4 A Demon Summer

by G. M. Malliet

  “Patrons of the arts, yes. I don’t see why everyone has to go to Paris to be artistic, do you?” Max asked. “When London is a perfectly fine city with its own demi-monde.”

  “They’ve held the monopoly so long, no one questions it.”

  “Anything against the doctor? Barnard?” Max had asked Cotton to verify Barnard’s credentials.

  “No. He trained both here and in the U.S.—originally as an ophthalmologist in the U.S. His credentials are all above board and shipshape. Why? Did you think he was a phony? An imposter?”

  Max didn’t answer at first. Then he said, slowly, “Not in the sense you mean.”

  Okay! So it’s to be another round of “Stump the DCI,” thought Cotton. Still, he knew if he gave Max his lead, Max could lead him to the proper suspect. So he said no more.

  “You’re thinking our suspect is a man?” Cotton asked instead.

  “If the body was moved, it was probably a man doing the moving. You’d need the upper body strength to haul dead weight like that around, even given that Lord Lislelivet was not a large person. Although all the nuns are fit, from routine physical labor. Still, there would be limits on what they could drag or carry, particularly since the disposal of Lord Lislelivet involved hoisting the body over the ledge of the well, a height of about four feet, and pushing it down into the well. An awkward maneuver, at best. So the questions become, if the body was moved: when, why, and how was it moved?”

  “‘Why’ is usually so the guilty party isn’t immediately apparent. If the body were found in the abbess’s front parlor, we’d certainly be looking at a narrower field of suspects.”

  Max thought it was like one of the nun’s tapestries, the patterned cloth emerging slowly from the machine. The shades and textures, light and dark tightly woven. He turned to Cotton and said, “So this is what we have on the surface. Nine o’clock is Compline, preceded by a five-minute warning. Here, let’s make it as a chart.” And, taking a notebook from his inner pocket, he wrote:

  8:55 p.m.–Bell for Compline

  9:00 p.m.–Compline begins

  9:30 p.m.–Compline ends, Great Silence begins

  10:10 p.m.–Body of Lord Lislelivet discovered

  “So far, so accurate. What is missing, of course, is the time of the murder and the name of the murderer.”

  “The coroner’s preliminary assessment was that he was killed between eight and ten-oh-nine.”

  “That’s cheating, that last bit. Of course we know the time he was found. Nothing scientific about it.”

  “I know. They always do that. But the man’s watch had stopped—it was broken at some point in the violence surrounding his murder. And the time on the watch was nine-ten, an hour before he was found.”

  “Handy, that,” said Max.

  Cotton could tell by the distant look in his eyes that Max had moved on to examine another puzzle piece.

  “What do we know about these people, really?” Max said at last. “No one talks of their past in this place. And as far as many of the nuns are concerned, they have no past, in a sense. Meaning, their past lives happened such a very long time ago as to be meaningless for investigative purposes. We can’t even run a credit report on them—it would come up blank, wouldn’t it? Not one of them has a credit card, owns property—nothing in the usual way of things. It’s as if they don’t really exist, isn’t it?”

  “Or that they ceased to exist when they joined the nunnery.”

  “Of course, that is the idea. To leave the past and all its encumbrances behind. It’s going to make investigating rather a trial.”

  “A little thing like that won’t stop us,” said Cotton, with more optimism than he felt. “We’re on it, going as far back as need be.”

  “We quickly learned about Dame Ingrid’s past trouble in part because she admitted it on her application to Monkbury. Although the women have effectively disappeared behind these walls, we can’t discount some sort of problem in their past lives catching up with them now.”

  “Not for a minute. But it will be a chore getting all the details.”

  “The devil this time,” said Max, “really may be in the details.”

  Chapter 27

  ON LEAVING THE ABBEY

  No one may leave the abbey without the permission of the abbess, even on the shortest errand. Once outside the abbey, a sister shall be on guard against seeing or hearing any evil thing. No sister on her return shall relate what she saw or heard outside the walls of the abbey, for this causes great harm.

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

  DCI Cotton left some minutes later to interview and in some cases reinterrogate various of the abbey’s guests. The nuns had been collected to sit with a female sergeant in the Chapter House; Cotton had agreed to wait to talk to them himself until after whatever prayer session they held at mid-afternoon. Max had convinced Cotton to include Sergeant Essex on this case. She had been involved in previous investigations with him, and Max had the highest regard for her tenacity, discretion, and honesty.

  “I don’t know,” Cotton had said. “She’s got no rank, no clout. I can’t just send her in there alone.”

  “Special-deputize her or something. You could force your way in and throw your weight around and flash your warrant card at the nuns, but it’s much better to finesse the situation. This needs a woman’s touch. Trust me on this.”

  Cotton, although scowling, agreed. Max had never let him down before.

  It was agreed the nuns would come in pairs to the guesthouse living room for the interrogation, a concession Cotton had made given the general horror that had greeted any suggestion the male police use any of the cloistered areas for the interviews. It was bad enough that room-by-room searches were being conducted, and if the abbess could have seen a way around even that small indignity, she would have taken it.

  The thing of it was, the obvious suspects were the nuns, who had easy access to all the areas of the cloister. But the other thing of it was, well, they were nuns. Difficult to get around that. Prosecution would be a nightmare. Cotton allowed himself a delicate little shudder.

  He later ran into Max outside the guesthouse, just as Max was staring in frustration at his mobile phone, which stubbornly showed the “no service” signal at the top of its screen. Max told Cotton he didn’t know why he had hoped things might be otherwise, but it seemed worth a try. The weather had lifted, lifting his hopes for better reception.

  Cotton said, “You can pick up a satellite signal only at the end of the road, and then only when the moon is in Aries and Jupiter aligns with Venus—just as in Nether Monkslip. Your best bet is to go into the village of Temple Monkslip. There’s an ancient pub called the Running Knight and Pilgrim—where Lord Lislelivet used to stay on his way to the abbey. Not too surprising, that. It’s the only inn in town to speak of. It’s on the High—you can’t miss it. And they have free Wi-Fi.”

  Max’s first thought was: I can call Awena.

  “I know,” he said. “I stopped there on my way out here.” He paused, adding: “I think the place to start may be, as always, at the beginning. To see where and how Lord Lislelivet lived, to talk to his wife, and to try to get a handle on who Lord Lislelivet was when he was at home. And I need to call the bishop, given all that has happened. Oh, and Awena,” he added casually, hoping it sounded like an afterthought. “I’ll give her a call, too.”

  Cotton, who knew how far from being an afterthought Awena was in Max’s mind, smiled and said, “Of course. And the manor house isn’t all that far. You should be able to return from there this evening.”

  So Max went back to his room to collect his jacket and car keys, glad to escape the confines of the abbey if only for a little while and very much hoping Awena would be available when he called. For they still had much to decide.

  He and Awena finally had agreed, after much discussion, to approach marriage in stages. The breakthrough conversation had occurred on May 1—Beltane, and a very big deal in
Awena’s calendar, halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It also happened to be the time of year to celebrate fertility, and looking at Awena then, he couldn’t think of a more apt holiday. Carrying their child, she was literally blooming with health and happiness, more animated and happy than he’d ever seen her. And, if possible, more beautiful.

  Max had reached out to touch her hair, pushing back the white strands at one temple. He wondered aloud if the baby would be born with that white streak.

  “Well, that would be a bit weird. Mine didn’t appear until I was twenty-one.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “And besides, most babies are bald to begin with.”

  He thought now of the child on the way, wondering if it were peacefully awaiting its time, or kicking against confinement, heedlessly eager to join the dangerous and wide, wonderful world.

  Every relationship in his MI5 days had been sabotaged by the secrecy of his life, by the lies told. What would marriage have been like then? Raising a child? How could you raise a child when you could never quite let on to that child who you really were?

  Max thought of his own father, a caring and decent man if distant and distracted. Like every parent since the dawn of time, Max hoped to improve on his relationship with his own child.

  I wanted his approval, thought Max; he wanted my love. Why were these goals at such polar opposites?

  To ensure there would never be any doubt in anyone’s mind how happily and surely this child, this child of starlight, was wanted by its father, Max had agreed to go along with Awena’s suggestion of having both a handfasting and a civil ceremony and did not push her on the church service. Handfasting was a recently resurrected tradition, begun in centuries past when people in small, remote villages had to wait weeks or months for a visiting clergyman to consecrate their marriages. Couples would meanwhile announce their commitment in a public declaration called a handfasting, considered to be a legal, valid union at the time.

  Max’s bishop had yet to be told any of this plan. Every time Max got near the subject, a murder got in the way.

  Or so Max told himself. He wasn’t sure which part of his news the bishop would react to more strongly: the baby on the way part or the no church service yet part.

  Or the whole New Age shebang.

  Surely the bishop would understand: Max couldn’t force the issue. As it was, he was ecstatic about the ceremony as planned, overjoyed that he and Awena would legally be man and wife. As to the rest: baby steps.

  The bishop simply must understand—this was a man who didn’t balk overmuch at a priest in his charge being involved in murder investigations, after all. He’d learned to roll with it. But the bishop would have to be put into this particular picture before the ceremony itself, Max told himself sternly.

  It was not as if Awena’s religious beliefs encompassed a Galactic Confederacy, but whose beliefs could stand up to close scrutiny? The virgin birth alone was a hurdle too high for many.

  The bishop would understand. He would have to.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Max began the drive to Temple Monkslip. Mentally he added fifteen minutes to his trip, having been warned by Cotton that some of the road had been washed out and he’d have to detour round. Luckily the Rover usually could manage it.

  His plan was to stop in Temple Monkslip to use his mobile and then continue on to Nashbury Feathers via Monkslip Worthy to interview Lady Lislelivet. He had not made a clean getaway from the abbey, however. Xanda Gorey, still teeming with ennui, saw him leaving, car keys dangling from one hand, and reminded him of his earlier “promise” to take her into town.

  “If nothing else,” she pleaded, “I need a change from all the orphanage food they serve here.” She said this in the despondent tone of someone who has nothing more to lose. Max first cleared it with both Cotton and with her mother (her father, as was often the case, was nowhere to be found). “Besides, I need to pick up some fags. And some hair product.”

  Orphanage food, thought Max. Like Xanda would know anything of orphanage food, child of privilege that she was.

  “You can come on condition you forget about the cigarettes,” he told her.

  “I’m quitting! I’m quitting. Honest. Soon.”

  “Today would be a good day,” he said. But they set off, Xanda riding shotgun in leopard-print high heels.

  The dye in her hair must have been temporary, because today the ends were colored sky blue and had been dipped in bronze sparkles, probably affixed with a shot of hair spray. The effect, Max thought, was strangely charming, like she’d been sprinkled with pixie dust. Perhaps it was a look to be outgrown one day but appealing for now. He wondered that two ultra-conservative types as her parents had managed to produce such a sprite as Xanda, but that was often the way the genetic lottery played itself out.

  She was rifling through his CDs in the console between the seats.

  “What, no Taylor Swift? Not even? And this—what is this?” She picked up his copy of Trio Medieval’s album, which happened to be a gift from Awena, giving it a shake as if mothballs might fall out of the plastic casing.

  “That,” he said, “is wonderful. Put it in the player. You’ll see.”

  She reeled back as if he’d asked her to spray hot sauce in her eyes.

  “Oh, all right,” she said at last. “If that’s all you’ve got.”

  “It is.”

  They drove awhile without speaking, as the downward descent from the top of the hill was best not taken at full speed. He could see why trying to navigate it on a rainy night would be unwise. It was bad enough in daylight.

  Max was a great believer in listening to the younger generation. They so often had a perspective that might have escaped him. So: “Now, tell me,” he said to Xanda. “You must have some thoughts about this murder. A theory or two.”

  Xanda paused, deep in thought, then shook her head. It was as if this were the first time she’d paused to consider the meaning of the recent events. “I’ve got nothing. He wasn’t anyone’s choice for Mr. Congeniality, but I don’t see why anyone would kill him. Or anyone, for that matter. There are always better ways to solve a problem.”

  “You think he was a problem for someone?”

  She adjusted the dial on the CD player, turning up the volume. “Don’t know, do I?”

  She was a poor dissembler. Max decided not to press it, but he knew she was lying. Protecting her father? Her mother? Or herself?

  He asked: “Did you ever see him—oh, I don’t know. Doing anything suspicious? Snooping around?”

  Actually, it was Xanda he suspected of snooping around. As bored as she was, she had to find something to do. Of course, he suspected all of the guests of the same thing—her father and mother, Paloma Green and Piers Montague.

  “He was always skulking about the church,” she told him. “Pretending an interest in the artwork. Once I saw him feeling along the walls.”

  “What?”

  “Like he was looking for hidden panels or springs.”

  “The walls are made of stone and brick. That is most unlikely.”

  “He was kind of an idiot, if you ask me. He’d probably read too many boys’ adventure stories.”

  Once they reached the village of Temple Monkslip, he dropped her off, having already explained that he needed to go his own way for a while. Their understanding had been that she would catch a taxicab back to Monkbury Abbey, or resign herself to finding something to do in the village while Max pursued his inquiries further afield. If all else failed, he had arranged for Mr. or Mrs. Gorey to come and collect their daughter, should she not reappear at the nunnery by six that evening.

  Xanda spotted a café that promised American-style burgers and confidently sprinted off on the high heels, turning heads as she went.

  Max had parked in front of the public house, the Running Knight and Pilgrim, grateful for the FREE WI-FI promised by the sign in its window. The sign reminded him of that old joke—who was
Wi-Fi, and who was holding him captive?

  Above the entrance, which opened directly onto the street, were three carved panels, each bearing a coat of arms—he recognized the arms of Monkbury Abbey. A further sign near the door identified it as a Grade I listed building dating from the thirteenth century.

  Max knew that in those days English villages were often closely tied to their monasteries—that in fact, the dissolution had been the ruin of many a village that depended for its economic livelihood on the jobs created by the sisters and brothers. Domestic servants, tradesmen and craftsmen, attorneys, doctors, masons, and bricklayers—when the monasteries fell, the jobs went with them. Abbeys often had acted as landlords to entire villages, a lucrative and generally mutually beneficial situation. Particularly if an abbey attracted pilgrims to view its relics, those pilgrims needed lodging, food, and all the rest of it. As a system it had worked well, although it had greatly enriched the monasteries, leading to greed, leading to envy, and leading to all the rest of it. Their success—and in some cases, their arrogance—had led to their downfall.

  Temple Monkslip undoubtedly had grown out of such a symbiotic relationship with Monkbury Abbey. From the looks of the Running Knight and Pilgrim, things had quieted down a lot in the intervening centuries. Max had the place nearly to himself.

  Today the pub’s landlord was working the bar. He had not been there when Max had taken his pub meal. The publican was a large, fleshy man with a high forehead and the sort of patchy red beard that made Max’s fingers itch for a razor, as he suspected it covered up—or tried to—quite a nice face. As the man stretched out his right arm to serve Max a pint, Max could read the inscription tattooed along its length: “Stand Fast, Craig Elachie!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Grant,” he said.

  “You recognize the motto?” the man said, pleased. He stuck out his hand, saying, “It’s just plain Grant. Rufus Grant, at your service.”