How the Dead Speak (Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 11)

by Val McDermid

‘Nice view of the sea,’ Paula pointed out, turning her head to look out of the other window.

  ‘Doesn’t really make up for the draughts and the damp.’ McInerny suddenly wrenched the wheel and threw the car into a narrow side road. ‘Whoa! Nearly missed the turning there.’

  The road climbed steadily through high hedges and banks of gorse, not a house in sight till they rounded a bend and came upon a squat Victorian villa. ‘Here we are.’ He pulled into a gravel drive with weeds sprouting unchecked. For some reason, the house had been built at right angles to the sea view, so that only a couple of windows in the gable end benefited from it.

  The door was opened by a woman in what Paula thought of as nun civvies. Grey skirt, white blouse buttoned to the neck, grey cardigan and a minimalist head-covering that barely skimmed her shoulders. She seemed to be at some indeterminate point of middle age and greeted them with a sweet smile. ‘Good afternoon, how may I help you?’

  ‘We’re here to see Sister Mary Patrick,’ McInerny said. ‘Garda Sergeant McInerny. And Detective Inspector McIntyre.’

  ‘Guards?’ She looked astonished rather than afraid, and quickly crossed herself. ‘Is it bad news?’

  It was an odd question, Paula thought. Because when the cops came to call, it was never good news. Even when they came to report an arrest to victims and their families, it was a reminder of the bad thing that had preceded it. ‘Sister Mary Patrick?’ Paula asked.

  ‘Why don’t you come in and I’ll see what’s what?’ The nun led them to a small parlour close to the entrance vestibule. ‘I’ll just go and . . . ’ she added vaguely as she disappeared.

  The room was plainly furnished with generic modern chairs around a table that looked like it had escaped from a coffee shop. A print of the Virgin Mary cradling her dead son hung above a fireplace with a dust-covered grate. ‘Cheery,’ Paula muttered.

  McInerny grunted. ‘You wouldn’t call the Catholic Church happy-clappy.’

  The door opened to reveal a tall woman in a black nun’s habit, crucifix on her breast, amber rosary beads gleaming at her waist. ‘I am Sister Mary Patrick of the Order of the Blessed Pearl,’ she said, her voice firm and clear, her Northern accent faint but definite.

  She swept across to the table and sat with her eyes fixed on Paula. McInerny might have been invisible. He rattled through the introductions again, explaining that Paula was from Bradfield, but the nun remained unmoved. She must have been handsome in her youth, Paula thought. High cheekbones, a slender nose, a chiselled jaw that was barely beginning to sag. Paula knew from the files that she was fifty-nine, but she’d have guessed at least five years younger, in spite of the violet shadows under her dark blue eyes.

  ‘You know why we’re here,’ Paula said.

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘The remains of forty children have been found in the grounds of the convent where you were Mother Superior. I can’t believe nobody mentioned that to you.’

  ‘I have nothing to say about this.’ She folded her hands loosely on top of the table.

  ‘You were responsible for the girls in your care.’

  ‘The convent has been there since the 1930s. There were several reverend mothers before me.’

  Paula took out her phone and consulted the email Alvin had sent her. ‘How long were you in charge at St Margaret Clitherow?’

  ‘I’m not entirely clear what right you think you have to question me, Detective. This is not your jurisdiction.’

  ‘Detective Inspector McIntyre is here with the full support of the Garda Síochána,’ McInerny interjected. Good man. ‘It will save everyone a lot of time if I don’t have to repeat all of her questions over a jurisdictional quibble.’ He pulled out his phone. ‘And I will be recording this interview so that we all know where we stand.’

  Sister Mary Patrick was momentarily disconcerted but she recovered herself quickly. ‘Very well. To answer your question, I was Mother Superior for twelve years. Until the convent closed five years ago. I spend a brief period in the Mother House at York and then I was sent here.’

  ‘Why were you sent here? What’s your role here?’ Paula’s tone was casual but her interest was not. Was this punishment? Or warehousing?

  ‘Prayer and contemplation.’

  ‘All by yourself?’

  ‘You have already met Sister Dorothy. She is housekeeper here. Sister Mary Francis and Sister Margaret also live here.’

  ‘Praying and contemplating?’

  ‘You’d have to ask them. I am not responsible for them.’

  ‘It seems an odd place for a mother superior to end up.’

  ‘Running a convent, a girls’ home and a school is a very demanding occupation. I did it for twelve years. A time of renewal is a needful thing.’

  ‘And are you renewed yet?’

  Sister Mary Patrick simply stared at her, blank of expression.

  ‘I’d like to go back to those years when you were at Bradesden. Our forensic experts tell us that at least fourteen of those bodies date from that period. It’s hard for me to get my head round this. But fourteen dead girls were illegally disposed of while you were in charge.’

  Sister Mary Patrick sighed and shook her head. ‘There’s nothing sinister in that. Children die. These children had nobody to claim them. We gave them the dignity of a Christian burial.’

  ‘Under cover of darkness? To me, that looks like you had something to hide.’

  ‘We had a duty not to upset the living. Little girls are easily upset.’

  ‘And without bothering with the inconvenience of death certificates?’ Paula couldn’t keep the ice from her voice.

  ‘I know nothing of that.’

  ‘How can you know nothing? You had legal responsibility for those girls.’

  She gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I delegated it. Sadly, Sister Gerardine who was in charge of the girls’ health needs is now afflicted with dementia. She’s living in the Mother House in York but these days she doesn’t even know her own name. So I doubt she will be of much assistance to you.’

  Paula understood she was facing a formidable opponent. It would take all her skills to garner any substantive evidence against Sister Mary Patrick, a woman who had clearly planned for this eventuality. She took a short moment to tamp down her incredulous anger. ‘We have witness statements alleging brutality and psychological torture at St Margaret Clitherow. There are specific accusations against you.’

  ‘I’m sure there are. Some of the girls we dealt with at the Blessed Pearl were quick on the uptake as well as utterly amoral. As soon as this story hit the news, I knew there would be opportunistic liars quick to make unsubstantiated allegations. The church’s failures to deal with abusive priests over the years has made us a cheap target for charlatans. I could probably give you a list of the names of these accusers. In their eyes, we’re an easy payday.’ She pushed her chair back. ‘Now, I have been very generous with my time and my answers but I have reached the limit of that generosity. So, if you have nothing more?’

  ‘I do, as it happens. I wanted to ask you about your groundsman, Jerome Martinu.’

  Now something crossed her face that might almost have been surprise. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He dug the graves, right?’

  She inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘He did.’

  ‘Without question?’

  ‘He understood his duty to the convent.’

  ‘Were you aware of any other graves he dug within the convent grounds?’

  She gave a little shrug of indifference. ‘Only the one.’

  56

  The cases that always took the most out of me were the ones that awoke echoes from my own past. Sometimes I learned as much about myself from the process of drawing up a profile as I did about the offender.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Another day would make little difference to Saul Neilson, Carol told herself as she hurried down the stairs of Melissa Rintoul’s consulting rooms. She’d talk to Bronw
en Scott when her mind was clear. No time to thank Melissa or even to say goodbye. Right now, there was only one place she wanted to be.

  She ran down the lane to where she’d left the Land Rover, tearing off the parking ticket stuck to its windscreen and throwing it on to the passenger seat. She started the engine then forced herself to pause for breath. Melissa’s words bubbled up in her head. ‘Before you leave, promise me you’ll do your exercises.’

  Carol knew it made sense. Not just for her own sake but in the best interests of everyone else on the road between Edinburgh and Bradfield. And so she sat behind the wheel and worked her way through the now-familiar exercises, trying to banish her impatience and instil a sense of calm.

  By the time she’d finished, her breathing was steady, her palms no longer sweating. She plugged her phone into the sound system and chose the playlist mix of Jocelyn Pook, Lisa Gerrard, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ólafur Arnalds that she’d put together to help her stay chilled and in balance. Only then did she ease out of the parking space and into the traffic.

  In spite of her best efforts, her imagination was working overtime. What if the injury was worse than Paula had admitted? What if Tony had sustained more profound damage? She’d worked cases where people’s personalities had been permanently affected by brain injury. What if that happened to him? What if he wasn’t the same man when he recovered? How would he cope if he’d lost his ability to empathise? Or his capacity to analyse the manifestations of human behaviour and draw unexpected conclusions?

  Would he even be Tony any more? The last time they’d spoken to each other, he’d told her he loved her. True, he’d then broken all contact with her until she’d taken steps to recover from the PTSD she was still in denial about. But she’d done that now, she was on the road to rehabilitation. What if he couldn’t recognise that in her? What if he didn’t feel the same about her? If he no longer loved her?

  And what if she didn’t feel the same about him?

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she shouted. She reminded herself that she’d been trained to deal in facts. Speculation was only valuable if it led to answers. And there could be no answers till she had seen him for herself.

  The journey seemed endless, even though she knew she was making good time. Carol tried to think about other things. About the difference the DNA evidence could make to Saul Neilson’s case. It certainly led to a strong supposition that Lyle Tate was one of a string of victims who couldn’t all have been killed by Neilson, since at least two of them had died after he’d been incarcerated. But she had to acknowledge it didn’t completely exonerate him. To do that, Paula and her team needed to find a killer and tie him to Lyle Tate’s death. That would take them over the line.

  But there were other avenues she could explore. Tate had had a flatmate. There must have been other people who knew him. As far as Carol could tell from the original defence material, the effort to find anyone who might have spoken to him after he left Neilson’s flat had been desultory. She’d wondered why that had been. His defence solicitor wasn’t a name she was familiar with.

  To take her mind off Tony, she decided to call Bronwen. This late in the afternoon, she’d be back from court. ‘Carol,’ Bronwen said. ‘Have you got news for me?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ Carol said, not ready yet to pass on what she had. It was hard to break the habit of building a complete case before she let an outsider anywhere near it. ‘I’ve had a chance to look more closely at the defence files and it doesn’t look like his solicitor was very diligent when it came to looking for witnesses to Lyle’s movements after he left Saul. I’ve never heard of this lawyer. Was there an issue there?’

  Bronwen snorted. ‘Just a bit. Saul had too much money for Legal Aid so he hired an old school friend who hadn’t defended a murder before. Or anything like that serious. And because Saul didn’t have any experience with the criminal justice system he didn’t realise his mate wasn’t out of the top drawer.’

  ‘Obviously he should have gone for you,’ Carol said drily.

  ‘Obviously. You think there’s any mileage in it after all this time?’

  ‘I won’t know until I try. Do you know where I can find Lyle Tate’s flatmate?’

  ‘I thought you were the investigator?’

  ‘I am, that’s why I asked the question. So, do you have any idea?’

  ‘No, sorry. You’ll have to dig that up yourself. You could start with the flat they shared.’

  Carol rolled her eyes. ‘No, seriously? You think?’

  Bronwen laughed. ‘Let me know when you’ve got somewhere.’ She cut the call. Really, Carol thought, being on the same side as Bronwen wasn’t so different to being up against her. Maybe later tonight she’d try Tate’s old flat. After she’d seen Tony for herself.

  The miles passed slowly but they passed. When she saw the motorway mileage sign that read BRADFIELD 15, she called Elinor. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Elinor,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been expecting to hear from you. Paula said she’d managed to get hold of you.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘They operated this afternoon and the signs are good. They’ve reduced the haematoma and when I checked in about an hour ago, the last of the seepage had stopped. He’s sedated, but the prognosis is looking good. I spoke to the neurosurgeon and he thinks there’s probably no need to operate on the fracture as it’s not actively pressing on Tony’s brain.’ Elinor was brisk but reassuring.

  ‘Can I see him?’ Carol knew she sounded desperate but she didn’t care.

  ‘If it was up to me, I’d say yes, absolutely. But it’s not quite that straightforward. Because technically, he’s a prisoner. There’s an officer on guard outside the ward, checking people in and out.’

  ‘You managed to get in, though.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m a consultant on the staff here, nobody’s going to question my right to be there.’

  ‘Please, Elinor. Can’t you think of something?’

  A pause. Elinor sighed. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘About twenty minutes away.’

  ‘I shouldn’t even be contemplating this . . . you know the Starbucks opposite the main hospital entrance? Meet me there in half an hour.’ And she was gone.

  Elinor used her pass to open the locked door to Ward 12. ‘It’s visiting hours in here, nobody will look twice at you,’ she’d said on the way in. She walked past the nurses’ station to the end of the corridor then led Carol into a walk-in cupboard. The shelves that lined it were stacked with laundered bed linen and surgical scrubs. ‘Green or navy blue?’ Elinor asked.

  ‘Does it make a difference?’

  ‘Not really. Whatever you’re wearing you’ll be found out as soon as anyone asks you a question.’

  ‘Navy blue, then. It goes better with my hair.’

  Elinor grinned. ‘Your hair’s mostly going to be covered.’ She rummaged through the pile and handed Carol a set of scrubs then moved along the shelves to find a hat and mask. ‘Let’s go full-on,’ she said.

  Carol stripped to her underwear and pulled on her disguise. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Pretty good. Let the mask hang round your neck till we get out of this ward.’ She slung her stethoscope round Carol’s neck. ‘OK, let’s do it.’

  Carol stuffed her clothes at the back of the bottom shelf and followed Elinor. Heads together in muttered consultation, they made it out into the main corridor and to the Ward 14 entrance. Carol tugged the mask over her nose and mouth. The nurse on station barely glanced at Carol. ‘Back again, Dr Blessing?’

  ‘Last check for tonight,’ Elinor said.

  They headed down the hall. The prison officer paid more attention than the nurse had. ‘Another visit, Doc? I wish I got as much attention from you ladies as he does.’

  Elinor chuckled. Hand on the door. ‘Don’t wish too hard for what you want, officer. Next time it might be you lying in there. I just need to check his vitals and my colleague here has to make sure the tube’s clear.’ She p
ushed the door open and they slipped inside.

  In the dim light, Tony looked like a statue on a tomb. Carol took a moment to collect herself then approached the bed. A bandage circled his head, a thin plastic tube snaking out from under it and into a plastic bag held on a drip stand. The bag was empty, the tube almost completely clean apart from a single thread of blood about an inch long. She stared down at the face she loved, its familiar planes and curves more still than she’d ever seen him. His was a mobile face, constantly changing in response to what he saw and heard and felt. Even in repose, the sharp intelligence in his eyes was discernible. But now there was nothing. Just the marks of injury. His chest barely moved with his shallow breaths. Carol stretched out a hand and touched the arm that was cuffed to the bed, the warmth of his skin a reassurance.

  She glanced at Elinor. ‘Is he really all right? He looks . . . he looks absent.’

  ‘He’s sedated, Carol. If he’s stable tomorrow, they’ll let him come round. If he was in danger, he’d be on the High Dependency ward. I know this seems like a catastrophe to you, but honestly, to these guys, this is a routine case.’

  Carol felt tears pricking her eyes. ‘Will you get me back in to see him after he’s conscious? I need to speak to him, Elinor.’

  She saw the sympathy in her friend’s eyes. ‘Of course. But I think we should go now, before the guard starts wondering what’s taking so long.’

  Carol bent impulsively and kissed Tony’s cheek. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said. ‘Sleep well.’ Then she followed Elinor from the room and back into a world of sound and movement, knowing she would not be happy till Tony was back there too.

  But for now, at least she had something to distract herself with.

  57

  The art of diverting an interview is one that psychopaths excel in.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  The nun’s words hit Paula like a shock of static electricity. Then she caught sight of the faint smirk of satisfaction Sister Mary Patrick hadn’t quite managed to hide. ‘And what one would that have been?’ Paula demanded, a low threat edging into her voice.