Blood on the Bones (17 page)

‘Nasty. It would appear, my dear cousin, that you're between a rock and a hard place. Damned if you tell the truth and damned if you don't.’

Rafferty scowled at his cousin's unctuous observation and began to wish he hadn't come. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I suppose I'd better be off home. Unless you've some other suggestion?’

Nigel shook his head. ‘Sorry, dear boy. Wish I could help. But nothing springs to mind.’

In spite of Nigel's show of sympathy, as his cousin showed him out and waved him off, Rafferty thought he detected a hint of amusement briefly cross Nigel's handsome features. Damn the man, he thought as he went down the elegant stairs to the entrance lobby, I swear he's enjoying this. But then, had he really expected anything else? He supposed he should be grateful that Nigel hadn't laughed out loud at his predicament.

After
promising his ma that he would check whether the convent had had any recent building work done, the next morning, Rafferty waited till Mass and Terce were over before he took himself over to the convent to question Mother Catherine.

She seemed surprised at the question, but answered it readily enough.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We did have a builder in, actually. It was some weeks ago. We had a persistent leak and although Sister Rita is pretty handy about such practical tasks, she was unable to resolve the problem.’

‘Which firm did you use?’

‘It was a local firm. Bell & Son.’

Rafferty smiled. Given that the sisters lived their lives by the summons of a bell, the name of the building firm struck him as singularly appropriate.

‘We've used them before and found them reliable, which I imagine is why my predecessor chose them.’

‘Your predecessor? You've not been the Mother Superior for a long time, then?’

‘No. Six months only. I'm ‘keeping the seat warm’ for Mother Joseph. Should the good Lord see fit to return her to us. She has an advanced form of breast cancer. At the moment, she is being nursed in the infirmary of one of our sister houses that has more extensive medical facilities than we can provide.’

‘So, if Sister Joseph doesn't return, you will be confirmed as Prioress?’

Mother Catherine raised her shoulders in the tiniest of shrugs. ‘Perhaps. It is in the Lord's hands. Anyway, as I said, Mother Joseph found Bell & Sons reliable, but this time they were less so. The first man who turned up failed to find the cause of the problem and didn't bother to come back. I have their card in the address book.’

She reached into her desk drawer and extracted a business card and handed it to Rafferty. He jotted down the details and returned the card.

‘Do you recall when they were here?’

‘I can't remember precisely, but between the visit of the first man and the second one who managed to repair the leak, it spread over the latter part of August and into early September.’

Rafferty thanked her and a few minutes later he left and headed across town to the premises of the building firm, resolving that he should listen to his mother more often.

The builder's yard was cluttered with ladders, concrete mixers and a van, into the back of which two men were loading toolboxes.

Rafferty introduced himself and asked, ‘Are either of you men Mr Bell Senior?’

The older man, tall, grey-haired and with the weather-beaten face of an outdoor worker, nodded. ‘That's me. What can I do for you, inspector?’

‘I'm in charge of the murder investigation at the local convent,’ Rafferty explained.

Immediately, the man's pleasantly open features became wary. ‘Oh, yes?’

Rafferty nodded. ‘I understand your firm did some work there back in the summer, repairing a leak.’

‘That's right.’ Mr Bell turned to the younger man and said, ‘It was Nat that we sent first to do the job, wasn't it, Harry?’

The younger man, so much like Mr Bell that he must have been the ‘And Son’ part of the firm's name, confirmed it. ‘Nat's not with us any more. Turned out to be too unreliable. Bit of a free spirit was Nat.’

A bell – not of the ‘And Son’ variety – rang in Rafferty's head. ‘This Nat – his full name wouldn't be Nathan McNally, would it?’

‘That's him,’ the senior of the two Bells confirmed. ‘Harry called him a free spirit a moment ago, but he was mostly into freeing up our cash takings and the more portable of our expensive equipment.’ Mr Bell pulled a face. ‘The insurance has refused to pay out, so we've had to bear the cost. That'll teach me to take anyone on trust. Normally, I would insist on proper references, but we were so snowed under with work at the time that I broke my own rule and lived to regret it.’

Rafferty checked the date that Nathan McNally had worked at the convent. It tallied with what Mother Catherine had told him.

‘Do you have an address for him?’

Mr Bell Senior nodded. ‘Not that you'll find him there now. I went round to have it out with him when I discovered the money and tools were missing, but he'd done a flit. He was staying at a lodging house in East Street, the other side of the bridge over the River Tiffey. No 55.’

Rafferty was thoughtful as he made for Nathan McNally's ex-lodging house. It was interesting that McNally should have had access to the convent during the period that Dr Sam Dally and the forensic entomologist estimated that their man had died.

Mrs Norris, the owner of the lodging house from where Nathan McNally had flitted with the Bells' cash and equipment, was able to tell Rafferty little about her ex-lodger, apart from the fact that he was a surly sort who thought the world owed him a living.

‘He didn't like it when I insisted he paid up front. But I've had experience of these itinerant building workers in the past,’ she explained. ‘Way too fond of doing moonlight flits for my liking. Now, I make it a rule that if they don't pay, they don't stay.’

‘Very wise. Have you any idea where he went when he left here?’

Mrs Norris shook her head. ‘None. As I said, he was a surly sort. Barely spoke unless he wanted something. I was glad to see the back of him. I pity the poor woman who takes up with him.’

‘Oh? Still, it doesn't sound like he'd get too many women if he was as surly as you say.’

Mrs Norris smiled. 'You'd be surprised. He wasn't a bad looking man. Muscular. Struck you as the strong, silent type, till you got to know him. The sort that appeals to some women. One thing I do remember about him – he had a lovely smile. It quite altered his face. Not that he used it too often on me. But I suppose it could be enough to turn some girls' heads if he chose to point it in their direction. As I said, I certainly didn't see much of it. I don't suppose he thought me and my demands for rent up front worth many smiles.'

With
Nathan McNally long gone from his lodgings and with no hint as to his current whereabouts, Rafferty headed back to the station. When he reached his office, he discussed this latest discovery with Llewellyn.

‘I think we're going to have to try a bit harder to find this Nathan McNally, Dafyd, don't you?’

Llewellyn nodded. ‘Though whether we'll find him alive or whether we've already found him – in the grave – is open to debate.’

As this wasn't a debate that Rafferty felt keen to indulge in, he just said, ‘See to it, will you?’ and made a pretence of reading the latest reports until Llewellyn took himself off. Then he raised his head and stared into space, reports and the need to get on top of them forgotten as his mind was again invaded by worries about his blackmailer's intentions.

It really was becoming intolerable. He wasn't sure how much longer he could carry on with the constant strain his curiously undemanding blackmailer was causing him without cracking up. The pity of it was, that he had reason to doubt that Superintendent Bradley would make as understanding a confessor as Father Kelly should he be so foolish as to take Nigel's advice and seek absolution.

The investigation into the rest
of the religious community was still on-going. During the course of it, they had made the discovery that Father Kelly wasn't the only holy sinner in the case.

As Rafferty had suspected and pointed out to his mother, not all of the sisters at the convent had led previous lives that had been totally pure. Old Sister Ursula, she of the arthritic limbs and playful manner, admitted to being even more playful in her youth. For she had borne an illegitimate baby by an American serviceman that she had given up for adoption.

Even Mother Catherine wasn't without the stain of sin. She had admitted to the sin of pride over achieving her current rank. It was, she told him, the mark of a lifetime's devotion to God and the community. She confessed to Rafferty that daily, she prayed for the death of her pride.

Rafferty told the Prioress that he thought she was being unnecessarily harsh on herself. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘if God wanted to encourage His children to use their God-given talents, as was indicated by the parable about them, then He would understand that when our efforts are successful, that they bring a measure of satisfaction, even pride?’

‘Maybe so,’ Mother Catherine had replied. ‘But what is it they say? That: ‘An haughty spirit goeth before a fall'?’

‘A little pride in genuine achievement is unlikely to cause a fall, in my experience,’ Rafferty had replied before he recalled several occasions when pride had caused that very thing. He wished the words which were supposed to comfort were true. But, at least he thought, from Mother Catherine's response, that he had carried this white lie off with aplomb and nary a blush.

But later, he discovered that his words hadn't after all proved much comfort to Mother Catherine. As Sister Rita, one of the Prioress's closest intimates, confided: 'The death of this man has affected our Mother Catherine very badly. She hasn't been Prioress for very long, and before, she was quietly learning about the demands of her new role, determined to do it to the best of her ability. But now, because this man's death and burial occurred on her watch, all her previous pleasure in her new role seems to have gone. She appears to consider her elevation and her quiet satisfaction at it is on a par with pride in one of the more worldly prizes. Now she seems to feel her pleasure at her attainment of rank in the community merely indicates an emptiness within, a lack of holy virtues.

‘Certainly, I have never seen her so affected by a death as she has been over this man's. And we have both of us seen a few. Before she joined this community, Mother Catherine was in an unenclosed order and worked at a Catholic mission in Africa. She saw more than her share of difficult deaths there. In fact, she was the only survivor of an attack by a frenzied mob on the mission school and clinic she helped run.’

‘Father Kelly told me about that. I gather that's where she incurred her terrible burns?’

Sister Rita nodded. ‘Strange in a way, but her dreadful experiences and suffering in Africa strengthened her faith. Soon after, she sought permission to move to an enclosed order. Normally,’ she explained, ‘once you've taken your final vows as a nun, you remain in the order in which you spent your novitiate. But she was given special dispensation and joined the order of Carmel here in Elmhurst in 1975 as soon as she came out of hospital.’

From up the ladder which was propped against one of the apple trees in the orchard, Sister Perpetua's voice chimed in. 'Talking of Mother Catherine wrestling with her pride, inspector, you might like to know that we all wrestle with one or more aspects of the life. For me, it was the vow of poverty that caused most anguish, particularly in my younger days as a nun.' She smiled down at him through the leaves of the tree. 'You might not think so to look at me now, but I had a good figure once. I used to be something of a clothes horse and loved clothes and treated myself to regular bouts of retail therapy as they now call it. I earned good money before I entered the convent. I could be extravagant. It's especially hard not be have your own money to be able to buy family birthday and Christmas presents, for instance. I still feel it most at such times. Anyway, that's my major bête noire.

‘Whereas with my friend, Sister Rita, here, it's the celibacy she always had most trouble with.’

‘Really Sister Benedicta, I'm sure the inspector doesn't want to hear all this. You're making a fool of yourself.’

‘So be it,’ Sister Benedicta cheerfully replied from her ladder eerie. ‘It's understandable, I suppose, as she was married once, did she tell you? She only joined the order after she was widowed. She always likes to tease the sisters who retained their virginity that they don't know what they're missing. The implication being, that, for them, the giving up of what you've never known so can't miss, isn't much of a giving up at all.’

‘I suppose, in a way, she's got a point,’ Rafferty's smile attempted to ease Sister Rita's discomfiture at her fellow nun's disclosures.

‘Perhaps. Mother Catherine advises us that we must offer ourselves, our strengths and our weaknesses up to God, much as she confesses that she offers up her pride. Though I think she's too hard on herself.’ Her comment was an echo of Rafferty's own. ‘I don't think pride in one's achievements can be so wrong, do you, inspector? If God has enabled you to do things in this life, it always strikes me as churlish not to take pleasure in His gift.’

‘Talking of achievements.’ Rafferty, who had parked his behind on one of the boxes used for storing the fruit, stood up. ‘If you'll excuse me, Sisters, I still have a case to solve, so I'd better get on with it or it'll be failure I'll have to offer up to God and my superintendent.’ He smiled and added, ‘though sometimes, I'm not too sure if they're not one and the same.’

The
results from both the national and international fingerprint checks on their victim had come back negative, as had the request put out to the nation's dentists.

Nathan McNally, Sister Cecile's ex-boyfriend, had still not been traced in spite of the artist's impression that her parents had contributed and which had been circulated to the media. Nor had he or any of his family contacted them; though whether this was because he was indeed the cadaver currently lying in the mortuary or because he and they had their own reasons for wanting to remain out of the police's radar, Rafferty couldn't guess.