Vow of Evil Read online

  It would be a treat to use her talent again – talent and not genius – she reminded herself. There were times when between carrying out odd jobs, driving into town, exercising Lilith, she wondered exactly what function she might be said to play in the life of the Order.

  She worked away steadily with the bleach and the paint brush relieved to find that the disgusting little sketches had been only lightly sketched in. Father Malone would certainly be relieved though she personally doubted if he would ever be required to render them up for the inspection of Rome!

  After lunch, as they rose from the table, Sister Perpetua said, ‘What’s all this about a cat? Sister Katherine told me that one was lost.’

  ‘An elderly lady in the town – a Mrs Pearson – has lost her cat and is rather distressed about it,’ Sister Joan said.

  ‘The animals locally do seem to be having rather a bad time of it,’ Sister Dorothy remarked, frowning slightly. ‘First Alice wanders away and hurts her paw, and then someone mentioned that one of Padraic Lee’s lurchers had been poisoned—’

  ‘And those late fledgings I was telling you about,’ Sister Martha said, voice still husky with cold, ‘seem to have taken wing and flown. I do pray they had the strength to manage the long migration.’

  ‘And now a cat has gone missing,’ Sister Dorothy said. ‘Do we know this Mrs Pearson, Sister Joan?’

  ‘She’s a widow – her husband died – ten years ago I believe. No children, so her cat is probably her constant companion. I believe she’s one of Father Malone’s parishioners.’

  ‘It always fills me with amazement,’ Sister Gabrielle said, ‘to realize how knowledgeable Sister Joan is about the local laity!’

  ‘Someone has to keep us in touch with the outside world,’ Sister Dorothy said, unexpectedly defensive.

  ‘Surely we are here to escape from the outside world,’ Sister Mary Concepta said, in her gentle, elderly voice. ‘For my own part I thank God for the security of the religious life every day!’

  ‘But you’ve been here for centuries!’ Sister Marie said tactlessly.

  ‘Not precisely centuries, Sister dear.’ The old lady’s blue eyes were faintly reproving. ‘I entered the religious life in 1932. This Order had not then been founded of course, but I joined the Carmelites. I was with them for nearly twenty years but the austerity of the Rule was too much for my health. So I received permission to transfer.’

  ‘Didn’t I read somewhere that you also entered in that year?’ Sister Katherine enquired of Sister Gabrielle.

  ‘The Sisters of Mercy,’ Sister Gabrielle said. ‘I transferred to the Daughters of Compassion as soon as Rome gave permission.’

  ‘So Carmel and the Sisters of Mercy lost two fine sisters and we gained two,’ Sister Hilaria said.

  ‘Mind you,’ Sister Gabrielle said with a thump of her stick, ‘if I’d known I’d spend my declining years cooped up in the infirmary with Mary Concepta here and a dog called Alice I might’ve thought twice about it!’

  It obviously being meant as a joke they all laughed.

  ‘I think,’ said Mother David, ‘we had better all get back to our duties.’

  Which meant an afternoon working with the bleach and the little paintbrush, Sister Joan thought. She was anxious to get on with the task so that she could the sooner start on the illustrations. She had taken a few moments to glance through the little pile of carefully typed booklets before going to lunch and been pleasurably surprised. Mother David had written in a clear, lively style with pleasant little touches of humour that would appeal to young children, and the touches of piety weren’t laid on with too heavy a hand.

  This being Saturday, benediction would be followed by general confession. She reminded herself to mention the extra cups of tea and after carefully laying the documents she had repaired in a drawer where they could dry out of sight she went downstairs in time to see Sister Marie on her way up.

  ‘Did you want me, Sister?’ she asked.

  ‘Lilith is making a bit of a fuss in her stable,’ Sister Marie said. ‘Mother David asks if you have time to exercise her.’

  On Saturdays there was no hour of religious studies since with the greneral confession looming, the sisters were to spend time contemplating their faults and the faults of their companions – not a process she enjoyed – and in writing up their spiritual diaries. Exercising a restless pony was not exactly in that category. On the other hand the wind had dropped and the dusk was held at bay by a marvellous sunset.

  ‘I’ll take her out at once,’ she said. ‘Thank you for telling me, Sister Marie.’

  In her cell she wriggled into the jeans she had been given leave to wear when on horseback, pulled on her cloak and went out. Alice set up a hopeful whine but she hardened her heart, shut the kitchen door and went to the stable.

  It took only a few minutes to saddle the pony and mount, Lilith immediately straining forward in her lust for exercise.

  ‘Let’s blow the cobwebs out, old girl!’ Sister Joan said. She was clear of the convent grounds and trotting across the open moorland within a few moments more. She had set her course westward into the sunset with the intention of fulfilling her promise to visit the Romany camp.

  The camp itself occupied level ground next to a river that burbled down from the higher ground and provided water for the occupants of the vardos and lorries pitched roughly in a semicircle.

  Already Padraic was striding to meet her, his dark face set in a look of intense concentration.

  ‘Thought you might come, Sister.’ He helped her down and stood back regarding her with a definite frown.

  ‘You’re cross because I haven’t been over for a while? I do have other duties,’ she began.

  ‘It’s not you that troubles me, Sister,’ he said.

  ‘Not Tabitha and Ed—?’

  ‘Nay!’ His face broke into an involuntary smile. ‘I tell you, Sister, them girls be a real blessing to me! Getting on fine at school too. Mind, they’d you to teach them proper before the damned council closed the little school!’

  ‘Thus giving Brother Cuthbert a place to stay,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Aye, that’s true, right enough.’

  ‘And I was sorry to hear about your dog. It was poison?’

  ‘Fed to the poor beast by someone. I’d like to feed them the same when I catch ’em,’ he said darkly. ‘Old Nell were in the way of wandering a bit – too old for the rabbiting but a good old maid for all that. No, someone gave her summat – arsenic most like the vet told me. T’other dog’s being kept close to my vardo till they find the one killed Nell.’

  ‘Well, as long as the rest of you are all right—’ she began.

  ‘Things ain’t right,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s evil come.’

  ‘Oh, but surely—’

  ‘Evil,’ he repeated. ‘Old Sara feels it. “Keep your girls close when they’m not in school” old Sarah said. I was coming over soon with fish for your larder but the fishing went clean out of my head when I saw the poor animal.’

  ‘Your dog?’

  ‘Nay, a cat. Not that I’ve much use for cats,’ he admitted. ‘Companions for witches if you ask me! But this one was a fine, sleek beast—’

  ‘A tawny cat?’

  ‘Aye, marked like a tiger. Drowned dead in the river just beyond the old cemetery. Tied to a bag of stones and tossed in I reckon. I landed it with my rod – thought it were a salmon or summat until I jerked it clear of the water. Bloody incomers!’

  ‘Was there – did it have a collar on?’ She had a vague recollection of one.

  ‘Aye, a leather one with M on it in brass or some shiny metal. Anyways I gave it a decent burial.’

  ‘I’m sure you did the right thing,’ Sister Joan said vaguely. ‘If you’ll excuse me now I have to get on!’

  Blindly she turned, gripping the reins, hearing her own voice crack with misery.

  ‘Sister Joan—?’

  ‘Another time, Padraic. Any fish will be very welcome!�
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  She left him standing in perplexity and swerved eastward, setting Lilith at a gallop over the moor.

  Lights were casting neon glares over portions of the narrow streets as she slowed to a canter and then a trot. The drowned cat had to be Malkin. It had to be! But why would anyone want to do something so cruel to a harmless animal? And if Mrs Pearson had heard about it, what might that do to her state of mind?

  This time she went to the front door of the cottage and rapped sharply with the knocker, leaving her mount loosely tethered to the iron railings that fenced off the minute front garden from the road.

  There was no answer but she could see light coming from an upper window. Mrs Pearson might be ill, shocked by the loss of her pet, or worrying herself sick about it if she hadn’t heard the news.

  She turned and ran down the back alley, pushed open the yard door and went across to the back door. Bolted! What had Mrs Pearson said about the pantry window? She left it open for Malkin to go in and out.

  The window was open. She pushed up the sash and legged it over the sill, pushed open the door facing her and found herself in the kitchen.

  ‘Mrs Pearson! Don’t be alarmed! It’s only me, Sister Jo—!’

  She could smell the sickly sweet, acrid fumes of the candles as she ran up the narrow stairs and flung open the first door she came upon. Candles, livid green and dull black, set in saucers and makeshift sconces were burning in the bedroom, one on the window sill, one on the dressing-table, one at each side of the double bed on which Mrs Pearson lay.

  She was wearing a dressing-gown as bright as her knitted coat and her eyes were open, filmed over slightly but open. There was, at first horrified glance, no way to determine exactly how she had died.

  SIX

  There was also no point in touching her, in closing those wide blurred eyes, in covering the stark white face with its partly open mouth.

  Nobody at the convent possessed a mobile phone. Sister Dorothy when prioress had made her feelings quite clear on that point.

  ‘Unless one is a policeman or a doctor there is absolutely no necessity for anyone to be constantly at anyone else’s beck and call. These machines are a gross invasion of privacy – useful possibly on occasions of extreme emergency, but otherwise simply an excuse to spread gossip as fast as possible.’

  At this moment Sister Joan wished she had one. The smell of the candles was making her feel sick and the staring eyes seemed when she glanced again to have hardened in their fixed regard.

  She backed slowly towards the door, pulled it wider with one hand behind her, went down the narrow stairs and into the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, a cup and saucer upended on the draining board, a tea towel folded on a chair on top of a low pile of newspapers.

  It would be stupid to go out through the pantry window and thus destroy further traces of whoever had made their entrance that way before her own arrival. She slid the bolt back on the back door and went across the little yard and into the alley. There was a telephone kiosk further along where the alley joined the street.

  The telephone itself had been wrenched out and hung limply at the end of its cord. Torn up bits of the directory littered the floor.

  Vandals! She bit back an exclamation that would certainly have shocked her fellow religious and stood irresolutely for a moment. She could of course walk to the station which was only a couple of streets away but distaste for leaving Lilith tethered outside the cottage determined a different course of action. If anyone thought it peculiar to see a nun riding a pony through the streets just as dusk was threatening they must lead far too sheltered a life.

  She was filling her head with irrelevancies because the image of the old lady, of those squat, ridged candles, of the open eyes, had joined into a single picture that disfigured the landscape of her mind.

  ‘’Evening, Sister. We don’t often see you out after tea time.’

  ‘Sergeant Petrie!’

  His measured tread, his cheerful voice, the familiar uniform of the law banished horror. She went across to him swiftly.

  ‘Sergeant, do you have a mobile phone? – oh, but of course you have!’

  ‘What’s wrong, Sister?’

  ‘I’ve just found Mrs Pearson dead,’ she said rapidly. ‘She’s lying on her bed and – something terrible has happened to her. Can you get hold of something to—?’

  For some insane reason she had been going to say ‘cover her eyes’.

  ‘Inspector Mill is still in his office, catching up on a bit of paperwork,’ Sergeant Petrie said. ‘You sit here on this bit of wall and I’ll get through to him. You’re sure she’s dead?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘And not – natural?’

  ‘Not natural,’ she repeated, her voice shaking. Despite her cloak she felt cold and shivery.

  He stepped a few paces away and spoke into his mobile. Perched on a bit of broken wall she controlled her shivering with an effort.

  ‘Inspector Mill says can you wait here while he rings the convent?’ Sergeant Petrie was asking. ‘Seeing as you found the body and all.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She answered quietly, the thudding of her heart reverting to its normal regular rhythm. She had seen death before in more shocking guises but there had been an almost palpable sense of horror in that candlelit room.

  A sudden plaintive whinny roused her from her thoughts.

  ‘Excuse me, I’d better see to Lilith,’ she said, rising and making her way along the road to the front gate.

  ‘You came to see Mrs Pearson then?’ Sergeant Petrie said.

  ‘On impulse. I went over to the camp and met Padraic who told me that he’d found a cat – a tawny cat – drowned in the river. I guessed it was Malkin, Mrs Pearson’s pet, when he told me that it had on a collar with the initial M on it. I was out exercising Lilith so I decided to ride into town and break the news to her myself.’

  ‘And the front door was open?’

  ‘No. At first I thought she might be out, still looking for Malkin, and then I saw the bedroom was illuminated so I – well, I climbed in through the pantry window. She always left it open for her cat.’

  She flushed slightly as the possible charge of trespass flashed into her mind.

  ‘And went upstairs,’ Sergeant Petrie said without emphasis.

  ‘Yes. I felt – suddenly uneasy. It was most irregular of me.’

  ‘Here comes the inspector,’ he said, as a car nosed into the street. ‘I’ll just quickly fill him in on what you’ve told me.’

  Alan Mill alighted from the car and stood for a moment or two, dark head bent as he listened intently.

  ‘You’ve no keys to the house, Sister?’ His tone was formal.

  ‘Sorry about the pantry window,’ she muttered.

  ‘An unconventional means of entry but you were worried. Can we get in through the back door, Petrie?’

  ‘I came out through the back door,’ she volunteered. ‘It’s closed but not locked. It was bolted before.’

  ‘It was bolted before?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right, well go in that way. I rang the hospital. They’re sending someone down who, I hope, can tell us whether we need to treat it as a police matter.’

  ‘But surely—’ she began.

  ‘Old ladies have been known to fall asleep and not wake up again,’ he said briefly, leading the way down the alley. ‘Unless she’s been under medical supervision very recently there’ll have to be a post-mortem of course. What did you touch, Sister?’

  ‘The front railing where I tethered Lilith, the front door knocker. I could see light coming from the upper front window and that’s why I became slightly concerned. I went round, opened the door leading into the alley, knocked on the back door and then remembered she left the pantry window open for her cat to go in and out.’

  ‘If it’s necessary we can take your prints,’ he said. ‘Right! We’d better check first that she is—’

  ‘She is quite certainly dead,’ Siste
r Joan said levelly.

  ‘In the front bedroom. Right! Yes, come with us.’

  He stood aside and she went as briskly as her reluctance would allow up the stairs.

  ‘Was the door open when you came upstairs?’ he enquired.

  ‘Closed – yes, closed. I left it open when I came out again.’

  ‘Odd smell!’ Sergeant Petrie commented. ‘She didn’t use hash by any chance?’

  ‘I’d think it very unlikely.’

  She tried to speak lightly, to avoid the staring eyes of the small figure in the brightly patterned dressing-gown on the bed, head propped on its pillow.

  Both policemen had slipped on transparent gloves. She stood by the door watching as Alan Mill went over to the bed, bent to listen, shook his head slightly as he straightened up again.

  ‘Nothing on her lips, no corrosion,’ he said. ‘The doctor will be able to tell us more.’

  He moved to lift a corner of the dressing-gown.

  ‘Almost fully dressed.’ He let the flap of the gown fall into place again. ‘Slip and skirt, stockings, no shoes.’

  ‘Shoes are here, sir.’ Sergeant Petrie pointed to a pair set neatly side by side

  ‘It looks as if she came upstairs for a lie down,’ Alan Mill said. ‘You hadn’t been in this room before, Sister?’

  ‘I only visited her once,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Well, not exactly visited. I came down to see the place where you found Alice tied up. Then I realized that Mrs Pearson, the old lady who reported she’d seen the Devil, lived here. I was wondering whether or not to call – sometimes lonely people imagine things you know – and then the cat – Malkin – jumped out at me and she came out and invited me in – through the kitchen into the sitting-room. I stayed for a cup of tea and then I left.’

  ‘What impression did you get?’ He asked it as seriously as if she’d been a colleague.

  ‘That she read too much about the occult,’ Sister Joan said frankly. ‘I mean there’s nothing intrinsically wrong about the occult – the word only means hidden after all, but everything has its dark side. A susceptible person, living alone except for a cat, might not have the mental strength or the knowledge to distinguish between the two. They might easily be fooled by some nasty practical joker into thinking they’d seen the Devil in a churchyard.’