Vow of Penance (6 page)

‘I don’t think Mrs Fairly did kill herself,’ Sister Joan said.

There was a little silence. Mother Dorothy took off her spectacles, wiped them carefully, replaced them on her snub nose, and folded her hands on the flat-topped desk before her.

‘I assume you have a good reason for asserting that?’ she said.

‘Not really, Mother.’ Sister Joan flushed slightly. ‘I hadn’t exchanged more than a brief greeting with Mrs Fairly until yesterday morning and even then we only had a few words. She gave me a cup of tea while she was putting on some extra breakfast for Father Timothy, but she was so – so ordinary, and stolid, and cheerful. Even when she rang me up she didn’t sound in the least desperate, merely a little puzzled and perturbed—’

‘About what?’

Sister Joan’s rosy cheeks grew rosier. To have told Mother Dorothy that Mrs Fairly believed she knew where she had seen Sister Jerome’s name before would be to focus attention on the newcomer which might be quite unjustified since what Mrs Fairly had remembered
might have no bearing on her death.

‘She wasn’t very clear,’ she said at last, substituting the essence of truth for its literal meaning. ‘The line was crackling and so I said I would meet her if possible and she rang off.’

‘What makes you so certain that she didn’t take the drug overdose deliberately then?’ Mother Dorothy asked.

‘I don’t know, Mother.’ Sister Joan spread her hands helplessly. ‘I suppose that, like you, I find it painful to contemplate that someone could reach such a pitch of despair that they would throw away the life God gave them, but there’s something else. Mrs Fairly was a splendidly caring housekeeper – Father Malone used to joke that she fussed over him and Father Stephens too much, but he did appreciate her good qualities and – well, I just can’t believe that she would wait until Father Malone had just embarked upon a wonderful series of pilgrimages, and then run the risk of spoiling it all for him by killing herself. She wasn’t so selfish!’

‘Did you say this to Detective Sergeant Mill?’

‘Not really. I hadn’t thought it out properly then. I did say that I couldn’t believe that Mrs Fairly had killed herself but he said that there was no possibility of it having been an accident and no evidence that it had been anything else, so the inquest will be a virtual formality.’

Mother Dorothy was frowning, not in displeasure but with a concentrated ferocity that intimated equally concentrated thought.

‘Father Stephens made a request of me,’ she said at last. ‘Until a new housekeeper can be appointed both he and Father Timothy will require someone to cook and clean for them. He wanted to know if I could spare one of the sisters for a week or so. I told him that I would consider the request and let him know my answer as soon as possible. It seems to me that it might be a good
idea to send you down to the presbytery as temporary housekeeper. Mind, I don’t order you to go. To have to leave the enclosure overnight especially during Lent is a great sacrifice, but this is the season of penance, so you may care to think about it. If by your going you could find out that poor Mrs Fairly died accidentally and not by her own hand then it would lift a great burden from Father Malone when the time comes for him to be told.’

Sister Joan was silent. Her first impulse had been to declare that she would gladly go down to the presbytery if there was the smallest chance of her uncovering the truth, but her immediate reaction following that impulse had been a terrible doubt that the search for the truth might be too closely bound with her own human curiosity, her own longing to continue to play some part in the world she had renounced.

‘It would entail your having to walk down into town,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘since the car may well be needed here and Lilith would have no proper stabling in town. At the least you will be smoothing the running of the household during the funeral, the arrival of any relatives and so on. I am not sending you to poke and pry, Sister, but should something come to your attention then you must of course bring it to the attention of the proper authorities. But the decision must be yours, Sister.’

‘I shall go then,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but to be absolutely honest with you, Mother, I’m not sure of my own motives in doing this.’

‘All our motives are usually a trifle muddled,’ the prioress said. ‘I’ll ring up Father Stephens at once and tell him you are on your way. You may telephone me if you get into any difficulties and you will, of course, try to follow the routine of the enclosure as far as is commensurate with your duties as housekeeper. I will impress on Father Stephens that every effort must be made to engage a full-time housekeeper as quickly as
possible. That will be all, Sister. Go and pack a bag with whatever you might require for a week’s stay. You had better take some money too for any expenses you might incur. Two pounds should be more than sufficient. Don’t waste it.’

Kneeling for the blessing Sister Joan maintained her grave expression. It would be difficult to squander two pounds in the direction of riotous living, she mused, and felt her amusement drain away as she closed the door behind her and faced the fact that, without actually saying so, Mother Dorothy had sent her out on a mission of detection.

She was near the little schoolhouse on the moor when Father Stephens drove towards her, slowing and stopping as he leaned out to say, ‘Sister Joan, I am on my way to give you a lift to the presbytery. Put your bag into the back and I’ll turn about.’

‘This is very kind of you, Father.’ She slung her bag into the back and climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I expected to walk into town.’

‘So Mother Prioress told me but since we are to be provided with a temporary housekeeper the least I can do is bring her into town.’ He was turning the car, nodding towards the schoolhouse as he remarked, ‘It seems a pity that it should be closed.’

‘It’s bureaucratic nonsense,’ Sister Joan said. ‘The school served a real need in the local community but nobody cares about that any more. We all have to fit into neat official slots these days.’

‘But at least it gives you the opportunity to spend more of your time in the enclosure. Your leaving it in order to help us out is appreciated, Sister. Mother Dorothy told me that she had left the decision to you and that you agreed without hesitation. That must be a considerable penance.’

‘When you’ve tasted my cooking, Father,’ Sister Joan said wryly, ‘you might start wondering who is doing penance.’

‘I’m sure you’re too modest about your
accomplishments
,
Sister.’ He showed his excellent teeth in a dry little smile. ‘Father Malone and I have been somewhat spoilt up until now, I fear. Among her other virtues Mrs Fairly numbered great culinary skills.’

‘Her death must have been a very great shock to you, Father,’ Sister Joan said.

‘Very great, Sister. Indeed I am still feeling somewhat numb,’ he confessed. ‘I dread having to inform Father Malone eventually but until after the inquest there is no point in spoiling his pilgrimage. I am only thankful that his financial situation doesn’t permit him to make long-distance calls to the presbytery.’

‘She’s been with you for six years?’

‘Since her husband died. Of course Father Malone was coping by himself at that time. By the time I arrived she was well established. A very discreet and
hardworking
woman. Most reliable in the carrying out of her duties.’

He was turning into the high street. Another few minutes would bring them to the presbytery. Sister Joan said quickly, ‘A sad beginning for Father Timothy.’

‘Difficult certainly, though as they had only just met her death has not affected him in a personal way. He was actually offering holy mass at your chapel when I found her. I had left her as long as possible but since, in my memory, she had never overslept I eventually went upstairs, knocked and called, and then opened her bedroom door. I fancied at first she had suffered a heart attack. Her face was contorted. Then I saw the empty bottle, the dregs of the previous night’s drink.’

‘Contorted? I thought she had taken Valium.’

‘Ah, you imagined as I did that dying of a drug overdose is like going to sleep,’ Father Stephens said. ‘Apparently not. As brain damage occurs there are often severe convulsions apparently. The doctor explained it to me.’

‘And there was no note?’

‘Note? Ah, suicide note. No nothing at all. That must surely prove that she had some kind of brainstorm. When the mind is disturbed the sin of self-slaughter is no longer a sin. I am confident that is the verdict which will be returned. Come along, Sister, and I’ll show you your room.’

It was, she reminded herself, only a room even if less than twenty-four hours before someone had died in it. Father Stephens, murmuring something about taking her time as they were managing with sandwiches for lunch, withdrew tactfully, leaving her to stare round a fair-sized apartment with a distressingly varied pattern of roses and buttercups on the wallpaper, faded curtains partly drawn, and a narrow bed that had been stripped and the mattress turned.

Mrs Fairly’s clothes hung in the wardrobe and were folded neatly in the drawers of the dressing-table. On the top of the dressing-table were two photographs in silver frames and a modest plastic-backed hairbrush next to a box of face powder and a much worn pink lipstick, evidence that the housekeeper had had her harmless little vanities.

Apart from the bed, wardrobe and dressing-table the room contained a chair, a small bedside table with a radio alarm clock on it, and a copy of a Mills and Boon romance with a pair of reading spectacles laid on top. There was already a faint smear of dust on the spectacles which Mrs Fairly, judging from the shining surfaces elsewhere, would never have tolerated.

There was a tap on the door and Father Stephens’s voice sounded again from the landing.

‘There is a large suitcase under the bed, Sister. Mrs Fairly used it when she took her week’s holiday in August. Perhaps her things could be put in it, ready for her niece when she comes?’

‘I’ll see to it, Father.’ Sister Joan bent and pulled out the suitcase.

Slightly to her disappointment it was empty save for two holdalls folded away under the expanding lid. She opened the wardrobe and began to take out the few garments hanging there, a winter coat with a fake fur trim on the collar, a light edge-to-edge jacket with a pleated skirt, two pairs of sensible low-heeled shoes, a pair of sandals, a tweed suit, three print dresses in varying thicknesses and identical styles. Conquering her feeling that she was picking over dead bones she felt the pockets but they were empty. In her personal habits Mrs Fairly had been neat as a regiment. The top shelf of the wardrobe yielded a straw hat and two felt berets with ornamental pins skewering them.

The dressing-table drawers held neatly folded underwear in pink nylon and blue cotton, a box of handkerchiefs, a smaller box containing a few modest pieces of costume jewellery, a phial of eau de cologne, and a packet of letters secured by an elastic band. She flicked through them swiftly but they were all from someone called Sylvie who headed them to ‘Dear Auntie Anne’. Obviously Mrs Fairly had been fond of her niece, and perhaps a little lonely too since she had kept all the letters so meticulously. Of the housekeeper’s life before she had come to work as housekeeper at the presbytery there were no signs at all.

Apart from the two photographs on the
dressing-table
: Sister Joan picked them up in turn and studied them. A much younger Mrs Fairly, in a long white dress with a spray of carnations, smiled out of the frame next to a young man who looked as if he wasn’t wearing very comfortable shoes. He looked to the last degree completely ordinary and unexciting, yet this was the husband whose death had caused his widow to resort to Valium to combat her nerves. Reminding herself that not all men who inspired such devotion were Hollywood handsome she took up the second photograph and looked at the smiling face of a schoolgirl. Across the
corner in a round hand was scrawled, ‘To Auntie Anne and Uncle Ben, with love for Christmas’. The girl then must be a younger Sylvie. Probably they had made a particular favourite of her because their own union was childless.

There was a sadness about all of it but nothing that could give any clue to the reason for Mrs Fairly’s having swallowed sufficient Valium to kill her. She put the photographs on top of the suitcase, snapped it shut and pushed it under the bed again.

Her own things took scarcely a fraction of the available space. Having hung up her dressing-gown, put her clean underwear in the dressing-table drawer and her toilet bag and towel on top, she opened the door and went along the corridor to locate the linen cupboard where she assumed there would be clean bedding. It was there, as neat and pristine as everything else. Taking sheets and a blanket back into the bedroom she wondered if she could even begin to live up to Mrs Fairly’s standard of housekeeping, and seriously doubted it.

‘Are you coming down for lunch, Sister?’ Father Stephens called up from the hall. Sister Joan left the bedmaking and went downstairs. In the dining-room a plate of fish-paste sandwiches and a large jug of coffee waited. She smelled the aroma of the coffee with pleasure, noticed that the sandwiches looked fresh and appetising, and said regretfully, ‘During Lent we have only soup for lunch, Father. Perhaps I could open a tin?’

‘My apologies, Sister, but I completely forgot. Yes, please do. The kitchen is your domain now. You don’t mind if I—’ He looked at the sandwiches.

‘You go ahead and eat, Father,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll go and explore the kitchen cupboards and try to work out some menu for tonight.’

‘Mrs Fairly always goes – used to go – shopping today for all the dairy foods,’ he said. ‘She didn’t buy in bulk.’

The kitchen was a larger room than the dining-room,
with a rocking chair near the window and a view of the back garden. A small television set in the corner and some magazines on the shelf next to some knitting told her that the housekeeper had been in the habit of sitting here in the evenings. The cupboards held tinned food but only the remains of a loaf and half a pint of milk. If Mrs Fairly had killed herself she had chosen a most inconvenient day on which to do it, Sister Joan reflected, as she opened up a tin of tomato soup and heated it.

The soup was more acidic than the fresh soup that the community enjoyed but she drank it down, turned her gaze resolutely from the hunk of bread, and sat down to make a shopping list.

There were voices from the dining-room. Father Timothy had evidently come in. After a few moments his spare figure loomed in the doorway.

‘Good afternoon, Sister Joan. This is a sad occasion which brings you here,’ he said.

‘Yes, Father, very sad.’ She rose politely. ‘I am just making out a shopping list. Will fish and peas and mashed potatoes suit you and Father Stephens this evening?’

‘I am surprised that you allow such mundane
considerations
as food to occupy your mind at such a time,’ he said stiffly. ‘For my own part I shall eat only the vegetables. This is Lent, you know, Sister.’

‘Yes, Father Timothy. I did know.’ She answered shortly, resisting the impulse to scowl at him.

‘And we ought to be considering what we can give up in order to lift the displeasure of the Lord.’

‘Is the Lord displeased?’ she enquired in surprise.

‘There has been a suicide here, Sister.’ His voice was heavy with reproach. ‘You cannot expect the Lord to be pleased with this household.’

‘Surely we’re each of us responsible for our own actions, Father. Sin is a very personal thing and we don’t know yet what caused Mrs Fairly’s death.’

‘You have a liking for theological argument, Sister.’ He made it sound as if he were accusing her of a liking for sniffing cocaine.

‘Not really, Father, but I do have opinions of my own,’ she said coldly. ‘If you will excuse me I have to get to the shops.’

‘Certainly, Sister. Benediction is at six-thirty so Father Stephens tells me.’

‘I’ll be there,’ she said shortly, and went back to her shopping list, deciding that if Father Timothy was so keen on boiled vegetables she’d make him a panful of cabbage, and feel guilty about it later.

Outside the gate a few people were hanging about, staring at the presbytery. News of the death had attracted the usual morbid sightseers. Sister Joan closed the gate with a decided little click and walked briskly towards the shops.

‘Out gadding again, Sister Joan?’

Detective Sergeant Mill was crossing the road towards her.

‘Shopping for the presbytery.’ She choked back a laugh. ‘Nothing so frivolous as gadding, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re at the presbytery?’

‘As temporary housekeeper until a permanent one is appointed. I have permission.’

‘Have you time for a cup of coffee?’ he asked.

‘No – yes. Yes I have, if it’s important.’

‘Ten minutes of your time no more. And, yes, it is important. Where’s your shopping list?’

‘Here, but why?’

‘Constable Petrie hasn’t anything particular to do. I assume the items are all charged up? Wait in the café.’

Sister Joan meekly relinquished her basket and shopping list and watched him go across the road to where the young constable he’d been talking to still stood. If Constable Petrie resented being turned into an errand boy he gave no sign of it, saluting smartly before
he went off with basket and list. She walked the few yards to the café, reminding herself that this was not a social occasion. Detective Sergeant Mill clearly wanted to discuss something of importance.

‘Two coffees, please.’ Joining her, he slid long legs under the table and beckoned the waitress. ‘Would you like some cake, Sister?’

‘I’d love some but it’s Lent. You have some though.’

‘I had a late lunch. Been up at the hospital.’

‘Oh?’ Pouring the coffee she glanced up at him with interest.

‘Just to check up.’ He was frowning slightly. ‘There was no reason not to think Mrs Fairly died by her own hand but you seemed to have an instinct that she wouldn’t have done such a thing and I respect your intuition, Sister. Not just yours either. The best officers are those who not only check all the facts, follow up all the leads, but use their own intuition as well. Anyway I asked the doctor to take a much closer look at the body which he did.’

‘And?’ Forgetting the coffee she stared at him.

‘Not a lot,’ he admitted. ‘But there was a needle puncture on the inside of her wrist. I assume she wasn’t a junkie?’

‘I’m positive she wasn’t. Valium would have been the strongest thing she ever took.’

‘Well, the puncture’s there. No blame to anyone for not having seen it sooner. There was no reason to look for anything unusual. Anyway he agreed to do some further tests. Nothing official as yet but merely to make that final check over. I thought you might like to know.’

‘Yes. Yes I would. You’ll want me to keep it to myself?’

‘Strictly. I wasn’t going to say anything until we had a result one way or the other but when I saw you just now the meeting seemed fortuitous. Are you sleeping at the presbytery or coming in every day?’

‘Sleeping there just for a week.’ She sipped her coffee, adding, ‘In Mrs Fairly’s room.’

‘They didn’t give you another one?’

‘There are only four bedrooms, one for each of the priests, one for visiting clergy, and the housekeeper’s room.’