Blood on the Bones (27 page)

However bizarre his theories, they all fitted together with a logical neatness that was entirely foreign to him. This fact was what gave him pause for thought as well as reason to doubt his conclusions. For Llewellyn was right when he claimed that his inspector's theories never panned out so neatly, with every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed.

The never before experienced actuality of several of his theories coming together into a perfect whole unsettled him. He wasn't sure he dare trust his own conclusions.

It
was later than same day, as Llewellyn had advised after Rafferty had confided one element of his growing theories, and as he had intended to do anyway, that he sought out Sister Rita and Sister Perpetua and questioned them. Their answers proved that at least one of his conclusions was correct.

Even Llewellyn was impressed that Rafferty had made a connection that he had himself missed. And given his sergeant's logical, intellectual mind-set, Rafferty decided not to reveal that he had found the answer not through logical thought and reasoning, but via a dream. He could only presume that, with the blackmailing distraction dealt with, his mind had relaxed sufficiently to realise something he should have realised from much earlier in the case.

But at least he had finally realised it. And now that he had at last recalled the oddity that he had missed, he found that the idea that had occurred to him earlier, when put together with other aspects of the case, made a shocking, but believable sense.

The only drawback was that he wouldn't be his ma's blue-eyed boy any more. But every silver lining had a cloud. He just hoped this one didn't decide to rain on his parade after all.

Rafferty was still wary
of his new insights into the investigation; a wariness increased by the fact that his theories and the resolution they pointed him towards were so perfectly formed, with each aspect dovetailed as if by a master craftsman, that he assumed he must have missed something vital. So worried was he by this suspicion that he decided to sleep on his theories for another night before he risked either confiding them to Llewellyn or taking any further action.

It was a decision he was to regret in the clearer light of mid-morning.

Rafferty
did a double-take when he saw Llewellyn enter the police station. He recalled his cousin, Nigel – he of the designer suits and estate agent spiel and his talk of ‘mirror imaging’ just before the Made in Heaven nightmare had begun. Because, with his gleaming white shirt, black tie and the suit that had a midnight sheen to it, Llewellyn looked like mirror-imaging was something he had also taken to heart.

‘You thinking of joining the sisters and taking your vows, after all, Daff?’ Rafferty enquired. ‘Or are you just hoping to blend in and ear-wig on what the sisters have to say amongst themselves about our cadaver and how he found his way into their holy soil?’

‘Joining the sisters?’ Llewellyn repeated, with a face as straight as a ruler. ‘Hardly. I know you think that my preference for smart suits and fastidious attention to personal grooming are both somewhat suspect, especially in a policeman, but even you can't have failed to notice that I'm not only the wrong gender, but that I'm also a married man.’

Llewellyn paused before adding, in rather more intimate, family tones, ‘I know you indulged a little more than was wise at my wedding, but surely you can't have forgotten the small fact of my nuptials? You were my best man when I married your cousin, Maureen.’

Rafferty smiled. But it was a smile that held very little humour. ‘So I was,’ he acknowledged. ‘And if you're not thinking of taking your vows, would you like to tell me why you're done up like a spectre at the feast? Did you dream I died in the night? Are you thinking of returning the best man compliment at one of my major rites of passage, and practising being chief usher at my funeral?’

‘No funeral. But when I awoke this morning, something told me this was the most suitable garb.’

‘Something told you?’ Rafferty, wanting to check thoroughly for any flaws in the rest of his conclusions before he confided them to Llewellyn, had told him no more than the bare bones of his theories At least, he thought it was only the bare bones he had confided. So why was Llewellyn dressed as if he, too, believed he was in at the kill? Surely he couldn't have confided in his sergeant and promptly forgotten all about it?

But with a mind so pulverised by religion and blackmail, he suspected anything was possible.

Rafferty gave Llewellyn a hesitant smile and decided he needed to put himself out of his misery. If his intellectual sergeant was about to launch into one of his logical criticisms of his theories on this investigation he'd rather he got it over with. So he asked: ‘Hearing ‘Voices', now are we? It'll be 'Visions’ next, and then, God help us.’

He didn't think he could bear it, if, along with all his other virtues, his sergeant got religion, too.

‘I really don't know what ‘spoke’ to me. But,’ Llewellyn quietly observed, ‘you look pretty sombrely suited yourself.’

Llewellyn's observation was spot on, because, Rafferty, too, had chosen to dress in more solemn garb than usual that morning. He had even put aside his usual preference for gaudy ties. But that was, as he told his clever sergeant, because he, too, had been hearing voices.

Or rather a voice. His own. Providing him with a perfect solution to the crime. This perfection had made him doubt himself and his conclusions the previous night. But now, growing more confident about them as bright daylight banished his doubts, he felt certain that even Llewellyn wouldn't be able to find fault with the rest of his theories and the conclusion they had led him to.

As they made their way to the car park and their convent destination, he quietly explained his thoughts to Llewellyn: that the late, widowed, elder sister of Sister Clare, had not only left a substantial legacy to the dead man, Peter Bodham, but that he suspected she had also written to Bodham and invited him to come to see her just before she died, when, Rafferty suspected, she had told him the rest of what her letter had presumably merely hinted at: that his mother, his real mother, hadn't been the late Sister Clare at all.

‘Or rather,’ Rafferty, still getting to grips with his conclusions, corrected himself, ‘that she had been Sister Clare, but the original one, Mother Catherine as she now claims to be, rather than the one presumed dead these thirty years.’

He turned out of the rear, Bacon Lane entrance to the police car park and took a right, onto Abbots' Walk. 'My guess is that the woman we know as Mother Catherine adopted the dead nun's identity after the massacre in Africa. From the papers he left in his home, Peter Bodham, her son, took the opportunity afforded him under the 1975 Adoptions Act, to trace his natural mother when he reached the age of eighteen.

‘Mother Catherine, as she now is, also took an opportunity. As I said, I believe she took the opportunity afforded her by the massacre in Africa to change identities with the dead nun, the real Sister Catherine. It was her intention to ensure that, should the illegitimate son she had borne as a young girl make use of the new Act to attempt to trace her, thereby revealing her long-concealed shame to the world, all he would discover was that she had died.’

Anticipating some objection to his theories, Rafferty was surprised when Llewellyn said nothing. His sergeant's silence encouraged him to continue more confidently, albeit with a shudder as they passed the stark ruins of the ancient priory before crossing the river at Tiffey Reach.

‘As it turned out, she failed. Annemarie Jones’ dying elder sister, Sophia Ansell, although aware, unlike Rosalind Wilson, of the secretly borne baby, their sister Annemarie's change of identities and the fact that she was still very much alive, found herself unable to keep up the deception on her deathbed.

'I presume Peter Bodham, not believing his aunt's denials that Annemarie was his mother, had continued to write to her in the hope that she would acknowledge him as family, so she would have known his latest address when she finally decided to tell him the truth.

‘You remember Mr Mitchelson said that his lodger cancelled his trip to Africa shortly after he received a rare, handwritten letter?’

Llewellyn nodded.

‘I think the letter Mike Mitchelson mentioned Bodham had received in September was from Sophia Ansell. His aunt. The aunt who was finally prepared to acknowledge the relationship.’

Rafferty slowed and changed gears as they approached the bridge over the river. 'Mr Mitchelson said Bodham seemed excited. Excited in a way that he hadn't been by the thought of the trip to Africa. Understandable, I suppose, if you consider that he knew that all he would find in Africa was the site of a long-ago killing. The place where the natural mother he had tried to trace had supposedly died.

'I think the letter from Sophia hinted that his mother hadn't died. It would certainly explain why a man with no family, no friends, a lonely, solitary man, should appear excited. He thought he was about to find his long lost mother.

‘Instead, what he found was death. Previously, when he had learned of his ‘mother's’ violent death at the hands of a mob in Africa, he had believed that his quest to find her had ended before it had begun.

‘Like Sister Catherine, Sister Clare as was, his natural mother, he, too disappeared into the grave. As we have since learned, Peter Bodham never took up his aunt's bequest.’

Again Llewellyn raised no objection to his theory. Instead, he voiced a question. ‘So what put you on to her?’

‘As I explained to you, it was the dead man's watch. You might recall that Mother Catherine mentioned it and that, expensive looking as it was, that it might help us to learn his identity.’

Llewellyn nodded.

Rafferty felt himself easing his foot off the accelerator as they got closer to the convent. ‘I thought nothing of it at the time. But later–’ Much later, he reminded himself – 'I realised something wasn't quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it. But it finally hit me that Mother Catherine hadn't actually seen the body. She had sent Sister Perpetua back to the grave with Sister Rita to act as another witness with the excuse that she had to tend to the hysterical Cecile.

‘Of course, I accepted that it was possible that either Sister Rita or Sister Perpetua had mentioned the watch to the Prioress. But these nuns don't go in for idle gossip like other women. Anyway, I questioned both of them about it yesterday and both confirmed they hadn't mentioned the watch or even that the dead man was naked. Do you not remember her calling the other sisters away from his ‘nakedness'?’

Again Llewellyn nodded.

‘And given the distance between the shallow grave and where Mother Catherine was standing, with her poor eyesight – which her optician confirmed for me – she could never have seen either the watch or that he was naked. Her knowledge was a pointer to guilt.’

‘But, by all accounts, she's an intelligent woman, an accomplished woman. How could she have so foolishly given herself away?’

Recognising that Llewellyn's words indicated his acceptance of his theories, Rafferty sighed as he slowed again to cross Northway, though whether his sigh was from relief or melancholy, he wasn't sure. 'Ah. There's the rub, Dafyd. You see, I think she wanted to be found out. I imagine that's why she didn't remove Bodham's expensive watch. She must have been in a very confused and distraught state of mind.'

‘Poor lady.’

For a moment, Rafferty was inclined to rebuke Llewellyn. But then, he nodded and realised that Llewellyn had spoken nothing but the truth. Annemarie Jones had made one mistake in her youth. But it was a mistake which the mores of the time regarded as a shameful sin. A sin, which, if it had occurred a generation or two later, would no longer be considered sinful or even shameful. Ironically, the sin which had caused both her and her son to pay such a heavy price, would nowadays be rewarded with taxpayer's money and a Council flat. Annemarie Jones' one mistake chased her through her life and brought her son to his grave. And now, with the walls of the convent appearing in the middle distance, Rafferty found himself echoing Llewellyn's ‘Poor lady.’

Quietly, before they reached the convent, Rafferty explained the rest. ‘I suspect our Prioress never actually had a vocation to be a nun. I think, for her, it was indeed a form of ‘running away'.’

'And that taking on Sister Catherine's identity after the massacre in Africa was another form of 'running away'?

‘Exactly. Think man. Think when it was that the massacre happened and what legislation was brought in around that time. The Adoptions Act – which allowed adopted children the right, once they reached eighteen, to attempt to trace their natural parents. Peter Bodham was born in 1957 when Annemarie was almost eighteen. That meant he would turn eighteen the year the Adoptions Act became law. I think she must have been terrified that her shameful secret could well become common knowledge. And I think that fear brought in her a return to that impetuous behaviour her old neighbour told us was Annemarie's as a young girl. I think she acted first and thought later.’

‘You mean, when she survived that massacre in Africa earlier that year, she saw it as an opportunity to make a far more telling escape from the shame her son represented and become somebody else entirely?’

Rafferty nodded. ‘How could Peter Bodham possibly trace her then, she must have thought, Adoption Act or no Adoption Act? And, to make doubly sure and ensure that her change of identity wasn't questioned, I suspect she deliberately burned her own face and hands. I imagine, if we check back, we'll find that both nuns were of a similar height and build.’

‘But what about their voices? She couldn't have adopted that of the dead nun. The voice alone would surely have revealed her deception.’

‘True. I even recall noting, right at the beginning of the case, that she had no trace of a Yorkshire accent. But, as with the watch, I gave that no more thought till much later. I imagine that, right after the massacre, she pretended the trauma of it made her unable to speak. It's not that unusual an occurrence. And then, while she was recuperating, she wrote to the Bishop asking permission to change to an enclosed order. As we know, her request was granted. She must have believed that even the hierarchy of the Catholic Church would feel so dreadfully sorry for her after all she'd been through that they wouldn't refuse her request. So Annemarie was able to make her third and final escape – into an enclosed order where none of the sisters would be in a position to say she wasn't who she claimed to be.’