Vow of Penance (13 page)

‘Syringes!!’

‘One to be exact. She trotted into the meditation with it and laid it at my feet like a gift,’ Sister Hilaria said, chuckling. ‘It was covered with dirt and soil.’

‘Where did she dig it up?’ Sister Joan asked sharply.

‘I’ve no idea – somewhere round here, I expect.’ The novice mistress looked round vaguely. ‘Certainly close enough for her to hear my voice when I called her.’

‘What did you do with the syringe?’ Sister Joan held her breath.

‘Took it away from her of course. The point might have injured her. And it was absolutely filthy, of course too. Sister Elizabeth washed it for me and put it in the cupboard. I meant to ask Sister Perpetua if she ever used a syringe. I didn’t think she did but one finds it so difficult to keep up with the speed of events these days.’

‘If Detective Sergeant Mill comes over to speak to you will you give it to him?’

‘Yes, of course I will, Sister,’ Sister Hilaria said, ‘but I can’t think why he would want to speak to me. I know nothing about the damage to the tree.’

‘But you do have some knowledge of evil,’ Sister Joan said.

‘And of its coming.’ Sister Hilaria’s somewhat prominent eyes clouded over slightly. ‘There is a great deal of it about these days. The darkness rises up, I feel. Do you want me to fetch Alice?’

‘No, as long as she’s all right. I have to get back.’ Sister Joan nodded and turned away, retracing her footsteps to the driveway where her car waited.

Settling herself behind the wheel she started up the engine and drove fast through the gates out on to the track. Sister Hilaria would completely forget about the
syringe within the hour and the syringe was important. Sister Perpetua certainly didn’t own one. But someone had buried it near the postulancy. Someone had slashed the tree and destroyed the holly bushes.

She reached the main road again, turned towards the town centre and slammed on her brakes as a policeman on traffic duty shook an admonitory finger at her.

‘Sorry, Officer!’ She stuck her head out of the window.

‘Trying to book yourself an early place in heaven, Sister? Remember the speed limit,’ he called.

‘Sorry.’ She drove on more carefully, reminding herself that one of her first tasks was to curb her own impulsiveness.

‘Sister, you’re very late.’ Father Stephens greeted her coldly as she hurried into the house.

‘I’m terribly sorry, Father. I was delayed up at the convent. I’ll get your lunch directly. Will you have the warmed-over stew or would you prefer an egg on toast?’

‘Anything quick,’ he said irritably. ‘I have some sick calls to make this afternoon, and Father Timothy wants to telephone his old seminary and write some letters before he takes confession.’ Father Stephens went, heavy-footed and disapproving, into the dining-room.

Sister Joan pulled off her cloak and went into the kitchen, grabbing a saucepan and filling it from the tap, putting in four eggs, switching on the cooker and toaster, slicing bread. All actions to be performed automatically while her mind grappled with other things.

‘You haven’t forgotten the Sacrifice of Penance, Sister?’ Father Timothy, coming through the hall, paused at the kitchen door.

‘No, Father, I’ll be at confession later. Thank you for reminding me‚’ she said bleakly.

No doubt he was saving up a humdinger of a penance especially for her, she mused gloomily.

‘I’ve been hoping we might have some suitable applicants for the post of housekeeper‚’ Father Stephens said, looking at her with rather more favour when she carried in the eggs and toast. ‘I was a little short with you just now, but it does seem that you seem to be running backwards and forwards between two points and not fully devoting yourself to either of them.’

‘One cannot serve God and Mammon,’ she said.

‘A singularly inappropriate remark,’ Father Timothy said with a wintry little smile.

‘Sorry, Father.’ She set down the food and went back into the kitchen to collect the coffee pot, thinking resentfully that she seemed to spend a lot of time these days apologizing to people. Perhaps a good solid bout in the confessional would do her some good.

‘Are things going smoothly in the convent?’ Father Stephens asked as she poured the two coffees.

‘I – think so, Father. I doubt if my absence is much missed. Sister Jerome and Sister Teresa seem to be managing very well between them.’

‘And you’ve heard no further developments
concerning
these recent most unfortunate affairs? Mrs Fairly’s death and the two young women?’

‘The police take their own time, Father. I daresay we’ll be told when something happ—excuse me.’

She broke off as the telephone rang in the study.

‘Get that, will you, Sister? If it’s someone applying for the post I’ll be able to interview them later this afternoon,’ Father Stephens said. ‘About six.’

‘Our Lady of – oh, Detective Sergeant Mill!’ She broke off as his voice interrupted her at the end of the line.

‘Sister Joan? Good, glad I’ve caught you. We just got the autopsy report on that first body.’

‘Yes?’ Instinctively she had tensed herself.

‘Healthy until he was axed to death, non-smoker, liver in good condition, but there’s something more. He was
a diabetic, Sister. Traces of insulin in the blood and the marks of frequent injections. The pathologist had noticed them before and wondered if he was a junkie. Now we should be able to find out who he was fairly soon. Merely a question of checking all those in the area who get regular supplies of insulin from their local GP and finding out who’s gone missing. I’ll be in touch.’

He had rung off before she could answer him, leaving her clutching the phone.

‘Is everything all right, Sister?’ Father Stephens had come into the study and was frowning at her in a concerned fashion as she turned.

‘Thank you, yes. That was Detective Sergeant Mill,’ she said after only a momentary pause. ‘It may be necessary for me to call in at the police station a little later.’

‘Does that mean supper will also be delayed?’ he enquired.

‘No, Father. I’ll be back in good time.’

‘If you must you must, I suppose,’ he said with somewhat heavy patience.

‘I’ll see to the clearing-up first,’ she said placatingly.

There was little point in rushing off to the police station at this moment. The phone call had been a hurried one, probably, she guessed, because Detective Sergeant Mill was on the verge of driving back to the convent to interview Sister Jerome again. She would look in at the station later in the hope that he might have returned. By then he might have much more to tell her.

Meanwhile there were the dishes to be washed, the carpets to be vacuumed and the surfaces dusted. Mrs Fairly had been dead for such a little while and yet the lack of her careful housewifery was already becoming apparent.

‘I’d better get on with my parish visiting then.’ Father
Stephens, mercifully refraining from asking any more questions, turned and went out.

From the dining-room his voice issued cheerfully.

‘Would you like to come with me, Father Timothy? We’ll be back before you need to go into the confessional. You can ring your seminary later.’

‘Very well, Father.’ Father Timothy answered flatly, without intonations of any feelings one way or the other.

‘What I would not enjoy very much,’ Sister Joan muttered under her breath, ‘would be to be ill and to have Father Timothy visit me on the same day.’

Through the back window the square bulk of the refuse bin partly blocked the light. Now, at least, she had an excuse to go out into the back and wheel it down the side path to the front gate where it would be emptied later.

The front door closed behind the two priests and, waiting a few moments to give them time to reach the garage, she opened the back door and went out.

The empty box she had wrapped up so carefully in brown paper and cellotape had been removed. She dislodged a couple of the black plastic sacks in case it had been pushed further down but there was no sign of it.

She had been correct in her assumption then. The handbag had been roughly wrapped and put in the bin because there hadn’t been time to investigate it on the night of Mrs Fairly’s murder. Someone had gone there, either after nightfall or during one of her absences from the presbytery to remove it and examine it at leisure.

She wheeled the bin out to the front gate and went back indoors. Whoever had taken the parcel from the bin must know by now that the handbag had been found and a trap set. Sooner or later someone would show his hand.

The rain had stopped and a faint warmth blew on the breeze through the open window of her bedroom. She had made her bed automatically on waking according to conventual habit but she was fairly certain that the two clerics hadn’t.

Their rooms were at the other side of the square hallway. Father Stephens had kept his own room, she supposed, noticing a rather touching collection of family photographs on the wall. A cherubic baby in a romper suit held by two proud parents looked as if even then he had been thinking about his Easter sermon; a small boy with his fair hair neatly slicked down held a trophy for something or other; a chubby teenager sat on the arm of a chair with his hand on his father’s shoulder; an earnest theological student stood taller than both parents, smiling into the camera. The room was neat even though the bed hadn’t been made, a red rug splashing brightness across the floor.

She made the bed, folded the pyjamas, noting with amusement that Father Stephens favoured a rather jazzy design, and went into the slightly larger room which Father Malone had clearly occupied until recently. The bookcase held his battered collection of old Rider Haggard and John Buchan novels; a pencil sketch of St Patrick exiling the snakes from Ireland hung over the dressing-table, and in a niche between two walls a highly coloured plaster statuette of St Brigid, the ‘Mary of the Gael’ stood with clasped hands.

The bed had been made, the coverlet smoothed over a curiously flat surface.

Sister Joan stared at it for a few seconds, then abruptly stooped to look under the bed. As she had thought the mattress was stowed there. Father Timothy had elected to sleep on the wooden base. At least he couldn’t be accused of preaching penance when he didn’t practise it, she thought. His suitcase stood against the wall. She opened the wardrobe door and looked at
the black suit and soutane hanging there next to a brown dressing-gown. There was no overt sign of family photographs or any personal possessions. Perhaps he hadn’t put them out yet. She closed the door of the wardrobe and bent to the suitcase. It was unlocked and held only a couple of thin towels.

He had had two suitcases, she recalled, one full of paperback books. That was the one she had carried for him and thought very light considering its contents. Presumably he’d put it somewhere else. She took a last look round and went into the room next door. Father Malone had taken his own shabby luggage with him and there were no cases in Father Stephens’s room either save a neat weekend case.

The guest bedroom? She went in, looked round and saw Father Stephens’s larger case, his initials on the handle, against the wall. Where had Father Timothy put his extra suitcase and the paperback books it had held?

The airing cupboard, the bathroom and the upstairs broom cupboard held nothing that resembled books or suitcase. Going downstairs she looked rapidly in the cupboards there with the same lack of results. There remained the sacristy. She opened the door, marking with a frown that nobody had troubled to lock it, and looked round at the shelves and cupboards with their consignments of surplices, missals, candles and packets of incense. No suitcase anywhere. Only the richly embroidered copes hanging in the largest cupboard, and on the wall a list of parish notices. The room was still and stuffy, the scent of burnt wax and incense lingering.

‘Eureka!’ She uttered the word in a tone of triumph as she suddenly saw it, balancing on top of a low cupboard with a pile of altar cloths covering it. There was a stool in the corner. She pulled it into position, climbed onto it, lifted down the cloths, put them on the table, climbed
up again and lifted the suitcase down. It was empty. The light weight of it told her that even before she set it down and knelt to the lock.

The case opened easily and she lifted the lid, sitting back on her heels with a disappointed shake of her head as she stared at the empty interior. If it had held books they had been removed. On the handle the initials M.T. were almost rubbed away.

She lifted the case back up to the cupboard and replaced the cloths. There was no reason why Father Timothy shouldn’t put one of his cases in the sacristy. It was obviously an old one, shabbier than the one in his room. Brushing dust from her hands she went thoughtfully back into the house. Something was nagging at the back of her mind but she couldn’t formulate it into a thought.

On the study table near the telephone a pad held useful telephone numbers, scribbled messages. She went in and sat down to look at it. Father Malone’s neat, crabbed hand filled the pages, reminders to get his hair cut and buy toothpaste interspersed with odd numbers jotted down at various times, a list of first communicants and – yes, here it was – Our Lady of Good Hope Seminary and the number next to it.

She lifted the receiver and dialled, wondering when Father Malone would get round to acquiring a more modern instrument. At the other end the ringing had a curious echo, as if it reflected the stone-clad spaces within the seminary. The ringing stopped.

‘Our Lady Of Good Hope Seminary. Father Anselm speaking.’

It was a cheerful voice with a Lancashire accent.

‘This is Sister Joan. I’m calling from Father Malone’s parish in—’

‘Yes, of course.’ The voice broke in breezily. ‘We were in contact with Father Malone recently. What can I do for you, Sister?’

‘You’ve not heard anything of events down here?’ she began.

‘Events? Father Malone left for his sabbatical, didn’t he?’

‘Yes. Yes he left. I meant events reported in the newspapers.’

‘We don’t take any newspapers here, Sister. Father Superior reads
The
Times
once a week but that’s all. Is anything wrong? Father Timothy is well?’

‘Yes, he’s going to telephone you later. I wondered – did anyone see him get on the train?’

‘What an odd question!’ Father Anselm said. ‘Yes, he was escorted to the station according to custom. We like to give our newly ordained priests a good send off. Of course this being Lent only one of us actually accompanied him out of the cloister.’

‘And came back?’

‘Of course he came back, Sister. Why on earth shouldn’t he? I fail to see—’

‘Please bear with me, Father Anselm,’ she said quickly. ‘Could you tell me who went to the station with Father Timothy?’

‘Father Philip did. Sister, is something wrong? Father Timothy isn’t sick?’

‘Is he likely to be?’ she countered.

‘Not if he continues to take his insulin. He did tell you about that? He is rather shy sometimes about admitting it.’

‘Yes. We are aware of it. One more question, Father.’ Without knowing what had suddenly prompted her to enquire she asked, ‘Have there been any incidences of vandalism at the seminary recently?’

‘How odd that you should ask!’ Father Anselm said. ‘Yes, we’ve had some tools stolen from one of the outhouses as a matter of fact. We don’t bother to keep it locked and the wall near it is very low so it would be – evidently was an easy matter for hooligans to break in.’

‘Did they vandalize anything?’

‘A display of bonsai trees and shrubs on the windowsill. Father Timothy’s pet project but happily we were able to keep the news from him since he was leaving the next day. Sister, I’ve been very patient but I must know why you’re asking all these questions.’

‘I’ll telephone you, or Father will. Thank you, Father Anselm.’

She replaced the receiver and rested her chin on her hands while she pondered what she had heard. Father Timothy was a diabetic: the body found at the side of the railway track had been full of insulin – a diabetic too or killed in the same manner as Mrs Fairly with the savage axe attack merely designed to draw attention from the real cause of death? Father Timothy had been seen off at the station, and had duly arrived in Bodmin. She ought to have asked if he’d come down on the overnight train.

There was still the vacuuming to do. She rose and went to get the vacuum cleaner, thankful that for once she had something practical to do with her hands while her mind ranged over various possibilities.

What was it that she had heard about Father Timothy before his arrival? The trouble was that she hadn’t taken much notice since at that stage she hadn’t known she’d be coming down to help out at the presbytery. He was newly ordained, a late vocation which fitted Father Timothy who showed all the symptoms of over-enthusiasm which newly fledged clerics sometimes displayed and he was nearer forty than thirty. He hadn’t mentioned his diabetes but as Father Anselm had said he was somewhat shy about it. So shy that she had seen no trace of needles or syringe in his room. She reminded herself that she hadn’t gone poking through the drawers of the dresser. There was something else, something she’d been told, something she’d heard – she switched off the vacuum cleaner and unplugged it. Whatever it was would come to her in due course.

It was time to share her knowledge with Detective Sergeant Mill. She went back into the study and lifted the telephone again.

‘You just caught me, Sister.’ His voice sounded pleased. ‘I only now walked in. What can I do for you?’

‘Could you meet me for a cup of coffee?’ she enquired.

‘Yes, of course. At the café? I can be there in a couple of minutes.’

‘I’ll be there in five. Thank you.’ She put down the receiver and went to get her cloak.

Outside the last puddles were drying in a belated sun and the surfaces of cobbles and paving stones still faintly gleaming. She walked briskly down the street, crossed and turned the corner into the main street. It would have been possible for her to walk into the police station, of course, but some natural caution had dictated another course.

He had tactfully installed himself at a table in the corner and signalled the waitress for a second cup of coffee as Sister Joan entered.

‘You’ve something to tell me, Sister?’ He waited until she had taken her first sip, then leaned forward attentively, his voice low.

‘Yes, I believe so. Did you speak to Sister Jerome?’

‘And to Sister Hilaria.’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘You could have told me yourself, you know.’

‘I went back to the convent to check on Alice’s whereabouts and met Sister Hilaria. She mentioned that Alice had dug up a syringe.’

‘Which she promptly handed over to one of the novices to wash! Didn’t it occur to her to report it?’

‘Why should she?’ Sister Joan protested. ‘All that Sister Hilaria knows is that a tree and some bushes were vandalized and that Mrs Fairly, whom she didn’t know, died. Mother Prioress doesn’t fill her time with long accounts of murders for the rest of the community.’

‘Sorry, Sister.’ He grinned, holding up a shielding hand. ‘You’re right. Sister Hilaria keeps her thoughts on higher matters, and in any case the tree wasn’t attacked by a syringe. She came over to the main house with the syringe. We rushed it to the lab, but when a nun cleans something she cleans it thoroughly. It could have been used to give an injection of insulin. I’ve a couple of lads up by the tennis court digging at the moment to see what else is waiting to be dug up.’

‘And you spoke to Sister Jerome?’

‘With immense care since she seems to be terrified of police officers – not that I read anything into that. Many innocent people feel an uneasy frisson of guilt when a member of the force hovers into view. She found the axe under her seat, feared that she might be blamed for damaging the tree and put it on the altar while the other nuns were deep in meditation. Her prints were on the handle – very blurred since she’d wrapped the thing in the skirt of her habit when she picked it up. She’s a strong woman, by the way, to manage it with one hand. That’s quite a weight.’