Vow of Evil Page 14

  ‘We don’t know for sure that Mr Lee’s dog was poisoned deliberately and we certainly don’t know it had any connection with the recent tragic event,’ Sister Dorothy said.

  ‘Compassion for the sinner,’ Sister Hilaria said, ‘does not mean condoning the sin.’

  ‘Which sums up the problem nicely. One must try to separate the two,’ Mother David agreed. ‘Sister Joan, have you anything to contribute to the discussion?’

  She looked at her encouragingly.

  ‘I think it’s almost impossible to hate the sin and love the sinner,’ Sister Joan said bluntly.

  ‘Which is why we are in the religious life,’ Sister Hilaria mused. ‘We must accomplish the almost impossible. Personally I have always had a certain sympathy for King Herod.’

  ‘Sister, you can’t mean that!’ Sister Marie exclaimed.

  ‘Not that I condone his actions,’ Sister Hilaria allowed, ‘but he had a very difficult wife and stepdaughter.’

  ‘So!’ Mother David clapped her hands. ‘Shall we leave it there for today? The vows we will soon be renewing require private meditation,’ she continued. There was still an hour before chapel. Sister Joan, feeling she had somehow let the side down by her inattention, repaired to the stable to give Lilith her rub down and feed.

  Smoothing the silky mane it occurred to her that the pony was getting on in years. Lilith had been left over when the convent acquired the Tarquin property and must be elderly by now. When she went there would be small excuse for keeping a horse especially when there was the van in which to get down into town for any necessary business. The thought saddened her. Lilith, like Alice, had become part of the community.

  A slight cough behind made her jump slightly.

  As she turned, Ian Lurgan, leaning against the stable door, said ‘Sorry, Sister Joan. Didn’t mean to frighten you!’

  ‘Then you shouldn’t creep up on people!’ she said sharply.

  ‘I always walk softly, Sister. Very light on my feet.’

  ‘And you’re not supposed to be here anyway. What do you want?’

  ‘Well, actually—’ He rubbed his hand down his jeans with a little rasping sound. ‘Actually to apologize. I think I might’ve spoken out of turn back there. No offence taken?’

  He held out his hand.

  ‘Let’s leave it then,’ Sister Joan said, not taking the hand.

  ‘It’s just I get sick of being made a laughing stock,’ he said, letting his hand drop to his side. ‘My own dad warned me that Dawn was a bit of a tart – a lot of a tart if you’ll pardon the expression. And her family never took to me. Think I’m a bit of a dead loss all round. It’s my nerves you see. Always was nervy since I was a kid. Brought up in Homes. Not wanted.’

  ‘Mr Lurgan, you’re still on convent property,’ Sister Joan said coldly. ‘If you have personal problems you must speak to someone professional.’

  ‘I might get round to doing that. As long as you’re not offended by my plain speaking?’

  But everything about him offended her, she thought. The sandy hair, the pale eyes between their sparse lashes, the sinuous twist of his narrow shoulders as he levered himself from the stable door.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said, as civilly as she could muster, ‘I really do have work to do. I can only repeat that you must seek some outside help. None of us is a trained counseller. Good day.’

  ‘I like horses. Like animals in general.’

  He made no move to leave.

  ‘I’m glad you do.’

  ‘You’ve got a dog. I saw it running about in the grounds. I’d like to have a dog.’

  ‘You would have to ask Mother David. I don’t know if pets are permitted within the terms of the rental contract.’

  ‘If that policewoman had had a dog she might not have been murdered.’

  ‘Possibly. I really don’t know.’

  ‘She was very likely a waste of space anyway,’ he said moodily, beginning to back away slightly. ‘Most women are a waste of space. Take Winnie, my mother-in-law—’

  ‘You take her, Mr Lurgan!’ Sister Joan, finally losing patience, shut and locked the door against which he had recently been leaning and walked away, heading for the kitchen door.

  She was half afraid that he would follow her but when she glanced round he had gone as silently as he had come.

  ‘Was that one of the tenants you were talking to in the yard?’ Sister Marie enquired.

  ‘The son-in-law, Ian Lurgan. I told him he was out of bounds but he doesn’t seem to hear what one says.’

  ‘Probably fascinated because you’re a nun,’ Sister Marie said.

  ‘Then he’d better get unfascinated very quickly.’

  ‘You don’t like him?’

  ‘I don’t know him. To be honest I don’t particularly want to know any of them,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘That’s not like you, Sister.’ There was faint disappointment in the younger woman’s voice.

  ‘I’m not sure what is like me,’ Sister Joan said. ‘All I know is that there’s something terribly creepy about him. Do you need any help?’

  ‘All done and dusted.’

  ‘I’ll go and take off my jeans before chapel.’

  She went into the kitchen cell and closed the door, angry with herself for suddenly feeling so out of sorts and edgy.

  Compassion, she thought, pulling down her jeans and smoothing the skirt of her grey habit, wasn’t an easy virtue to practise.

  ‘When you have a problem you cannot solve,’ her own novice mistress had advised, ‘then give it to God.’

  Sister Joan knelt briefly before the plain wooden cross that comprised the only decoration in every cell.

  ‘You deal with it then,’ she said aloud, blessed herself hastily and joined the others as they made their way into chapel.

  ‘Sister Joan.’ Mother David detained her as they were coming out.

  ‘Yes, Mother Prioress.’

  ‘You know Police Constable Seldon was not a Catholic, so we are not obliged to attend her funeral or send a representative,’ Mother David said. ‘In fact I would have expected her to be buried in her home town, but her mother decided that since she chose to come here, though sadly for so brief a time, the interment will be here. I feel that it would be a nice gesture if someone from here was to go. If you feel inclined—? It is your own decision.’

  ‘I hardly knew her at all,’ Sister Joan said. ‘However – yes, of course I’ll go. You haven’t heard—’

  ‘How the investigation is proceeding? No, but if Inspector Mill requires your assistance then naturally you have my permission.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother.’

  She went upstairs to the refectory in a slightly happier mood.

  ‘Sister Joan, there are some cheese tarts left over.’ Sister Marie, clearing away before recreation, detained her.

  ‘I can’t think why. They were delicious,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Well, I like to make a few extra in case Luther comes around,’ Sister Marie confessed. ‘He was in the garden earlier on.’

  ‘I’ll take some to him before I join you,’ Sister Joan said.

  She slipped out and round into the garden, calling as she did so.

  ‘Luther? Luther, are you there?’

  It was dark enough to require a torch. Even as she hesitated, Luther answered her. ‘Over here, Sister Joan! Just doing a lot of clearing up. We ought to have a bonfire.’

  ‘That’s Sister Martha’s department. Sister Marie baked you some cheese tarts.’

  ‘Lovely cheesy things she makes,’ he commented, laying down his spade and approaching. ‘Sister! Stand still!’

  ‘What is it?’ She teetered slightly, bag of tarts in her hand.

  ‘There’s one of them big slugs under your foot almost.’

  He loped forward, stooped and picked up the slug, its mucus-covered body glistening whitely.

  ‘Yuck! I can’t stand them!’ she said shiveringly.

  ‘Not hi
s fault he’s a slug,’ Luther said stolidly, placing the squirming creature out of harm’s way. ‘Mind you, I’d not make a pet of him neither.’

  It was, she thought, an answer of sorts.

  TWELVE

  There was a considerable crowd at the funeral, probably because there was now a murder enquiry pending since Melanie Seldon had been too short a time in the town to have made any close friends.

  Sister Joan, emerging after the simple Protestant service, stood aside as the coffin was borne from the church. Police officers from the Plymouth Force swelled the small police contingent from the town. In full uniform with a black band on his arm, Inspector Mill looked grave and remote. She guessed there would be plain-clothes men in the crowd, watching for anyone suspicious, anyone who, in the time-honoured tradition of killers, had come secretly to gloat.

  She recognized Mrs Seldon more by instinct than anything else. The woman who had lost two children to unnatural death wore the traditional black to which she had added a red scarf as if to proclaim that she was not yet beaten by events. She had the same colour hair as her daughter, drawn back from a colourless face and tied with black ribbon at the nape of her neck. There was no sign of anyone who might’ve been Melanie’s father.

  There was obviously going to be no funeral repast. Mrs Seldon dropped a white rose on to the coffin, turned away and stood for a moment with head bowed and then straightened herself and moved proudly away, the inspector at her side.

  ‘Sister Joan, may I introduce Mrs Seldon?’ He paused where she was standing. ‘Mrs Seldon, Sister Joan met your daughter briefly. In the past she has been of great assistance to me in clearing up various cases. If you would like to come into the vicarage, the Reverend Mason has very kindly placed a room at our disposal.’

  ‘You knew Melanie?’ There was a note of eagerness in her voice.

  ‘I met her very briefly on a couple of occasions,’ Sister Joan said. ‘She took my fingerprints for the purposes of elimination.’

  ‘She was always most conscientious in her work,’ Mrs Seldon said with a kind of dreary pride. ‘If she had stayed in Plymouth she would have risen rapidly through the ranks. But she insisted on being transferred here.’

  ‘Do you know why?’ Sister Joan asked, as they began to walk up the path.

  ‘She wasn’t one to confide readily in people,’ Mrs Seldon said. ‘Ever since—’ She hesitated for a moment, biting her lip, then went on, ‘Perhaps you know that my son, Melanie’s step-brother – half-brother I ought to say – committed suicide?’

  ‘Yes, I heard about that.’

  They were entering the rectory where a housekeeper ushered them into a study where tea and sandwiches were laid on a central table.

  ‘Simon and Melanie were devoted,’ Mrs Seldon said, accepting a cup of tea but shaking her head to the sandwiches. ‘He was a quiet boy, sensitive, apt to be bullied you know, but Melanie always looked out for him. Always!’

  ‘But things went wrong?’ Asking the question Sister Joan noticed that Inspector Mill had seated himself slightly out of eye contact.

  ‘He got in with the wrong type of people,’ Mrs Seldon said. ‘I don’t mean criminal or anything like that! Rather silly young people who liked to dress up as Goths – stringy black hair and black nail varnish and purple eyeshadow and stuff like that – the boys as well as the girls. Not that Simon ever did! We wouldn’t’ve allowed that, but he seemed fascinated by them, used to skip school and hang round the amusement arcade near the pier. His grades began to suffer.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else unusual at that time?’ Sister Joan asked.

  ‘Oh, there was an outbreak of vandalism in the city,’ Mrs Seldon said. ‘Not unusual these days anywhere. Nothing too serious at first, just rude words chalked on boards, some cats went missing too if I recall – but I’m sure Simon had nothing to do with that. He liked animals.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘He smoked cannabis once. He admitted it to me and said that it made him feel sick. You don’t think that he was actually involved in selling? No, he would never have done that. Never!’

  ‘But the wood where he – where he was found was used by the druggies?’

  ‘It’s just a bit of a wood really,’ Mrs Seldon said. ‘I mean it used to be a lovely spot for picnics in the summer. There were bluebells there too in the spring. A carpet of blue. Then some of the trees got some kind of fungal disease and people started dumping their rubbish.’

  ‘And Simon still went there?’

  ‘To see his mates he said, but they weren’t boys I knew. He had stopped meeting the boys he knew, lost interest in football – he used to love football. Sister – Joan, is it? Yes, Sister Joan, do you think that whoever killed Melanie had something to do with Simon’s death?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Sister Joan said. ‘But I think it possible that your daughter might’ve been following some plan of her own when she transferred down here.’

  ‘It was an overnight thing,’ Mrs Seldon said. ‘She never told me what was in her mind. Then she said she was moving into Cornwall, that she thought she might like a change to a smaller place.’

  ‘Did you hear from her after she moved?’

  ‘She rang a couple of times just to say she had a nice place to stay and that the work at the station was very interesting.’

  ‘I see. Thank you.’ Sister Joan glanced at Inspector Mill.

  ‘This has been a terrible ordeal for you,’ he said, rising and coming to take a nearer chair.

  ‘It hasn’t quite sunk in yet,’ she confessed.

  ‘Nothing in any diaries or papers she left at home that might offer some clue?’

  ‘I haven’t had chance to look properly yet. Melanie didn’t keep a diary as far as I know. Or she might have destroyed them or brought them with her. She is – was a grown woman.’

  ‘Boy friends?’

  ‘Now and then. She wasn’t the kind who went round in a crowd. She was always a bit of a loner – serious-minded.’

  ‘The autopsy,’ he said carefully, ‘showed that she was still a virgin.’

  ‘So she wasn’t—?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a comfort,’ Mrs Seldon said on a long sigh. ‘She always used to say that she was saving herself for the right man to come along. I’m thankful it wasn’t—’ She paused, a series of small dry sobs breaking from her.

  ‘You ought to try to eat something,’ Sister Joan said gently.

  ‘I have to catch my train.’ She had controlled herself again and was beginning to rise.

  ‘I’ve arranged for a car to take you back to Plymouth. The police officers who came—’

  ‘Offered to bring me,’ she nodded, ‘but I needed a space to be alone, to compose myself. If they have space—’

  ‘If you’d like to come with me?’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector Mill.’ She turned and forced a watery smile in Sister Joan’s direction. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be more help.’

  ‘Again, my condolences,’ Sister Joan said gravely.

  This was not a moment for facile consolation.

  ‘Back in a moment,’ Alan Mill said.

  Sister Joan nodded, standing by the window to watch them as they walked down the path to the car and a knot of waiting officers.

  Melanie Seldon, she mused, had come down into Cornwall for a specific purpose and it was almost certainly connected with the suicide of her half-brother. But why here? Why now? And why pursue whatever she had in mind without recourse to the proper authorities.

  ‘Nice lady.’ Inspector Mill re-entered.

  ‘Brave, too. Alan, is there any further word from the autopsy?’

  ‘She was killed in her bedsit,’ he said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Monday or Tuesday night. She had a day off on Tuesday but nobody seems to have seen her in town. She hadn’t asked for extra leave which is why we were rather put out at the note that was left.’

  ‘Which she neither wrote nor d
elivered.’

  He nodded, sinking into a chair, nodding towards the table.

  ‘Do us a favour and pour out a couple of cups of tea,’ he said.

  ‘Her bedsit was very neat and tidy.’ She poured tea carefully.

  ‘Someone had obviously cleaned it up, though as I say there wouldn’t have been much blood. They took the cover off the mattress and turned it. We found a bloodstain – her blood – on the underside.’

  ‘She was already in bed then? How did they – he get in?’

  ‘A child could’ve opened that door,’ he said. ‘A credit card and a bit of jiggery-pokery and you can get into the shop and up to the first floor.’

  ‘Surely there’s a burglar alarm? There are some valuable—’

  ‘The old fellow who runs the shop has been off all week with a cold. He hasn’t been open for business at all. He rang Constable Seldon on her mobile and asked her to set the alarm for him. That was on Monday afternoon. She was in the office then, round about lunchtime so she’d’ve been alone.’

  ‘And she didn’t set it? Why not?’

  He shrugged tiredly.

  ‘Perhaps she forgot. I admit that seems unlikely since she struck me as a conscientious young woman, but it’s possible if she had other things on her mind.’

  ‘The figure I saw climbing over the wall,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘Thought you saw.’

  ‘Thought I saw – no, I did see it. I was blinded by the torch, that’s all. It could have been her.’

  ‘Then what the blazes was she doing trespassing in the convent grounds after dark?’ he queried.

  ‘I don’t know. It was a black cloak, with a hood.’

  ‘Sounds exactly like the one she was wrapped in.’

  ‘And her outer garments. When she was taken from the river she was only wearing some undergarments under the cloak.’

  ‘If she was killed late Monday night, which I feel is the more likely time,’ he said slowly, ‘she must have just got home. She took off her uniform.’

  ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘Not a trace. If we came across that it would be a valuable lead. Anyway she took off her uniform and maybe she lay down on the bed. If she’d just been climbing walls and speeding across the moor she’d be out of breath at the least. She might’ve dozed off.’