‘From the cans?’
‘Yes, but they were due to be refilled anyway,’ Mother Dorothy said. ‘Usually Father Malone comes up to bless the water, but on Thursday morning he rushed off before Sister Margaret could ask him, so she drove over later in the morning to the presbytery.’
‘That seems clear enough.’ He frowned at his notes. ‘Mother Dorothy, I want you to ask your nuns to sit down and go back over the entire week in their minds. Did any of them notice anyone hanging round the convent? As the outer door to the visitors’ parlour was kept unlocked the person must have entered through that way.’
‘And that door is at the side, not overlooked by any windows other than the storerooms above the chapel wing. Anyone could have come and gone.’
‘You didn’t notice anyone following you home on Monday afternoon?’
Sister Joan shook her head. ‘One or two cars passed me in the distance on the road beyond the moor. I didn’t pay them any attention.’
‘The community is in a state of grief and shock,’ Mother Prioress said. ‘Will it be necessary for you to question them immediately?’
‘Not if I can avoid it, Mother Dorothy, but make sure they start thinking hard about the events of this week. About Sister Margaret?’
‘When the pathologist has made his report we shall expect her to be brought here to be laid in the convent cemetery,’ the Prioress said. ‘I have telephoned her parents and they will be here in a few hours. For the present Sister Teresa will take over the duties of lay sister, with help from the rest of the community.’
‘I can have the bod — Sister Margaret brought back here by tomorrow evening.’
‘The funeral will be on Monday. In the afternoon since Petroc Lee is to be buried in the morning, and both Sister Joan and Sister David ought to be present as well as myself. Thank you, Sergeant.’
‘I doubt there’ll be any surprises,’ he said, rising and beginning to collect up his notes. ‘She was clearly killed by a blow to the temple with some heavy object. I’m hazarding a guess that when we find the missing candlestick we’ll have the murder weapon. Possibly she heard someone trying to get in at the side door, opened it and whoever was there rushed past her, seized the first heavy thing to hand and hit her with it as she was re-entering the door.’
‘Her coif and veil were half off,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Then possibly Sister Margaret was on her way through the door and the other yanked her back by her veil and struck her as she turned.’
‘Sister Margaret was a plump woman,’ she frowned. ‘She was physically quite strong.’
‘Suggesting the attacker was a heavily built man. We shall know more about that when we know the angle at which the blow was struck. Meanwhile, Mother Dorothy, please accept my condolences. I am treating the two deaths as connected for the moment but there is also the possibility that they are not.’
‘Sister Joan, please see the officers to the door,’ Mother Dorothy instructed.
On the front step Detective Sergeant Mill paused, waving his companion ahead. ‘I brought back the rosary, Sister. No prints on it except Sister Margaret’s. Not as many of those as I’d have expected either. Looks as if someone wiped it clean. Oh, and there are none of the lad’s prints on it. So it was put into his pocket after he died.’
‘You had it mended.’ Taking it from him she held it up.
‘It was described and photographed in its original state in case it ever figures as evidence. I reckon it’s no use to her now.’
‘It will be buried with her, according to custom. Thank you.’
‘Sister.’ Nodding, he looked for a moment as if he wanted to say something else, but instead turned and went down the steps towards the police car.
‘Mother Dorothy.’ Turning back into the parlour she spoke abruptly. ‘May I use the car?’
‘For what reason?’
‘I want to go over to the school and check the place. Nobody thought of searching there, and there may be something — it’s better than sitting still.’
‘You will have to make greater efforts to control your restlessness, Sister,’ the Prioress said severely. ‘However it may yield some result. Please be back in time for study period.’
‘If I need to drive anywhere else—?’
‘If you consider further driving absolutely necessary,’ Mother Dorothy said wearily, ‘then you have my permission, Sister. I would remind you that your first duty is to your sisters here.’
‘I thought of going to see the parents to tell them—’
‘I imagine the police will do that if and when they consider it necessary.’
‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’
Going out to the car, passing the kitchen where a red-eyed Sister Teresa was washing dishes, she felt her restlessness mount into impatience. If she could have talked to the parents perhaps an unguarded word, an expression inappropriate for the occasion, might have given her a clue that the police might miss. On the other hand her own efforts might well hamper them.
The school building looked as if it were crouching in its hollow with the green buds of the gorse springing around it. That, she reminded herself, would have to be cut back before much longer. A car was approaching, swerving nearer and stopping, as she alighted from the old jalopy.
‘Sister Joan, glad I caught you!’
‘Mr Lee, what happened to the pick-up?’ she enquired.
‘Flat tyre, so Gideon Evans lent me this. Keeps it very nice, Gideon does, but I’m not at home in it so to speak.’
I was on my way to the convent. Someone told me there’d been
