‘We found nothing you wouldn’t find in any school‚’ he told her. ‘I take it that you haven’t either?’
‘Not a thing,’ she admitted.
‘You’ve been making notes.’ He stooped to the wastepaper basket and smoothed out the paper.
‘Amateur stuff,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘But quite acute. Have the kids been unnaturally good?’
‘Like angels. Very unnatural.’
‘Any ideas why?’
‘Nothing to speak of.’
She hadn’t the right to point him in any particular direction.
‘What’s this about “evil”?’
‘Old Hagar up at the camp and Timothy’s father both commented, independently, that they were conscious of the presence of evil. I suppose you don’t believe in that?’
‘You can’t be a policeman and not believe in the reality of evil,’ he answered sombrely. ‘Man is a sick animal, Sister Joan. Make no mistake about that.’
‘And can also rise near to the angels,’ she said.
‘You’re an idealist, Sister.’ He smiled at her in a companionable fashion. ‘Also it may not be such a good idea for you or any of the community to go wandering alone in lonely places. I’m only assuming the two deaths are connected but the modus operandi was different in each case. So why not drive back to the convent and do — whatever nuns do all day?’
‘I have some visits to make first. Sergeant, have you seen Padraic Lee?’
‘Not this morning. Why?’
‘He is very probably waiting for you down at the station then. His little girl found a heavy candlestick this morning, flung on the edge of the camp. She assumed it was scrap metal and took it to the wagon.’
‘He brought it to the station?’ he asked sharply.
‘He didn’t know that anything had happened to Sister Margaret. Tabitha — his daughter is busily cleaning the candlestick up.’
‘Damn and blast!’ he exploded.
‘Detective Sergeant Mill!’
‘Sorry, Sister Joan, but it’s enough to make a saint swear. I’d better get down there at once. How did you happen to know?’
‘Mr Lee was driving past and saw the convent car.’
‘Get your visiting done,’ he said curtly, ‘and then get back to the convent.’
‘“Get thee to a nunnery”?’ she queried with a flash of mischief.
‘That’s the burden of it, Sister. Thanks for the information.’
He went out, and she sat for a moment listening to the car drive away. He had taken her paper with him. She wondered if her own list of queries had stirred anything in his mind, or did he see her as a meddling amateur?
There had been another question she hadn’t written down. The oddly sinister little rhyme that Samantha had produced for the homework task lingered like a bad taste.
They say daffodils are trumpets.
I say daffodils are strumpets,
And lads are bad and girls black pearls
And little roses full of worms.
In the deserted classroom the words had a chilling ring. She shivered slightly and hurried to lock up and get into the car.
Driving up to the greenway she thrust down the doubts that were crowding into her head. Ought she to have mentioned the rhyme to Detective Sergeant Mill? Did she have the right to direct his thoughts towards people who might be completely innocent? Children often went through a morbid phase when they were nearing puberty.
She parked below the crest in a dip of the land that effectively concealed the car from any casual glance. On Saturdays people often went out shopping or into town. She would have her words ready should it prove otherwise with the Olives.
‘I’m very sorry to trouble you but I suppose you have heard of the very tragic event early this morning at the convent. I was wondering if you would care to give something towards a wreath for Sister Margaret?’
In daylight the big house lost its sinister aspect and became a large, bleak stone building that needed repointing and painting. She walked up to the front door and pulled the bell rope vigorously, hearing the echoing jangle within the house. Nobody came to open the door; no head poked out of a window. She rang the bell again with the same result and then walked slowly round to the back.
Here was a yard with a wash house and line. There was a washing machine in the wash house, its gleaming white incongruous against the dirty whitewashed walls.
The back door was locked. Sister Joan scowled at it. When one contemplated action it was frustrating to be defeated by an inanimate object.
‘The coal chute?’ She asked herself the question aloud as she looked around. There was no coal chute but there was another door, its surface pitted with woodworm, its padlock not completely secured.
If I hadn’t entered the religious life I’d have made a splendid burglar, she decided, wrenching the padlock open and pulling at the door.
Steep steps led into blackness and the air was musty. The opening of the door admitted sufficient light to reveal another door at the bottom. She went down cautiously, glad that the grey habit of her order reached only to the ankles and didn’t trail on the ground. The door at the bottom of the stairs creaked when she turned the knob and pushed it ajar.
This was the cellar which was unsafe according to what the Olives had said. She hoped the day’s adventure wouldn’t end with herself buried under a pile of rubble. So far, and making allowances for her limited vision in the deep gloom, everything seemed solid enough.
There was nothing there but a small, bare, very grubby cellar, with a further flight of stairs leading up to the ground floor. She mounted the stairs and opened the door, finding herself in the corridor that led past the main staircase into the front hall.
This was the door from which the new au pair, Jan Heinz,
