A Demon Summer

by G. M. Malliet

  “And I suppose being attacked by a nun would come as a surprise to most men.”

  “Indeed it would.”

  Chapter 23

  SUSPICION…

  Evil speech and idle gossip must be curbed lest they become an occasion of mortal sin.

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

  As the policeman and the priest surveyed their investigative options and plotted their strategy, Abbess Justina was indulging in a rare second cup of morning coffee, sitting alone at her large refectory table. This was a day if ever there were one for the synapses in her brain to be given all the help they needed.

  She’d sent the postulant, Mary, away on a made-up assignment. The beauty of being in her position, Abbess Justina reflected, was that she could act as drill sergeant if she chose, making up pointless tasks and putting it all under the umbrella of discipline. Heady stuff, that. And it was a jolly good thing she was not, Abbess Justina reflected, the type to let power go to her head. Humility was more necessary for someone in her position.

  She stood, shaking out her voluminous skirt, where a crumb or two from her breakfast scone had landed in the folds. Rotterdam, ignoring the crumbs as beneath him, wandered off to curl up in his bed in a corner of the room.

  Dame Justina wanted very much to go outdoors and walk about to clear her head, but she was worried she’d run into DCI Cotton or, worse, Father Max Tudor. Why was it that Father Max always seemed to know more about what she was thinking than even she knew?

  It was nonsense, she told herself. Just a feeling. The man couldn’t read minds, after all. No one could. No one but God could do that. But Father Max had been sent here on a mission to flush out the truth, and it had to be said, Abbess Justina had done a few things for which she had no ready answer, if pressed. Explained to people the right way, they would understand, she was sure of it. A new guesthouse was not the most important thing in the world.

  Arching her back—the long hours of prayer made her feel her age—she stared up at the abbey’s coat of arms over the fireplace. Monkbury Abbey had been founded so very long ago. The responsibility of keeping it going weighed heavily. She didn’t want to be the abbess in charge when it all came unstuck.

  The abbey, then and now, was blessed in attracting more than its share of rich and grateful benefactors, men and women who wanted the nuns to pray for their departed souls and were willing to pay up front for the privilege of really first-rate heavenly intercession. The nuns had buried many of these pious nobs—their bodies now were interred beneath the floors of the chapels, or they were given a showy tomb with a marble likeness on top, often with feet resting against a little dog like Rotterdam. The fame of those interred at Monkbury was one reason why, when Henry VIII began his destructive, toddler-like rampage against the monasteries and nunneries, the abbey was largely spared.

  Monkbury had been left to be overgrown by thorns and weeds and to have its cellars cracked open by the invading roots of nearby trees.

  She had often thought it strange and wonderful that when stones had been hauled away to Temple Monkslip to be reused for building, quite often the people in those buildings came to grief. Their businesses and crops failed, or the very buildings themselves collapsed. Word got round that the nuns had placed a curse on anyone disturbing their stones. And of course people of a superstitious age believed it. The place was left to go to rack and ruin on its own.

  Until one day the nuns returned and rebuilt their abbey. Not the same nuns, of course, but alike in spirit. They adopted the old customs and adjusted the old rules, reattached their veils to their headdresses, and slipped back into the timeless rhythms of chanting, working, and keeping sacred the holy monastic hours.

  Abbess Justina had been at Monkbury for most of her adult life—for longer than she’d been a civilian. After reading history at Cambridge she’d spent a decade in the City, moving by day between a starkly modern office building to a large but Dickensian flat and seeing a married man in his—never her—spare time. She would dress up for him, dress to please him, in clothing and jewelry that did not suit her, that had nothing to do with who she was. And sometimes she would wait, all dressed up and made up, hoping he would call. Shaming it was now, to think of it. She still had no idea why she had done it. It was like another woman had once inhabited her body and mind.

  In truth, the habit she wore now was the only clothing that had ever suited her.

  His wife had been blameless, a homemaker raising two children, oblivious, and probably when all was said and done worth ten dozen of her faithless husband. She, now Abbess Justina of Monkbury Abbey, had been the home wrecker.

  She would not shrink from the fact she had reveled in the role of mistress, had savored the power she perceived it gave her. It was pathetic to remember how important it had been to her, to be desirable, to have that allure—to entice him away from his wife. What Freud would have made of it did not really matter. It was silly, despicable, self-serving behavior. It had taken her ages to realize that any fool could have done the same, that anyone could catch his eye. He was an untrustworthy man and anyone could have filled the role she had played.

  She had realized for some time that Lord Lislelivet reminded her of him. Not in looks, God knew, but in that bland shiftiness of character. That sense of entitlement.

  The same man, in disguise.

  Her lover, like predators everywhere, knew in what low esteem she held herself. All without knowing anything about her lonely childhood and her distant parents, who noticed her only long enough to criticize whatever she did or wore or attempted. He had sensed it immediately. He had played on it. But tempting as it was to blame him, she had been a willing participant in this folly, so hurtful to his wife, so hurtful to her own self.

  Both her old occupations, she realized now, were escapes, daylight busyness and nighttime drama, and when both came crashing down at once—the collapse of both the corporation and her personal life—she had taken her buyout and headed to the south of France. Intending to do what, she didn’t know. Perhaps it just sounded good. Those postcards sent from Provence, she supposed, were just a continuation of her career, of the upbeat forecasts sent to investors: Everything (on the surface) is wonderful; my life (on the surface) is wonderful. Perfect. Was she fooling anyone? Probably not. And finally, she realized how far in contempt she held anyone who fell for her act. So one day in that sublimely rich land of Renaissance vistas, wine, and ancient ruins, she had climbed off the hamster wheel and set herself on a course of atonement to the many faceless people she had wronged. The only atonement she could make to the wronged wife, who had never found out the truth, was to stay far away, forever.

  Was her dramatic life change an overreaction? She never thought so. Slipping into her role here had been easy, natural, like coming home. And now it was all threatened somehow. That silly man. If only that silly man hadn’t come here everything would have been fine.

  * * *

  Oona Gorey was packing to leave. Well, she was packing in case they ever got the chance to leave. Surely they couldn’t be held here at the abbey forever. The police could suspect whatever they liked, and she could tell that DCI Cotton suspected plenty. Just like one of those policemen on the BBC-America television shows she and Clement loved to watch.

  But unlike on those shows, they couldn’t prove a thing—not in one hour of drama, not in a whole season’s worth of drama. With or without a break for commercials, they couldn’t prove a thing.

  She smoothed out one of the black travel garments she had washed in the sink and hung to dry last night, folding it in precise thirds. It amused her to think of how she really lived in comparison with the expectations people had of how people like her and Clement must live. To Oona, self-sacrifice and simple living were the keys to their success. She had an almost superstitious dread of losing it all should she suddenly start flashing her money around.

  She dropped a rosary into her purse, soothed by the soft rattle of the small wo
oden beads. She’d tried to pray last night, alone in her room, uneasy, after waking to find Clement gone. She’d tiptoed to his room and, getting no reply, opened the door. She always worried he would find him dead one day. He didn’t take care of himself, and that dreadful man Lislelivet had upset him.

  Clement had told her the next day he’d simply needed fresh air. He didn’t have to ask her to tell no one that he’d been gone. Their marriage was that close he didn’t need to. The police would read all sorts of things into his taking a walk, when in fact he often took walks at night.

  She heaved a great sigh. When she thought of the trouble they’d had with these nuns! Honestly! There must be better places to donate the Gorey millions. But Clement had his heart set on being buried here, inside the church. This is what came of being an art history major—all that trekking around the cathedrals of Europe had formed in him a burning desire to create a monument for the ages to the Gorey family name. To show his worthless father how far his son had risen, thought Oona, although, being loyal to the core, she would never voice such an opinion aloud to her husband or to anyone. But his funerary plans were part of the deal he’d worked out with the abbess. He’d even hired a sculptor to sketch a design for the tomb. Oona had to admit, it was a nice idea—once one got over the word “internment.” So much nicer than any of their options back home, where they best place on offer was a late-nineteenth-century church, and a badly designed, wooden one at that. Oona, too, had been an art history major.

  Oona had spent much of the morning trying to persuade her husband to call the American Embassy to get them bailed out of here. But he was strangely reluctant to do that. You’d almost think he wanted to tempt fate. After all, being involved in something this unsavory was bad for the corporate image. It was time for some damage control. Or so she had tried to persuade him. At the very least, he had to find some way to get in touch with his P.R. department at the company back home. He was strangely reluctant to do that, either. There was such a thing as bad publicity and his involvement in this mess, and hers, had its embarrassing aspects. Especially for a man whose reputation rested on his business acumen. He’d been had by these nuns, good and proper.

  She paused in her packing long enough to press her curly hair against her scalp. The humidity here made her hair expand, precisely like a mushroom cloud, and all the products she had brought with her were useless against the English weather. She tied a scarf around her head, tying it under her chin, the way she’d seen in photos of the Queen. That for Oona was the Holy Grail—a meeting with the Queen. Dinner with the Queen—why not? That it hadn’t happened yet was a sore spot with Clement. One of many sore spots—he felt that despite pouring money into British institutions, he had been soundly snubbed. Only the nuns had welcomed him with open arms.

  Those nuns had more marketing savvy in their little fingers than … well, than all the Queen’s horses, thought Oona.

  * * *

  Dear God, don’t let this be a complete disaster.

  Thus prayed Dame Sibil Papelwyk, the cellaress of Monkbury Abbey. Just when things were going so well. Just when I had things under control. Such great plans.

  Man proposes but God disposes.

  Ain’t it the truth.

  Had she but known it, her thoughts about the finding of Lord Lislelivet’s body strangely tracked the abbess’s own. Such a silly man, to have come here. To have brought this disaster on us, trailing his messy life into ours. It was hardly a Christian train of thought but the cellaress’s innate honesty wouldn’t admit of any phony sentiment. The abbess had led them all in a special prayer this morning for the soul of the man, and that was that. In chapter, she had warned them not to discuss a single facet of the case amongst themselves. They could speak to the police, but only when asked and only under strictly controlled conditions. They could speak to Father Max, but only when the conversation had been cleared with her, the abbess, first. So firm was this injunction, they all completely understood that to defy this order would mean expulsion from the nunnery—a fate worse than death for many of them, who, after all, had nowhere to go. Not after this long time, not after being out of the job market so long, not with so many of their families long dead or estranged from them, baffled by the austerity of the life they had chosen for themselves.

  Dame Sibil could not recall a time when such an edict had been handed down in chapter. Well, they’d had the food thief once. But that fell under the category of dormitory prank or one of the milder forms of mental illness. This was serious. Dead serious.

  The cellaress looked at the stacks of invoices and bills on her desk, normally the fun part of her day—she loved making all the columns add up, when she could, and finding little economies or money-making opportunities for Monkbury, when she could not. In her heart, Dame Sibil was a hausfrau of the old school, a home economist, and folk who didn’t understand what it took to run a house, especially one the size of Monkbury, were sadly underestimating both her and her sisters. It was a big position, the equivalent of today’s CFO and COO positions rolled into one.

  Big mistake, thought Dame Sibil, to do that. To underestimate the nuns. They didn’t call her “The Owl” for nothing, and it had as much to do with her acumen as her looks. She happened to think owls were beautiful, those wise creatures, but she knew she herself had just missed being homely. Since childhood, her perfectly round face and eyes and small beaked nose were a source of amusement to others, and she had long accepted that it was so. It was how God had made her, and God loved all his creations.

  Now she was in a position of authority, and somehow the demise of Lord Lislelivet made her feel, perhaps irrationally, that it was all slipping away. Her place of safety, slipping away.

  “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out,” she reminded herself. Dame Sibil’s mind tended to be a repository of useful quotations, some in direct contradiction to one another. Still, she would rather all her hard work not come crashing around her head like a—well, like a ton of bricks in an earthquake.

  She picked up a bill for the guesthouse insurance—the premiums had gone up again, although they’d never filed a claim. There were numerous bills for repairs and upgrades—that never seemed to end. But those repairmen from Temple Monkslip knew better than to overcharge the good sisters, for Dame Sibil was not above hinting that they might suffer eternal damnation if they tried to pull that one on her.

  Many of the repairs had to do with the wall that had collapsed in the south transept of the church. It was not the sort of repair that could be patched up with a few bricks and a coat of paint. Oh, no, indeed. Thank God, thought Dame Sibil fervently, for Clement Gorey, who had guaranteed a seventy-five-thousand pound loan about that time, which had allowed reconstruction to begin immediately. This wall collapse was what had necessitated the various fund-raisers to retire the loan, most notably the one put together by Paloma Green and that ghastly gigolo of hers, that Piers What’s-His-Name. God certainly worked in mysterious ways if the salvation of the nunnery had come in the form of this lot of unlikely saviors.

  Still—and she shook her head, reproving herself—it is not for me to question why. It is but mine to do or die.

  One of her sisters appeared just then at her door, her wimple askew. Dame Sibil crossed the office and, first asking her permission, straightened it for her. It was a little service they performed for each other several times a day. Life without mirrors was freeing but it could have some comic results.

  The sister thanked her, and said, “Dame Cellaress, I am worried. May I talk with you?”

  It was a violation of the Rule, this sort of sidebar conversation, which from her sister’s expression could only be about the murder.

  She knew it was forbidden, and Dame Sibil knew it was forbidden. Private conversations, special friendships, excluding others: they’d have to confess to the sin in the chapter meeting.

  “Sure,” said Dame Sibil. “Go ahead.”

  Chapter 24
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  …AND SUSPECTS

  Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

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

  Xanda Gorey felt she might just die if she couldn’t get out of here. Die, die, curl up and die. Leaning over the fence, staring at the stupid cows, who stared stupidly back in that totally brain-dead way of theirs. She might have been a tree for all they knew. That moronic exchange was the highlight of her morning so far. Soon there would be lunch, which always involved lentils, some sort of vegetarian pâté, cheese, and salad. All of it homemade and fresh, but a greasy hamburger with fries would be so totally welcome right about now. The desserts were nice, though—Dame Fruitcake knew what she was doing.

  The thought of Dame Fruitcake brought her up short. If anyone had killed Lord Lislelivet, Dame Ingrid Fruitcake had to be the main suspect. She was the right size for it, too. She looked like she had bodybuilder’s arms under all those layers of cloth. And she had to have been the one who tried to poison him. Stood to reason.

  Whatev. Xanda found she didn’t care, so long as they wrapped up this investigation and let her gooooo.

  After lunch began the long slide of the day toward dinner and then bed—bed at a time when she was usually just getting the night started.

  No TV. No Twitter feed. No Facebook page to update. No Etsy or Pinterest—total shock to the system, that.

  No one to talk to. And she was running out of nail polish. She’d read the one magazine she’d brought with her, like, a thousand times. It was no longer news, if it had ever been news, that Brad Pitt was hot, even if he was middle-aged and had all those kids hanging off him. The library was stuffed with books, but all of it was uplifting crap. She had tried to convince her mother to let her go into the village and she’d agreed, and then, wham! The police practically lock us all inside, just because that creepy perv finally went to his reward.