by Maeve Binchy
16 June, 3.30 PM
As they hurried up Kildare Street from Buswell’s Hotel, where they’d had the soup-and-half-panini option, the two nuns passed a group of protestors outside Dáil Éireann, brandishing placards. Lines of uniformed gardaí, arms linked, held the protesters back. At that moment, passing the turmoil, Alice suddenly felt certain that her decision to become a nun had been the right one.
‘What if …?’ Maggie said suddenly, and stopped dead outside the Department of Agriculture. ‘What if …?’
Alice was growing used to the teasing consequences of Maggie’s tortured thought processes.
‘Maggie?’
‘I mean, Mr Kelly-Lidrov said to you, “I’m in Dublin because I have heard about the missing painting: our Caravaggio.” Right?’ Alice nodded.
‘Yes, I’m sure that’s what he said.’
‘He used the word “missing”. Not “stolen”, but “missing”.’
‘Ye-sss.’
‘So maybe that’s what the painting is now, Alice. Missing. Maybe whoever is behind all this is like us and has no idea where the Caravaggio is.’
‘And,’ Alice said slowly, ‘if that’s right, then what you’re saying suggests that this bloke staying here in the Shelbourne is up to his neck in it.’
They turned the corner on to St Stephen’s Green.
‘Maybe we’ll run into someone famous like Bono,’ Maggie whispered as they pushed through the revolving doors. She added hastily: ‘He sometimes pops up during my sacred music trawls.’
‘He pops up everywhere,’ Alice said.
Alice led the way through the busy lobby and into the reception area. ‘Let’s promise each other something,’ she said as they stood by the lifts.
‘When all this is over, we’ll come back here and have a drink together.’
‘I actually stumbled across How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb when I was researching Bach,’ Maggie said as the lift doors hummed open.
A young couple, hand in hand, joined them, and they ascended in silence. Maggie was reading each advertisement in the lift carefully: massages and hot stones, Chi treatments and Spiritual Integration by a visiting yogi from Delhi. She was like a magpie, Alice thought: nothing escaped her attention. Maggie would have made a brilliant cop.
They stepped out into the corridor. The lighting was muted. Alice flexed the fingers of her right hand and balled them into a tight fist, then extended them again. It was an exercise she had often practised before a difficult confrontation: it made the blood hum between her fingertips and her bicep. The young couple from the lift slipped by, arm in arm, heads together. Alice touched Maggie’s elbow, and they hung back until the corridor was empty. Suite Eleven was on the right. Alice pressed the buzzer. She looked at Maggie. The door was not closed. She buzzed again. Back down the corridor, they could hear the lifts opening.
‘Stay behind me,’ Alice hissed, every muscle coiled as she pushed the door and stared into the dim room.
She stepped in, Maggie glued to her. No daylight. The faint sound of running water. As Maggie’s eyes adjusted, she could see a deep-cushioned blood-red suite of furniture around mahogany tables and elegant lamps. The heavy drapes were pulled to. On the left, in the bedroom, where a single bedside light was on, it was clear that someone had already rested, since the king-sized bed was unmade, and a couple of pillows had been thrown on the floor.
The noise of water grew louder. Alice crept towards the bathroom, where the door was slightly ajar. Maggie sensed that the silence within Suite Eleven had suddenly deepened. She hung back as Alice kicked in the bathroom door, and dazzling light spilled out into the bedroom.
‘Damn!’
‘Alice?’
‘Oh, God!’ Alice cried.
Maggie stepped gingerly into the bathroom. She gripped the door frame. She had seen corpses in the course of her young life, including deceased Sisters, and so she did not fear the inanimate, vacated body. But the hairy, purplish forearm that hung over the side of the deep bathtub made her gasp. The man’s lips were black, the fat-pouched open eyes stared to the left, and the mouth was hideously drawn down in rictus. Whoever had done this had left the corpulent body floating, prevented from sinking by the metallic shower hose that was wound around the throat and jaw-line, presumably after the murder had been executed.
Alice dipped her fingers into the bathwater. It was lukewarm. She guessed that Ashley Kelly-Lidrov, if indeed this was him, had died an hour or so ago – just after he had spoken to her, in fact.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ she ordered.
There were no obvious injuries, no blows or flesh-cuts, no bruising, and no blood. It was possibly a case of sudden death, Alice thought. Or, she reconsidered, death by terror. She regarded the man’s face for a moment, almost pitying him. There was a choking sound. Alice whirled.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just …’
Maggie was shaking violently.
‘It’s okay, Maggie. I’m the one who’s sorry, I shouldn’t have let you see this,’ Alice said, holding her trembling companion by the shoulders. ‘It’s okay. You need a stiff drink.’
‘Shouldn’t we …? Is there time for …?’
‘No Hail Marys,’ Alice said firmly.
She was two steps across the bedroom, looking for the mini-bar, when she heard the sound. A throat being cleared, soft but unmistakeable. Alice placed a finger over her lips and pressed Maggie down until the nun was kneeling on the floor by the bed.
From where she knelt, Maggie could see Alice gliding into the sitting room in a way that reminded her of Panda, the convent tomcat, when he was stalking the mice he never caught.
Alice was on autopilot as she closed in on the source of the sound. It had come from the large bay window. Travelling on the balls of her feet, with her right hand she swept back the drapes, simultaneously releasing her left hand, which shot forward into the bright space, and found warm flesh.
‘Agghhh!’
A man fell forward, clutching his throat. He had ginger hair. Alice kicked hard and felt him grunt with pain. She kicked again and he fell back.
‘Stop!’
Alice stared. She took a step backwards and fell into an armchair. Ned O’Loughlin, ashen-faced and spitting blood and gristle, was trying to get up.
‘I don’t believe this,’ he gasped.
‘Oh God, Ned, what have you done?’ Alice cried.
Chapter Four
Doonlish
16 June, 3.55 PM
Davy Rainbow’s one-bedroom cottage was a mess. Books everywhere, stacks of yellowing Doonlish Enquirers, empty bottles. The windows were so filthy with the webs of ancient spiders that the cottage seemed to exist in perpetual dusk. Davy had never even got around to cleaning out the stove from the previous winter.
He sat at the kitchen table with the bottle of poitín. He poured from it and knocked it straight back. Was he an alcoholic, he wondered? His old man had always said that the Rainbows were drunkards, but not alcoholics. His old man had talked a lot of bollocks, God be merciful to him. Every time he’d got pissed, he’d screamed at little Davy that he should have become a jockey, but all he had really wanted was tips from the stables he wanted Davy to work for.
A spasm of terror passed through Davy and he got up and put on the kettle.
Sister Diana liked a hot one with sugar and cloves. Perhaps she needed the almost-eighty-percent-proof alcohol to soften her feeling of guilt. Davy pulled a stool over to the dresser and hopped up on the wide shelf, where he was at eye level with cups suspended from brass hooks.
Carefully he removed two cups, then reached in and pressed the stained timber. With a soft click, a panel slid back. Why was he doing this when he’d checked it twenty minutes before? He was in a bad way with nerves: he couldn’t remember what had happened five minutes ago, let alone twenty. Davy stretched in his arm as far as it would go and felt the reassuringly sharp outline. Thanks be to God, he said, as he slid the panel back and climbed down. Thanks be to God
.
The kettle was steaming. She was due at four. They were sticklers for punctuality, the nuns; terrible liars, but they were always on time. As if in answer to his thought, there was the roar of an engine from outside. Davy jumped with fright and went to the door. Sister Diana, a formidable woman, capable of pulling a calf from a birthing mother, was reversing the tractor up to Davy’s back door. He was terrified of her, but then, when he was this bad with nerves, he was terrified of everyone. If only he could break out of the vicious circle he was trapped in.
Sister Diana jumped down. The size of her, Davy thought. She’d left the tractor engine running, since the battery had been dodgy ever since he had known it. Normally on these occasions she would pause to rinse her outsize wellies under the tap fixed to the wall by the back door, but today Davy noticed she was wearing tight-fitting black boots with big square heels that clacked as she walked inside on Davy’s linoleum. Davy followed her. Sister Diana was already sitting at his kitchen table, spooning sugar into a glass and forcefully skewering a lemon with cloves, as if this was the Crusades and the lemon was an unfortunate infidel.
‘What’s wrong with you, Davy?’ she asked. ‘You’re making me nervous just looking at you.’
‘I’m exhausted,’ Davy said, as he slumped opposite her.
‘Oh?’ Sister Diana’s eyes went round. ‘How so?’
‘Terrified we’re going to get caught,’ Davy said. ‘Terrified of the shame of being a criminal. Terrified we’re going to go to jail for a very long time because of what we’ve done.’
‘A convent is a bit like a jail,’ Sister Diana observed, and poured boiling water on top of her poitín. ‘In fact, I doubt there’s any difference – except that the accommodation in a jail is guaranteed.’ She laughed quietly at her little joke.
‘It may be funny for you,’ Davy said shakily, ‘but just imagine how I’ll get on in Mountjoy Jail. Have you any idea what goes on in these places? I’ll be quite frank with you, Di: I wish we’d never done this.’
‘Oh, God,’ Sister Diana said, ‘where’s the perky little crook who said we were both going to make a fortune? The criminal mastermind?’
‘I was drunk,’ Davy said. ‘I was out of my mind to have ever suggested it.’
‘And what about those nasty bookmakers who are making your life miserable, Davy, eh? Who’s going to pay them off?’
‘I don’t know!’ Davy cried. ‘And I don’t care!’
‘If you don’t pay them, they’ll break your ankles with a lump hammer,’ Sister Diana said, ‘and if they do, don’t come running to me.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Where have you hidden it, by the way?’ ‘In a safe place,’ Davy replied.
‘I asked you where?’
‘I told you: in a safe place.’
‘You’re not going to try anything smart, are you, Davy?’ she asked thinly.
‘Certainly not,’ Davy gulped.
‘So tell me where you’ve hidden it, Davy!’
Davy leaped up with fright, but he remained mute.
‘We need to get the cash and move on,’ said Sister Diana. ‘But now you’re drunk, and when you’re drunk you never make sense.’ She smiled, as if to say: some things never change. ‘So we may as well drink. What shall we drink to?’
‘I’d like to drink to honesty,’ Davy blurted.
‘A strange toast for a crook,’ Diana shrugged. ‘But as you wish.’
Davy knocked back the hot poitín. Blood roared in his ears. With a rush, he said: ‘I only proposed that toast because I have a question, and I want an honest answer to it.’
The nun realised that he was even drunker than she had thought.
‘What?’ she asked sternly.
‘I want to know once and for all where Sister Winifred is,’ Davy said, ‘and I don’t want any bullshit.’
Sister Diana drew in her breath sharply. On previous occasions when Davy had asked this question, she had managed to brush him off, but now, despite the drink, he seemed different, more intense.
‘I told you before, she’s gone away, Davy. That’s all I know. Maybe she’s in another convent, maybe she’s emigrated, I don’t know.’ Sister Diana pulled up the sleeve of her robe, revealing a hairy, muscular forearm, and looked at her wristwatch. ‘Goodness, is that the time,’ she exclaimed, rising from the table.
Davy jumped up and blocked her path, or at least, because of the relative difference in their sizes, stood in her way.
‘I want to know, Di,’ he panted, close to tears. ‘I want to know where she is.’
‘I’ve got to get back for prayers, Davy,’ the big woman said, pushing him to one side. ‘Stop being silly.’
‘Very well!’ he cried. ‘I’m finished with you. Find someone else to do your dirty work.’
Slowly she turned. ‘Are you threatening me, Davy?’
‘I’m out,’ he said. ‘It’s over. We should never have done this in the first place.’
‘And what are you going to do with the, ah, merchandise?’ Sister Diana asked. ‘You can hardly put it back.’
‘I’m going to destroy it!’ Davy said defiantly. ‘So that you won’t get a penny!’
Sister Diana couldn’t believe her ears. All the trouble they had gone to, all the planning, covering their tracks. Then she smiled: he was having her on. Or else it was the drink talking.
‘I may be drunk,’ said Davy, as if he could read her mind, ‘but I’m deadly serious. I thought I could trust you, but you refuse to trust me with the one piece of information in the world that I want. So why should I help you any more?’
Sister Diana took a step towards Davy. ‘I’m going to put everything I’ve heard to one side and attribute it to your inebriation,’ she said. ‘But when I come back tomorrow, you’d better be sober.’
‘You needn’t come back,’ Davy said, and stood aside. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye?’
‘Goodbye!’ Davy shouted. ‘And good riddance!’
As the back door slammed behind her, Sister Diana’s heart was beating so loudly she was sure he could hear it, even above the noise of the tractor engine. She had never seen him like this before. Was that what love was really like, she wondered? She had read about it, of course, but this seemed like the real thing. Did love make even little crooks like Davy Rainbow see the light? Put everything at stake? She could do nothing, since Sister Mercy Superior had sworn them all to secrecy on the matter that so obsessed Davy, and had made it clear that any breach would mean expulsion from Doon Abbey. For the first time in a long while, Sister Diana felt utterly bereft.
Davy poured out a large glass and saw that the bottle was empty. Now that he had said it, he felt very proud. He had stood up for what he believed in, and to hell with the consequences. He raised his glass. This was going to be his last indulgence. A shadow fell across him. Sister Diana was standing in the doorway.
‘What I’m going to tell you, you never heard from me, Davy Rainbow,’ she said blackly.
Dublin
16 June, 4 PM
Ned O’Loughlin fell back again against the heavy curtain and sank down. He saw Alice sprawled in an armchair, gaping at him; he saw a woman with great legs flattened in terror against the open door to the bathroom; and beyond her, he saw the bald head of the corpse in the bath, held up at a grotesque angle by the silver shower hose.
‘You’re meant to be in Rome,’ he gasped.
‘Get up, Ned,’ Alice said.
‘I haven’t had the pleasure,’ he gasped, as he flapped like a fish in Maggie’s direction.
‘Alice!’ Maggie shrieked.
‘Ned O’Loughlin,’ he said weakly, holding out his hand.
Maggie might have been more scared than she had ever been, but she had been properly brought up. She looked at Alice, and Alice nodded.
‘Maggie. Pleased to meet you,’ she said, and shook the plump hand, then sprang back to her place at the wall.
‘So when did you join the force?’ Ned asked, now up on his knees. His left e
ye, where the edge of Alice’s hand had met it, was closing rapidly.
‘No, no, no, I’m not a detective. I’m a nun – a confirmed nun,’ Maggie said.
‘She’s a nun,’ Alice confirmed.
‘She’s not your partner then.’
‘She is my partner,’ Alice said. ‘Actually I’m her partner, if you know what I mean. I’m a novice, and she’s professed.’ ‘Ah, that explains it,’ Ned said.
Alice looked at him narrowly. Ned had always had the ability to obscure the issues at hand and to sweet-talk her around to his point of view. She got up and dusted herself off.
‘Sorry about that, Ned, but I need to know exactly what’s going on here. For starters, who’s the floater?’
Ned wiped his mouth and shook his head.
‘His name is Ashley Kelly-Lidrov. He’s a New York art dealer and he’s the nephew of the woman who bequeathed the Caravaggio to your convent,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’ Maggie asked.
‘Because I read his name in the bequest, and because, unfortunately, I do this kind of thing for a living. When his office in New York told me that he’d gone away suddenly for a few days, I guessed he could be in Ireland. I have contacts in Aer Lingus. Bingo. He flew in yesterday.’ ‘I take it you’ve searched here,’ Alice said.
‘It’s clean. No Caravaggio.’
‘And did you …? And was it you who …?’ Maggie asked, scarcely daring to look at what lay behind her.
‘It’s okay, Maggie,’ Alice said. ‘Ned is many things, but he’s not a murderer. He doesn’t have it in him.’
Ned looked darkly at Alice, unsure whether or not he had been insulted.
‘When I got out of the lift,’ he said, ‘I saw a man leaving this suite.
When he saw me, he turned around and walked the other way.’ ‘Describe him,’ Alice said.
‘Big, broad shoulders, long blond hair that was maybe dyed.’
‘You think he did it?’ Maggie asked. ‘That he’s the murderer?’
‘That’s if the man behind you was murdered – in the accepted sense,’ Ned said. ‘I can see no marks on the body or skull. And my bet is that the shower pipe was fitted later.’
