‘Not really.’ Caroline frowned, biting her lip. ‘I can take walks near the house, I suppose, while Michael Peter’s at work. I honestly don’t know, Sister. I just have this feeling that I ought to be on the spot for a bit.’
‘In case your sister comes back?’
‘Oh, I wish she could just knock at the door right this minute and send all my fears flying!’ Caroline said with sudden intensity. ‘She has a habit of popping in when she isn’t expected. Dad used to say she was like a will o’ the wisp, but since she got married he doesn’t talk about her so often. I think he was hurt not to be invited to the wedding or asked to meet her husband.’
‘You sound like a very close family,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Yes.’ Caroline spoke softly, her face wistful. ‘We sort of stuck together you know. London isn’t a very neighbourly place and Mum was rather a shy person. She found it hard to make friends there.’
‘You’re not from London originally?’
‘No, we were born in Marsden Close. It’s a little village in Nottinghamshire, just a road and a post office and a general store, three churches and six pubs!’ Caroline said. ‘We lived there until we were almost ready to transfer to the senior school. Then Dad decided that it might be more profitable to move to the City. He was a bank clerk then but after Mum died we found out his heart condition was much worse than we’d imagined and he took early retirement with a disability pension. I have to find out what’s been going on within the next week or so. He’ll be frantic if he comes out of hospital and finds that I’m gone still.’
‘I’ll make a few discreet enquiries while I’m in town,’ Sister Joan promised. ‘But I can’t do very much. Look, if you’re nervous about going up to the house to ask about Crystal I might be able to get leave to go with you.’
‘Maybe I’ll do that,’ Caroline said hesitatingly. ‘Oh, if it was me gone Crystal just wouldn’t take a second thought. She’d march up there and camp on Michael Peter’s doorstep until she got a straight answer. She’s younger than I am but she has tons more courage. Dad says that she’s a typical Aries and I’m a typical Pisces — one all energy and the other all mush!’
‘I’m sure you’ll find that she’s all right,’ Sister Joan said. ‘She might’ve sent the initial as a joke?’
‘It wasn’t a joking matter,’ Caroline said. ‘Anyway there’s the letter.’
‘What letter?’
‘I told you she wrote quite often after she was married. She kept saying that as soon as business was easier she and Michael would come up and see us. Then she sent us a brief letter just before Easter. Fortunately I take the post and I read it before Dad got up before breakfast and decided to keep it to myself until we heard from her again, but we never did.’
‘May I see the letter?’
‘You can keep it.’ Caroline went over to her suitcase and opened it, bringing out the envelope. ‘I don’t know if it’ll help you.’
‘I’ll read it later.’ Sister Joan put it in her pocket and stood up. ‘I’d better get down into town. Anything you need?’
‘No. I’ll be fine. Thank you, Sister.’
She stood up, politely showing her visitor to the door. By the time Sister Joan was behind the wheel again the door of the little building had firmly closed.
Sister Joan parked the van in the station yard and walked back down the main street. Her first call had to be at the police station.
A young constable was behind the reception desk when she walked in. Young and unfamiliar, she summed up, her mouth curving with amusement as she saw how hastily he shoved a girlie magazine under a pile of documents and straightened up as he saw her walk in.
‘Good morning. Is Constable Petrie around?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid not, Sister—?’
‘Sister Joan. Is he on duty today?’
‘He’s off sick, Sister. I was drafted in from Penzance to keep the shop open so to speak.’
‘Sick? I hope it isn’t serious!’ she exclaimed.
‘It’s measles.’ The young constable was repressing a schoolboy grin. ‘He never had it when he was a kid seemingly. He’ll be off for three weeks. Can I help you?’
Sister Joan bit her lip. With both Alan Mill and Petrie away the two who counted her as a helpful friend weren’t available. Reporting her suspicions about the identity of the man found dead in the old chapel would inevitably lead to further questions. It would be impossible to keep Caroline Hayes’s name out of it, and that might well alert her brother-in-law if he had anything to hide. The last image she had had of him, a very large suitcase in one bony hand, flashed into her head.
‘I understand that a young woman called Caroline Hayes made some enquiries here a few days ago. I wondered if that could be confirmed.’
‘I wasn’t here then, Sister,’ the constable said. ‘I’ll see if I can find anything in the book — oh, Constable Brown might know. Was there a Miss Hayes making enquiries here a couple of days back?’
Constable Brown, a part-time policeman fighting the notion of retirement and holding, according to Detective Sergeant Mill, ideas about women that would’ve been politically incorrect in the Ark, gave Sister Joan a brusque nod and said, ‘She came in two — no, three days ago. I don’t think anything was put in the book. Not really important enough.’
‘Thank you, Constable Brown.’ Sister Joan gave him her sweetest smile, aware that it would be completely lost on him. ‘Give my best wishes to Constable Petrie if you see him. Say I hope he’ll soon be fit again. Good morning.’
Her information would have to wait until either Detective Sergeant Mill or Constable Petrie was around. She consoled herself with the thought that the death had been a natural one and that it was probably an advantage not to alert the authorities just yet.
Having made her purchases, not forgetting Sister Gabrielle’s aspirins, she walked back in the direction of the station, in time to see the now familiar figure of Michael Peter approaching her.
‘Good morning, Mr Peter.’ She raised her voice slightly to attract his attention, since he was walking slowly and musingly, his eyes on the ground.
‘Good morning — Sister!’ His head jerked up. ‘Haven’t we met before?’
‘I came into your shop.’
‘Yes, of course. So you did! Sister — Joan.’
‘I’m afraid I asked some rather impertinent questions.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you didn’t intend—’ His bony fingers waved vaguely and were still. ‘You expressed an interest in painting, I seem to be remembering.’
‘And you told me about your costume exhibition.’
‘Yes, so I did. The shop will be open this afternoon but I won’t have time. After that it will be open again on Monday. If you care to come in then?’
‘If I can. My movements aren’t exactly under my control,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Religious discipline, yes. Well, any day you can obtain permission I shall be only too happy to show you round. The costumes are original, you know.’
‘Yes, you told me. It sounds very interesting.’
‘Oh, while I remember!’ Walking on, he stopped and turned suddenly. ‘Mrs Rufus, my housekeeper, asked to be remembered to you. It made quite a little change for her to have a visitor. We are rather isolated.’
He turned and walked on again, greying head bent again, ungloved hands swinging free, unencumbered by luggage of any kind.
There was no sign of life as she passed the schoolhouse. She wondered if Caroline Hayes still sat, huddled on the chair, the half-finished mug of cold tea in her hands, her mind ordering her to take the positive action her lack of courage denied.
‘May I make a telephone call, Mother Dorothy?’ Having delivered the various small commissions with which she had been entrusted she caught up with the Prioress on her way across the main hall.
‘Another one!’ Mother Dorothy gave her a disapproving look through her steel-framed spectacles. ‘A matter of extreme urgency, I suppose?’<
br />
‘Some research I’m doing,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Not for the police? You are obligated to tell me if you are needed to give any such help in your capacity as citizen.’
‘No, Mother Dorothy,’ Sister Joan said truthfully. ‘Not for the police.’
‘Would a letter serve as well?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then write a letter,’ Mother Dorothy said briskly. ‘You have time before lunch. Lilith would enjoy a gallop to the mailbox.’
‘Yes, Mother Dorothy.’ Sister Joan went swiftly into the chapel wing and up the stairs to the library where Sister David was working.
‘Did you want a book, Sister?’
Peering over the pile of books and papers that always surrounded her Sister David looked like a fourth former caught after lights out. That she was in her thirties, held several impressive degrees in Ancient Languages and read St Thomas Aquinas for fun wasn’t apparent from her timid, anxious-to-please manner.
‘Do you have the address of St Catherine’s House in London?’ Sister Joan asked.
‘Second shelf down of the reference section. On the right.’
Blessedly uncurious Sister David went back to her translation.
Sister Joan found the book, noted the address and the price of birth certificates and wrote the necessary request enclosing a cheque which cleaned out her modest savings account except for three pounds.
The post went at two on Saturdays. She hurried downstairs, borrowed a stamp from Sister Mary Concepta and hastened to saddle up Lilith. Not until she was cantering over the moor towards the mailbox which stood at the top of the long slope leading down to the estate which spread in a rash of flats and houses round the perimeter of the higher ground did she realize she’d forgotten to put on her jeans. She posted her letter, turned to remount again, and remembered the letter that Caroline Hayes had given her to read. She led the pony a little way back, tethered her loosely to a tree stump and sat on a nearby slab of rock to read the letter.
The handwriting was round and childish with several of the letters left unjoined and the small case b frequently substituted for d. Crystal probably had some degree of dyslexia, she reflected, smoothing out the folded sheet.
The address of the Peter house was written at the top right-hand side with a date in late March immediately beneath it.
‘Dear Dad and Caroline,’ ran the salutation.
Thank you for your nice letter, Dad. I’m glad that you’re feeling a bit more the thing. Please let me know when you’re going into hospital for more tests and how it turns out for you. We have had very wet weather here, pouring with rain most days, and quite chilly in the mornings. Sometimes I wish I was anywhere but here. Michael likes the quiet but it gets on my nerves and Mrs Rufus isn’t any company. She’s a big pain in the arse to be frank. I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. I keep dreaming of Mum, and the flowers we put on her grave, but in the dream it’s my grave with my name on it. Sometimes I walk over to a little chapel near the house and just sit there, hoping she might come, but she never does, of course. Sorry to sound a bit down, but I miss you both like crazy. I’m going to get Michael to shut up his stupid shop for a few days and bring me to see you.
Regards and Lots of Love from us both,
Crystal.
Sister Joan read the letter over again, frowning as the subtext became clearer. Crystal Peter hadn’t been a happy or contented wife. She sounded lonely and apprehensive, and certainly not as well educated as might have been expected of the wife of a cultured man like the antique dealer. On the other hand middle-aged bachelors often adored young girls with sweet smiles and wheedling ways. It was usually a recipe for disaster.
She jotted down the address on the front of the envelope, remounted Lilith, and rode back towards the convent. Odd, but she’d never realized before that the convent itself stood roughly at the centre of a landscape cross with the estate over on the north, the town on the south, the Romany camp and the river away to the west and on the east, beyond the schoolhouse, the wilder slopes interspersed with small patches of arable land and the long, low house where Michael Peter and his young wife had lived. Now why had the past tense come into her head? She looked around, seeing the high folds and billows of grass and peat and tumbled rocks that hid each quarter of the landscape from its neighbours. Only in the convent was it possible to be centred.
She made luncheon by the skin of her teeth, sinking into her place on the long wooden bench two seconds ahead of the Prioress. Lunch was a meal to be eaten silently after which the community returned to work until the lecture at four. Over in the postulancy Sister Hilaria, the novice mistress, was training the solitary postulant the convent boasted, though quality was better than quantity and Sister Bernadette seemed like a nice girl. How she managed to confine her conversation to dialogues with Mother Dorothy and Sister Hilaria, Sister Joan couldn’t imagine. Then she grinned, recalling her own postulancy in the London house when she too had been forbidden to speak to or mix with the professed sisters. She’d got through it, though she’d had companions at the same stage of religious training as herself while poor Bernadette had nobody.
‘Share the joke, Sister.’ Sister Gabrielle looked at her invitingly as they went down the stairs again.
‘I was wondering how I managed to get through my postulancy without breaking the rules of silence,’ Sister Joan said.
‘It’s a question I’ve often considered,’ Sister Gabrielle said dryly. ‘I came to the conclusion they probably got so used to your chatter they simply didn’t hear it any longer. Mother Dorothy says that you’ve been running around making telephone calls and posting letters. Helping out the local constabulary again, are we?’
‘Not this time.’
‘Nevertheless I’d lay odds that you’re up to something.’ The old nun sent her a shrewd look from beneath heavy white eyebrows. ‘Need any advice?’
‘I don’t think so, Sister, but may I come to you if I do?’
‘Well, you’ve nice manners anyway!’ Sister Gabrielle said with a bark of mirth. ‘A word of advice from me would send you scurrying in the opposite direction and don’t pretend otherwise! The young always know better than their elders and that’s right and proper.’
‘I was wondering why a young woman would marry a man twice her age.’
‘Is the man rich?’
‘Fairly comfortable, I’d say. That was a very cynical remark, Sister!’
‘I’m eighty-seven years old,’ Sister Gabrielle said placidly. ‘I’ve the right to be cynical. Of course there’s no accounting for love. It can strike anybody at any time, they say, though it never landed on me unfortunately. It would’ve been rather nice to congratulate myself on my good sense in giving up a lesser love for a greater one, but the truth is that I always wanted to be a nun.’
‘That must’ve made things simple,’ Sister Joan began.
‘Not really,’ Sister Gabrielle said. ‘My father was a Methodist minister.’
‘Oh Lord!’
‘Oh Lord indeed! We didn’t even know any Catholics so what gave me the idea of being a nun remains a mystery. God must’ve decided that I’d do less harm in the religious life than out in the world I suppose. Anyway it took a lot of persuasion before he would countenance my taking instruction in the Faith and I was twenty-four when he finally agreed that I had a vocation. No, nothing’s simple, Sister.’
She patted Sister Joan on the arm and limped away.
‘Did you post your letter, Sister?’ Mother Dorothy bore down, an odd word to think of when the Prioress was scarcely taller than herself, Sister Joan thought.
‘Yes, Mother Dorothy.’
‘Have you anything planned for this afternoon?’
‘I’ll go where I’m most needed,’ Sister Joan said promptly.
‘This is a difficult period for you,’ Mother Dorothy said with unexpected sympathy. ‘All the other sisters have their allotted tasks and you merely fill in where help is required. I did
consider appointing you assistant novice mistress as you know, but with only one postulant at the moment you would have been somewhat superfluous.’
‘Yes, Mother Dorothy.’
‘And no doubt you feel somewhat superfluous as it is.’ The eyes behind the steel-framed spectacles twinkled unexpectedly. ‘Try to look at it in a more positive way, Sister. You can devote more time to the act of adoration which is central to our lives. The others are often pressed for time and cannot spend as long in private meditation as they wish, so you could supply the lack.’
‘It isn’t easy to spend hours in the chapel when other people need your help,’ Sister Joan said.
‘You can help them by being in the chapel surely?’
‘I know, but sometimes practical help is required too.’
‘Then give it.’ Mother Dorothy gave her a long thoughtful look. ‘I ask no questions, Sister, but if there’s something on your mind, some task unfulfilled, see to it.’
‘Thank you, Mother Prioress.’
But her priorities had been spelled out. She went off to pull on her wellingtons and join Sister Martha in the garden. Luther was there, scything the long grass that had sprung up during the heavy spring rains, his long face splitting into a delighted grin as he saw her.
‘Good afternoon, Sister! I haven’t got no rose for you,’ he said apologetically.
‘Sister Martha shared her rose with all of us. How are you, Luther?’
‘I seen a lady,’ he said confidingly. ‘In Brother Cuthbert’s house.’
‘Brother Cuthbert went to stay in Scotland. The lady you saw is staying in the old schoolhouse for a week or so. You didn’t bother her, did you?’
Luther who had once been committed to a mental hospital because of his habit of following women in a manner that was certainly annoying and which several of them had interpreted as threatening, shook his head.
‘It’s bad to follow ladies,’ he said solemnly. ‘It frightens them.’
‘So you didn’t bother her?’
‘No, ma’am. No indeed!’ He shook his head and looked grave. ‘I like it here. I don’t want ever to go back there again! No, Sister, I only saw her at the window and then she ducked down quick.’
A VOW OF ADORATION an utterly gripping crime mystery Page 7
