Vow of Evil Page 11

  The late lamented Jim Pearson must’ve slept here next to his wife during the years of their happy but childless marriage. No doubt Mrs Pearson had still kept to her side of the bed long after its other occupant was ashes. Had she in her last extremity reached out a hand unavailingly for comfort and found only empty space?

  She turned abruptly to pull the drawers out further. There were neatly folded knickers, two bras, a pile of clean white handkerchiefs, a couple of cotton slips, an old style suspender belt and several pairs of stockings – the faint perfume of the rose-patterned lining paper came to her nostrils.

  The lower drawer held three sweaters, brightly coloured and obviously hand-knitted. Mrs Pearson would have felt cheered as she sat downstairs, her needles clicking in the somewhat garish colours of the wool.

  There were no books here except for the small, dog-eared album on the bedside table. Picking it up she leafed through it, seeing again the young trim Mrs Pearson in her flowered dresses with other, obvious members of the family. A studio photograph of a fair-haired little girl laughing at something behind the camera was entitled:

  My darling Glenda, aged four

  And nobody had known that darling Glenda would end up alone, regarded half seriously as the local witch, eyes fixed on some horror with the candles burning around her—

  ‘Inspector Mill! Sergeant Petrie!’

  ‘What is it?’

  It was Sergeant Petrie who asked the question, Alan Mill who reached the bedroom first.

  ‘I know why she lit the candles,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Why?’ Inspector Mill asked.

  ‘For protection against whatever she thought she’d seen in the churchyard,’ Sister Joan said. ‘She was steeped in superstition – hobgoblins, wicked fairies, ghouls – perhaps it amused her in the beginning but things like that, when dwelt upon, can fire the subconscious. She saw someone in the churchyard – some local idiot out to scare her perhaps – nobody believed she had actually seen anything. But she feared it, feared it more because her cat had disappeared! She sensed that real evil was coming near. That was why she got a lift up to the old postulancy and lit all the candles there. To keep evil away! And then she came back here and – something must have happened – something to terrify her – she lit candles in her bedroom to keep the evil out.’

  ‘Devil’s piss? Begging your pardon, Sister.’ Sergeant Petrie looked unconvinced.

  ‘“The devil hateth a mocking spirit”,’ she said. ‘Putting the asafoetida in the beeswax, and the garlic too – that was mocking him in a way, don’t you see? She lit the candles and then she felt safe so she put on her dressing-gown and lay on the bed. She probably felt a bit weak and breathless by then – she’d done a lot of walking the previous evening but at least she was safe. Except that she – wasn’t.’

  ‘The Devil came in, did he?’ Inspector Mill said.

  ‘I think someone came in, wearing gloves, sliding through the open window in the pantry, came up the stairs – she was frightened to death.’

  ‘It’s still not murder,’ Inspector Mill said.

  ‘Manslaughter then. At the very least breaking and entering?’

  ‘If that’s what actually happened you’d never get a jury to convict anyone of anything without a lot more proof.’

  ‘And there isn’t any.’

  ‘Only your fingerprints, Sister, and it’s highly unlikely that you dressed up as the Devil and landed in her bedroom.’

  ‘Well, of course I didn’t!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Any sign of a will?’ Sergeant Petrie asked.

  ‘Not so far. Perhaps she didn’t make one.’

  She looked at the flat top of the dressing-table on which the silver fob watch, the usual accoutrements of brush, comb and cologne were laid on a lace doily.

  ‘Was that watch there when you found her?’ Inspector Mill asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I only saw her. Why?’

  ‘The watch was on the dressing-table when we got here,’ Sergeant Petrie said. ‘If it was thieves who broke in they’d surely have taken it. That’s high grade silver that is. Old, too.’

  ‘No prints?’ Inspector Mill looked at him.

  ‘Nothing, sir. There were Mrs Pearson’s prints everywhere but that was to be expected.’

  ‘There’s an inscription on the back.’ Inspector Mill took up the heavy timepiece and read the inscribed word ‘James Pearson, a dear grandson.’

  ‘He kept it in memory,’ Sister Joan said softly. ‘I don’t suppose he ever wore it, but it was a link with his childhood.’

  ‘It opens at the back,’ Inspector Mill said, without expression. ‘Wait a moment. Yes!’

  He had extracted a tightly folded and small piece of paper.

  ‘What is it?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘What I hoped it might be.’ He was unfolding the paper very gingerly.

  ‘A will?’

  ‘Short and sweet. “I, Glenda Pearson, leave all I have to the Cats’ Protection League.” Signed and dated two years ago.’

  ‘No witnesses?’ Sergeant Petrie asked.

  ‘Two. Lord, but she couldn’t’ve found thinner paper if she’d tried! A Mr and Mrs Bowles. That must be the couple over on the housing estate who take in stray animals. I’ll get this to the local solicitor at once.’

  ‘So there really were no relatives at all.’ Sister Joan felt rather sad.

  ‘It seems not, but families can die out over two or three generations. Look at the Tarquins. Well, the Cats’ Protection League will be happy about this anyway.’

  He folded the paper up very carefully and slipped it into a small plastic folder.

  ‘We’ll test it for her prints just to be absolutely sure,’ he said, ‘but it looks perfectly genuine to me.’

  ‘But why not go to a solicitor?’ she queried.

  ‘Solicitors cost money. She was hanging on to her bit of cash. Shall we take a look in the other bedroom and the bathroom now?’

  The smaller bedroom overlooked the yard and the quay beyond. It contained a single bed, made up but obviously not slept in and an empty chest of drawers. On a small bedside table was a glass jug and tumbler and an empty biscuit tin.

  ‘The guest who never came,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Looks like it.’ Inspector Mill spoke soberly.

  The bathroom was clean and tidy and contained only toothbrush and a mint flavoured toothpaste, a box of tissues and a box filled with an assortment of lipsticks and foundation creams and a bottle of shampoo. In a linen closet let into the wall, clean sheets and towels and an eiderdown cover were neatly piled.

  ‘Not much in the way of occult secrets here!’ Inspector Mill commented.

  ‘She was a white witch if she was any sort of witch at all,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘You really believe in that stuff?’

  ‘I believe that good and evil are worked through human agency,’ she said soberly. ‘Mrs Pearson felt evil coming and tried to do something about it by herself. I wish she had gone to Father Malone.’

  ‘Looks as if there’s nothing more to find,’ Sergeant Petrie said.

  ‘Almost time for lunch. Will you have some with us, Sister? It’s all right! I already rang the convent. Mother David gave permission and she’ll see you at the funeral.’

  ‘She’s coming herself,’ Sister Joan confirmed. ‘I think she feels that Mrs Pearson will otherwise be short of mourners.’

  ‘And having a couple of Sisters there will quash any rumours about Mrs Pearson’s having spent her spare time riding on a broomstick. Sergeant Petrie and I were thinking of going to the local pub….’

  ‘Suits me fine,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I can have toasted cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee.’

  They went out together, Sergeant Petrie having carefully checked the doors and windows and secured them.

  ‘What about any food in the cupboards?’ she asked as they went down the path.

  ‘Mainly tins of cat food and several pints of milk
,’ Sergeant Petrie told her. ‘We thought the Anchor might suit for a bite to eat. No need to drive there.’

  ‘Fine.’ She nodded amiably.

  The Anchor fronted the quay and was one of the few public houses that had no jukebox and no one-armed bandit. Its furniture was oak and the horse brasses on the walls genuine. It was also the kind of place, well mannered and low key, where nobody was likely to make any salacious comment about a nun with two policemen.

  ‘Did your tenants arrive all right?’ Inspector Mill asked.

  ‘I met them at the station after I gave Constable Seldon my fingerprints.’

  ‘Which will of course be destroyed,’ Sergeant Petrie assured her.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t,’ she said with a grin, ‘since I wasn’t thinking of embarking on a life of crime!’

  ‘If you ever did, Sister,’ the Inspector told her, ‘I’d back you to get away with it every time.’

  ‘I hope I never feel tempted to put you to the test,’ she said with an answering smile before growing serious again. ‘Finding the will won’t mean the end of the investigation into Mrs Pearson’s death, will it?’

  ‘We can’t investigate a natural death,’ he objected.

  ‘There was a break-in.’

  ‘We’ve no evidence that anyone broke in except you,’ he pointed out. ‘Nothing stolen, nothing vandalized, no marks of violence – she died of a heart attack.’

  ‘Malkin didn’t!’ she interrupted indignantly. ‘He was drowned.’

  ‘That’s still on file, but I’m afraid you’ll find, if anyone ever finds out anything, that was sheer nastiness, Sister! Same with whoever lured Alice away, if anyone did—’

  ‘Or poisoned the lurcher,’ Sergeant Petrie put in.

  ‘And we’ve no proof that the incidents were connected.’

  ‘The dreadful sketches in the book from the postulancy—?’

  ‘Which you yourself put in the refuse bin,’ Inspector Mill reminded her.

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘You sound disappointed,’ he teased. ‘Does a nice juicy murder liven up the religious life then?’

  ‘No, Alan, it doesn’t!’ Her face flushed with indignation. ‘But when a crime does occur then I like to see it solved and someone brought to justice. It’s like weeds growing in a garden. A few small ones don’t even show but if they’re not rooted out they’ll spoil the whole garden.’

  ‘We’ve informed the various societies about the cat and the lurcher and the two fledgings that were killed,’ he said. ‘They deal with hundreds of worse cases every year. It isn’t a pretty little universe.’

  ‘I know,’ she conceded. ‘I just feel so frustrated at not being able to do anything. Oh, help, is that the time?’

  ‘We’d better make tracks for the funeral,’ he agreed.

  ‘Mother David told me at breakfast that she was coming with Sister Hilaria. Father Malone was picking them up in his car. I’d better get back to the van! Inspector, I hope you don’t feel that I’ve been wasting your time with all this.’

  ‘You haven’t,’ he said, giving her his warmest smile. ‘Any suspicious circumstance has to be reported and there are definite signs of vandalism around, so we’ll be keeping our eyes open.’

  ‘Thank you – oh, what do I owe—?’

  ‘This is on us – or rather the taxpayer,’ Sergeant Petrie assured her. ‘Well see you soon, Sister.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  She went out into the still October air.

  She had said nothing of the figure she had glimpsed the previous evening. It had been only a momentary flash of a head, a dark cape, and then the light of a powerful torch had blinded her. In any case the suggestion, which he had clearly made in fun, that she enjoyed the challenge of a murder investigation had stung a little.

  She drove sedately to the church, parked neatly and was in time to slide into the pew next to Sister Hilaria before the organ sounded its first sombre note and the coffin, with a single wreath of golden dahlias on it was borne up the aisle by four men from the regular congregation.

  Requiems, she thought, were always sad affairs but they could be rendered more tolerable by anecdotes about the departed, by friends talking over old times. This afternoon there was indeed a number of people in the church but she suspected that the presence of the police at the cottage had brought several of them out of curiosity.

  The Twenty-Third Psalm and the interdenominational ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ were sung by the thinly scattered congregation and the coffin was borne out on the shoulders of its bearers.

  ‘Mrs Pearson told Father several years ago that she wished to be cremated,’ Mother David said quietly to Sister Joan as they came out of the building. ‘Apparently she wished her ashes to be mingled with those of her late husband’s. Sister Hilaria and I will attend the short service at the Crrematorium and then Father Malone has kindly invited us to take tea with him before he gives us a lift home. You didn’t find anything?’

  ‘The police are convinced it was a natural death, Mother Prioress.’

  ‘Then that is something to be grateful for. We will see you later, Sister.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  Going along the path she glanced back and saw that Inspector Mill and Sergeant Petrie had joined the other two nuns and were talking quietly.

  Ought she to mention the cloaked figure of the previous evening? No, probably not. The incident was too nebulous to describe clearly and she hadn’t a shade of evidence.

  Like Mrs Pearson, she thought suddenly. The old lady had spoken of a figure capering by a grave, had seen silver horns – a mask of some kind obviously. She hadn’t mentioned a cape.

  It would do no harm, she thought, climbing up into the van, to have a quick look around the enclosure walls before she continued on into the convent proper.

  When she reached the moor she was startled by a loud honking as a car overtook her, driving so fast that she was forced on to the rough grass.

  ‘Hey, be careful!’

  Impossible to display the patience of a saint when there were dangerous drivers around.

  To her surprise, the car, a neat saloon, pulled up just ahead of her with a squeal of brakes and a young girl emerged, striding back towards the van. Her slim figure was enhanced by a high-necked black sweater and black drainpipe trousers that clung to impossibly long legs.

  ‘You’re a nun!’ she said.

  ‘Almost a dead nun,’ Sister Joan said scathingly. ‘You were driving like a maniac! This really isn’t a properly tarmacked—’

  ‘Spare the lecture!’ The girl tossed back a thick strand of gleaming red hair. ‘Nobody tells me how to drive! I’m looking for a place called the postulancy – my mum is renting it.’

  ‘Your mother being—?’

  ‘Mrs Winifred Roye.’

  ‘And you are—?’

  ‘Kit Roye. Which way is it?’

  ‘If you follow me’ – Sister Joan put definite emphasis on the word follow – ‘then I happen to be passing it.’

  ‘Cool! And who are you?’

  ‘I’m Sister Joan,’ she said.

  ‘Of course, praying Marys don’t have surnames, do they?’

  ‘If you’re studying bad manners,’ Sister Joan said, ‘then you ought to pass first grade with flying colours.’

  The girl stared at her for a moment, then laughed.

  ‘Hey! you’ve a neat tongue!’ she said. ‘I’ll follow you then. This is a back of beyond kind of place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Back of beyond is what we happen to like,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I wasn’t aware there were any more of you.’

  ‘Ah! you’ve met Henry, the eternal guest and hanger-on!’ The girl laughed again. ‘I’m only here for a couple of weeks. I’ve brought the car since they don’t have transport.’

  And thank the Lord for that, Sister Joan thought uncharitably, because now we won’t have them cluttering up our chapel.

  It was such an ungra
cious thought that she said a hasty mea culpa and then audibly invited the newcomer to follow her.

  It was no more than ten minutes before they reached the gate. Sister Joan drew up and indicated the building beyond.

  ‘They’ll still be sorting things out, I daresay,’ she said, putting her head out of the van window.

  ‘Thanks!’

  Kit Roye, drawing up behind her, honked the horn loudly again.

  ‘Kit, pet! Is that you?’

  The overblown figure waddled to the gate, scarf tied round head, mop in hand.

  ‘No, Mum, it’s Lady Godiva!’ Kit said, jumping out of the car and rushing to embrace her parent. ‘I’ve brought the car. Neat, isn’t she?’

  ‘Bit small. Not much leg room,’ Mrs Roye said, emerging to nod briefly to Sister Joan and examine the vehicle. ‘Won’t fit us all.’

  ‘It will if Ian runs behind,’ Kit said brightly.

  ‘Now don’t you start on Ian!’ Mrs Roye began.

  ‘Start on him? I wouldn’t even finish him for pudding!’ Kit cried.

  The two of them hugged again, their laughter splintering the peace of the afternoon.

  ‘Is there anything we can do for you, Sister?’ Mrs Roye enquired, breaking away from her daughter.

  ‘No, no, thank you,’ Sister Joan said hastily. ‘Good afternoon.’

  Driving on, she decided any examination of the place where she had seen the cloaked figure would have to wait until there were no witnesses.

  TEN

  ‘How are the drawings coming on, Sister?’ Sister Dorothy, making an inventory of library books, looked up as Sister Joan came from the storeroom.

  ‘Not too badly, thank you, Sister. I’ve reached St David but he’s proving a bit of a problem,’ she confessed. ‘I know he’s patron of Wales, but real information about him does seem to be a bit scanty save that he was a rabid teetotaller and that is hardly likely to excite eight-year-old kids.’