A VOW OF POVERTY an utterly gripping crime mystery Read online

  This particular circular was curiously apposite.

  G.T. MONAM, SCRAP MERCHANT AND SILVERSMITH

  If you have unwanted articles to be cleared please ring the number below. We give the highest prices. Delivery of refuse sacks, assistance with clearing and free estimates given on demand. Highest prices given.

  There was a local number beneath. Sister Joan folded up the circular, thrust it into the deep pocket of her habit and took up the wooden rattle, mounting the stairs briskly, whirling it over her head as she raised her voice loudly.

  ‘Christ is risen!’

  ‘Thanks be to God,’ came the voice from behind the prioress’s door.

  Sister Joan passed her own door, whirled the rattle and cried again, ‘Christ is risen!’

  ‘Thanks be to God!’ Sister David sounded as if she’d been awake for ages.

  In contrast Sister Perpetua sounded grumpy, Sister Katherine sleepy and Sister Martha as startled as if she were hearing the words for the first time.

  Sister Joan returned to the kitchen, giving a final whirl of the rattle at the door of the infirmary where two voices immediately answered. The old ladies slept fitfully these days, she thought, and went into the kitchen to open the door for Alice.

  By 5.30 they were in chapel, kneeling in their places engaged in private prayer until either Father Malone or Father Stephens came to offer a low Mass at seven. Sister Teresa and Sister Marie slipped into their accustomed places, looking slightly out of breath while Sister Hilaria processed in, followed by the pink-smocked, white-bonneted Bernadette.

  ‘Pink for postulants, navy-blue for novices and grey for the godly professed!’ Jacob had mocked when she had tried to tell him something about the order she was planning to join.

  ‘And the prioresses wear purple,’ she had said, wanting him to understand that she wasn’t just running away but entering a disciplined and rational world. ‘They are elected every five years and can’t serve more than two consecutive terms. After they have been prioress they are entitled to wear a purple band on their sleeve for each term of office.’

  ‘Stripes for Jesus!’ Jacob had said, and she had known then the depth of his hurt because he never spoke against Catholicism just as she never argued with the Mosaic code which he affected to despise but which, in the end, had proved stronger than his love for her.

  Ten years had gone by since then. Now she was thirty-eight going on thirty-nine, with her desires disciplined and Jacob, with his lean Semitic darkness and passionate temperament, was no longer part of her thinking. So why on earth had he entered her head now?

  It was the photograph, she decided. Grant Tarquin had been dark and lean with piercing eyes and the same soft, deep voice that had characterized Jacob. There the likeness had ended. Jacob had been a good person, obstinate, intolerant, quick-tempered, but clean-hearted. Grant Tarquin of whom she had heard nothing since he had left the district had been corrupt, the nearest thing to evil she had ever brushed against. The old photograph must be of his grandfather whose son had sold the estate to the Order of the Daughters of Compassion shortly before his death. The sentence on the back with its chilling implications had been penned long ago, and had no relevance today.

  Father Malone had entered and gone into the sacristy. There was a barely perceptible stir of pleasure among the community. Father Malone was as Irish as shamrock and his sermons were geared to the slowest intelligences in his congregation but he was always kind, always interested in having a chat over breakfast, always there when needed, while handsome Father Stephens, for all his erudition and charm, was more at home in the bishop’s palace.

  Sister Joan blessed herself and forced the photograph with its sinister sentence out of her head.

  Later, standing with her cup of coffee in her hand, she listened to the conversation that eddied and flowed around her. Light, inconsequential chatter which provided a short period of relaxation before the day’s tasks began — the cells to be swept, the floors to be polished and the meals prepared by Sister Teresa and Sister Marie, the morning mail to be opened and read by the prioress before it was passed to the sister for whom it was intended, Sister David busy in the chapel seeing to the flowers and candles, then hurrying to take dictation from Mother Dorothy before she ascended to the library to continue her own work, Sister Martha digging over the ground from which the vegetables had been plucked, Sister Katherine mending the linen, Sister Perpetua tending to the old ladies, Sister Hilaria instructing Bernadette in the minutiae of the rule over in the postulancy — and twenty minutes later she herself was free, driving the convent van through the open gates, her thick, grey winter cloak shielding her from the non-existent cold, money for her purchases in her pocket, and the convent receding as she guided the van along the bumpy track.

  She had meant to ask Mother Dorothy if she ought to phone the number printed on the circular but Mother Dorothy would probably have instructed her to use her own judgement in the matter. Sister Joan considered it now and decided to wait. Time enough to start making phone calls when she’d found anything worth any money. In any case Padraic had first refusal.

  On her left the little schoolhouse with the old beat-up car outside in which Brother Cuthbert’s flaming red head was usually buried when it wasn’t bowed in prayer seemed deserted. It was the hour when he usually did his bit of shopping in the town, she reminded herself, and drove on, past the path that snaked towards the Romany camp and towards the town whose streets wound below the wilder aspects of the moor like neat ribbons on an uncombed head.

  She parked in the car-park adjoining the railway station, and walked back to the main road. It was still early, shopkeepers winching back their shutters, sleepy eyed-assistants filling up the supermarket shelves, children on their way to school.

  ‘Good morning, Sister Joan!’

  As usual there was pleasure in Detective Sergeant Mill’s voice as he crossed the road to greet her.

  ‘Good morning, Detective Sergeant Mill.’ She felt a corresponding pleasure.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed it was going to be Alan, Sister.’ He raised a thin, dark brow. ‘The full title’s too much of a mouthful unless it’s an official occasion. Is it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘I’m in town on a shopping trip but the supermarket isn’t open yet.’

  ‘In that case step into my office and have a coffee.’

  ‘I ought not.’

  ‘If you don’t Constable Petrie may run you in for loitering,’ he warned. ‘He can’t abide nuns cluttering up the streets.’

  ‘I’d like to see him try!’ Sister Joan grinned, then nodded. ‘A quick cup of coffee would be nice. Thank you.’

  They entered the police station where the desk sergeant greeted them with a look of pleased questioning.

  ‘No crime to solve this morning,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘Two coffees, please, if you will.’

  His office was as neat and impersonal as a monastic cell. Seating herself, Sister Joan remembered that he was no monk, but a married man though his bleak surroundings gave no hint of domestic felicity elsewhere. She knew that he adored his two sons, and had given up the idea of divorcing his wife in order to try for a reconciliation, but that information had been volunteered and she never asked questions that impinged on his personal life.

  ‘Nuns cluttering up the streets,’ she echoed aloud. ‘You sound like Mother Dorothy, though in her case she was referring to men cluttering up the storerooms.’

  ‘Workmen in the enclosure?’ he guessed.

  ‘Not yet. We’re clearing out the storerooms over the chapel wing, or rather I am since I’m the only member of the community at present without a definite job. Brother Cuthbert and Padraic and Luther all offered to help but Mother Dorothy wants the bulk of the work done before they’re admitted.’

  ‘Is there a lot of stuff up there?’

  ‘A couple of hundred years’ junk,’ she said with a grimace. ‘We’re all hoping there may be something worth selling
up there. Money’s tight, as usual.’

  ‘Money’s tight everywhere. Why would the Tarquins have left anything valuable behind when they sold the property?’

  ‘I doubt very much if they did, but the stuff needs clearing away. Oh, a circular arrived this morning coincidentally, advertising the services of a scrap-metal dealer and silversmith. Would you know anything about the firm? I know some of these people aren’t always entirely scrupulous about their dealings.’

  ‘You’re scared of letting a Van Gogh go for a tenner?’

  ‘I don’t think I’d do that. Do you know G.T. Monam?’

  She had taken the circular out of her pocket and passed it to him.

  ‘Looks like a one-man operation,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said. ‘Very badly printed. I can find out the address for you if you like?’

  The sergeant, coming in with the coffee, received his superior’s brisk orders with a nod and went out again.

  ‘So you’re going treasure hunting?’

  ‘Yes, though I don’t expect to find anything. It’s Mother Dorothy’s way of making me feel useful.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be more useful selling your own paintings?’ he asked.

  ‘Mother Dorothy thinks otherwise.’ She kept her tone carefully neutral. ‘After all I never got very far with my painting before I entered the order. Now Sister David earns a fairly regular income from her translations, and the series of booklets on the saints she’s working on for children will bring in more income once she finds a publisher.’

  ‘Well, you know your own business best.’ He gave a small shrug, looking up again as the sergeant came in.

  ‘The number is that of an office on the industrial estate,’ the latter said. ‘I rang it and a young lady answered, offered to take a message for Mr Monam. I said it wasn’t necessary and rang off.’

  The industrial estate spilled over from the council estate on the far side of the moor. Sister Joan who’d never been there looked enquiring.

  ‘Odds and sods of light industry — textile printing, a couple of warehouses,’ Detective Sergeant Mill said, answering her unspoken query. ‘Did you get the address, Cummings?’

  ‘Number thirty-four, in the Nightingale complex, sir. I wrote it down.’

  ‘I might call round and get a free estimate,’ Sister Joan decided, pocketing the slip of paper on which the address had been written. ‘The supermarket will be open now so I’d better go and get my purchases. Thank you for the coffee.’

  ‘Any help you need with the clearing out, Sister, you know where to come.’ The detective sergeant had risen.

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’ Her eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘I’ve had so many offers of help that if I accept them all we’ll be falling over one another up in the store.’

  ‘Do you want us to make any further enquiries about this Monam fellow?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘No, I probably won’t bother. Padraic and Luther can help out and they’ll probably charge less.’

  ‘Better than getting cheated by cowboys,’ the sergeant said. His tone suggested that nuns were more liable to be cheated than most. It was childish of her but the remark rankled.

  In the supermarket she bought the largest bin liners she could find, a couple of stiff scrubbing brushes, cloths, several bars of strong soap, a couple of large bottles of disinfectant and, as an afterthought, a flask of insect repellent. She piled the lot into the van, strapped herself into the driving seat and, without making any conscious decision, turned the vehicle, not towards the track that wound up on to the moor, but down the main street which curved round to join the council estate with the newer industrial estate stretching its tentacles beyond. Now that she was actually in town it would do no harm to check out the estimate. The sergeant’s obvious belief that she was an innocent likely to be cheated had irritated her. Mother Dorothy was of the opinion she had worldly leanings; Sergeant Cummings who was new to the station had looked at her as if she spent all her days wrapped in astral clouds and never came down to earth at all.

  She turned off into the council estate, feeling as she always felt on the rare occasion she was obliged to go there slightly depressed. The houses were neat, the small gardens carefully tended, the roads straight, with a cluster of small shops every few yards, but they all looked the same. Neatly printed notices informed her that a neighbourhood watch scheme was in operation, and the few people she saw looked happy enough, but she wondered how often any of them left the comfort of their little houses to wander on the moors where a semblance of ancient wildness could still uplift the heart.

  A sign directed her to the industrial estate and her spirits sank lower as she drove over an underground walkway into streets lined with buildings that were still raw and new with the remnants of building materials in the plots of earth and gravel that were still to be turned into gardens. At the end of each street a high block of offices obstructed the view, windows blank glass, overflowing bins standing forlornly waiting for collection. Already scraps of newspaper and rusting tins were scattered in the gutters and the whole place had a defeated air. The high blocks had been named after famous women, a sop to feminism in a place where women’s rights, she guessed, were not much observed. There were a couple of betting shops, a covered arcade of shops, a bingo hall and a youth centre with garish posters advertising some rap group plastered all over the walls. A group of youths sprawling on the steps stared after her as she drove past, only mild curiosity in their faces. At the next corner the name Nightingale Court was printed in black on a huge noticeboard.

  She turned in at a wide gap in the high, surrounding walls and found herself in a large car-park with several vehicles already parked. On all sides concrete rose, pierced by row upon row of large windows with the kind of glass that repels anyone who hopes to glance inside. One or two of the upper windows were open and she glimpsed a brave pot of chrysanthemums making a splash of colour, but apart from that the prevailing shades were grey, black and a dingy white.

  ‘Brave new world,’ she found herself muttering as she parked close to one of the entrances and got out to push open the heavy swing door.

  Within was a bare wall with a list of firms slotted into the wall and two lifts. Several of the wall slots were occupied by ‘For Rent’ announcements. Obviously there was still a good deal of unused office space here. She stepped nearer, ascertained that number thirty-four was on the third floor and to be reached by taking Lift 1, and stepped inside, feeling the customary discomfort in the pit of her stomach as she pressed the button and the doors silently closed.

  NUN STARVES TO DEATH IN BROKEN LIFT.

  It was a disconcerting headline to flash into her mind. Ridiculous too! Clearly many of the offices were already rented out and the lifts constantly used, but there was an atmosphere of — no, there was no atmosphere at all, she corrected herself. This was a shell which stripped its occupants of humanity. It reminded her of the high-rise apartments into which slum dwellers had been moved during her own schooldays. Clean, hygienic, easy to maintain and completely lacking in soul, so that the new occupants had missed the easy camaraderie of the grimy alleys and small houses of the past and become neurotic and depressed with the community spirit vampirized out of them by grey and black and dingy white.

  She stepped out thankfully into a corridor which bent at right angles to left and right. There were numbers on the walls with arrows pointing out the direction to them. Sister Joan located number thirty-four and walked to the right.

  There were doors, some of them half-glazed, down both sides of the passage. Cards slotted into brackets at the side of each door showed which offices were being used and which remained to be rented. Thirty-four had no card by it and she frowned as she tapped on the door.

  ‘Come in!’ The voice was young and female, sounding startled. Sister Joan opened the door and went in.

  The office was about twelve feet square, containing a flat-topped desk with a manual typewriter on it and two hard-backed chair
s from one of which a young woman in her twenties with fair, curly hair had just risen.

  ‘You’re not G.T. Monam,’ Sister Joan said pleasantly.

  ‘No, I’m Mr Monam’s secretary, Jane Sinclair.’ The girl had a faint London accent and wore a white blouse and dark skirt.

  ‘Sister Joan from the Order of the Daughters of Compassion. Our convent is on the moors.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t keep any money on the premises,’ Jane Sinclair said apologetically. ‘I’ve some change in my purse so if you don’t mind—’

  ‘I’m not collecting for anything,’ Sister Joan broke in. ‘In our order we’re expected to earn our own living as far as possible. Mr Monam isn’t in?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Please, won’t you sit down, Sister?’ The young woman sat down herself, looking unaccountably relieved. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘I came for an estimate.’

  ‘An estimate?’ Jane Sinclair looked at her blankly.

  ‘About the circular.’ She took the folded paper out of her pocket and laid it on the desk. ‘This was put through the door this morning. It so happens that we are about to clear the convent storerooms, so naturally I thought it a good idea to make some enquiries.’

  ‘Oh, the circular. Yes, of course.’

  ‘It does say that free estimates are provided,’ Sister Joan said patiently.

  ‘Estimates.’ Jane Sinclair repeated the word as if it were couched in an unfamiliar foreign language. Then her brow cleared. ‘Yes, of course. It’ll be in the files.’

  She rose again, crossed to a filing cabinet, and took out a slim folder.

  ‘Yes, here it is.’ She took out the single sheet of paper it contained and looked at it. ‘I’m so sorry, Sister. Mr Monam did mention an estimate for clearance. It’s based on the hours to be worked. Seven pounds an hour. I don’t know how much you’ll have to—?’

  ‘I don’t know myself yet,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Seven pounds an hour. Thank you. If it’s necessary I’ll be in touch.’