Once she had hitched up her habit and climbed down the ladder, Sister Rita confirmed what the Mother Superior and Father Kelly had already told him. Like Mother Catherine, Sister Rita was also unable to recall their visitor's name. Rafferty hadn't even bothered to ask Father Kelly the same question. The old priest had enough trouble remembering his own name most of the time.
‘Here, inspector. Catch.’ Sister Rita took a shiny red apple from the box at her feet and threw it towards him. ‘There's no need to wash it. All our produce is grown organically.’ She laughed. ‘Which sometimes means I'm out in the vegetable plot in the evening with a torch, picking off the slugs by hand. I'd set a competition to encourage the other sisters to lend a hand with the task, with a dish of garlic snails prepared by Sister Perpetua as the prize, only, apart from myself and Sister Benedicta, most of the other sisters, being born and bred city types, are too squeamish about touching such slimy things to be willing to enter.’
‘They're in good company,’ Rafferty told her. He bit into his apple. It tasted as sweet and juicy as he imagined the one that Eve had tempted Adam with must have been. ‘Do you sell any of your produce?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Along with the sales of our brochures, crafts and other handiwork, it brings in a useful income. I'll add your name to the list if you like and send you details of our available seasonal produce.’
Rafferty did like. He thanked her and added, ‘You can send it to me care of the station.’
After Sister Rita had abandoned her labours for long enough to escort him from the convent, he stood on the street as the traffic rushed past him with its usual noise, exhaust fumes and bustle to get somewhere else. He was suddenly struck by the contrast between the two worlds. And for the first time, life inside the convent walls didn't come off second best in the comparison. In fact, he realised that he was beginning to find the cloistered life held a strange and growing appeal.
Yesterday, when the body had been found, the community had been shocked and subdued which had naturally depressed the atmosphere.
Yet today, the convent's normal aura had returned. With the sisters now over their initial shock, an atmosphere of joy and love permeated the place. It was there in the ready smiles of the sisters and in their care for one another. Completely immersed in the murder and its solution during the first day of the investigation, he had failed to notice these things. But he had noticed them now.
Even though he had only been enclosed by the convent's walls a couple of times, he realised how sharp was the contrast with ‘real life'. It was, he realised with a shock, a contrast not to the world's advantage. The nuns’ world was like a completely different planet. A soothing, loving place. In fact Rafferty, although feeling sheepish at the realisation, would have been increasingly less willing to leave the place at all – even for Abra – if it wasn't for the embarrassment he felt that although the murder investigation impinged on their lives and disrupted their holy routines, the nuns mostly accepted it with a patient serenity that was an example to all. They simply offered their bizarre experience up to God and asked Him to help them deal with it, much as they asked His help in dealing with their threefold vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Rafferty had found his initial expectations of convent life had been wrong on every count. One of these expectations had been the presumption that the general atmosphere within the community would be one of bitterness at life from these ‘failed’ women. A bitterness overlaid with sexual repression. In short, he had expected a total lack of joy and laughter.
But joy – sheer, unbridled, radiant – shone from nearly every face. Most surprising of all was the discovery that convents didn't lack sensual pleasures of the simpler sort.
Sensuality was there in the sun-warmed scent of lavender and beeswax on the floor and the smooth wooden pews in the chapel. It was there in the pleasing slap of leather sandals on the stone floors in the rest of the convent. In the beauty of sunlight through the chapel's stained glass that cast its glorious glow on everything, lighting up the dancing dust motes that no amount of vigorous polishing could entirely remove. It picked out and enhanced the rich hues of the flowers and the deep and vivid green of the leaves in the vases which were filled to bursting with colours from a rainbow spectrum of flowers.
These flowers were everywhere. Their perfume, subtle and delightful, filled the place with sufficiently contrasting pleasing smells to make the senses reel. He was even getting used to the pervasive smell of incense.
The sisters knew how to laugh, too, as he had discovered. They hadn't abandoned their personalities or sense of humour when they rejected the world.
A grin curled its way round his lips as he recalled something that had happened a little earlier, as he was walking down the corridor to the back door to speak to Sister Rita. He'd noticed a half-sized door nearly concealed in a dark corner near the chapel and he had asked Sister Ursula, who had been hobbling towards him on her painful, arthritic legs, where it led.
The nun's face, as wrinkled as a walnut, had gazed back at him, deadpan, as she had replied: ‘Oh that. It leads to the secret passage that allows us to smuggle lots of you lovely men into the convent.’
Rafferty recalled his own shock at the words of this nun, whose life was daily filled with the pain of arthritis and osteoporosis. But his shock had lasted for only a few seconds, before the wrinkled, humped and bent over old nun had roared with laughter and given him the greater shock of destroying all his previous certainties about religious life, when she told him: ‘Your face is a picture, inspector. And while I might have been glad of the odd, smuggled man in my novice days, I can't imagine what use I'd find for one now.’
Rafferty gave a rueful shake of his head at the recollection.
For the first time in his life, he felt he had lost out by so determinedly turning his back on religion. Anther shock rocked him as a second realisation hit him. The long-forgotten and unfamiliar urge to pray had subtly invaded his mind. Altogether, for a man who had spurned religion and all its works for years, this reaction was rather alarming.
In fact, these feelings so alarmed him that he subdued them and he hurried off to his car to return to the station, determined to continue with his normal routines. At least he knew where he was with them.
But this ‘God Thing’ rather unnerved him. It challenged every tenet of his life. And he didn't like it.
‘Not a lot to report yet on all but one of the community,’ was Llewellyn's response when Rafferty questioned him on his return.
‘Most of the sisters, as we know, have been shut away from the world for a generation or more and their family members have died, moved away, married, divorced and lost touch generally. They're all going to require a lot more work to trace them than I've managed today. I suppose it's as Mother Catherine said, and keeping in touch all becomes, for the nuns’ families, more of an effort with each passing year.’
Rafferty nodded. 'Continue with it, anyway, Dafyd. And even if the good sisters have failed to keep properly abreast of family house moves and so on, I'm sure government bureaucracy will have proved more tenacious.' He paused. ‘You said ‘all but one'. I suppose the exception is either the little novice, Cecile or Teresa Tattersall, the postulant?’
'Your first guess is correct. Sister Cecile's family still live at her old home. It's not that far from here, as the convent's records revealed.
‘They still seemed a bit shell-shocked at her decision to become a nun. Refused to believe that she really intended to take her life vows.'
‘Understandable, I suppose. It must seem a strange vocation for a young woman nowadays, when so many prefer to go the illegitimate kids and welfare route.’
‘Well no, it's not that. It's more a case that they don't seem to believe in the sincerity of her vocation. They gave me the impression that they thought her taking up religion was simply a means for her to escape a persistent ex-boyfriend.’
‘I can think of more attractive ways of escaping a trou
blesome boyfriend than joining a nunnery,’ Rafferty retorted, determined to quell any return to his earlier worrying yen for religion. ‘Though, I suppose what it lacks in attraction it makes up for in its efficient security.’
‘Mm.’
‘This boyfriend.’ Rafferty had a sudden thought and he asked sharply: ‘How old is he?’
‘Old enough to be our cadaver, if that's what you're thinking. Even better from our point of view: he seems to have disappeared. Said disappearance was also in the right timeframe.’
The possibility that they might have discovered the identity of the dead man stirred jubilant juices in Rafferty's stomach. But he reined in his excitement as he reminded himself that too often, in the past, hopes of early achievement in a case had come to nothing. So he kept his voice level as he said: ‘Tell me about him.’
Nathan McNally was forty eight to Cecile's twenty six. No wonder as Llewellyn explained, that the young novice's family had been against the match from the start.
In addition to being in the same rough age range as their cadaver, which Dr Dally had already confirmed, this Nathan McNally was also, according to what Llewellyn had discovered, of a similar height to the dead man.
‘Did you manage to get a photo of this McNally?’ Rafferty asked.
‘No. Unfortunately, Cecile's family were so delighted when their daughter finished with him that they threw away any photos of him.’
‘Pity.’
‘Though they were able to give me a fair description of him.’ Llewellyn consulted his notebook. ‘According to the family, McNally had short brown hair, hazel eyes and was around twelve and a half stone. He had a nasty temper, apparently.’
‘Did he indeed? Sounds the sort to have a police record. You checked?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Llewellyn's lips thinned as if he considered the question not only unnecessary, but an insult to his intelligence. ‘There was nothing on record.’
Rafferty swallowed his disappointment. 'Doesn't necessarily mean anything. There are any number of men out there prone to violence but who manage to keep their names off the police computer. This could still turn out to be a crime of passion, with the good sisters, in attempting to protect Cecile from her ex-boyfriend and his nasty temper, restraining him with a little too much vigour.
‘I'm thinking Agatha Christie and the Murder on the Orient Express,’ Rafferty revealed. ‘You know, the one where the murder turned out to be a group effort.’
‘Rather outlandish.’
‘Outlandish it may be, but that doesn't mean it mightn't have happened that way. As I've always said to you, Dafyd, in this job, it's necessary to keep an open mind.’
Llewellyn's lips thinned again at this comment from his far from open-minded inspector, but he didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he said, ‘Anyway, I've arranged for Cecile's parents to come into the station tomorrow and work on the computer with the police artist. If we have a face to go with the name we will hopefully either be able to trace and discount him as our victim or confirm that he is indeed our cadaver.’
The lack of a photo of Nathan McNally aside, Rafferty couldn't help but feel hopeful. But to prevent his hopes rising too enthusiastically, he issued himself another warning. It would be time enough to get excited when they had a confirmed ID for the dead man. But they were some way from that yet.
Still, he thought, if this Nathan McNally did turn out to be their victim – and if he, his family, or his current acquaintances failed to contact them once his details were circulated, this would be a strong pointer in this direction – it would mean all things were possible. The confirmed identity of the dead man would surely also provide a strong indication of the identity of his murderer…
And as they had received confirmation from three sources that the man who had enquired about Sister Clare had indeed left the convent premises, it was good to have him replaced with another potential victim so quickly. Especially as this latest male had what was undoubtedly – in the shape of his ex-girlfriend, the novice, Cecile – what could be called a definite connection to the convent.
According to what Llewellyn had discovered, not only had Nathan McNally himself disappeared, but so had his family. They had long since moved away and none of the ex-neighbours whom Llewellyn had questioned knew where they had moved to.
It might take some time to trace them. But at least, once that was accomplished, their DNA would confirm whether or not Nathan was their cadaver. It could be a breakthrough. But to get even the possibility of one, so unexpectedly and so early in the case caused a little bubble of anxiety to replace the previous jubilant juices in Rafferty's stomach.
God, what's the matter with you? he asked himself. Here you are, possibly with a clear and early pointer to our cadaver's identity and still you're complaining. Don't tell me you're becoming like Llewellyn and logic's starting to edge out the optimism?
To make up for his earlier teasing, Rafferty slapped Llewellyn on the back with such enthusiasm that the Welshman winced. ‘Good work, Dafyd. Of course, while we're trying to trace this McNally's family, we'll continue with the other strands of the investigation – checking the backgrounds of the other sisters and those of Father Kelly and Dr Peterson, as well as tracing the late Sister Clare's family. I still want to eliminate this man with no name who came to the convent to enquire about Sister Clare.’
He paused, then asked, ‘Wasn't it another great detective who said that if you eliminate the impossible then what's left, however improbable, must be your answer?’
‘Another great detective?’ Llewellyn murmured. ‘I wonder who it could be that you're thinking of for your first.’
Rafferty grinned. ‘I'll let you guess. I'm sure you can figure it out.’
Rafferty admitted he was tempted to throw all his resources into the Cecile connection, but he put this temptation firmly behind him. Maybe his decision had something to do with the unwelcome part religion was currently playing in his life and it was helping lead him from such temptations? Or perhaps, as he preferred to think, he was just getting older and wiser.
Chapter Eight
By noon the next day, Rafferty, finding his thoughts – about blackmailers, nuns and his mother – were chasing themselves round and round the grey caverns of his brain, decided he needed some fresh air.
But instead of wandering Elmhurst's ancient streets, he got in his car and headed for the open countryside surrounding the town. He didn't want people around him. He craved solitude and peace in the hope that he would manage to remove the sticky cobwebs currently binding his thought processes.
In spite of his desire for solitude and open country, he found himself stopping outside the convent instead of continuing to the countryside beyond. On an impulse, he parked up. He didn't even have to ring the bell to gain admittance. Sister Rita was in the entrance lobby and saw him through the grill.
She let him in and gave him a quiet greeting. ‘Inspector. Back again, I see.’
He nodded. ‘Afraid so.’ He would be forced to keep turning up, like a bad penny, he acknowledged, until he had nailed the murderer.
Sister Rita studied him for a moment, then she smiled and said, 'You look in need of one of Sister Perpetua's famous tonics. Come into the kitchen. She's been experimenting with a new recipe. Something to do with apples, she said. She thinks it should be about ready for testing now.'
An hour later, the noise Rafferty, Sister Rita and Sister Perpetua were making after trying out Sister Perpetua's experimental and damn near lethal, 'apple drink', attracted the attention of Mother Catherine.
It didn't need communication with the Heavenly Father for the Prioress to realise that she was the only sternly sober one amongst them. After roundly chastising the two tipsy nuns and sending them to sleep off the effects of Sister Perpetua's experiment, she showed Rafferty to the door, like a stern headmistress who thought he was a bad influence.
But even after the door clanged shut behind him, Rafferty couldn't help but grin at the thought
that Sister Perpetua, in her innocent experiment, like the ignorant savage who spontaneously invented the wheel, had, by accident, discovered how to concoct a heady brew of cider.
He was still chuckling (and staggering), after he had walked back to the edge of town and hailed a taxi – owing to the kitchen nun's concoction, being in no fit state to drive – to return to the station.
The evening darkness had long since descended when Rafferty, now suffering the after effects of Sister Perpetua's heady brew, put the phone down. He rubbed his aching head just as Llewellyn entered the office.
At least his sergeant had some welcome news. The artist's impression of Nathan McNally, the missing ex-boyfriend of the novice, Cecile, that her parents had helped to compose, was now ready and could be circulated.
Rafferty acknowledged this with a nod. ‘I'm glad something's moving on this investigation,’ he said. ‘I've just had Fraser on the phone. The dead man's fingerprints aren't on the national database. He's now checking the international one. But time's moving on and I don't want to delay any longer. So, in the meantime, while we're waiting to see if Fraser comes up with something, I think we're going to have to try to get a confirmed ID from dental records. And if that gets us nowhere, we'll have no choice but to go for facial reconstruction from the skull. Professor Amos at the university has got us some good results on that in the past. But getting a firm ID for this man is a priority. Without that, we haven't a hope of pinning down any of our suspects, never mind making an arrest.’
‘Speaking of suspects,’ Llewellyn said. ‘I've just come from the Incident Room. Since the news broke on our cadaver there have been several anonymous telephone calls from members of the public about Dr Peterson, the convent's general practitioner. Their gist seems to be that back in the sixties, when he was a young doctor, he performed abortions at a time, before the 1967 Abortion Act, when, except in cases of the most extreme medical emergency, they were still illegal.’
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