A VOW OF ADORATION an utterly gripping crime mystery

by Veronica Black

  ‘What we need are identity cards with our DNA number stamped on them!’

  ‘Don’t mock.’ He smiled at her. ‘Big Brother is active enough already. Where are you off?’

  ‘I’ve a convent to go to. Mother Dorothy gave me permission to stay if I was needed, but if I stay much longer the Police Federation will start charging me rent.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch then.’

  ‘Don’t get up. I know my way out.’

  She left him rereading the statement again and went out to where the van was parked. There were echoes of things not spoken nagging the edges of her mind. Constable Brown. Why should his broad, self-satisfied face jump into her thoughts? Constable Petrie. The young woman in the shabby brown clothes. Was she dead or alive? She had to be somewhere. She had to be Crystal. Then what had happened to Caroline?

  Crystal murdered her sister and is trying to frame her husband for the killing? Why had Mrs Rufus been killed then? That had to have been premeditated if the murder weapon had been the ashlar. Nobody takes a stroll with a heavy marble sphere in their arms. But Mrs Rufus had apparently bought some flowers and gone to the cemetery on impulse on her way to catch the train to Torquay.

  She drove past the schoolhouse where a police van was parked. No doubt they were still taking photographs and hunting for clues. So far all the clues pointed to Michael Peter.

  He’d lied about his wife’s trip to France. He’d discarded a suitcase full of her clothes on the embankment. He’d tried to arrange a meeting with John Hayes and swore he’d never actually talked to him though John Hayes’s possessions had been hidden in his shower room and a corpse who was almost certainly John Hayes himself had been lying nearby in the old chapel. He’d lied about the burglary, ostensibly to protect his wife’s reputation but if he’d used that ashlar himself then he needed to provide himself with an alibi.

  ‘Did you get any luncheon, Sister Joan?’ Sister Teresa asked as she entered the kitchen.

  ‘A cheese sandwich and coffee,’ Sister Joan said, bending to pat Alice who bounded up with tail wagging furiously. ‘Do you need any help here now that I’m back?’

  ‘Sister Marie and I are managing beautifully. Oh, if you do have time you could take the new jar of coffee and the sugar over to the postulancy. I haven’t had time yet.’

  ‘I’ll take it now.’

  ‘You’d better take the wheelie bag then,’ Sister Teresa said. ‘There’s a pile of mugs that seem to have walked over here and really live over there. Thank you, Sister.’

  With Alice frolicking at her heels and making mock assaults on the wheelie bag to prove she could be fierce if she put her mind to it Sister Joan walked along the side of the enclosure garden and through the shrubbery walk to the sunken tennis court. It was weed-grown now, a tattered net hanging forlornly by a rusting post, the sound of youthful laughter and the smack of ball on racquet long silent. At the far side the plain little house which had once been a dower cottage and was used as a postulancy by the order wore a gay aspect with the first white flowers of the creeper that clung to its façade bursting into bloom. There was only one postulant here now. Bernadette would be starting the first year of her novitiate in the autumn. She would exchange her pink smock and white bonnet for a grey habit with a black veil, grow her hair two inches and be permitted to speak to her fellow nuns, but she would continue to sleep in the postulancy. It was a great pity that the order couldn’t attract more candidates.

  ‘Sister Joan, how lovely to see you!’

  From anyone else the greeting might have been interpreted as a snide comment on the periods of time she’d recently spent out of the enclosure, but Sister Hilaria was incapable of spite. Her long face was wreathed in a smile and her large hands, hands so much at variance with her dreaming eyes, seized the handle of the wheelie bag.

  ‘I’ll see to that, Sister dear! What a blessing these things are when the legs begin to go — not that you need worry about that yet! Sister Teresa never forgets to replenish the coffee and sugar. Such a dear girl!’

  ‘She’s a very fine lay sister,’ Sister Joan agreed, relinquishing the wheelie bag. ‘Sister Marie too.’

  ‘And Sister Bernadette will make a splendid novice.’ Sister Hilaria beamed as she lugged the bag over the step into the narrow passage. ‘I am very pleased with her progress, very pleased indeed. Come into the kitchen, Sister. It’s time for a cup of coffee. You’ll have one?’

  She was already filling the kettle.

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  She was already awash with coffee but Sister Hilaria’s life within the community was a lonely one, spent mainly in the postulancy with whichever novices were under her training at the time. On the rare occasions she expressed a wish for company it was kinder to indulge her.

  ‘Bernadette is at her devotions,’ Sister Hilaria said, pulling up a stool to the table that stood against one wall of the little kitchen where novice mistress and postulant made their simple breakfasts and odd cups of tea and coffee. ‘She shall have her cup afterwards. Well, Sister, are you close to solving your case?’

  Sister Joan opened her mouth, then closed it again. Sister Hilaria might live most of her life on the spiritual level but on occasion could prove that she was as aware of what was going on in the world about her as any of them.

  ‘You are helping the police again, aren’t you?’ Sister Hilaria pushed the biscuit tin towards her.

  ‘No, thank you, Sister. Yes in a way. I’m helping the police though, so far, not very effectively.’

  ‘It must earn you great merit in Heaven when you sacrifice your time with God so cheerfully in order to bring criminals to justice,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘I give thanks daily that no such outside interruptions are inflicted on me, but then if they were I would be quite inadequate to deal with them. I was always more Mary than Martha.’

  ‘Wasn’t it Mary who chose the better part?’

  ‘So Our Blessed Lord said, Sister, but I cannot help feeling a little reinterpretation wouldn’t go amiss,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘After all there was Martha rushing round trying to provide a meal for a crowd of very hungry disciples, all wanting to wash their hands and get the desert sand out of their hair, and there was Mary, seated in the best place and listening. I do sometimes wonder if our reading of the event hasn’t been mistaken. I don’t believe Our Dear Lord was rebuking Martha and praising her sister. I believe that He was complimenting Martha on her hard work and teasing Mary a little because she’d chosen what in modern parlance might be called a cushy number. So your helping outside the convent can only enhance your spiritual standing.’

  ‘How did you hear about the present case?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘How did I hear?’ Sister Hilaria stared at her for a moment. ‘I can’t imagine, Sister dear. Someone said something. Something about a new postulant? Yes, that was it. Padraic Lee came over with fish while Bernadette and I were gathering flowers. Sometime recently, if I’m not mistaken. I saw one of our sisters as we were—’

  ‘It was me,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Of course it must’ve been,’ Sister Hilaria said, nodding. ‘She resembled you so closely. Anyway Padraic stopped to greet us as he always does. Such a nice fellow! He asked me if we were expecting a — new recruit was the way he put it. Rather a happy phrase. Soldiers of the Lord, carrying banners! Bernadette and I had a most interesting little chat about it later on.’

  ‘Why would Padraic Lee think we were expecting a new novice?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘Oh, a young woman, looking rather plain and shabby — isn’t it strange how so many people imagine that only plain, shabby females enter the religious life? Well, anyway he’d given this young woman a lift in his van and left her at the convent gates before going round to the back to deliver his catch to Sister Perpetua. Poached, I suspect, but delicious all the same. He assumed the young woman had gone up to the front door. I told him that no new postulants were expected. Mother Dorothy would certainly have informed me ab
out it. She knows what great pleasure it would give me. I pray so hard for new candidates to the order so that Our Blessed Lord may be more widely adored, but I daresay He’s busy with the crisis in Bosnia at present. Anyway it did occur to me that as there was no newcomer and it wasn’t a general visiting day and you were not here at lunchtime, so clearly you were involved on a case.’

  ‘A very puzzling one,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Oh, you’ll sort it out, Sister dear!’ Sister Hilaria patted her arm. ‘Has it to do with the body that was found? Or was that last year?’

  ‘There was a body found in an old chapel on East Moor and then a woman from the estate was found murdered in the cemetery. And another person has disappeared.’

  ‘A person you know?’

  ‘The young woman to whom Padraic Lee gave a lift.’

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry to hear it.’ Sister Hilaria clucked her tongue. ‘Padraic did mention that she seemed very nervous. You know there’s a theory that the harder you run away from what you fear the sooner it will overtake you! More coffee, Sister?’

  ‘No, thank you, Sister. I have to get back to the main house.’

  ‘Don’t go back empty handed.’ Sister Hilaria reached down to the cupboard beneath the little sink. ‘Sister Teresa was only saying the other day that she needed some plant pots in which to try her hand at growing some indoor herbs, and Sister Martha is short of them herself — there are four big ones here. Can you take them back?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Sister.’

  ‘These wheeled bags are a godsend, aren’t they? One can carry quite heavy objects around without undue fatigue,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘Thank you again, Sister Joan.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sister Joan answered slowly as she tugged the wheelie bag over the step again. Behind her she could hear Sister Hilaria’s voice raised.

  ‘Sister Bernadette, come and have your cup of coffee now, there’s a good child. Adoring God is one thing but nagging Him to take notice is quite another!’

  ‘There’s a telephone call for you,’ Sister Marie announced, as Sister Joan went into the kitchen. ‘Detective Sergeant Mill’s on the line.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’ Sister Joan hurried into the corridor and took the receiver.

  ‘Sister Joan speaking,’ she said crisply.

  ‘We’ve just received a further bit of information from Michael Peter,’ Detective Sergeant Mills’ voice informed her. ‘He told us that Crystal, his wife, had given blood sometime last year. Her blood group is type O. I know that isn’t conclusive but it certainly seems to indicate that whoever killed Mrs Rufus also killed Crystal. We’re keeping a very close eye on Michael Peter.’

  ‘Have you searched the house and the shop yet?’ she asked.

  ‘We did a preliminary search but we’ll be back in the morning,’ he said. ‘That shop has some wonderful things in it. I can’t say I was very keen on the exhibition at the back though. A trifle ghoulish in my opinion.’

  ‘But you haven’t found anything significant?’

  ‘Not yet, but this was only a preliminary search. My own feeling is that if he has done away with his wife he won’t have left any evidence in the shop. He regards that place as a shrine to beauty — very expensive beauty. He’d not dream of cluttering it up with a corpse.’

  ‘The house?’

  ‘Full of mementoes of Mother dearest.’ His voice was wry. ‘She seems to have been one of those helpless little women who keep a tight rein on their beloved sons. Of course he adored her and then transferred that adoration to his young wife. What happens if the wife proves unworthy and the adoration sours?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you found a wheelie bag in the house or the shop?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘No, we didn’t. Why?’

  ‘They’re handy for carrying heavy objects about,’ Sister Joan said. ‘God bless.’

  THIRTEEN

  Someone was breaking the Grand Silence. Sister Joan woke to a low, insistent tapping on her door and sat up, blinking into the darkness as she said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sister Mary Concepta is taken bad.’ Sister Perpetua opened the door a crack. ‘Mother Dorothy is up and has summoned an ambulance. Can you come?’

  ‘Give me five minutes.’

  The door closed as she got out of bed and pulled up the blind sufficiently to admit the greyish light of early dawn while she dressed herself. The little steel fob watch on her habit informed her it was 3.30, another hour and a half before Sister Teresa mounted the staircase with her wooden rattle to give the first salutation of the day.

  Both she and Sister Marie were apparently still sound asleep in their lay cells that opened off the kitchen. A light was on in the infirmary and Mother Dorothy was seated by Sister Mary Concepta whose face was contorted with silent pain. From the adjoining bed Sister Gabrielle, nightcap slightly askew, a shawl round her shoulders, kept up a fiercely whispered monologue.

  ‘Don’t you dare up and die on us, Mary Concepta! There’s not much the matter with you beyond a touch of indigestion. I warned you about taking that pickled onion with your cheese. Didn’t I warn you about taking that pickled onion? You always were one to make a fuss about nothing!’

  ‘I’ve put an aspirin under her tongue,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘That often helps at the onset of an attack. That sounds like the ambulance now! I’ll direct them to the back. No sense in waking everybody up!’

  She hurried out into the yard. Mother Dorothy, glancing at Sister Joan, said, ‘I believe it’s no more than a touch of angina. Very alarming when it occurs in the middle of the night. Sister Perpetua will stay with Sister Gabrielle.’

  ‘Why? I’m neither sick nor helpless!’ Sister Gabrielle broke in.

  ‘Sister Perpetua will only start trying to issue instructions to the medical staff and that annoys them,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘Play along with me on this, Sister.’

  ‘Well, if you put it that way!’ Sister Gabrielle lapsed into silence.

  Ambulance attendants were starting to look younger, Sister Joan thought, as two of them came in, fresh faced as the morning that hadn’t quite dawned. They were lifting Sister Mary Concepta on to a stretcher. Sister Joan gave Sister Gabrielle a reassuring nod.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Sister, we’ll have her back here in no time at all,’ she said.

  ‘Complaining about her imaginary aches and pains I daresay,’ Sister Gabrielle said, scowling.

  In the yard Sister Perpetua said, ‘But as the infirmarian it’s my duty to be with Sister Mary Concepta.’

  ‘Sister Mary Concepta is in excellent hands and Sister Joan will keep us informed of her progress,’ Mother Dorothy said, coming out of the kitchen. ‘I am more concerned about Sister Gabrielle at the moment. She has had a shock and needs very careful watching so you’re really needed here.’

  ‘I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘Oh, these are Sister Mary Concepta’s heart tablets, Sister Joan. You’d better show them to the doctor.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sister.’

  Sister Joan climbed up into the ambulance, then climbed down again.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I followed in the van?’ she said. ‘Sister Mary Concepta will almost certainly be kept in hospital for several days and I’ve no way of getting back.’

  ‘In my youth,’ Sister Perpetua observed, on her way back into the kitchen, ‘we thought nothing of a five-mile walk!’

  ‘Take the van. God bless, Sister.’ Mother Dorothy scooped up Alice who had come out to see what the unaccustomed activity was all about and went indoors again.

  Sister Joan nodded at the ambulance attendant who went round to the driving seat and herself hurried to start up the van.

  The moors had a strange, dreamlike aspect as the light grew and spread, patches of dark shadow becoming clumps of gorse and bramble, crouching shapes resolving themselves into bushes. The grass had lost its colour and was a pale, translucent grey.

  The town wasn’t yet astir. Driving along th
e High Street on the way to the hospital she could see the ancient town more clearly, the stone cottages and occasional black and white timbered building coming into their own again before the morning traffic began. Ahead of her the ambulance swerved into the avenue leading up to the local hospital.

  In hospitals one waited. Sister Joan found an inconspicuous seat in the large reception area and sat down, folding her hands, lowering her eyes, preparing to unite herself mentally with the source of healing. Around her nurses and orderlies padded on noiseless soles and young men in short white coats breezed through.

  ‘Sister Joan?’

  A middle-aged man stood before her, grey hair sleeked back from a thin, clever face.

  ‘Doctor?’ She rose at once, bracing herself.

  ‘Mr Evans. I’m a specialist in heart diseases.’

  ‘Is Sister Mary Concepta going to be all right?’ she asked tensely.

  ‘She has severe angina, and she’s not exactly a spring chicken, Sister.’ He smiled slightly. ‘However she’s in no immediate danger. I have advised them to keep her here for a few days, but I’m fairly confident that she’ll recover from this latest attack. Have you had any breakfast?’

  ‘We have breakfast at eight.’

  ‘You’ll have coffee now. The cafeteria is open all night. Come along.’

  He had the habit of command, she thought, following him obediently along a broad corridor and through several sets of glass doors to an area that was all rubber flooring and plastic-topped tables.

  ‘Sit down. I’ll get it.’ He went to the counter where two women in green overalls were serving drinks.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Evans.’ She sipped the cappuccino with an unaccustomed feeling of sinful luxury.

  ‘You look as if you need it.’ Seating himself opposite her, he ladled sugar into his own cup and said, ‘You nuns must be tough. I’ve treated several in my time and they all seem to recover speedily from whatever ails them.’

  ‘Are you a local man?’

  ‘No, I’m only here until the end of this week. I’ve developed a new technique for stimulating the heart without sending all the other organs into overdrive, and I’ve been giving a few lectures to the medical staff here. Whether the hospital managers will release the funds necessary to carry out the treatment remains to be seen. I’ve also done some practical work with the patients themselves which has been a nice change for me. Normally I’m based at the Florence Nightingale Heart Unit in—’