A Demon Summer

by G. M. Malliet

  “Ah,” said Max. “I suppose he holds the purse strings and decides what you study, and where.”

  “You got it.”

  “Is there any chance of a scholarship?”

  “Not when you’re rich, no.”

  “I meant a merit scholarship. You know, based on your talent.”

  “I dunno.” It didn’t seem to have occurred to her, strangely enough. The rich really are different, thought Max. A glimmer of something like hope crept into her eyes.

  “Why don’t you look into it?” said Max. “You’re not a minor any longer. Once your father sees you making your own way, he may come around.” Remembering his own father, Max added: “If slowly.”

  “The minute I’m near an Internet connection again, which can’t be a moment too soon, I will look into it. Thanks.”

  A rather loud, throat-clearing harrumph could be heard from the hallway, along with the sound of a rather heavy footfall.

  “That would be the lord,” said Xanda. “Lord Lislelivet. Sorry to do this to you, Father, but I am so out of here.”

  Chapter 9

  THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN

  The sisters should remain vigilant to each other’s needs as they eat and drink, so that no one at table need ask for anything.

  —The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

  Max actually welcomed the intrusion, for here was a chance to meet the devil in the flesh.

  Lord Lislelivet was much smaller than he appeared on the telly, where Max had seen him in various ceremonial appearances in the House of Lords, dressed head to toe on high occasion in feathers and swords and other inherited bling. As one of the few remaining members sitting by virtue of a hereditary peerage, Lord Lislelivet was a vanishing breed. Perhaps the glittery accoutrements added inches to his height, for in person he was a small man, one who might have been mistaken for any man on the street except for the certain glow of privilege that exuded from every pore.

  Today he was dressed casually in a linen sport jacket on top of an open-collared shirt and cotton chinos. If he added a tie, he’d be ready to take a last-minute business meeting at his club. Dark-haired and olive-complexioned, he had that special polish that came with having loads of money and access to the best bespoke tailors, that sheen of hair and skin as if he had been spray-painted with fairy dust. Prince Charles had the same patrician look of hair blown into place by royal hairdressers and of shoes polished to a deep gleam by royal shoeblacks.

  Like many men of his breed he also wore an invisible cloak of entitlement. Max had dealt with many such in his career, as he had often been called in by MI5 when the have-nots showed signs of wanting to exterminate the haves, as happened routinely. The haves sat in their resplendent drawing rooms and sipped their single malts, these winners of the inheritance lottery, as they poured out their distress at being targeted yet again. Most of these men were charming, if oblivious. Lord Lislelivet struck Max as leaning heavily toward the oblivious side, not feeling an overarching need to waste his limited resources of charm.

  As Max pondered how much to tell Lord Lislelivet of the reason for his being there, the Lord stole the initiative.

  “I am glad,” he said, “the bishop is taking this seriously. You have been sent by the bishop from Monkslip Cathedral, have you not?”

  “In fact, I am the vicar of Nether Monkslip,” Max replied. Feeling that he towered over the man, he stood back an inch or two to try to even the eye level. “Father Maxen Tudor. But yes, I am here at the behest of the bishop. Obviously, the situation concerns him mightily.”

  “The vicar?” Lord Lislelivet repeated, obviously taken back by Max’s low station in life. “Of—what was it—Nether Monkslip? And where on earth is Nether Monkslip?”

  “Not far from the Channel,” Max answered vaguely. “A few miles from Monkslip-super-Mare.”

  “So you’re not officially attached to the bishopric? You’re not part of the bishop’s official investigative team?”

  “So far as I’m aware, the bishop does not maintain an investigative team.” Max struggled to keep the exasperation from his voice, although the image of the bishop trailed by a bodyguard of MI5 agents did raise a smile. “It’s not the Vatican, you know. Just one smallish diocese of the Church of England.”

  “Well,” said Lord Lislelivet. If he’d added, “I suppose you’ll do,” Max might have turned heel and left the room. Instead the man unbent enough to say, “The bishop is a sound man. An Etonian, you know. I suppose he knows what he’s doing. What exactly are your qualifications for this investigation?”

  Every bone in Max’s body resisted the impulse to provide Lord Lislelivet with a summary of his C.V., although he was fully aware that a mention of his MI5 background would instantly have placated the man. There was about it too much of a tone of pandering to live up to Lord Lislelivet’s inflated sense of his own worth—of a need for all the forces in the kingdom to be brought to bear on this fruitcake problem of his. “I simply have an inquiring mind,” said Max evenly, “as well as a desire to arrive at the truth of what happened to you. The bishop has found my involvement in … similar cases … useful in the past.”

  There. That sounded sufficiently James Bond-ish, thought Max. Cue the Goldfinger theme. He arranged the muscles of his face in a suitably inscrutable mask, like an avenging samurai sent by the shogun from the court of the emperor. It seemed to do the trick, for Lord Lislelivet said no more, but regarded him warily, a new respect in his eyes.

  “I would appreciate it if you would fill me in,” said Max, looking to seal his advantage. “The bishop was rather sketchy as to detail. You were here at the abbey last fall, I gather?”

  “Yes. I came on a religious retreat. Fresh air and quiet, you know. A chance to reflect and restore the soul, what? And a chance to see my aunt. She lives here, you see, and she has not been at all well.”

  “Um hmm. This would have been during the summer recess of the House of Lords?”

  “Yes. As I recall, the return of the house wasn’t until October 8 last year.”

  “And how did you come to have this offending fruitcake in your possession? Did you buy it from the gift shop here at the abbey?”

  “No, as a matter of fact. Although I intended to buy one there, which is the odd thing. A gift for the little woman, you know. The fruitcake they make here has become world-renowned.”

  “This was your first visit to the abbey, was it?”

  “By no means, but it was my first visit in quite a while, sad to say. I would be the first to admit I’ve neglected my aunt shamefully over the years. We were never close. The way of life she chose precluded that. And once my mother died, years ago now … I’m afraid my visits fell off completely. It was my mother who felt duty bound to come and visit, you see. I was—well, I was a young man and I found the whole setup rather off-putting, if you follow.”

  Max did follow, as it happened, and would have used precisely the same terms. All these women shut away from the world. He had always found it hard to understand and his own visits to his aunt were too few and far between.

  “So, how did you come by the fruitcake?” Max asked him again. By this point, Lord Lislelivet was attempting to master the industrial-size toaster that dominated one counter of the kitchen. The trick, Max knew, was to slot the bread on the grill and let it slip inside the conveyor, without forcing it. The way Lord Lislelivet was going about things, there was sure to be a logjam followed by the smell of burning toast. Max was familiar with the more recalcitrant type of machine from his time at university, but perhaps Lord Lislelivet had had his own scout to prepare breakfast for him. Max took over, setting dials and pushing buttons with a flourish, disproportionately proud at the opportunity to demonstrate his competence in this culinary matter. His time spent with Mrs. Hooser had not been in vain; in self-defense he had been forced to learn a few basic survival skills.

  Lord Lislelivet began struggling with a jar of currant preserves. Max took it from him and gave the lid
a whack with the dull side of a knife to loosen it. Lord Lislelivet looked suitably impressed, almost as if he thought Max could survive for months alone in the arctic circle with just a harpoon and a spool of thread. Surely this would translate into more confidence in Max’s sleuthing abilities, although Max was not entirely sure why this was so. But Lord Lislelivet seemed easily fooled, and Max was enjoying himself.

  “So,” he repeated, handing back the opened jar.

  “On second thought,” said Lord Lislelivet doubtfully, “perhaps I won’t have anything to eat with fruit in it.”

  Max nodded. “Right, I see. An egg might be better. Now, the provenance of the fruitcake?”

  “Well, that is what should have alerted me that the situation was perhaps unusual. I found it in my room here at the guesthouse before I left. You have noticed how none of the doors have locks? So anyone could have come along and slipped it inside my room.”

  “Was it packaged or labeled in any way?”

  “It was wrapped in cloth—some homespun sort of thing—and it had a note attached, saying, ‘With the compliments of Monkbury Abbey,’ or words to that effect.”

  “You didn’t save the note?”

  The man shook his head. Now he held an egg in one hand and a pan in the other. He seemed to have arrived at a basic understanding that both items were needed in order to produce a boiled egg. But it was clear he did not know how to set about doing it.

  Max took the pan from him and, filling it with cold water, set it on the stove to boil.

  “So, the note was unsigned,” Max said after Lord Lislelivet’s egg was under way.

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t suppose you saved the wrapping, either?”

  He shook his head. “All long gone, I’m afraid—thrown in the fire when I got home.” He laughed. His laugh was a dry little heh heh, devoid of humor.

  It was a shame, thought Max, that key pieces of evidence had been destroyed. “It was handwritten, the note?”

  “Yes, but in block letters. I suppose that should have made me wonder. But it’s a nunnery, for God’s sake. I assumed it was a nice little parting gift they gave to all the guests.”

  “I see.” Using a slotted spoon, Max dropped the egg into the water before it could reach a roiling boil, and turned down the heat.

  “And when did you realize there was something off about it?”

  “It was several weeks later. Months, actually. A fruitcake is not something one dives into right away, you know. It sits there for a while, making one feel guilty until one eats it. It could actually have sat around for years, but one night I had it for a pudding when I didn’t want the fresh fruit my wife had planned. She’s always on some slimming regime, and I wanted something more substantial, you see.”

  “Yes. So you had some fruitcake and … there were symptoms. How soon after you ingested it?”

  “About two hours after we finished supper. I was taken quite ill. My wife and I had the identical meal, you see, except for the pudding. She later admitted she hadn’t touched the fruitcake, but gave some to the dog. The dog was taken ill, too. That’s how I knew the problem was with the fruitcake.”

  “And immediately you got on the horn to the bishop’s office?”

  “Not right away,” said Lord Lislelivet. “I didn’t quite know what to do, to be honest. It was rather unprecedented, apart from a spot of food poisoning once when I was in Delhi on business. But finally my wife convinced me I had to tell someone. It could have been a bad batch of fruitcake going out around the world, you see.” What his wife actually had said was that she was sick of hearing him complain about that stupid fruitcake, so why didn’t he do something about it? But Lord Lislelivet didn’t feel compelled to repeat their marital conversation verbatim. So much of what transpired between him and his wife, once he came to think of it, was unrepeatable in polite society.

  “I never doubted it was a mistake or accident,” he concluded. “Now I’m not so certain.”

  Max removed the egg from the water, having nicely judged the timing by his wristwatch. If Lord Lislelivet had not asked for a two-minute egg, Max might have been tempted to show off by cracking an egg open with one hand, a trick he’d learned by watching Awena work in the kitchen. He was absurdly pleased to have mastered this new skill. Now he found an egg cup on one of the open shelves and deposited the egg inside, just as the toast was emerging from the toaster. He set this meal on the table before Lord Lislelivet, who thanked him with a nod, and proceeded to tap around the edges of the egg, breaking the shell. Max noticed he cut his toast into soldiers for dipping, the way a child would do.

  “I have to ask, Lord Lislelivet,” began Max. “It’s a bit delicate. But is there anyone here who would wish you harm?”

  “No! Not at all. The very idea is preposterous.” He seemed genuinely astonished at the question. But that could be because he had no enemies—an impossibility, in Max’s experience. Every man had enemies, whether earned innocently or deliberately—or because he believed himself to be so greatly loved that the thought of enemies was impossible for his mind to entertain. From what Max knew of Lord Lislelivet’s character, the second alternative was much the more likely: Lord Lislelivet’s ego would protect him from the reality of how he was perceived and regarded. His mind simply could not take in the fact that someone would deliberately want to harm him.

  In fairness, thought Max, how many of us could live with that truth?

  Chapter 10

  THE EVIL OF AVARICE

  In offering for sale the products of the nunnery, beware the evil of avarice. The nunnery must always be known for fair dealing.

  —The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

  Max left Lord Lislelivet ten minutes later, none the wiser as to who might have wanted to poison the man—except in a general sort of way—and why. Lord Lislelivet may have been no one’s idea of a man to spend a lazy summer day with, but he did not rise to the category of killable villain, so far as Max could see.

  Max was drawn to visit the medieval church, officially the Abbey Church of St. Lucy. The nuns would have finished their morning prayers by now and would be in the chapter house, confessing their faults to their sisters and receiving their penances, and being assigned their daily chores.

  Max took the outer walkway to the main door of the church, which remained open to all visitors. There would be another door near the altar that led into the chapter house and further inside to the cloistered area, and this by tradition and necessity would be barred to outsiders.

  He moved reverently down a side aisle toward the small Lady Chapel, with its sanctuary lamp indicating the presence of the sacrament. He knelt briefly at a prie-dieu, then took a seat on a wooden chair, letting the peace settle round him. Half an hour passed without his being aware of it, his thoughts retracing the path his life had taken and peering toward his future with Awena and their child. It was utterly still and quiet; Nether Monkslip was a noisy and bustling hub by comparison. Here the silence was complete without even the thrum of electricity running in the background, the hidden buzz of modern day life that permeated everything.

  He was entirely alone except, he imagined, for the ghosts of those who had come before, making their pilgrimage to this holy place. For in centuries past the church would have been the repository of sacred bones and books and embalmed bits and bobs of long-dead saints, artifacts to which people would pray for a cure for themselves or a loved one. The prayers must have been answered, at least some of the time, for the abbey church had enjoyed centuries of renown, drawing rich and poor to come and pray within its walls, and many a benefactor had left money in his or her will for the nuns to continue their lives of prayer and work.

  Benefactors not unlike Clement Gorey and his wife. Did a hardheaded man of business really believe he could buy his way into heaven, wondered Max?

  It was time to orient himself to as much of the place as was open to him. He couldn’t wander without invitation into the o
bviously closed-off areas, outlined in red on the map provided in his room, but the fields and glens dotting the area around the nunnery were open to all. And the abbey kitchen, the nucleus of his investigation, was set apart from the strictly cloistered area, as were the infirmary and the abbess’s lodge.

  Max left the church by the main door, following the signs for the gift shop. It was empty except for the elderly portress who had greeted him the night before, Dame Hephzibah. Stepping inside, he saw that behind her was a window overlooking the entrance to the convent. In this way she could do double duty—keep an eye out for visitors and mind the store. He imagined there were not that many customers on a given day. She smiled at him, giving him the full benefit of her toothy grin.

  “Goodness, Dame Hephzibah. They certainly get a day’s work out of you,” he said.

  “I begin each day asking the Lord to use me up,” she said. “It looks like he’s not done with me yet.”

  “I should think not. You are far too valuable here with us.”

  Max looked at the goods on display, attractively arranged on wooden shelves and tables. Many were wrapped in oilcloth or paper and tied with ribbon rather than sealed with the ubiquitous plastic. Everything seemed to be of a very high quality as well as reasonably priced. He thought if there were time and opportunity before he left the abbey he would load up on presents for Awena. And for the baby—his eye caught on a small frilly dress of exquisite workmanship, fit only for a newborn. He could see it was all hand-stitched, the cloth embroidered, white-on-white on nearly every inch. A christening gown, perhaps. It was one of the many topics he and Awena had not decided on, the baptism of the baby. His church taught that it was necessary. Awena held that the child could decide for itself when the time came.

  But first things first. He and Awena still had the marriage ceremony to navigate. And by careful willingness to accept and adapt to one another’s beliefs and sensibilities, they had arrived at a solution to that first impediment.