Crime in the Convent Page 7

  ‘Oh no!’ Mother Ursula turned to her in dismay.

  ‘Don’t distress yourself, Mother. Sister Lucy got a few too. They didn’t want to make a fuss about it.’ Mother Clare’s face twisted as though she had a bad smell under her nose. ‘An original line in invective, as I recall.’

  Markham nodded to DC Doyle, who dutifully made a note.

  ‘We’ll need to speak to Sister Lucy and see that correspondence.’

  ‘Of course, Inspector.’

  Mother Ursula had the eyes of a palpitating bird caught in the hand, frightened, wondering.

  Markham spoke very gently. ‘We are so very sorry, Mother, for your dreadful loss.’

  The superior made a visible effort. ‘Oh, it’s like Father Thomas used to say, “We’ll all be together in God – you by faith and me in reality.”’

  Noakes’s mouth was once more agape.

  ‘You’re not a believer, Sergeant?’ she enquired kindly.

  The DS sat up straighter and looked round defiantly as though daring anyone to contradict him. ‘The wife never misses church an’ I always go at Christmas and Easter.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ she beamed. ‘“Knock and it shall be opened to you.”’

  From the smirk on his face, it was apparent DC Doyle was greatly enjoying his colleague’s embarrassment and looked forward to re-opening the subject back at the station.

  Markham stood up to go, his subordinates scrambling to their feet.

  ‘We’ll be off now, Mother Ursula. There will be appeals for information at all the Masses in St Cecilia’s tomorrow, so hopefully we can build a clearer picture of Sister Felicity’s final hours.’

  As they walked to the front door of the convent, it seemed to Markham that the spirit of the dead nun went before them.

  He would give much to know that somewhere, somehow, she was at peace.

  Where no storms come … out of the swing of the sea.

  5

  Storm Clouds

  STANDING AT THE WINDOW of Markham’s study that afternoon, Olivia longed for the weather to break. Normally, she loved coming home to number 56, ‘The Sweepstakes’, the flat they shared in a complex of ultra-modern apartments at the far end of Bromgrove Park, off Bromgrove Avenue. Today, however, as she looked out at the cracked, yellowing grass of the landscaped garden at the back of the building, she felt as though she was seeing everything through a vaporous mist which blurred and distorted all the familiar outlines.

  Beyond the garden lay Bromgrove North Municipal Cemetery, its neat burial mounds baking and brittle in the late afternoon sun. Devoid of case files and crime scene photographs, his study was Markham’s decompression chamber, where he remembered the legion of lost souls he had been unable to save.

  Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in shady Vallombrosa.

  Olivia could feel the season’s end, could smell it in the air – summer smouldering. Soon, trees would be stripped down to their bones, nature battening down before autumn’s onslaught.

  Wearily, she leaned her aching forehead against the cold glass of the window. Ever since Markham had telephoned to break the news of Sister Felicity’s murder, her surroundings had felt somehow far off, as though she was trapped fathoms deep in a submarine world and could not rise to the surface. Even her boyfriend’s sanctum could not break the spell that lay upon her.

  With a lump in her throat, she recalled Sister Felicity’s trusting response to the news of Father Thomas’s death. ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the hearts of men what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.’ Would that promise come true for her friend? Would it cancel the horror of her final moments on earth?

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, spears of rain began to fall, darkening the skies. The encircling band around Olivia’s head snapped and she felt a sense of release. She unlatched the window, a gentle breeze ruffling the curtains like invisible messengers from the graveyard beyond. Turning her face to the downpour, she remained motionless as though waiting to be rinsed clean. In the garden below, floppy red hollyhocks and velvety butterflies glistened like jewels, flaunting themselves in the fresh-scented air.

  It felt like an absolution.

  Later that evening, over chicken salad and Chablis, Olivia felt herself beginning to revive.

  With the delicacy for which she loved him, Markham offered no fulsome panegyrics to her dead friend, merely pledging to ensure justice for her.

  ‘How did Noakes behave with the nuns?’ she enquired, a smile playing about her lips.

  Her boyfriend groaned in mock-despair.

  ‘Could have been worse, I suppose. The body language screamed no popery, but at least he didn’t come right out and call them sex-starved masochists or say anything about black crows or the evil eye.’

  ‘Probably had his fingers crossed, though.’

  Markham chuckled. ‘No doubt. Truth to tell, I think he might have been secretly disappointed that they weren’t togged out in full fig – you know, wimple, long skirts, clacking rosary beads and the rest of it.’

  ‘Oh, all that went out with the ark. Only enclosed orders – where the nuns don’t leave their convent – stick to the old ways.’

  ‘Well, Mrs Noakes apparently thinks the St Cecilia’s lot look like frumpy nurses.’

  Olivia spluttered. ‘But that’s what most of them were! Anyway, Muriel’s hardly the doyenne of good taste!’

  She took a long draught of wine, which seemed to help with the recovery of her good humour.

  ‘So, there weren’t any sticky moments?’

  ‘Oh, Noakesy stomped around in witchfinder general mode, no doubt hoping to winkle out signs of luxurious living. You know, catch them whooping it up.’

  Olivia assumed a pious simper and intoned in a syrupy voice, ‘“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”’

  ‘Or words to that effect, yes.’ Markham grinned. ‘Actually, it’s quite interesting how Noakes latches on to biblical texts. He waxed quite lyrical about the golden calf at one point.’

  ‘Indoctrination as a child, I suppose. And he’s an occasional church-goer, isn’t he?’

  ‘Well, I think he sees religion as medicinal – like cod liver oil.’

  ‘Knowing Noakes, he’s covering all the bases,’ Olivia laughed, ‘like buying a lottery ticket.’

  Markham spread his hands ruefully. ‘He and Mother Clare didn’t exactly hit it off.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Olivia said with feeling. ‘I remember her limp handshake. Like a slippery wet fish. Whenever Sister Felicity talked about having crosses to bear, I felt sure that woman was one of them.’

  ‘I didn’t warm to her myself,’ Markham admitted.

  ‘How did Noakes wind her up, then?’

  ‘Well, he asked about the nuns’ relationships. No, not lesbianism.’ He smiled at Olivia’s appalled expression. ‘Having decided that they all looked like Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, he appeared to rule out any notion of sapphic dalliance.’

  ‘Phew!’ Olivia giggled then said wistfully, ‘Sister Felicity would have enjoyed stringing Noakes along. She was very funny about “particular friendships”.’

  Markham raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, in the old days the nuns weren’t supposed to go around in pairs because “the devil made a third”.’

  ‘Ah, I see. The Order wanted to put the mockers on any love affairs.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ Olivia snorted. ‘St Cecilia’s castiron prophylactic against an outbreak of unseemly passion.’

  ‘And was there anything like that afoot?’ Markham asked curiously.

  ‘Not a bit. For a marvel, Noakes is on the money about the nuns. Lesbianism just isn’t their bag.’ She fanned herself thoughtfully. ‘So, what was he driving at?’

  ‘Quarrels, fallings-out, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Hmm, it’s possible. Some of the nuns were modernizers, while others
were all for tradition – you know, oiling up to the clergy, kissing their feet … but Sister Felicity wasn’t like that.’

  ‘She spoke her mind to Father Reynolds, I believe,’ Markham said carefully. ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he minded. He’s so good-looking that starry-eyed females must be an occupational hazard. She just told him to go easy on the hugs and backslapping. I think he was more embarrassed than anything else.’

  It fitted what Mother Clare told them.

  Markham decided to take the bull by the horns.

  ‘Did Sister Felicity talk much about her early life? We know she received some hate mail … something about her time working at St Columba, that’s the residential home where—’

  ‘—the child abuse happened,’ Olivia finished for him. ‘Yes, I remember.’ She sighed before continuing softly, her voice the merest wisp. ‘Sister Felicity was very private, y’know. But I remember her saying once that she hadn’t always had the courage of her convictions … I think there was something from the past that she was sorry about, something she regretted … Perhaps that’s what made her so, well, fearless.’

  Markham, alert to Olivia’s lightest inflexion, wondered with a sudden clutch at his heart what it was about the dead nun which had affected his girlfriend so deeply. Was there a secret they shared?

  ‘Do you think someone had it in for her, someone who blamed her for what happened at St Columba?’ Olivia asked anxiously, twirling her wine glass.

  Markham looked at her sensitive confiding face, glowing in the twilight like a pale flower. Inwardly, he cursed the transformation of the convent – that safe refuge – into the site of sinister vendettas. Outwardly, he kept his expression bland.

  ‘Anonymous poison pens aren’t major league – don’t usually turn murderous in my experience.’

  He could tell she wasn’t fooled.

  A slight flush mounted to her cheeks. For a moment, she looked as though she was about to unburden herself. Then the moment passed. But Markham could feel something there, steadily throbbing below the surface. Now she was pulling away from the intensity of his gaze, retreating into her inviolate shell. Shells could so easily be smashed, and then what would happen? He would have to wait patiently until she felt ready to share whatever was troubling her.

  In the meantime, he needed to map the mainspring of a murderer’s mind.

  ‘I feel I’ve missed something today,’ he said finally.

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘That’s just it, I don’t know.’ He looked meditatively out of the bay picture window. ‘A shutter clicked in my mind at the convent when we were looking through Sister Felicity’s room, and then later in the church … it was like the sound a camera makes … a warning that I’d seen something important, only I don’t know what.’ He ran a hand through his thick dark hair in a characteristic gesture of frustration. ‘Oh, I’m not making any sense.’

  ‘Let’s snuggle up on the sofa and you can let your mind drift. It’s been a long day.’

  They adjourned to the Chesterfield whose moss-green velvet matched the canopy of feathery poplars outside the window, their leaves new-minted in the rain that still fell steadily.

  The wine had helped Olivia to let go of the weight at her heart. She curled up next to Markham, her head fitting perfectly into the hollow of his neck. Together they listened to the downpour drumming rhythmically overhead.

  ‘I suppose you’ll go to Mass at St Cecilia’s tomorrow?’ Markham murmured into her hair.

  ‘I’d like to.’ She hesitated. ‘Unless you’d prefer that I didn’t.’

  ‘No, that’s fine. There’s going to be an appeal at each of the services tomorrow. I’ll be around, with Noakes and Doyle, taking statements.’

  Someone out there must know something, he thought, his arm tightening around Olivia. Failure wasn’t an option.

  He closed his eyes.

  ‘“On either side the river lie

  Long fields of barley and of rye,

  That clothe the wold and meet the sky …’”

  Olivia’s musical contralto crooning softly to him was the last thing Markham remembered before he fell asleep.

  At half past four on Sunday afternoon, the DI sat with Noakes and Doyle at a table in the St Cecilia Building behind the monastery.

  An unpretentious single-storey whitewashed structure, the parish centre looked like a cross between a cowshed and a Methodist chapel, though various flourishes pointed to its being a Catholic edifice. A granite crucifix surmounted two frosted lancet windows either side of a glassed-in arched doorway. On a bracket attached to the right-hand side of the doorway was a rather hideous statue of St Cecilia, her hands plastered together with the palm of martyrdom between them, showing the whites of her eyes like a half-wit (as Noakes put it). The linoleum-floored interior was equally unprepossessing, with a kind of raised up stage at the far end and a long serving hatch along the left-hand wall with a modern galley kitchen behind it. Plastic stacking chairs and tables lined the right-hand wall. This, Father Calvert had told them with pathetic pride, was the church’s ‘hospitality area’. Noakes and Doyle appearing distinctly underwhelmed, it fell to Markham to murmur polite appreciation of the facilities.

  ‘For God’s sake, make an effort, you two,’ he admonished his colleagues when the rector’s deputy was out of earshot. ‘And park the bigotry, Noakes. From the look on your face earlier, you might as well have been listening to the habits of a tribe of Polynesians.’

  ‘Well, it’s all a bit nasty, Guv, isn’t it?’ The DS sniffed.

  ‘Is it?’ Markham’s voice was cold.

  Noakes looked to Doyle for moral support.

  ‘Showy like,’ the young DC said with a shade of embarrassment. ‘All the caterwauling and incense…’ His voice faded away before the DI’s level stare.

  His feet apart like a grizzly bear, Noakes took up the cudgels again. ‘That sculpture thingy in the glass case. Downright morbid, if you ask me. An’ as for that pervy picture—’

  ‘Pervy picture! For crying out loud, it’s an allegory, you ignoramus!’

  The other sniffed again. ‘It’s not decent,’ he insisted stubbornly. ‘They should have a nice normal statue or summat.’

  Markham rolled his eyes. This discussion was going nowhere fast.

  ‘At any rate, kindly show St Cecilia’s clergy the appropriate respect.’

  ‘As if we’d do anything else.’ Noakes was affronted. ‘My Muriel thinks the world of Father Hassett, even if he is … er … a left footer.’

  ‘Looks like an Aztec,’ Doyle said.

  ‘I suppose he does,’ Markham replied, thinking of the rector’s high cheekbones and rangy gait.

  ‘Him and that Father Reynolds are the best of the bunch,’ the DS pronounced authoritatively. ‘They look the business. But the bad-tempered git with the sing-song voice, he just gabbled an’ glared the whole time at that little lad who was so nervous he kept dropping stuff.’

  ‘Hmm, Father Mathew Parker.’

  There was no denying he had seemed bored and irritated with the congregation. No doubt the priest was a cross the rector had to bear.

  ‘The alkie one—’

  ‘Father Murphy. Ex-alcoholic, Noakes.’

  ‘Jus’ look at the state of him. Can’t think why they let him out.’

  Noakes sniffed again. The maddening little noise made Markham want to strangle his subordinate. But at least he’d toned down his attire in deference to the Sabbath, the ice cream vendor’s outfit being replaced by almost respectable light-coloured flannels and bright red tie with fist-sized Windsor knot. No doubt there was Muriel to thank for that.

  At that moment, a small grey-haired woman, swamped by a cabbage rose shirt-waister with straggling hem, shyly interrupted them. Introducing herself as Eve Griffiths the cleaner, she whisked into the galley kitchen where she could presently be heard making tea and opening tins. In what seemed like no time at all, they were served with
mugs of steaming tea and an assortment of biscuits. The DS’s sniffs temporarily abated, from which Markham deduced that St Cecilia’s refreshments at least came up to scratch.

  ‘So, let’s review developments,’ he said.

  ‘There aren’t any really, sir.’ Doyle was glum.

  ‘Well, at least we’ve now established that Sister Felicity attended midday Mass in the church on Friday. Afterwards, she stayed sitting quietly at the back before going to pray at St Cecilia’s shrine. She was still there when the organist Nicholas Saddington left just before one o’clock. According to him, there wasn’t anyone else with her.’

  Swiftly, Markham reviewed his impressions of the organist. A florid, overbearing man whose bouffant pompadour failed to compensate for bulging frog’s eyes and flapping wattles, he had one of those ‘carrying’ voices and a manifest sense of superiority to the rest of the world. Certainly, the music was first-rate, but Markham felt no great enthusiasm for the performer. However, there was no reason to disbelieve his account. He clearly hadn’t considered the nun worth the effort of conversation. ‘The big “I am”, that one,’ was Noakes’s verdict on Saddington, an opinion with which the DI was inclined to agree. The organist’s waspishness about the rector, not unmixed with a certain apprehension (‘an acquired taste … very peculiar sense of humour’), hinted at some sort of personality clash or bust up. Markham knew where his own sympathies lay.

  ‘That little Sister Lucy was all over the place,’ Doyle said reflectively.

  ‘Poor little bint.’ Noakes was in charitable mode. ‘Wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ he said through a mouthful of chocolate Hobnob. ‘Seemed to think she might be next … all because of that St Columba business.’

  ‘Weird the way she talked as if she deserved it.’ The easy-going young DC sounded troubled. ‘I mean, sure there were bad things going down at that place … but she and Sister Felicity weren’t much more than kids themselves … and they were shit scared,’ he blushed, ‘sorry, sir … properly in awe of the principal bloke.’

  ‘“The past is another country.”’ Markham nodded in agreement. ‘Whistleblowing’s accepted practice nowadays, of course, but back then junior employees wouldn’t have dared put their heads above the parapet. The more so, given that they were young religious used to doing what they were told.’