Timothy is hearing
confessions
.’

‘And where will you be?’

‘In the confessional,’ she said feelingly. ‘Collecting a load of penance to say if I’m any judge of character.’

‘I’ll do my best to get along later. You’ll take care, Sister?’

‘Yes,’ Sister Joan said gravely. ‘Yes, I’ll take very great care.’

The presbytery was still empty when she let herself in with her key. The rest of the vegetable stew sat sadly in the big pan on the cooker. She looked at it with marked distaste. It was a sin to waste food but both Father Stephens and Father Timothy deserved something a bit more appetizing when they got in. There was some pasta in the cupboard. She’d cook that, heat the vegetables with a good big handful of parmesan cheese and use it as a sauce. Meanwhile she had a little time left in which to collect her thoughts together on paper. When she wrote things down they often assumed a clarity they didn’t have when they were tossing about in her head.

She found pad and paper in the kitchen drawer and sat down at the table. Where to begin? Everything was happening so quickly that the sequence of events was becoming blurred. First had been the murder of the unknown, and apparently unmissed diabetic. He must have been killed at about the same time that Father Timothy was being escorted to the station. She wrote down the two events and stared at them, tapping the end of the pen against her teeth.

Whoever had committed that first murder had gone to considerable trouble to render his victim
unidentifiable
. Whoever had committed that first murder had obviously been splashed with blood. Yet by the time the nuns had entered the grand silence at 9.30 that same
night he had been near the convent, near enough to damage the tree and the holly bushes. He had cut it fine, she mused, and tapped her teeth again.

Early that morning Father Malone had left on his sabbatical and Father Timothy had arrived with his two suitcases. One of them stood in his bedroom, the other was in the sacristy and so far she hadn’t seen any of the paperback books which it had contained. Later that day had come the telephone call from Mrs Fairly, requesting a meeting, intimating she knew something about Sister Jerome, the new lay sister. And Sister Jerome had arrived at the convent that same morning that Father Timothy had come. No, she hadn’t! She had turned up the day before, striding through the gates with her unfriendly manner. Sister Joan crossed out what she’d written and started again. 

A voice from the doorway made her start violently.

‘Something smells very tasty,’ Father Stephens said.

‘I’ll have it ready for you in five minutes, Father.’ She hastily closed the pad and rose, thrusting it back into the drawer. ‘Will Father Timothy be in?’

‘He went straight into church to prepare for the confessional.’ Father Stephens sighed slightly.

‘He’s very conscientious, isn’t he?’ Sister Joan said neutrally.

‘As we all must be,’ Father Stephens said. ‘Father Timothy never leaves one item of his duties skimped or neglected. It is merely that one doesn’t wish to be constantly reminded of duties to be done. Father Malone is far less – censorious.’

He brought the last word out reluctantly and immediately looked embarrassed.

‘Father Timothy is newly ordained and probably still under the illusion that he’s all set for a life of sanctity,’ Sister Joan said.

Father Stephens gave a choking laugh and looked embarrassed again.

‘One really ought not to be too critical,’ he said apologetically. ‘The problem is that Father Timothy hasn’t yet acquired the right manner when dealing with people. He is quite alone in the world and seems to have no friends or hobbies. One must excuse him a great deal, Sister.’

‘I suppose.’ Sister Joan stirred more cheese and a large pat of butter into the sauce and looked rather doubtfully at the pasta. ‘
A
l
dente
is the way it’s supposed to be but I’m not sure how
al
dente
that is.’

‘I’ll just wash my hands.’ Father Stephens, regaining his mantle of cool superiority, went on upstairs.

‘If you’ve everything you need, Father,’ Sister Joan said, carrying in the supper, ‘I’d better go to confession.
Oh, nobody called about the post of housekeeper but I had to go out for a short while earlier so it’s possible that somebody rang and decided to call in later on the offchance you’d be here.’

‘No further news on these recent dreadful events?’ He looked up at her as he took his seat.

‘Nothing to speak of, Father. The police are still investigating. Oh, Detective Sergeant Mill will be calling here sometime. He didn’t say when.’

‘I doubt if I can help him further,’ Father Stephens said. ‘Mrs Fairly is to be buried tomorrow. I still wonder if I ought not to get in touch with Father Malone but there really is nothing he can do and it would be a great pity to spoil his pilgrimage.’

‘I think you’re right, Father. If you’ll excuse me I’ll leave you for now.’ Going out, she took her cloak from the hallstand and slipped it over her shoulders.

The church was dimly illumined by the perpetual lamp which glowed redly by the altar and by candles lit earlier by those parishioners who had the habit of popping in for a few minutes while out shopping. It would be a pity if the church had to be locked save for services, she thought, because of any fear of vandalism. But, of course, it wasn’t mindless vandalism that lay behind the destruction of trees and flowers. It had been something more, something more subtle, more dangerous.

She had entered via the sacristy and closed the door softly behind her as she stood near the altar. Two women were saying their penances nearby and a third left the confessional as Sister Joan genuflected and walked down the aisle to the back of the church.

Usually she spent at least an hour thinking about her faults before she went to confess them, but today if she was to get the rest of the pasta cooked, the sauce warmed over again, fresh coffee brewed, the dishes washed and the parlour ready for any prospective
housekeepers who might turn up, there simply wasn’t time. The calm and regular routine of the enclosure which made ample time for both the spiritual and the practical really did have a great deal to recommend it.

She stepped into the penitent’s half of the
confessional
, closed the door, and knelt on the hassock by the close-meshed grille. She could discern the austere profile of Father Timothy by the faint light from the other partition.

‘Father, forgive me because I have sinned. It is ten days since my last confession.’ Whispering the
customary
opening she wondered just how anonymous she now was. Few lay people confessed more than once a month and many saved everything up for the obligatory Easter confession.

‘Pray God you make a good confession,’ came the whispered reply.

‘I have harboured uncharitable thoughts,’ she began, wondering if the day would ever dawn when she didn’t have that to confess. ‘I have spoken too sharply on occasion. I have hurried through my prayers instead of taking time to compose myself. I have sometimes spoken when I ought to have kept silent and kept silent when it was my duty to speak. I have sometimes followed my own will out of obstinacy and pride.’

‘Your sins are very grave,’ the voice whispered. ‘They shock me very much.’

But they ought not to shock you, she thought irritably. Priests weren’t there in the confessional to make personal judgements. They were no more than a bridge between penitent and Creator.

‘Is there anything else on your conscience?’ The voice came again.

‘I’ve finished my confession, Father,’ she whispered firmly.

‘Then, for your penance, say one hundred Hail Marys and keep all-night vigil before the altar. Make a
good Act of Contrition.
Te
absolvo
—’

The words of the confiteor had flown right out of her head. She knelt, half hearing the words of absolution, the severity of the penance having almost taken her breath away.

‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and carefully avoid the occasions of sin.’ Rising, she backed out, opening the door with relief and feeling the rush of cool air. It was going to be rough luck on anyone who had adultery, falsehoods or theft to get off their consciences, she thought. They’d be on their knees until Christmas.

There certainly wasn’t time to start her penance now. She’d have to return later and get the prayers said while she was undertaking her vigil.

She genuflected and went back through the sacristy. The shabby case still protruded its corners from beneath the altar cloths on top of the cupboard.

‘You weren’t long, Sister.’ Father Stephens looked up from his coffee as she went into the dining-room.

‘I haven’t said my penance yet.’

‘Five Hail Marys ought not to take you too long,’ he said with faint surprise. For Father Stephens the recitation of five Hail Marys was his standard ration of penance. Sister Joan made no comment. To have informed him of her own penance would have felt like tale bearing.

She had finished her own supper and cleared away when Father Timothy came through from the sacristy. He looked not tired but elated as if hearing the long lists of other people’s sins had engendered in him a curious satisfaction.

‘Just bread and a glass of milk for me, Sister.’ He put his sandy head in at the kitchen door. ‘I make a habit of fasting on Fridays. It is not, I understand, a great feature of the rule up at your convent.’

‘We eat less during Lent,’ Sister Joan told him. ‘And on Good Friday we have only bread and water, but our
rule doesn’t encourage rigorous abstinence.’

‘A pity!’ he said coldly. ‘Your Order would be the better for it.’

‘If you think so, Father.’ She spoke equally coldly as he went on into the dining-room.

One respected the office of a priest at all times, she reminded herself, but being a cleric didn’t automatically turn a man into a pleasant person. No doubt several of the saints had been rather difficult to live with.

When the front doorbell rang she went to answer it just ahead of Father Stephens who was coming out of the study.

‘Good evening, Sister Joan.’ Detective Sergeant Mill had the collar of his raincoat turned up and looked as if he were auditioning for a role in a gangster movie. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Father Stephens, but I did want a few words.’

‘Yes, of course. Sister, make some coffee, will you?’ Father Stephens turned towards the parlour.

‘No coffee, thank you, Sister. I’d like you to join us if you will. Is Father Timothy available?’

‘He’s just about to have his supper,’ Father Stephens said.

‘Food ought not to interfere with one’s duty.’ Father Timothy had appeared at the dining-room door. ‘If you wish to speak to me—?’

‘Detective Sergeant Mill, Father Timothy. You’re here to stand in for Father Malone while he’s away?’

‘Yes. This is my first parish,’ Father Timothy said. ‘I am, of course, aware of some very unfortunate things having occurred here. It casts a cloud.’

‘Which we hope to dispel. The parlour would be fine, Sister.’ He ushered her ahead of him, the others following. ‘This is an informal meeting. A few odds and ends to clear up. As you know Mrs Fairly didn’t commit suicide.’

‘Thank God,’ Father Stephens said quietly. ‘I am not
saying that murder is a nice business but self-slaughter is so infinitely sad, and had it been suicide I would always have felt, as would Father Malone, that we had failed her in some way.’

‘At least you need not have blamed yourself, Father Timothy, since you had only just met her,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said.

‘She seemed a very worthy woman,’ Father Timothy said. ‘Not that I have much experience of housekeepers as yet, this being my first curacy.’