Brother Cruinn’s face was an example of perfect self-control. “I do not believe I follow you, Sister,” he said softly.
“You were also losing Sister Slaine. How did you feel about that?”
Brother Cruinn’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
“You loved her. You hated it when she and Brother Sioda became lovers.”
Brother Cruinn was looking appalled at Abbot Laisran, as if appealing for help.
Abbot Laisran wisely made no comment. He had witnessed too many of Fidelma’s interrogations to know when not to interfere.
“It must have been tearing you apart,” went on Fidelma calmly. “But instead, you hid your feelings. You pretended to remain a friend, simply a friend to Sister Slaine. You listened carefully while she gossiped about her lover and especially when she confided what he had told her about his first affair and the baby.”
“This is ridiculous!” snapped Brother Cruinn.
“Is it?” replied Fidelma as if pondering the question. “What a godsend it was when poor Sister Scathach was put into the next cell to you. Sister Scathach was an unfortunate girl who was suffering, not from imagined whispering voices from the Otherworld, but from an advanced case of the sensation of noises in the ears. It is not an uncommon affliction, but some cases are worse than others. As a little child, when it developed, silly folk-her parents-told her that the whistling and hissing sounds were the voices of lost souls in the Otherworld trying to communicate with her and thus she was blessed.
“Her parents brought her here. She probably noticed the affliction more in these conditions than she had when living by the sea, where the whispering was not so intrusive. Worried by the worsening affects, on the advice of the apothecary, Abbot Laisran placed her in the cell with Sister Slaine, who knew something of the condition, to look after her.”
Fidelma paused, eyes suddenly hardening on him.
“That was your opportunity, eh, Brother Cruinn? A chance to be rid of Brother Sioda and with no questions asked. A strangely demented young woman who was compelled by voices from another world to do so would murder him.”
“You are mad,” muttered Brother Cruinn.
Fidelma smiled. “Madness can only be used as an excuse once. This is all logical. It was your voice that kept awakening poor Sister Scathach and giving her these messages that made her behave so. At first you told her to proclaim some general messages. That would cause people to accept her madness, as they saw it. Then, having had her generally accepted as mad, you gave her the message to prepare for Sioda’s death.”
She walked to the head of his bed, her eye having observed what she had been seeking. She reached forward and withdrew from the wall a piece of loose stone. It revealed a small aperture, no more than a few fingers wide and high.
“Abbot Laisran, go into the corridor and unlock Sister Scathach’s door, but do not open it nor enter. Wait outside.”
Puzzled, the abbot obeyed her.
Fidelma waited and then bent down to the hole.
“Scathach! Scathach! Can you hear me, Scathach? All is now well. You will hear the voices no more. Go to the door and open it. Outside you will find Abbot Laisran. Tell him that all is now well. The voices are gone.”
She rose up and faced Brother Cruinn, whose dark eyes were narrowed and angry.
A moment later, they heard the door of the next room open and a girl’s voice speaking with Abbot Laisran.
The abbot returned moments later. “She came to the door and told me that the voices were gone and all was well.”
Fidelma smiled thinly. “Even as I told her to do so. Just as that poor influenced girl did what you told her to, Brother Cruinn. This hole goes through the wall into her cell and acts like a conduit for the voice.”
“I did not tell her to stab Brother Sioda in the heart,” he said defensively.
“Of course not. She did not stab anyone. You did that.”
“Ridiculous! The bloodstained robes and weapon were in her cell-”
“Placed there by you.”
“The door was locked and the key was inside. That shows that only she could have committed the murder.”
Abbot Laisran sighed. “It’s true, Fidelma. I went with Brother Cruinn myself to Sister Scathach’s cell door. I told you, the key was not on the hook outside the door but inside her cell and the door locked. I said before, only she could have taken the knife and robe inside and locked herself in.”
“When you saw that the key was not hanging on the hook outside the door, Laisran, then did you try to open the door?” Fidelma asked innocently.
“We did.”
“No, did
Abbot Laisran looked blank for a moment. “Brother Cruinn tried the door and pronounced it locked. He then took his master keys, which he held as steward, and unlocked the door. He had to wiggle the key around in the lock. When the door was open, the key was on the floor on the inside. We found it there.”
Fidelma grinned. “Where Brother Cruinn had placed it. Have Cruinn secured, and I will tell you how he did it later.”
After Brother Cruinn was taken away by attendants summoned by the Abbot Laisran, Fidelma returned to the abbots chamber to finish her interrupted mulled wine and to stretch herself before the fire.
“I’m not sure how you resolved this matter,” Abbot Laisran finally said as he stacked another log on the fire.
“It was the matter of the key that made me realize that Brother Cruinn had done this. Exactly how and, more important, why, I did not know at first. I realized as soon as Sister Scathach told me how she was awoken by the whispering voice at night that it must have come from one of three sources. The voice must have come from one of the three neighboring cells. When she showed me where she slept, I realized from where the voice had come. Brother Cruinn was the whispering in the night. No one else could physically have done it. He also had easy access to Brother Sioda’s locked cell because only he held the master keys. The problem was what had he to gain from Brother Sioda’s death? Well, now we know the answer-it was an act of jealousy, hoping to eliminate Brother Sioda so that he could pursue his desire for Sister Slaine. That he was able to convince you that the cell door was locked and that he was actually opening it was child’s play. An illusion in which you thought that Sister Scathach had locked herself in her cell. Brother Cruinn had placed the key on the floor when he planted the incriminating evidence of the bloodstained weapon and robe.
“In fact, the door was not locked at all. Brother Cruinn had taken the robe to protect his clothing from the blood when he killed Sioda. He therefore allowed no blood to fall when he came along the corridor with robe and knife to where Sister Scathach lay in her exhausted sleep. Remember that she was exhausted by the continuous times he had woken her with his whispering voice. He left the incriminating evidence, left the key on the floor, and closed the door. In the morning, he could go through the pantomime of opening the door, claiming it had been locked from the inside. Wickedness coupled with cleverness, but our friend Brother Cruinn was a little too clever.”
“But to fathom this mystery, you first had to come to the conclusion that Sister Scathach was innocent,” pointed out the abbot.
“Poor Scathach! It is her parents who should be on trial for filling her susceptible mind with this myth about Otherworld voices when she is suffering from a physical disability. The fact was Scathach could not have known about Gormflaith. She was told. If one discounts voices from the Otherworld, then it was by a human agency. The question was who was that agency and what was the motive for this evil charade.”
Abbot Laisran gazed at her in amazement. “I never cease to be astonished at your astute mind, Fidelma. Without you, poor Sister Scathach might have stood condemned.”
Fidelma smiled and shook her head at her old mentor. “On the contrary, Abbot Laisran, without you and your suspicion that things were a little too cut and dried, we should never even have questioned the guilt or innocence of the poor girl at all.”
