‘Does he know that you were Johnny Clare’s mother?’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t. I didn’t even tell Sally about that. Why should I?’ They had reached the low wall that bounded the postulancy and she turned, spreading her hands palms upward in a gesture of defeat.
‘The more I try to sort things out the more confused I become,’ she said. ‘Bryan and I slept together once and I had a child and gave him up for adoption and made a whole new life for myself. I made a whole new personality for myself. Bright, smart, successful career girl. And now it’s all unravelling. I’m unravelling, Joan, and I don’t think I can take very much more.’
‘You were sick when I told you that Serge’s friend had had her throat cut,’ Sister Joan said, inexorably.
‘What else did you expect?’ Barbara demanded. ‘It was one death too many! Johnny had his throat cut! My own child — and Sally fell from a great height and Bryan was left dying or dead in the road, and someone gave Serge an overdose of drugs—’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘Of course I’m sure!’ Barbara cried. ‘Listen! Serge rang me up when he got the photo reminding us of the reunion. He knew it wasn’t Bryan who’d sent them round because Bryan was dead. He had a theory that whoever had sent them was teasing us in a horrible way, saying that mocked all our old bonds of friendship! He said that he was building up a case.’
‘And where did Patricia Mayne fit in?’
‘Maybe he talked to her,’ Barbara said wearily. ‘Maybe he tried out his ideas on her. How do I know?’
From the other side of the tennis court Paul called, ‘Can anyone tell me what’s going on? There’s a damned great tarpaulin stretched beyond the main gate and sundry rural policemen prowling about, looking for clues, I daresay!’
‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ Sister Joan called back, moderating her tone as he loped nearer. ‘I’m a nun, not a detective!’
‘But the kid’s dead?’
‘Very dead,’ Sister Joan said coldly.
Paul shrugged. ‘It’s ruined Sunday afternoon,’ he drawled.
‘You’re offensive!’ Barbara said tightly. ‘Everything’s just a game to you, isn’t it? Something that might or might not make a good television programme!’
‘Chacun à son goût!’ Paul said lightly. ‘Well, Sister dear, have you solved the mystery yet?’
‘Almost.’ Drawing herself up and lifting her chin, she answered him coolly. ‘There are one or two points to clarify, a couple of things to slot into place. Soon I’ll have the complete picture.’
‘Are you serious?’ The laughter in his eyes had died, quenched like a flame.
‘Never more so,’ she said. ‘Excuse me, but I have to go over to the main house. Sister Teresa and Sister Marie are preparing supper and though they wouldn’t ask they’d appreciate an offer of help.’
She went past him, lifting her hand to Barbara in a small gesture of dismissal. Inside she could feel anger rising. Anger that they’d involved her in something without giving her the opportunity to refuse, anger that she was still being presented with a distorted picture, anger above all that one person was watching and smiling because she had been manipulated through old bonds of fidelity to her fellow students into playing a sick and macabre game.
Fiona and Serena were still with Derek in the garden, the three of them in deck chairs, heads together, absorbed in murmured conversation. No doubt trying to work out who’d committed the murder, she thought sourly, as if violent death were one of the activities laid on for the retreat. None of them looked up as she went by.
‘Sister Joan!’
Mother Dorothy had come out into the grounds and was looking round.
‘Yes, Reverend Mother?’ Sister Joan reached her superior’s side.
‘I’d be grateful,’ Mother Dorothy said, with nicely controlled asperity, ‘if you’d kindly tell me what’s happening. You went to the camp with Detective Sergeant Mill?’
‘Yes, Mother. Sister Perpetua advised it. We both thought that you would have advised such a course of action too.’
‘It is never wise,’ Mother Dorothy said, ‘to try to read the mind of a prioress. However in this instance you were perfectly correct. Were you able to give any comfort?’
‘It would’ve been an impertinence to try,’ Sister Joan said soberly.
‘You spoke to me before of certain matters connected with your former friends that troubled you,’ Mother Dorothy said, beginning to walk with her round to the front of the building. ‘Does the death of this unfortunate child have any bearing?’
‘It’s another part of the same puzzle,’ Sister Joan said.
‘You are, I hope, not holding back any information from the police?’
Mother Dorothy’s eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles were disconcertingly shrewd.
‘I have pieces of information from all over the place,’ Sister Joan confided. ‘I made it clear to Detective Sergeant Mill that I would be laying that information before him tomorrow morning. He was good enough to allow me that space of time. Would you tell them all that at supper tonight?’
There was a heartbeat of silence. Then Mother Dorothy said, mildly enough, ‘Why hold back?’
‘Because these people were in college with me and some of them are relying on me to help them. I owe them a certain fidelity.’
‘Fidelity is always bound up with truth, isn’t it?’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘If we are faithful to the truth then we cannot betray ourselves, and to be true to oneself is the highest fidelity.’
‘Surely fidelity to God?’ Sister Joan said.
‘At the deepest level isn’t it the same thing?’ Mother Dorothy gave her a kindly glance.
‘I have to talk to someone, find out something else first,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I also ought to offer some help in the kitchen.’
‘Pray don’t!’ Mother Dorothy said quickly. ‘Since Sister Teresa and Sister Marie took over the cooking the meals have been excellent. You said you wished to talk to someone?’
‘To Dodie Mason — Dorothy Mason.’
‘My namesake.’ The Prioress gave a wry little smile. ‘I am infinitely grateful to my own parents that they never shortened my name. No woman of forty ought to go round answering to the name of Dodie! She went into the chapel a few minutes ago. May I suggest that you simply go in and sit down there? Other people’s prayers are not to be lightly intruded upon.’
‘Thank you, Reverend Mother.’
She walked rapidly towards the front door, turned into the chapel passage and slowed her pace. It would avail her nothing if she rushed in like a bull in a china shop.
Dodie sat in one of the pews, her hands in her lap, a scarf over her head. She turned slightly as Sister Joan came in and nodded a greeting, speaking in a loud whisper as the latter genuflected before the altar.
‘I hope it’s all right? My not being a Catholic? I just felt like a bit of peace and quiet. There’s been another murder, hasn’t there?’
‘Another murder?’
‘Sister Joan sat down next to her but not too close.
‘Ten years ago,’ Dodie said in the same half whisper. ‘A little boy called Johnny Clare was killed and his remains found years later quite near to where we lived. I feel as if everything is happening all over again but somehow in an upside down kind of way. As if I were in a play with all the lines being said backwards.’
‘Your children are adopted,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Couldn’t you have—’
‘Oh, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me,’ Dodie said. ‘I’m not certain, of course.’
‘But you’ve been married fifteen years,’ Sister Joan said, ‘Surely by now—?’
‘Not when I’m still a virgin,’ Dodie said.
‘Still a—’ Sister Joan tried to grasp at reality for a moment. What she was hearing simply couldn’t be, didn’t make sense.
‘Colin would never consummate the marriage,’ Dodie said. ‘Never.’
&n
bsp; ‘I don’t understand. Why marry you if—?’
‘He needed a wife and children to help his chances of promotion,’ Dodie said calmly, as if she were reading a shopping list. ‘Of course I didn’t know that when I married him. I thought he respected me too much to sleep with me before the ceremony and after that — I stayed on. My family would have been horrified, pitying. I had my pride.’
‘But why?’
‘Why didn’t he?’ Dodie gave a little shiver. ‘He liked men — boys, you see. Not that anyone would have guessed. He was always very careful. And it didn’t happen very often. After it happened he’d—when you came into my room last night you saw the bruises. They’re old ones. It isn’t a regular occurrence.’
‘You could have the marriage annulled.’
‘My children are mine even if they are adopted,’ Dodie said. ‘They go to a very good school. I’d not shame them.’
Sister Joan put her hand in her pocket and drew out the tie-pin.
‘This was by the body of Finn Boswell, the gypsy child,’ she said. ‘The C.M. is for Colin Mason, isn’t it? Do you understand what this means, Dodie?’
‘That Colin killed the little boy?’ Dodie looked at the glinting circle almost with indifference. ‘No, he helped bury the first one I think, but he didn’t kill the gypsy boy. You’re on the wrong track there. Entirely on the wrong track. Excuse me.’
Rising, bobbing her head vaguely in the direction of the altar, she turned and went neatly and swiftly out of the chapel.
Twelve
‘Before we have supper,’ Mother Dorothy said, rising in her place, ‘I do have a few words to say. You will all be aware by now that yesterday a child from the local Romany camp went missing. This morning his body was found very lightly concealed by branches just outside the convent gates. It was found by Brother Cuthbert who came at once to inform us and the police were immediately called. I daresay that the police may call me tomorrow sometime in the hope that someone may have seen something or remembered something that could prove useful in the investigation. I am sorry that your retreat has been interrupted in such a manner, but hopefully whoever killed Finn Boswell will soon be apprehended. Should any of you recall anything later that might be of use please tell Sister Joan. Since the incident is so grave I am giving Sister Joan dispensation from the grand silence should she deem it necessary to speak. I know she won’t abuse the privilege. Now, Sister Marie will read us the beautiful account of the visions of Fatima.’
Sister Marie, looking flushed, took her place at the lectern. The choice of reading, Sister Joan couldn’t help thinking, was hardly tactful. The three children who had gone out to play on the green fields near their home in Portugal had been rewarded with a series of visions. Finn Boswell, going out to play on the moor near his home in Cornwall, had met a man called Colin who had lured him away and killed him.
Not even Paul was making any snide comments this evening. The meal was eaten in silence. Dodie kept her eyes lowered, eating neatly and quickly, and dabbing her lips frequently with her napkin like a little girl who has been allowed to eat with the grown-ups.
She was on her way downstairs after the meal when the telephone rang. Sister Perpetua, who was just ahead, hurried to lift down the receiver and beckoned to Sister Joan.
‘For you, Sister. I have to see to my old ladies,’ she said.
‘Sister Joan? Detective Sergeant Mill here!’ His voice was impersonal. ‘It might be useful for you to know that we have the pathologist’s report. Finn Boswell was killed sometime yesterday afternoon, probably between four and six, that’s as close as they can get. Throat cut in one movement and no sexual interference.’
‘Thank you,’ Sister Joan said.
‘At the moment we’re following up another line of enquiry,’ Detective Sergeant Mill informed her. ‘However I’ll be at the convent by ten tomorrow morning. You’ll keep the brooch in a safe place until I arrive?’
‘Tie-pin,’ Sister Joan corrected unwarily. ‘How did you—?’
‘Brother Cuthbert noticed it when he stumbled over the body. He left it where it was since unlike some people I know he doesn’t mess about with the evidence. He said it had initials on it. C. What was the second? Would it be M?’
‘Yes,’ Sister Joan said briefly.
‘Thank you, Sister.’ There was a brief pause, then the voice at the other end said in a different tone, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing. Take care.’
‘I will.’
She replaced the receiver and followed the guests out into the grounds.
They were walking in an untidy crocodile towards the postulancy, Derek with Barbara, Serena and Fiona somewhat nervously linking arms, Paul striding ahead and Dodie bringing up the rear, her arms folded tightly about herself, her head bowed. She hadn’t once met Sister Joan’s eyes during supper and to try to force further information out of her at this juncture would be fruitless.
‘If anyone suggests a game of Scrabble or a jigsaw puzzle I shall scream!’ Fiona announced as they trooped into the recreation room.
‘Are we really going to be questioned by the police?’ Serena asked. ‘I can’t tell them anything!’
‘How do you know?’ Barbara demanded. ‘We might have seen something and not known whether it was important or not.’
‘Do we know when the little boy was killed?’ Fiona asked.
‘Yesterday afternoon,’ Sister Joan said. ‘He wasn’t missed until after dark.’
‘Bit careless of his parents, wasn’t it?’ Paul said.
‘The Romany children are brought up to be self-reliant,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Anyway there’s very little crime round here. Children can still play out on the moors in comparative safety.’
‘Does that mean the police think that we might have done it?’ Serena looked uneasy.
‘That’s a perfectly horrid idea!’ Fiona shuddered.
‘You and I came down together,’ Serena said.
‘And Paul and Derek came down with me,’ Dodie reminded them.
‘I came by train. Joan met me at the station,’ Barbara said.
‘But after we all arrived here we did quite a lot of wandering around,’ Fiona said brightly.
‘What were you all doing while Sister Joan was meeting me?’ Barbara asked.
‘I was unpacking,’ Serena said. ‘It took a long time to fit everything in. They don’t provide much cupboard space in convents.’
‘Nuns don’t have such an enormous wardrobe,’ Fiona said. ‘I was unpacking too and then I went for a little walk round. I didn’t go very far.’
‘I walked over to the chapel,’ Dodie said. ‘There were a couple of nuns there praying and I didn’t like to disturb them so I came back and started clearing away the cups and saucers.’
‘I took a stroll round the grounds,’ Paul volunteered. ‘I saw Derek doing his Tarzan act up a tree on my way back.’
‘Helping that little nun with the apple picking,’ Derek nodded.
‘Yes. I saw you there.’ Sister Joan sat down by the table and drummed her fingers lightly on its polished pine surface.
‘After that we were all together and we went over to the big house for supper,’ Serena said. ‘Anyway this is just silly! I can’t believe that one of us grabbed a child, killed him, and then walked back here in time for supper!’
‘Since we’re all strangers here then it’s only natural the police will want to check us out,’ Derek said.
‘Well, I don’t want to talk about it any longer,’ Fiona said. ‘This is supposed to be a pleasant social hour for heaven’s sake! Let’s play a game or something.’
‘Murder?’ Paul suggested.
‘I don’t understand you!’ Fiona stared at him accusingly. ‘You used to be so nice and normal and now — now I don’t know you at all! I don’t know any of you!’
‘Let’s have a quiz or something,’ Serena said with desperate gaiety.
‘Who killed Finn whatever his name was?’ Paul said.
; ‘I’m going for a walk!’ Dodie was on her feet, her rather prissy personality seeming to disintegrate, to be submerged by something else.
‘I have to check up on Alice and Lilith anyway,’ Sister Joan said. ‘If anyone wants me after chapel I’ll be in the stable.’
‘Hoping for a confession before the police arrive?’ Barbara said sharply.
‘Oh, confession or not,’ Sister Joan said calmly, her insides jerking, ‘I think I’ve just about worked everything out now.’
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ Dodie said as they went out together. ‘Colin never killed anybody. He’s not a murderer whatever else he might be. You won’t tell the police about the tie-pin you found?’
‘It’s against the law to withhold evidence,’ Sister Joan said.
‘But surely you owe something to your old friends?’
They were crossing the dark tennis court and a gust of wind caught them both, whirling dead leaves in its wake, lifting the hem of Sister Joan’s habit, spiralling through Dodie’s neat, greying curls.
‘Old friends?’ Sister Joan heard the snap of irritation in her own voice. ‘Old friends who don’t contact me for years and then decide to involve me in something about which I know nothing! That isn’t friendship: that’s exploitation!’
‘Colin didn’t do it,’ Dodie repeated. ‘He couldn’t have done it!’
‘Why not?’ They had reached the steps and she stopped and turned, her voice low and vehement. ‘Colin likes little boys, doesn’t he? He never consummated the marriage with you! Did you know about his sexual tastes before you adopted the children?’
‘No, of course not! I thought he had — difficulties but I never knew that!’ Dodie exclaimed.
‘Otherwise you’d not have risked adopting children? Is that why they’re in boarding-school? Is that why you stay with him?’
‘He’d never have hurt our own children,’ Dodie said defensively, ‘but one can never be sure. I felt I ought to stay.’
A VOW OF FIDELITY an utterly gripping crime mystery Page 17
