Sister Caravaggio

by Maeve Binchy

  Maggie sat upright. ‘Father? The big person in your confessional who confessed to stealing the Caravaggio was Sister Diana. True or false?’

  The Rector wasn’t in a coma, both women knew, but he might as well have been a wax effigy. As Alice and Maggie both got up to stare at his hands, his little finger trembled.

  ‘Agggh!’ Maggie cried, and jumped backwards. ‘Did you see that?’

  Minutes later, having left the Rector in his trance-like state, the two nuns were shown out through the hall door by Brother Harkin.

  ‘It was the two of them all the time,’ Maggie gasped as they sat into the van. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ Alice said, ‘but I’m going somewhere for a stiff drink.’

  Dublin

  17 June, 7.30 PM

  She looked out the window of the hotel at the grey evening river. The tide was low, and when she had checked in, an hour earlier, there had been the smell of rotten eggs. She didn’t mind. Decay was something she was used to – in others, that is. That is, she was used to causing decay in others.

  Undressing to her bra and knickers, she unrolled the hotel yoga mat and went through her routine. Flights always made her tense. Today alone she had taken four: London Heathrow to Frankfurt; Frankfurt to Oslo; Oslo to London Stansted; London Stansted to Dublin. Four flights; four separate passports; four different people. A German au-pair on her way home; a Norwegian chemist on a business trip; an English software engineer; a Dutch tourist with diabetes. The elfin-faced, trim, smiling lady who had checked into the Clarence Hotel earlier was an executive in a Belgian chocolate company.

  She spread out her thin arms before her, then drew her knees up and out and plunged her head until she was splayed like a crab. Both her lungs expanded to the back of her ribcage. As she exhaled, she sank even closer to the mat.

  The chemist was the nearest to the truth, although her degree had been earned not in the University of Oslo but in a laboratory in Moscow. It was there, over five years, working for an arm of the KGB that no one even knew existed, that she had learned the exquisite potions for which there were no antidotes. Some of them were so subtle, all they had to do was touch the skin. Her favourite was nicknamed Lily of the Valley, not just because that flower was itself highly poisonous, but because of the effect the toxin had on the victim: the neck-stalk collapsed and the head drooped, just like a Lily of the Valley. And then an oddly sweet smell was emitted from the dying person’s skin as they succumbed to asphyxiation.

  It had become her trademark, she knew, but so what? She had always long departed the scene before anyone could work out what had happened.

  She went over on her back, placed her hands beneath her slim hips and inverted her legs over her head. Although she was nearly forty, her appearance was that of a woman ten years younger. Her skin shone with health; her naturally dark hair – when she allowed it to be seen – bounced with vitality.

  Her services were available to only a handful of major criminals. There had been more, but they had failed to pay her. She was not in the business of debt collection; they had all died with an oddly sweet smell rising from their corpses.

  A series of arm-balances, back-bends and core-twists completed the routine. She stood and joined her hands in meditation, lifting the fingertips and filling herself with so much air she thought she could fly.

  This job was relatively straightforward: she was surprised when he had called her. The fifty thousand dollars had hit her bank account in Zurich an hour later. Metro was getting old; his people were getting sloppy. This, she decided, was the final time she would work for him.

  She began to unpack the diabetic kit. One of the bottles was, in fact, a bunker bottle: a bottle inside a bottle. She smiled. By three tomorrow afternoon, a Spanish teacher would be on the flight to Málaga. Still in her bra and knickers, she powered up her PC and linked into the hotel’s wi-fi. She googled ‘missing Caravaggio’, and thirty-three thousand entries popped up.

  It would be a long evening.

  County Kerry

  17 June, 8 PM

  It wasn’t the first time Davy Rainbow had seen stars – and other things, little wriggling flies, creepy-crawlies of all kinds – on opening his eyes. But it was the first time that through the curtain of nasties the loveliest face in the world loomed, like a cherub sneaking a peek at the fires of hell.

  ‘There, there,’ the voice of Sister Winifred was gentle in his ear. ‘There, there. You’ll be all right.’

  Except that this beautiful dream woman couldn’t be Sister Winifred. She’d got the nun’s eyes and nose and mouth all right, and yes, Sister Winifred’s rather husky voice, but she was dressed in funny clothes, and had tied a bright red scarf or bandana around her head instead of her usual neat, modest veil. Yet these details were as nothing compared to the one fact that had overwhelmed Davy’s consciousness: Sister Winifred was very pregnant.

  ‘We’ll go home now, Davy.’ Her voice contained a note of urgency.

  ‘Can you stand up?’

  Davy struggled to his feet with help from members of the audience.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Sister Winifred was telling the staring crowd. ‘It’s just a little scratch.’

  Sister Winifred took Davy’s hand and guided from the hall, into the fresh air. Davy felt slightly better, except for a slight throbbing above his right ear.

  ‘I must have fainted,’ he said as he stared at her substantial mound.

  ‘Well, yes, I do understand,’ Sister Winifred said as her eyes checked around the car park. ‘Are you alone, Davy?’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Davy gamely, and tried to smile.

  ‘No, what I meant was … never mind. First we need to get a plaster on that little head of yours.’

  Davy’s little head needed a plaster inside as well as out, he reflected, as they got into her car – a neat Volkswagen with a pull-down hood. Terror and elation gripped him simultaneously. Could it have been him? If it was, he had no memory of it, of course, since he was blotto so often, but surely an event as momentous as … as doing it with his instructor in the faith, in the greenwood between the abbey and Doonlish, something as earth-shattering as impregnating his darling Sister Winifred could not have been wiped from his cerebral cortex by mere alcohol? They were driving by a small harbour. In the black water, hulls twinkled and the bells of boats tinkled.

  ‘I discovered my condition six months ago,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t know what to do. So I did what people usually do in such circumstances: I did nothing.’

  She made it seem as if she had woken up under a toadstool. They passed through a village, and Davy caught sight of several pubs, but their inviting facades were behind in seconds, and they were once more travelling through the depths of the countryside.

  ‘But somehow Sister Mercy got wind of it,’ Sister Winifred said.

  Davy had always had an innate distrust of Sister Mercy Superior – an attitude that he knew was mutual. ‘That one doesn’t miss much,’ he sighed.

  ‘I don’t know how she found out. She must have noticed that I looked different – green around the gills or something – because it didn’t show then. Not under the habit.’

  She had been beginning to hope that it never would show, under the habit – which covered a multitude – and that she might get away with it. There were many proverbs and prayers to aid her in her self-deception, and she drew on them all in the small hours of the morning, when sleep eluded her and the bell for lauds called just as she reached the nadir of sickness: lauds gave morning sickness a whole new dimension.

  ‘Anyway, she confronted me. She had always wanted to be head nun, and this was her chance. I was forced to confess everything. I agreed to keep my mouth shut and come down here to Kerry.’

  ‘Sister Winifred, what can I say …’ Davy began.

  ‘Please,’ she said, and briefly her hand touched his knee. ‘Call me Winnie.’

  They had been climbing up from the coas
t for ten minutes. It was overcast and Davy could see very little of the surroundings. Winnie swung the car up a little lane and switched off the engine. As they got out, Davy could hear a stream running over rocks.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘This cottage is owned by the convent,’ Winnie said as she opened the door with a latch key.

  ‘The convent owns a holiday cottage?’

  ‘When I got here, the place was semi-derelict,’ Winnie said. ‘I had to live with builders for three months.’

  ‘Who paid for that?’ Davy asked.

  ‘Sister Mercy, of course. Who else?’

  ‘And where did she get the money?’

  ‘I often asked myself the same question,’ Winnie said. ‘It’s a mystery.’

  Maybe not quite the mystery you think, my lovely, Davy thought as parts of his mind connected like an over-marinated jigsaw. The cottage was neat and comfortable – a far cry from Davy’s own cottage in County Kildare. Stone tiles, whitewashed walls. A dresser against one of the walls, painted bright blue. A black crane at the fireplace, where the remains of a turf fire were glowing. Davy’s head started throbbing again. He felt a patch of wet on his shoulder. Blood. His good shirt, the cream checked one he wore with his beige pants and his only decent tweed jacket, was destroyed. Winnie put down her car keys.

  ‘So here I am,’ she said with a brave smile. ‘The question is, what are you doing here, Davy?’

  ‘I wanted … I had to know … I couldn’t go on without knowing …’ Davy sputtered.

  Winnie looked at the gash in his head and the irises in her lovely brown eyes spread out like the wings of angels. ‘My word, that cut does need looking after. Sit down here, Davy.’

  Davy obeyed. As he sat on the chair, unaccountable feelings of love, lust and guilt swarmed in his head: maybe it really had been him, but was that fair? Not to be able to retain even the tiniest memory of what must surely have been a climax of ambrosial sweetness?

  Winnie dabbed Davy’s wound with a tissue, peeled open a Band Aid and stuck it carefully on the side of his head. Her hand lingered over his ear for longer than was necessary, and a renewed surge of something long forgotten gushed up from deep inside Davy. It was love, he could tell by the feel of her hand, even though he’d never felt her hand. Not that he knew of.

  ‘Now, a cup of tea is what we both need,’ she said, going to plug in the electric kettle.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Davy said.

  ‘Maybe that was what she wanted you to think.’

  ‘Are you happy down here, Winnie?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. I’ve taken up painting: I always had a knack for that. One of the galleries in Dingle takes them; I’ve already sold one, and the season’s hardly started.’

  ‘I never knew you had that gift too.’

  ‘How could you? In the convent we were discouraged from painting out of doors. I spent hours in the chapel, copying the technique from our little Caravaggio. How lucky to have private access to such a master, day after day.’

  Davy frowned. Her tone lacked even the merest hint of regret as to the painting’s recent disappearance.

  ‘Well, thank God then that you weren’t there for all the fuss about it,’ he said. ‘You’d have been very upset, Winnie. Love.’

  Sister Winifred looked at him sharply. ‘What did you say?’

  Oh, blast it! Davy thought. I’ve gone too far now. ‘I meant … I didn’t mean … I said, love …’

  ‘Fuss? Fuss about what?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, about the painting,’ Davy said with a surge of relief. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard?’

  ‘No.’

  Davy blinked. You’d think Dingle was on the far side of the moon.

  ‘I don’t have a television,’ Winnie said. ‘And I forget to listen to the radio.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know the Caravaggio was stolen?’ Davy said, and went on to describe the events of the past week in Doonlish. ‘There’s been blue murder,’ he concluded.

  ‘That was an absolutely amazing painting,’ Winnie said in astonishment. ‘I’m not surprised there’s been murder about it.’

  ‘I mean literally,’ Davy said. ‘Three murders so far, maybe four, I’m losing count.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Poor Cyril O’Meara may not have been murdered, but then they found Mr Meadowfield with his neck broken in a hotel room in Liffey Valley. Remember Jeremy Meadowfield? After that …’

  But Davy didn’t get a chance to continue with his gruesome catalogue. Winnie was bent over, clutching her tummy, and screaming. Davy thought he might faint again, but he hopped over to her with all the agility of the prize jockey he should have been.

  ‘Take it easy, sweetheart, take it easy now.’

  He never knew she could scream so loudly. Jesus, they’d hear her in New York, never mind Dingle. He started to stroke her black hair, the way he’d stroke the mane of a horse who’d taken a fit of panic. It usually had a calming effect. On horses. But Sister Winifred was not a horse, and she went right on screaming.

  Dublin

  17 June, 8.30 PM

  ‘I think it’s called Caravaggio’s, believe it or not.’

  The Italian bistro was on the banks of the Liffey, not far from Temple Bar. Alice had ordered mushroom risotto; Maggie, tagliatelle. Two glasses of Chianti had been delivered to their outdoor table. The evening sun was still warm on their faces. Loud laughter, cheerful chatter surged around them. Three red canoes raced along the river, under the Ha’penny Bridge. The cries of the seagulls sounded joyful, pleased at the prospect of extra crumbs on the streets.

  Alice sliced garlic bread. ‘Let’s sum up,’ she said.

  Maggie took out her computer. Who’d have imagined, a week ago, that you could examine a body that had been brutally murdered, then sit out in the sun and eat risotto, she thought? Who’d have thought, a week ago, that you could just sit out in the sun, eat risotto and drink a glass of Chianti?

  ‘One, the Caravaggio has been stolen from Doon Abbey,’ Alice said. Maggie tapped the keys of her computer.

  ‘Two. Jeremy Meadowfield is found dead in a hotel in Liffey Valley.’ ‘Is Cyril O’Meara not number two?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘I’m leaving Cyril O’Meara out of it,’ Alice said.

  ‘Fire ahead,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Three, Kelly-Lidrov from New York is found murdered. Four, Brice, Metro’s hit man, is murdered. In two of the murders, at least, there’s a woman involved. Now we’ve just learned from the Rector that there may be two women involved, both of them members of a religious order. He was hearing confessions in Doon Abbey. The Caravaggio was stolen from Doon Abbey. The circumstantial evidence all points in one direction, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Except,’ said Maggie as the drinks arrived, ‘he only referred to one penitent. And although he seemed to suggest that the penitent was a woman, and a member of a religious order, he didn’t say which religious order.’

  ‘He didn’t say anything, Maggie,’ Alice said. ‘He just wiggled his pinkie.’

  ‘It’s as much as he could do,’ Maggie said, and sniffled. ‘His own sister? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you trying to protect her?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Maggie said. ‘I mean, if Sister Mercy Superior and Sister Diana are both arrested, who’s left in Doon Abbey? We’re finished, Alice – with or without the Caravaggio.’

  Alice was sipping wine when her phone rang.

  ‘It’s Sebastian,’ she said to Maggie.

  ‘Are you going to tell him?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘What else can I do?’ Alice said. ‘I’m still a police officer. Hello, Sebastian?’

  Maggie knew that getting drunk was a mortal sin, but if she was sitting in a restaurant about to witness the end of Doon Abbey, a mortal sin was the least of her problems, she decided.

  ‘Before you ask why we’re not back in Doon Abbey, I’ve got some important information for you,’ Alice began.

  Mag
gie took a generous gulp of the Chianti. She saw Alice frown.

  ‘So what’s yours?’ Alice was asking. ‘No, no, you go first.’

  Could she really go home to her parents, Maggie wondered, as she gazed into her glass? Her mother’s letters had become scarce in recent years, and the last one, written at Christmas, had described how Sonny, Maggie’s twenty-eight-year-old brother, was now sleeping in what used to be Maggie’s bedroom, after his own bedroom had been transformed into what Mam had described as ‘an en-suite’.

  ‘What?’

  Alice had jumped to her feet, almost knocking over the waitress, who had arrived with the mushroom risotto and the tagliatelle.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  Maggie’s mouth hung open. Alice kept running her hand through her hair and saying, ‘I knew it, I bloody well knew it!’

  ‘Will there be anything else?’ asked the waitress, placing down the food.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Alice shouted.

  ‘I think we’re fine, thanks,’ Maggie said to the suddenly pale girl.

  ‘You’re so full of it, you make me want to vomit!’ Alice cried and threw the phone down on the table.

  She sat there, breathing heavily, as the wide-eyed waitress retreated.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘That was your friend, Detective Sergeant Sebastian Hayes,’ Alice said.

  ‘My friend?’

  ‘Forensics have just come back with a match of fingerprints from the screwdriver in Meadowfield’s,’ Alice said tightly.

  Maggie screwed her eyes shut: even the thought of the screwdriver made her ill.

  ‘The prints belong to Bruno Scanlon,’ Alice said. ‘A warrant has been issued for his arrest.’

  Maggie shook her head. She pushed her tagliatelle to one side.

  ‘Yes, even as we were driving down to Doonlish this morning – even as we were driving up those little country lanes you like so much, Maggie – that scumbag, Bruno, was carving the letter “M” into the back of a man he’d just murdered in a house not two miles from Doon Abbey.’

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ Maggie said.