A VOW OF PENANCE an utterly gripping crime mystery

by Black, Veronica

  ‘We don’t take any newspapers here, Sister. Father Superior reads The Times once a week but that’s all. Is anything wrong? Father Timothy is well?’

  ‘Yes, he’s going to telephone you later. I wondered — did anyone see him get on the train?’

  ‘What an odd question!’ Father Anselm said. ‘Yes, he was escorted to the station according to custom. We like to give our newly ordained priests a good send-off. Of course this being Lent only one of us actually accompanied him out of the cloister.’

  ‘And came back?’

  ‘Of course he came back, Sister. Why on earth shouldn’t he? I fail to see—’

  ‘Please bear with me, Father Anselm,’ she said quickly. ‘Could you tell me who went to the station with Father Timothy?’

  ‘Father Philip did. Sister, is something wrong? Father Timothy isn’t sick?’

  ‘Is he likely to be?’ she countered.

  ‘Not if he continues to take his insulin. He did tell you about that? He is rather shy sometimes about admitting it.’

  ‘Yes. We are aware of it. One more question, Father.’ Without knowing what had suddenly prompted her to enquire she asked, ‘Have there been any incidences of vandalism at the seminary recently?’

  ‘How odd that you should ask!’ Father Anselm said. ‘Yes, we’ve had some tools stolen from one of the outhouses as a matter of fact. We don’t bother to keep it locked and the wall near it is very low so it would be — evidently was an easy matter for hooligans to break in.’

  ‘Did they vandalize anything?’

  ‘A display of bonsai trees and shrubs on the windowsill. Father Timothy’s pet project but happily we were able to keep the news from him since he was leaving the next day. Sister, I’ve been very patient but I must know why you’re asking all these questions.’

  ‘I’ll telephone you, or Father will. Thank you, Father Anselm.’

  She replaced the receiver and rested her chin on her hands while she pondered what she had heard. Father Timothy was a diabetic: the body found at the side of the railway track had been full of insulin — a diabetic too or killed in the same manner as Mrs Fairly with the savage axe attack merely designed to draw attention from the real cause of death? Father Timothy had been seen off at the station, and had duly arrived in Bodmin. She ought to have asked if he’d come down on the overnight train.

  There was still the vacuuming to do. She rose and went to get the vacuum cleaner, thankful that for once she had something practical to do with her hands while her mind ranged over various possibilities.

  What was it that she had heard about Father Timothy before his arrival? The trouble was that she hadn’t taken much notice since at that stage she hadn’t known she’d be coming down to help out at the presbytery. He was newly ordained, a late vocation which fitted Father Timothy who showed all the symptoms of over-enthusiasm which newly fledged clerics sometimes displayed and he was nearer forty than thirty. He hadn’t mentioned his diabetes but as Father Anselm had said he was somewhat shy about it. So shy that she had seen no trace of needles or syringe in his room. She reminded herself that she hadn’t gone poking through the drawers of the dresser. There was something else, something she’d been told, something she’d heard — she switched off the vacuum cleaner and unplugged it. Whatever it was would come to her in due course.

  It was time to share her knowledge with Detective Sergeant Mill. She went back into the study and lifted the telephone again.

  ‘You just caught me, Sister.’ His voice sounded pleased. ‘I only now walked in. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Could you meet me for a cup of coffee?’ she enquired.

  ‘Yes, of course. At the café? I can be there in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be there in five. Thank you.’ She put down the receiver and went to get her cloak.

  Outside the last puddles were drying in a belated sun and the surfaces of cobbles and paving stones still faintly gleaming. She walked briskly down the street, crossed and turned the corner into the main street. It would have been possible for her to walk into the police station, of course, but some natural caution had dictated another course.

  He had tactfully installed himself at a table in the corner and signalled the waitress for a second cup of coffee as Sister Joan entered.

  ‘You’ve something to tell me, Sister?’ He waited until she had taken her first sip, then leaned forward attentively, his voice low.

  ‘Yes, I believe so. Did you speak to Sister Jerome?’

  ‘And to Sister Hilaria.’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘You could have told me yourself, you know.’

  ‘I went back to the convent to check on Alice’s whereabouts and met Sister Hilaria. She mentioned that Alice had dug up a syringe.’

  ‘Which she promptly handed over to one of the novices to wash! Didn’t it occur to her to report it?’

  ‘Why should she?’ Sister Joan protested. ‘All that Sister Hilaria knows is that a tree and some bushes were vandalized and that Mrs Fairly, whom she didn’t know, died. Mother Prioress doesn’t fill her time with long accounts of murders for the rest of the community.’

  ‘Sorry, Sister.’ He grinned, holding up a shielding hand. ‘You’re right. Sister Hilaria keeps her thoughts on higher matters, and in any case the tree wasn’t attacked by a syringe. She came over to the main house with the syringe. We rushed it to the lab, but when a nun cleans something she cleans it thoroughly. It could have been used to give an injection of insulin. I’ve a couple of lads up by the tennis court digging at the moment to see what else is waiting to be dug up.’

  ‘And you spoke to Sister Jerome?’

  ‘With immense care since she seems to be terrified of police officers — not that I read anything into that. Many innocent people feel an uneasy frisson of guilt when a member of the force hovers into view. She found the axe under her seat, feared that she might be blamed for damaging the tree and put it on the altar while the other nuns were deep in meditation. Her prints were on the handle — very blurred since she’d wrapped the thing in the skirt of her habit when she picked it up. She’s a strong woman, by the way, to manage it with one hand. That’s quite a weight.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sister Joan nodded.

  ‘Your turn, Sister. You said you had something to tell me.’ He was looking at her keenly.

  ‘I suppose the poor man who was found up north by the railway track hasn’t been identified yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘We’ve pieced together a reasonably good description of him from forensic evidence, but there’s no official report of anyone of that description missing that’s been officially logged.’

  ‘You said over the telephone that insulin was found. Was he killed by insulin?’

  He shook his head again. ‘No. As far as they can determine the first blow on the back of the head killed him. The other injuries were inflicted in a kind of frenzy. They’ve found traces of blood matching his in the tunnel by the by. The insulin had been injected before his death and the needle marks show he was an habitual user. It’ll take some time to check through medical records but eventually we’ll get a result.’

  ‘I can save you the trouble,’ Sister Joan said tensely. ‘Our new priest, Father Matthew Timothy, is a diabetic. I checked with the seminary.’

  ‘But Father Timothy’s down here,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said blankly.

  ‘I thought he might have been the dead man,’ she confessed. ‘Nobody from the seminary would have missed him because he’d officially left anyway, and since they don’t get a popular newspaper they wouldn’t know about the murder either.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Father Timothy was escorted to the station by Father Philip, another priest at the seminary,’ she said, ‘so he can’t be the dead man. But there’s something else: Father Anselm to whom I spoke said that some tools had been stolen from a garden shed in the seminary grounds the night before Father Timothy left and some bonsai trees and plants were destroyed at the same time. Father Timothy
had been cultivating them.’

  ‘Has he mentioned this?’ Detective Sergeant Mill asked sharply.

  ‘He left before anyone told him about it.’

  ‘Two diabetics?’ He bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘It’s a common condition but even so — the arm of coincidence does seem to be getting rather long, doesn’t it? How did you manage to get all this information? This Father Anselm?’

  ‘I asked a few questions.’

  ‘Evidently the right ones. Is there anything else, Sister?’

  She hesitated, stirring her coffee round and round, watching the tiny bubbles rise to the surface and break.

  ‘Mrs Fairly’s handbag was missing,’ she said at last.

  ‘It wasn’t among her belongings?’

  ‘I packed everything away ready for when her niece came. I just didn’t think of a handbag at the time,’ she confessed. ‘It’s so long since I carried one myself. I only thought of it later.’

  ‘You say it was missing? I take it that you’ve found it?’

  ‘In the refuse bin,’ Sister Joan said.

  Detective Sergeant Mill sat up straighter.

  ‘What made you look there?’ he demanded.

  ‘I didn’t. I was putting out a refuse sack into the big bin and there was this square brown paper parcel tucked in among the bags. The size and shape were right so I took it out and the handbag was inside. Whoever killed her needed to examine that handbag for some reason but perhaps there wasn’t time so they made a parcel and put it in the bin meaning to collect it later. The refuse isn’t collected until later today.’

  ‘Where’s the handbag now?’

  ‘I gave it to Padraic Lee to look after for me.’

  ‘Why not bring it to the police?’

  ‘Because finding it gave me an idea as to a way I might find out who’d put it in the bin.’

  ‘How? You haven’t been mounting guard over it!’

  ‘I put an empty box in the refuse bin, wrapped up in brown paper,’ she said. ‘I thought it might force whoever found it to reveal themselves.’

  ‘Of all the stupid, amateur—’ He scowled at her. ‘Sister Joan, didn’t it enter your head that you were putting yourself in very grave danger? Not to mention Father Stephens and Father Timothy who might equally well have found it originally?’

  ‘I had to think of something on the spur of the moment so I came up with that,’ she said, flushing, ‘and if you’re going to grumble that I’ve left it a bit late to tell you what I did your own reaction is the answer. I knew that you’d disapprove.’

  ‘Well, at least you’ve told me now.’ He was clearly trying to control his irritation. ‘Sister, we have the resources to deal with something like this. There might have been prints on the handbag. You had no business to suppress evidence.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She fiddled with her coffee spoon.

  ‘We’ll get on to it now. I don’t suppose much harm has been done.’ He was preparing to rise but she broke in.

  ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘What!’ He sat down again.

  ‘I looked in the bin today after lunch when I wheeled it round to the front ready for collection and it’s gone — the parcel I put in. Someone took it.’

  ‘And by now will know that the empty box was substituted for the handbag. Sister, hasn’t it entered your head that you’ve put yourself in some danger?’

  ‘Isn’t that one way to bring the killer into the open?’ she argued.

  ‘An exceedingly reckless way — or are you under the impression that your habit protects you? You’ve set yourself up at the very least as bait.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said slowly. ‘If they guess I took it, and it’s reasonable to suppose that they might, they’re not going to do anything to me until they find out where I’ve hidden the original handbag. I’m positive they were searching in it for something.’

  ‘I’d better drive out to the Romany camp and take charge of it,’ he said. ‘Sister, it would be wiser for you to leave the presbytery and return to the convent immediately. I can leave a couple of men there to patrol.’

  ‘Then I’ve gone to a lot of trouble for nothing,’ she said coldly.

  For an instant their glances met and locked. Then Detective Sergeant Mill gave an unwilling grin.

  ‘If it was anyone except you, Sister — you presume on the respect I have for your abilities you know. All right! Stay at the presbytery for the moment. The first intimation you have that something is wrong, that someone is getting ready to accost you and you don’t wait around to find out. You ring me immediately. Have I your word on that?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said promptly.

  ‘So where does that leave us?’ He sat down again, ticking off items rapidly on his fingers.

  ‘Three instances of mindless vandalism,’ she contributed. ‘The bonsai trees at the seminary, the tree at the convent and the flowers in the presbytery garden. The insulin.’

  ‘A diabetic priest and a dead body of a diabetic, a woman killed by insulin injection and an empty syringe dug up at the convent,’ he nodded. ‘A handbag that was taken, stuffed into the refuse bin to be examined later. Those are the common factors but what we have to sort out is the common link.’

  ‘You haven’t mentioned the murders,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, they’re the obvious link,’ he agreed. ‘All apparently motiveless which would suggest a random killer, a maniac, but committed in different ways — one brutally mutilated, another injected with insulin after a cold-blooded attempt to mislead us into thinking it suicide, a young woman hit over the head while travelling by train and thrown out and her friend killed by a similar blow after she arrived presumably, since her body was found stuffed into the boot of the car that Sister Jerome was using. The last three victims are connected by very slender threads. Sylvia Potter was Mrs Fairly’s niece and she shared a house with her fellow schoolteacher, Miss Hugh. Why did they all become victims and what the devil do any of them have to do with a man who was almost certainly engaged in manual labour at some time and who regularly took insulin for his diabetic condition?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I’ve thought about it until I feel dizzy.’

  ‘Don’t come up with any more bright ideas, Sister,’ he begged, his grin down curving. ‘Are they looking for a new housekeeper at the presbytery?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but it takes a little time to find the right person.’

  ‘And meanwhile you’re stuck there instead of being safely tucked up in your convent where you ought to be. I’m going to have to interview Father Stephens and Father Timothy rather thoroughly. They may have seen or heard something that throws light on everything. They may know something important without being conscious that they know it. When are they likely to be in?’

  ‘They’re out sick visiting this afternoon and then Father Stephens is coming back to interview prospective housekeepers and Father Timothy is hearing confessions.’

  ‘And where will you be?’

  ‘In the confessional,’ she said feelingly. ‘Collecting a load of penance to say if I’m any judge of character.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to get along later. You’ll take care, Sister?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Joan said gravely. ‘Yes, I’ll take very great care.’

  Fourteen

  The presbytery was still empty when she let herself in with her key. The rest of the vegetable stew sat sadly in the big pan on the cooker. She looked at it with marked distaste. It was a sin to waste food but both Father Stephens and Father Timothy deserved something a bit more appetizing when they got in. There was some pasta in the cupboard. She’d cook that, heat the vegetables with a good big handful of parmesan cheese and use it as a sauce. Meanwhile she had a little time left in which to collect her thoughts together on paper. When she wrote things down they often assumed a clarity they didn’t have when they were tossing about in her head.

  She found pad and paper in the kitchen drawer and sat down at t
he table. Where to begin? Everything was happening so quickly that the sequence of events was becoming blurred. First had been the murder of the unknown, and apparently unmissed diabetic. He must have been killed at about the same time that Father Timothy was being escorted to the station. She wrote down the two events and stared at them, tapping the end of the pen against her teeth.

  Whoever had committed that first murder had gone to considerable trouble to render his victim unidentifiable. Whoever had committed that first murder had obviously been splashed with blood. Yet by the time the nuns had entered the grand silence at 9.30 that same night he had been near the convent, near enough to damage the tree and the holly bushes. He had cut it fine, she mused, and tapped her teeth again.

  Early that morning Father Malone had left on his sabbatical and Father Timothy had arrived with his two suitcases. One of them stood in his bedroom, the other was in the sacristy and so far she hadn’t seen any of the paperback books which it had contained. Later that day had come the telephone call from Mrs Fairly, requesting a meeting, intimating she knew something about Sister Jerome, the new lay sister. And Sister Jerome had arrived at the convent that same morning that Father Timothy had come. No, she hadn’t! She had turned up the day before, striding through the gates with her unfriendly manner. Sister Joan crossed out what she’d written and started again.

  1st Sister Jerome arrives.

  2nd Father Malone leaves.

  3rd Father Timothy arrives. I show him to presbytery.

  4th Mrs Fairly telephones me to ask for a meeting in the café.

  5th Mrs Fairly’s body is found. Believed suicide.

  (First victim already discovered up north.)

  6th Sylvia Potter killed on way here and thrown from train.

  7th Stephanie Hugh killed after arriving here.

  Queries.

  Why was that first man rendered unidentifiable?

  What did Mrs Fairly know about Sister Jerome?

  Why was the handbag hidden away? To be searched later? If so, for what?

  Why did Father Timothy have two suitcases? Books? Where are these books?