Sister Caravaggio

by Maeve Binchy

  She heard Maggie fumbling with the door-catch. She heard the door opening. Then Maggie began to scream.

  It was the most piercing scream that Alice had ever heard.

  Chapter Three

  Dublin

  15 June, 9 PM

  She thrived on the electricity of night. Despite job losses and cutbacks, night was still a full-blooded event, prospect-laden. People went out, got drunk, engaged with one another. She was part of it all, and yet, incredibly, invisible. Or, rather, she had been. Until her vanity had got the upper hand.

  Dark Heart was wearing black suede boots, each dagger-heel inlaid with Swarowski crystals. She enjoyed the metallic Click! Click! as she strolled from the prosperous shopping zone around Grafton Street, along Andrew Street, eventually crossing Dame Street and moving down from Temple Bar through Merchants Arch. She waited at the lights beside the Ha’penny Bridge.

  She was agitated. She seldom made mistakes, but a few weeks before, she had made a crucial mistake, and now she had to rectify it.

  Slipping onto Liffey Street, she left behind the slightly bewildered tourists shuffling around the city’s so-called Left Bank, and walked slowly past the begging creatures in sleeping bags, already settling down for the night, gazing up at her with pleading eyes. ‘Spare a few coins, missus?’

  The deep amethyst dress – her favourite – was shorter than most of her outfits. Below her collarbone, where the neckline draped softly, a diamante brooch occasionally caught the light, and flashed.

  Life was so complicated! As she crossed the Liffey, green and blue summery lights made grotesque shadow-plays on the arches of the ancient bridges. In Parnell Street, the yellow-lit cafés and tawny, chi-chi clubs were open for business. A few weeks before, right over there in the Café Monto, a refugee from Somalia had insisted on doing her portrait in charcoal, praising her bone structure. Why had she allowed that to happen? Why had her vanity lured her into permitting a record of her features to be made when no one in the living world knew of her existence? Because the possibility of meeting someone, someone who might grasp the complexities of her situation, always lay tantalisingly out of reach. And as she had sat for him, his own beauty had slowly became apparent to her, the way the wall-light had illuminated part of his face, while the other mysterious side, with its hints of cheekbone and shapely temple, lay in shadow.

  Dark Heart sighed. She was drawn to beauty and it pained her to destroy it. But it was what she had to do for her own protection. The music coming from the café was middle European, mid-twentieth-century romantic melancholy. She went in.

  Dublin Docklands

  15 June, 9.05 PM

  Alice threw herself across the room as Maggie’s scream continued to echo. Reflexively, she had picked up a sharply cut glass ashtray and now, gripping it in her left hand, she moved again, flattened against the wall, edging quickly and silently until she was almost level with the door. All she could think of was Bruno. Would he have a gun or a boning knife? This was it, then. She swivelled and came into the light, swiftly chopping the air with the razor edge of the ashtray as she moved.

  Then she spotted the pile of steaming cardboard cartons. Even as she smelt garlic, cheese and carbonara sauce, Alice, with less than millimetres to spare, aborted her attack. The delivery boy stood, slack-jawed, nostrils dilated with fear. Alice’s eyes swam to the trail of rose and ivy tattoos that led from just below the bloke’s beautiful nipples to his belly button and deep into a treasure-trail of soft hair that curled enticingly above the belt of frayed-at-the-knees black jeans.

  ‘Hey, Maggie!’ She tried to laugh it off as she took the cartons. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said to the delivery lad, ‘my friend here …’

  ‘All part of the job,’ said the boy, who had regained his composure.

  With a cynical grin, he casually looked Alice up and down.

  She shut the door.

  Minutes later, Maggie forked up a piece of pasta arrabbiata, sucking it through quivering lips.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just thought …’ she said, a mouthful of pasta still lingering on her tongue. ‘I was just never in that situation before. Maybe you’d be better off on your own, Alice. I’m just a nun, I’ll only get in the way.’

  ‘But a very talented nun. Look, we can do this. We’re a team, right?’ A hesitant smile broke at the corners of Maggie’s lips.

  ‘I’m afraid sometimes too, you know,’ Alice said. ‘Things scare me when I’m not expecting them. Okay? Now, we’ll have a little drink, and then we’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.’

  A little later, having introduced Maggie to the miracle of Ned’s Hennessy XO, and then installed her in the spare room, Alice got into Ned’s bed. She wanted very badly to sleep, to clear her mind of all that had happened, but an hour passed before she succumbed to her deep fatigue – an hour to settle her thoughts as, inevitably, she recalled the afternoons, nights, and even hectic just-off-duty dawns spent with Ned in this bed. His body odour almost overwhelmed her as she pushed her nose deep into the pillows. She groaned with longing, felt her groin soften and grow warm, turned over, and tried to pray. Her mother’s recommended solution years ago had been three Hail Marys for purity, but Alice knew that this might not work just then.

  Dublin

  16 June, 8.30 AM

  Alice had not closed the sleek bedroom blinds. When she awoke, the morning sun fell in warm shafts across her bare right foot. She felt rested, her head suddenly clear. She tossed back the duvet and began to pad around the bedroom. Immediately her eye fell on what she’d been too tired to observe the night before. An impressive range of art catalogues lay arranged neatly on top of the beautiful chiffonier she and Ned had bought together one Saturday from a Francis Street antique dealer.

  What was Ned doing with these catalogues? Thoughts of Bruno’s phlegmy baritone the night before rushed back, compounded by the discovery of the art catalogues. Was there a connection between Bruno and the Caravaggio theft? Alice decided to shelve that for the moment, found a pen and notepad on the kitchen worktop, sat down at Ned’s desk, picked up his telephone and went to work.

  An hour later, Maggie appeared in a long T-shirt, rubbing her eyes with both fists.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s nearly ten. Time for a coffee hit before we get out of here,’ said Alice briskly.

  ‘I haven’t slept till ten in the morning for years and years,’ Maggie said. She peered at the desk, where Alice’s notepad was full of scrawled telephone numbers. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Banging my head against a wall, it seems,’ Alice sighed. ‘I’ve been on to every low-life I know, every snitch I’ve ever had on the payroll. Old lags, car thieves, dockers who’d strangle their own mother if you paid them enough, even white-collar criminals. No use. There’s not a ghost of a word stirring out there on the Caravaggio.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Maggie said, modestly pulling down on her T-shirt in an effort to cover her hips. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘That’s what you and I have to work out,’ Alice said, and felt a fresh pang of envy about Maggie’s great legs. Her own weren’t bad, although she sometimes thought of them as being over-muscular; Maggie’s, on the other hand, had been preserved in a convent library under a long woollen habit for fourteen years. ‘First we need coffee. Then we brainstorm.’

  She tried not to think of her actions in Ned’s kitchen as automatic, but it was hard to describe them otherwise. She knew where everything was: the Kenyan coffee, the grinder, the percolator. As she ripped open a fresh pack of coffee and poured the boiling water, something caught her eye: a card, propped by the cooker. She picked it up. It was a gift voucher for a woman’s fashion boutique in Brown Thomas. Alice’s heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Oh, I love this coffee,’ Maggie groaned as she drank it. ‘D’you think there’s any chance we could bring some of it back with us to Doon Abbey?’

  ‘It’s the least they could let us do,’ said Alice despondently, trying t
o get her mind off the gift voucher. ‘Okay, we need connections. Caravaggio. Ireland. History. Locations. What do you think when I say

  “Caravaggio”?’

  Maggie frowned. ‘Crime, intrigue, murder. Beauty.’

  ‘Religion, museums, churches.’

  ‘Popes, cardinals, eunuchs …’

  ‘Eunuchs?’

  Maggie had opened up the laptop and lay, sprawled on the sofa, the slim computer balanced on one hip.

  ‘I’m thinking of castrati, music, drama, organs – I mean, of course, musical instruments – darkness, knives, guilt, sin, confession …’

  As Maggie brain-stormed on Caravaggio connections, Alice contemplated hurling the expensive coffee-maker out of the window into the Liffey. For whom had he purchased the gift voucher? The date-stamp read last week. She suddenly hated being in Ned’s flat. And she hated Ned.

  Anyway, what had he and Bruno in common except being overweight?

  ‘Jesuits.’

  Alice looked over to the sofa. ‘Maggie?’

  ‘Jesuits,’ Maggie said, typing fast. ‘You asked me what I say when you say “Caravaggio”? Jesuits!’

  ‘Jesuits?’

  ‘Jesuits, Jesuits! They’re a religious order, founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola in 1539. They are …’

  ‘I know who Jesuits are, Maggie.’

  Maggie’s eyes were fixed on the screen as her fingers continued to fly. ‘Back in the nineteen-nineties, someone discovered a Caravaggio in one of the Dublin Jesuit houses. Remember? It was a sensation at the time. The painting ended up in the National Gallery.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The website of the Jesuit Provincial Offices shows listings for the order’s apostolic and administrative interests. These include the House of Formation, the House of Studies, the Loyola Community and the Institute for Theology and Philosophy.’ Maggie’s cheeks were ablaze. ‘It may be nothing, but the Jesuit House in Aylesmere, which is not far from here, has a noted art collection.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So then I remembered the Jesuit Rector of Aylesmere – he comes down to Doon Abbey on retreat – and I googled him. You will not believe this!’

  ‘You’re making me ill, Maggie. Go on!’

  ‘He’s called Jonathan Rynne, SJ. And guess whose brother he is?’ ‘I haven’t a clue,’ said Alice, exhausted.

  ‘Sister Mercy Superior’s!’ cried Maggie triumphantly.

  Doonlish

  June 16, 10 AM

  Ned O’Loughlin had a hangover. He had drunk eight pints in the local pub the night before, played pool with strangers for three hours, then slept in the tiny room of a B&B until he awoke with a blinding headache. He was too sick to eat the breakfast. His head throbbed with the aftermath of alcohol and the loss of Alice.

  Touching his jacket pocket, he felt the outline of the copy of Lady Cherry de Bree’s bequest. The big nun had given it to him before she had showed him Alice’s cell. Ned had felt the blood rushing to his head as he picked up her unforgettable scent. He recognised a black crucifix in bog oak she had procured in a Dublin junk shop when he had been with her. He remembered that afternoon, the pair of them off work, rolling along the quays in great humour after a late – and alcoholic – lunch. And then back to his flat.

  Now, four Solpadeine to the good, standing outside the gate lodge where nasturtiums tumbled from ancient-looking urns, Ned pressed the ceramic bell and winced as, within, traditional chimes filled the house. Away to one side was a large pasture in which four Limousin heifers lay chewing the cud, their strong front hocks tucked beneath them. In the distance, he spotted a nun entering the milking parlour. Like the head nun, this one too was large, broad and well built. What is it with these women? Was it the air down here? Ned heard a bolt being drawn back.

  The door opened and two pale faces peered out. ‘Misses Hogan?’ he asked. ‘My name is O’Loughlin.’ Both women looked blankly at him.

  ‘O’Loughlin?’ they chorused softly.

  ‘I’m here in connection with the Doon Abbey theft. I’m an insurance investigator.’

  The Misses Hogan looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Should we have expected you?’ one of them enquired, her feathery eyebrows knitted.

  ‘No, but I’m in the area, speaking to different people who may have seen or heard something on the night of the theft. I’ve just come from Doon Abbey, in fact.’

  ‘Oh. Well in that case …’

  They led him into their sitting room, replete with worn Persian carpet, two gleaming oil-lamps, Art Deco vases, and a startling print of a draped nude.

  ‘Is there anything you remember happening on the night of the theft?’ Ned opened.

  He watched them, the finely lined pallor of both faces warmed by a daub of cheek-colour. Both wore a dash of red lipstick.

  ‘Obviously the gardaí realise you have no involvement in the theft,’ he added. ‘They have reassured me that you are the pillars of this little community.’

  Twin smiles cracked the faces of the Misses Hogan. Eleanor sat forward. ‘I woke Gabrielle.’ ‘Go on,’ Ned said.

  ‘I went to the window because I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t taken my sleeper. Isn’t that right, Gabrielle?’

  ‘Quite right, dear.’

  ‘And I saw something moving in the moonlight. Between the trees, where there was a patch of light.’

  ‘You saw a person?’

  ‘A person. A large female person.’

  Eleanor sat back in her armchair and folded her hands. ‘The person appeared to be lifting something into the boot of a car. That’s all I saw.’

  ‘Please don’t hold back. Anything at all, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.’

  ‘This woman then fired a look at us,’ said Gabrielle, now leaning forward, her bony fists clenched. ‘We were terrified.’ ‘Her eyes!’ Eleanor whispered.

  ‘If looks could kill!’ Gabrielle affirmed.

  ‘Who do you think she might be?’ Ned asked quietly.

  The twins’ old eyes went uniformly blank. They would be good poker players, these two, Ned thought.

  ‘What about the car?’ he said, moving briskly on. ‘Any ideas about that?’

  A glint in Gabrielle Hogan’s eye. Ned waited. The two women made no effort to fill the gap in the conversation.

  ‘Would it be an imposition if I were to see your bedroom for myself?’ he asked eventually.

  The women exchanged quick glances, then led the way across the hall and into the bedroom. Two sets of slippers, one rose pink, the other sky blue, were placed neatly on one side of a four-poster double-bed.

  ‘So you went to the window,’ Ned said to Eleanor.

  Eleanor nodded. ‘It was a full moon. That’s how I managed to see.’

  ‘And the big woman?’ Ned watched carefully.

  Gabrielle perched on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ she said at last.

  ‘But you may have recognised her?’

  ‘This is a small community, Mr O’Loughlin,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘You are speaking into a tomb when you speak to me,’ Ned said.

  ‘We may end up in a tomb if we say too much,’ said Gabrielle.

  ‘Nonetheless …’

  ‘Nonetheless, we are not sure,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘But in a purely hypothetical situation, if you were pressed to associate this large woman with someone, who might that person be?’ The twins exchanged glances.

  ‘I know how difficult it is sometimes to remember names as one gets older,’ Ned probed.

  ‘The Rainbow man,’ the Misses Hogan said as one.

  ‘Rainbow man?’

  ‘Drunken Davy Rainbow,’ Gabrielle galloped on. ‘He’s an opportunist, living on his uppers. Gambles all he earns. You should see the rubbish he writes for that rag of a newspaper!’

  ‘And he’s always staring at the Caravaggio painting,’ Eleanor said, ‘yet since it was stolen he hasn’t been to Mass.’
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br />   ‘So,’ Ned said carefully, ‘I know you’re not making any accusations, but perhaps Davy Rainbow and this large lady were acting together?’ The sisters made twin tight mouths.

  In the hall, on his way out, Ned paused to remove a business card and left it on the umbrella-stand.

  ‘Should you need to get in touch with me.’ He paused. ‘You’re properly insured yourselves, I take it,’ he asked with a boozy grin.

  Dublin Southside

  June 16, 11.30 AM

  The van shuddered to a halt as Alice pulled up outside the Jesuit Residence at Aylesmere. The house was enormous, with opposing curving steps leading to a striking hall door. Gardens lay to one side, and beyond them Alice could see the sun reflecting from the glass of a large conservatory.

  She had learned the hard way to never ignore a coincidence. And yet the fact that Sister Mercy Superior was the sister of the man who presided over this religious institution, which boasted a notable art collection, was surely no more than an indication of the good taste that had always marked out the Jesuit order?

  ‘Creepy,’ Maggie said, and adjusted the collar of the golf jacket she had borrowed from Ned’s apartment, as Alice rang the bell. ‘Maybe we should forget about the Jesuits.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Alice said, ringing the bell again. ‘This may be nothing, but it’s all we have.’

  All at once the door began to scrape inwards, as if the person on the other side was having difficulty hauling it back. Peering inside, Alice located a stooped and almost transparent male-creature of white hair and sallow complexion.

  ‘Yee-ssss?’ he whispered.

  ‘Good morning, Father,’ Alice smiled, and extended her hand.

  ‘Brother Harkin,’ he corrected.

  ‘Oh – Brother. Good morning, Brother.’

  He took her hand and clasped it very gently. His was surprisingly large. ‘Good morning, pet.’

  ‘I am Sister Alice, and this is my colleague Sister Mary Magdalene. We’re both from Doon Abbey. We’d like to see Father Rector Rynne,’ she began.

  On hearing this information, Brother Harkin took a step back and regarded them, his eyes flickering delicately down to their legs and back up again to the golf jacket that barely covered Maggie’s small waist, then over to the dusky décolletage of Alice’s top. His somewhat bulbous nose twitched.