Read Online Blood on the Bones by Geraldine Evans - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Geraldine Evans
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they are used to, you see.’
Whether it was, as she claimed, really upsetting the older nuns – although Sister Ursula, clearly the oldest member of the community had shown little sign of any such discombobulation – certainly, it was upsetting Sister Agnes, whose hands clutched anxiously at the folds of her habit.
‘I understand that,’ Rafferty told her quietly. ‘Mother Catherine has already provided me with list of your routines, and I promised her I'd do my best to work round them. But, as to how long our investigation will take, I'm afraid it's in the lap of the gods.’
Sister Agnes's long nose dipped in acknowledgement of this. ‘Then I shall, of course, pray to the one, true, God, to aid your endeavours.’
Rafferty wondered whether he was meant to shout, ‘Hallelujah’ at this. He felt like telling her not to bother with praying on his account, as God had, in the past, generally shown a singular disinclination to aid him in anything. Instead, he thanked her for her promised prayers. Maybe God might more readily respond to the prayers of a religious nun than a backsliding sinner? he thought as he showed her out, she having, like the other sisters, denied all knowledge of the convent's cadaver or how it had ended up in its temporary resting place.
The second of her two co-workers in the kitchens, Sister Joseph, the former Margaret Andrews, was, for all her sixty-five years, meek, mild, very shy and appeared unwilling to say boo to a goose or, indeed, much else at all. She couldn't have been a greater contrast to the tall, thin and aristocratically nervy, Sister Agnes or the short, round sister Perpetua with her rosy benevolence.
Two of the other nuns, Sisters Bernadette and Elizabeth, had been visiting a sister convent in the north of England for the past two months and had only returned a couple of days ago, so, if Sam Dally was correct in his estimated time of death, both were unlikely to have had anything to do with their man's death.
Rafferty wasn't surprised to learn, as nun followed nun into the office which Mother Catherine had provided for them, that each holy sister professed her ignorance of how the dead man had come to end up buried in their grounds.
Most of them appeared to be genuinely troubled at the discovery of his body and that he had presumably been interred without religious ceremony. And who could blame them for that? They had chosen the contemplatives' life above other, more worldly orders, seeking only to dedicate their lives to prayer. But now, the wickedness of the world outside their isolating walls had intruded. Perhaps, in the process, it would destroy their serenity for ever?
It certainly would, if – a possibility that Rafferty already had reason to consider – one of the holy nuns turned out to be their murderer.
As for the rest of the community, Sisters Bernadette, Elizabeth, Cecile the novice and Teresa Tattersall the twenty-nine-year-old postulant, their current duties were respectively in the infirmary, keeping the chapel pristine and fit for the glorification of God, maintaining the community's website which Sister Cecile had set up some months previously, and doing the craft work that helped to fill their coffers, they had also been unable to shed any light on the man's death or burial.
Strangely, given the requirement that they love their fellow man, only the young novice, the pretty, twenty-six year old – and, from the clue of her eyebrows beneath the all-concealing pale veil – natural blonde, Sister Cecile, shed any tears over the man's sudden, violent end.
‘Please forgive me.’ She wiped her eyes after she had followed the last of her colleagues into the temporary interview room they had been allocated. ‘I don't know why I'm so upset. It's not as if I can have known the dead man. Mother is always telling me I must master my emotions or they will master me.’
Cecile gave him a wobbly smile as she mopped the tears from her creamy skin. 'I'm afraid
Whether it was, as she claimed, really upsetting the older nuns – although Sister Ursula, clearly the oldest member of the community had shown little sign of any such discombobulation – certainly, it was upsetting Sister Agnes, whose hands clutched anxiously at the folds of her habit.
‘I understand that,’ Rafferty told her quietly. ‘Mother Catherine has already provided me with list of your routines, and I promised her I'd do my best to work round them. But, as to how long our investigation will take, I'm afraid it's in the lap of the gods.’
Sister Agnes's long nose dipped in acknowledgement of this. ‘Then I shall, of course, pray to the one, true, God, to aid your endeavours.’
Rafferty wondered whether he was meant to shout, ‘Hallelujah’ at this. He felt like telling her not to bother with praying on his account, as God had, in the past, generally shown a singular disinclination to aid him in anything. Instead, he thanked her for her promised prayers. Maybe God might more readily respond to the prayers of a religious nun than a backsliding sinner? he thought as he showed her out, she having, like the other sisters, denied all knowledge of the convent's cadaver or how it had ended up in its temporary resting place.
The second of her two co-workers in the kitchens, Sister Joseph, the former Margaret Andrews, was, for all her sixty-five years, meek, mild, very shy and appeared unwilling to say boo to a goose or, indeed, much else at all. She couldn't have been a greater contrast to the tall, thin and aristocratically nervy, Sister Agnes or the short, round sister Perpetua with her rosy benevolence.
Two of the other nuns, Sisters Bernadette and Elizabeth, had been visiting a sister convent in the north of England for the past two months and had only returned a couple of days ago, so, if Sam Dally was correct in his estimated time of death, both were unlikely to have had anything to do with their man's death.
Rafferty wasn't surprised to learn, as nun followed nun into the office which Mother Catherine had provided for them, that each holy sister professed her ignorance of how the dead man had come to end up buried in their grounds.
Most of them appeared to be genuinely troubled at the discovery of his body and that he had presumably been interred without religious ceremony. And who could blame them for that? They had chosen the contemplatives' life above other, more worldly orders, seeking only to dedicate their lives to prayer. But now, the wickedness of the world outside their isolating walls had intruded. Perhaps, in the process, it would destroy their serenity for ever?
It certainly would, if – a possibility that Rafferty already had reason to consider – one of the holy nuns turned out to be their murderer.
As for the rest of the community, Sisters Bernadette, Elizabeth, Cecile the novice and Teresa Tattersall the twenty-nine-year-old postulant, their current duties were respectively in the infirmary, keeping the chapel pristine and fit for the glorification of God, maintaining the community's website which Sister Cecile had set up some months previously, and doing the craft work that helped to fill their coffers, they had also been unable to shed any light on the man's death or burial.
Strangely, given the requirement that they love their fellow man, only the young novice, the pretty, twenty-six year old – and, from the clue of her eyebrows beneath the all-concealing pale veil – natural blonde, Sister Cecile, shed any tears over the man's sudden, violent end.
‘Please forgive me.’ She wiped her eyes after she had followed the last of her colleagues into the temporary interview room they had been allocated. ‘I don't know why I'm so upset. It's not as if I can have known the dead man. Mother is always telling me I must master my emotions or they will master me.’
Cecile gave him a wobbly smile as she mopped the tears from her creamy skin. 'I'm afraid
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