A Demon Summer (31 page)

“I think that family has lived under what we can call a curse for a long time. It may be a coincidence. Maybe not. But I'd like to refresh my memory of events. I was too much a rookie at the time to be directly involved.”

“That's right, MI5 became involved.”

“Everybody became involved. Scotland Yard, MI5, even MI6 when the trail led overseas.”

“They never found him, did they?”

“No, poor little tyke. It was assumed it was another case like that of the Lindbergh baby, but in this case, no trace of him alive or dead was ever found. I recall he had a birthmark…”

It had been, as Cotton had said, a media sensation, along the lines of the Lindbergh kidnapping or the disappearance of Lord Lucan. It was one of those stories that simply would not die, largely because it attracted conspiracy theorists from every corner of the globe, and on a slow news day the details and theories would be trotted out for a rehash in the tabloids.

“What,” Max asked, “if anything, do you have on Piers Montague? He looks like a man with a past.”

“Ah, yes. Piers Montague. All that shaggy charm of the midnight poet. ‘Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.'”

“All that, yes,” said Max. “True enough of Lord Byron.”

“Byron wanted to be buried with his dog,” said Cotton, “so I've always felt he couldn't have been a complete rotter.”

“Did not know that,” said Max. “Anyway, I'm not sure that's a tried-and-true measure of character. Well, what do we know of him? Piers, that is?”

“His parents ran a shop. Working class and proud of it. Hard workers—nothing to be said against them except that they may have lacked imagination.”

“I remember he made a comment in passing that he dreamed of an academic career, but they held him back. Still, photography is hardly a secure profession, assuming that the quarrel with them was about his taking over the family business.”

Cotton flipped through a few pages, finally stabbing one with his biro. “Piers's employment for a few years seems a bit vague. He hung around Parisian cafes, being artistic and drinking coffee and dating models. Nice work if you can get it. It's not clear how he made a living, but the rumor is he had, for want of a better word, sponsors. Wealthy women, generally older than he.”

“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.