Blood on the Bones (4 page)

Feeling as if he was on his very own magical mystery tour, every twist and turn of which brought fresh unwanted discoveries, Rafferty flicked the light off and headed back down the corridor to the hall. He tried the second corridor off it as he searched for the chapel. Prayers could wait he thought. The dead man had, after all, done without them for however long he had lain in that hole in the convent's grounds. And, considering the vastness of eternity, he judged his soul could wait a while longer.

Concerned he was in danger of allowing the nuns, the oppressive, religious aura of the building, and Catholicism's age-old rituals, to intimidate him, Rafferty was keen to stamp his authority on the community from the start. Consequently, he stifled any remaining qualms at interrupting the nuns' prayers. And, as soon as he found what he thought must be the chapel, he opened the door with an accompanying loud creak.

In an automatic, unthinking reflex action, he found his fingers dipping towards the basin of holy water at the entrance. Alarmed to discover how insidiously lingering was the Catholic indoctrination of his boyhood, he pulled his hand sharply back, aware that Llewellyn was close behind him and couldn't have failed to notice the jerky movement.

Not without an uneasy sense of guilt, he skirted the basin with its holy water lure, and marched up the central aisle of the surprisingly spacious and airy chapel, his shoes, on the bare wooden flooring that gleamed a warm golden colour from copious quantities of beeswax and elbow grease, sounding like those of the vanguard of an advancing invasion force.

Once he reached the small table that he presumed served as an altar when their priest administered Mass, he said, ‘Ladies,’ in as firm a voice as he could muster, one intended to convey that he would brook no challenge to his authority. ‘May I please have your attention?’

Slowly, to his left, to his right, ten – no, eleven – heads, in the single pews aligned along the outer walls, were raised from their silent prayers for the dead man. Eleven pairs of eyes studied him. He was grateful the stares weren't accompanied by noisy questions as was usual at the beginning of another investigation.

But his gratitude for the sound of silence faded a few seconds later. Instead, its unnaturalness began to unnerve him. It was a silence so strange in the circumstances in which the community – and he – found themselves, that he continued in a rush.

‘I apologise for interrupting your devotions,’ he began. ‘But as your Prioress observed a short while ago, a man is dead. It was unlikely to have been a natural death.’ Anxious and feeling out of his depth, he added acerbically, ‘And as it is equally unlikely that he managed to bury himself, this is officially now a murder inquiry.’

Rafferty paused to let this sink in while he scanned the faces. Apart from two young women, one in ordinary clothes and one in the pale veil which told him she must be a novice, the rest were all either middle-aged or elderly and had, according to the Mother Superior to whom he had spoken on his arrival, lived in the Carmelite Monastery for two, three or more decades each.

Although the presumed normal calm serenity on the faces of most of the older nuns was marred by nothing more than a mild anxiety conjoined, in a few cases, by an unholy tinge of excitement, the two young women, by contrast, looked scared half to death.

Unsure of the strength of their love for God, Rafferty assumed. Or His for them. And given God's latest unlovely behaviour towards me, he thought, he believed the two young women, would-be nuns or not, would be wise to be unsure of such an unreliable and fickle thing.

He again addressed his little congregation in order to introduce himself and Llewellyn. ‘My colleague, Sergeant Llewellyn and I will be conducting the investigation. Perhaps Mother,’ he forced the religious title past unwilling lips as he turned towards the Prioress, trying not to recoil from the features that had been dreadfully altered by burns sometime during her life, ‘you could manage to find a room that could be put at our disposal?’

He waited for her nodded confirmation, then added, ‘We will need to question each member of the community to see if any of them are able to shed light on why a man came to be buried in your grounds.’

Slowly, with an immense dignity, Mother Catherine rose from her knees and smoothed her immaculate brown habit. Even through the burns that transformed her face into a grotesque's mask of puckered red skin overlaid in parts with an unnatural shade of white, she exuded an astonishing, unnatural serenity as she prepared to respond to Rafferty's remarks. So unnatural did such serenity seem to Rafferty, that he wondered whether her calm demeanour might not owe more to the numbness of shock rather than religious quietude.

‘I'm sure, Inspector Rafferty, that if any one of the sisters knew anything about this poor man's death they would have already confided such knowledge to me. They have not done so. Clearly–’

Rafferty interrupted with a smoothness he was far from feeling. ‘I'm sure you're right, Mother’ he told her, again finding the maternal salutation slip unwillingly past his lips. 'But it is surprising how often questioning by experienced police officers uncovers vital evidence, the significance of which has perhaps not previously been appreciated.

‘Sisters.’ He again glanced over the assembled faces before him: pleasant or severe, rosy or pallid, chubby, emaciated, and every style in between. 'Please hold yourselves in readiness for interviews. I would prefer it if you all remained here in the chapel until you are called individually for questioning.

‘Mother.’ He again addressed the Prioress. ‘Perhaps we could start with you? If you would accompany me back to your office?’

Rafferty abandoned his position in front of the simple altar, a position selected for its imbuement of what he had hoped would be a priest-like authority, told Llewellyn to find a female officer to guard the door of the chapel so the remaining nuns didn't wander, and followed the now not quite so serene, Mother Superior through the high arched double doors and back down the corridor till they reached her office.

They had barely settled themselves on either side of the plain desk on the wooden chairs that were every bit as uncomfortable as they looked, before Llewellyn arrived. He nodded to confirm that Rafferty's instructions had been carried out, before he sat down quietly and brought out his notebook.

Rafferty smiled uneasily to himself as his glance took in the comfortless room. Isn't this cosy? he thought with a determinedly, irreligious sacrilege. ‘Perhaps, Mother,’ he suggested, as he turned back to the Prioress, ‘you can let me have a list of the sisters’ religious names, along with their original names, dates of birth, last known addresses and family details? I shall also need to know the identity of anyone who had easy access to the con – monastery.’

Mother Catherine's previous serenity was certainly beginning to fray and was clearly tested by his first request. Rafferty became aware that Mother Catherine's gaze, fixed on him from behind the tinted lenses, was now troubled, as if recent events were finally sinking in. And she commented in a voice, which, although still firm, he could now detect the tiniest tremor of strain, ‘Surely, inspector, you can't suspect a member of our Carmel community of being responsible for what happened to that unfortunate man?’

Rafferty shrugged. ‘At the moment, Mother, I don't know what I suspect. But as his body was buried here, it seems a possibility that the dead man, his killer, or both, must have had some connection with your community, however tenuous that connection might turn out to be.’

He didn't add further explanations as he judged, from what little of her expression he could gauge through the dreadful scar tissue, that, as she inclined her head in unwilling acquiescence, she had taken his point.

‘Very well, inspector.’ She rose and seemed to glide over to the filing cabinet, removing a bunch of keys from a pocket concealed in the depths of her dark robes as she went. After selecting the required key, she unlocked the filing cabinet and removed a number of buff folders. ‘These files are, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, confidential.’

‘And will be treated as such,’ Rafferty was quick to assure her as she handed them over.

As she resumed her seat, she said, ‘As to your other request. This is, as I believe I explained to you earlier, an enclosed order. As such, no one has easy access. Anyone who wishes to gain admittance, must ring the bell at the entrance door, which is always kept locked. Generally, the only visitors permitted are the priest who ministers to us, our GP, nuns from a sister convent, women here on retreat and contemplating the life of a religious and, more rarely, members of the sisters’ families.’

Rafferty had taken particular note of the double doors that gave access to the Carmelite monastery and its extensive and quiet grounds. Eight foot high, they were similar to those that opened on to the chapel. Like those doors, the ones guarding the entrance were solid, apart from a nine inch square, barred grill let into one of them, through which the sisters were able to screen their visitors.

The double doors looked sturdy, capable of repulsing a small army if necessary. The huge lock was equally sturdy and supplemented by some serious looking bolts, as well as a heavy metal bar that slotted into iron brackets either side of the doors. The entire monastery, and its extensive grounds, were, as he had already noted, surrounded by an eight foot high wall front and back. With its thorny hedging, it struck him as having more than sufficient security. The Carmelite Monastery seemed to him to be as enclosed and private as one of Her Majesty's prisons. Without access to the keys, getting out would be far from easy, but then, neither would getting in.

It was a realisation that again made him uneasy. Because unless one of the holy sisters had killed and buried the man, someone else must have managed to get through all their impressive security and gained access to the grounds in order to conceal the victim in his shallow grave. All the while dragging the weighty cadaver of his victim behind him.

A pretty unlikely scenario, was the conclusion Rafferty had already come to and which was contributing to his unease.

‘I presume your priest visits regularly?’

She nodded.

‘And what about your GP? I suppose even nowadays, he makes the occasional home visit? Or does he use a locum service?’

‘No, he's very good. He still makes all home visits himself.’

‘What about other visitors? For instance, have any of the sisters’ families or women on retreat visited in say the last two months?’ he questioned.

She shook her head.

‘I'll need to speak to your priest and GP. Can you please let me have their names?’

‘Of course. Our regular priest is Father Kelly of St Boniface and our GP is Dr Peterson. He's with the group practice in Orchard Street.’

Rafferty barely managed to restrain his astonishment at the discovery that the sisters' human provider of religious succour should come in the person of that old reprobate, Father Roberto Kelly. Surely, he marvelled, even cloistered as they are, they must have heard something of the priest's reputation as ‘the greatest sinner in the parish’ as his ma was apt to call him?

Father Kelly was scarcely the most appropriate priest to minister to a house of celibate women, even if most of them were, by virtue of age, presumably beyond being tempted by the sins of the flesh. Not that Rafferty had ever understood how any woman could be tempted by the more than discreet charms of the ageing priest.

But, he thought, as he recalled the tinge of excitement he had detected on a few of the sisters' faces for their unaccustomed presence at a murder scene, perhaps even nuns enjoyed having a bit of vicarious spice in their humdrum lives?

For certain it was that Father Kelly came with spice as plentiful and colourful as the entire Indian sub-continent – if his ma, who was more than capable of embellishing her stories for effect – could be believed.

His surprise at learning that, along with the Almighty, Father Kelly was the priest who ministered to the sisters' spiritual needs, had overshadowed the second part of the Prioress's information, But now, as he called it to mind, it was with the realisation that Mother Catherine had surprised him again. And this time, his reaction must have managed to penetrate his 'investigation face', as he liked to call the expressionless, poker-faced look he tried, and mostly failed, to adopt during a case.

‘Of course, we used to have a female GP, but our old doctor left the practice.’ The Mother Superior's scarred face was softened slightly by a faint, ironic smile, as she added, 'And, much as it might surprise you to learn, inspector, even a clutch of mostly ageing nuns is capable of moving with the times. Dr Peterson suits us very well. He is quiet and respects our ways and the times and duration of our daily offices.'

Rafferty nodded and directed his attention to the files in his lap. Quickly, he counted them. There were only ten. So where was the eleventh? That of the Mother Superior herself?

She must have understood his questioning look because she immediately responded to it.

‘My file is not kept here, inspector. It is held at the main diocesan offices. But I can, of course, myself provide you with whatever basic information you might for the moment require.’

She proceeded to do so. Llewellyn took notes. She was born in 1940, which made her aged sixty-six now, and had first embraced the spiritual life at the age of twenty, taking her life vows seven years later.

Rafferty did the swift calculation and was astonished at the discovery that Mother Catherine had committed herself for life to her vocation in 1967. An incongruous time to find God, he thought, especially as it had coincided with the musical revolution and era of free love that most of the rest of the country's youth had so enthusiastically embraced.

He supposed this discovery revealed just how strong her vocation must have been. To stand aloof and embrace God when your peers were embracing one another with as much enthusiasm as they embraced cannabis resin and Indian gurus was indicative of a resolve far more sturdy than most.