Then she was climbing the stairs, uncomfortably aware that the fact nothing in the rule specifically forbade the Daughters of Compassion to break into empty houses, was no excuse at all. Only her motive mitigated her fault.
There were numerous bedrooms, most of them unfurnished. The one she immediately identified as Samantha’s had had some trouble taken over it. Fresh pink and white paper covered the walls and there were pink curtains at the windows. The furniture was white.
A pretty room for a cherished only child. With a feeling of shame at her own prying she opened the wardrobe door. Clothes hung on padded hangers, drawers at the side held neat piles of underwear. A long bookcase contained the familiar children’s classics.
I am behaving abominably, she thought. Nothing justifies this prying.
At the back of the wardrobe behind a row of shoes was a neat weekend case. Lifting it out she clicked up the latch and stared, with a feeling less of surprise than of inevitability at the candles and the bunch of browned and limp daffodils, and the two plastic bottles of water.
Samantha had stolen these items from the church? Why? What possible value could these things have? They were consecrated by virtue of the blessing conferred on everything in the chapel, but the child could have asked for them openly if she’d wanted them. Sister Joan reached in and picked up a prayer card, decorated with a sentimental Madonna and Child. The sentence on the back was in Samantha’s round hand.
Please, dear God, protect my chastity. Amen.
A child of eleven praying that her chastity be protected? Why? The things taken from the chapel suddenly acquired a new and poignant significance. They were protective devices, shields against fear.
The sound of a car in the drive below brought her to her feet. The Olives were back. She dropped the prayer card back, closed the suitcase and thrust it behind the shoes, sped along the corridor and down the stairs, whisking through the cellar door just as a key grated in the lock of the front door. Muffled voices sounded and footsteps.
The gloom of the cellar was intense after the daylight of the upper storey. She forced herself to go slowly down the stairs, one hand out to trail along the wall. She was at the bottom when the wall yielded to her palm, moving inwards as if it were a living creature.
A door, her common sense told her. She groped automatically for a light switch and jumped with relief as light flooded the chamber in which she stood. This part of the cellars had been whitewashed and the floor covered with rush matting. Shelves on the wall held video tapes and albums, and suitcases were piled against the wall opposite.
A storeroom? She took out one of the albums and skirted the protruding edge of a suitcase.
Photographs were neatly arranged in plastic covers within the album. Her eyes were riveted to the page at which she had opened it. A feeling of sick horror flooded her being as the subject matter penetrated her reluctant understanding. She had heard of pornography, but had never, even before entering the religious life, seen anything that could be construed as more than mildly erotic. These carefully posed photographs were so sick that her mind rebelled against the knowledge that human beings had posed for and taken them.
Her hands felt dirty. She dropped the album and stumbled into the outer cellar, wanting only to get out into the fresh air and sunlight. The yard was deserted. She went through a side gate, stood retching for a moment, and then set off at a swerving run across the greenway to where she had left the car.
Twelve
The police station had its usual air of understated bustle. Sister Joan, hurrying in, was greeted by the same desk sergeant she had seen before.
‘Good afternoon, Sister. No more bad news, I hope? You’ve had your fair share of it up at the convent, I’d say.’
‘Is Detective Sergeant Mill here?’ she asked.
‘What can I do for you, Sister?’ He put his head in at the door.
‘May I speak to you for a few moments?’ she asked tensely.
‘Be my guest.’ He held open the door politely.
This wasn’t the office where she’d had her fingerprints taken but a smaller room with filing cabinets stacked against one wall and a desk on which a photograph of two small boys held pride of place.
‘Your sons?’ She took the chair he indicated.
‘Brian and Kevin. My name’s Alan.’
‘Detective Sergeant Mill,’ she said, not availing herself of the implied invitation, ‘you must go at once to the Olives’ house and search it. The two of them — Clive and Julia Olive, are earning their living from child pornography. That’s against the law.’
‘I know that, Sister.’ He had seated himself opposite her. ‘How do you come to know about this? Did the Olives confide in you or show you their collection or something?’
‘Not exactly.’ She flushed slightly. ‘I drove over to the Olives but they were out, so I — I went in. Into the house.’
‘The door was open and you waited for them in the sitting-room?’
‘I got in‚’ she said with dignity, ‘through the cellar.’
‘You broke in.’
‘I broke nothing,’ she said austerely. ‘There was a padlock on the cellar door that hadn’t been properly fastened. I went in that way.’
‘To — investigate?’ He lifted an eyebrow.
‘I thought it was an opportunity,’ she defended herself. ‘I only went into Samantha’s room. There was a suitcase at the back of her wardrobe with candles, dead flowers and two plastic bottles of water — I’d guess holy water —
