A VOW OF POVERTY an utterly gripping crime mystery by VERONICA BLACK

Author:VERONICA BLACK [BLACK, VERONICA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime and suspense mystery
Published: 2021-05-02T23:00:00+00:00

Eight

Riding back to the convent, with the headlamps of the police car trailing her, she felt not safer but like a mischievous child being chased by a truant officer. In this case the officer was the stolid desk sergeant whose name she couldn’t remember and who, to judge by the alacrity he turned at the gates and sped back the way he had come, had little liking for either convents or nuns on horseback.

She stabled Lilith, hurried upstairs to remove her jeans, and came down into the main hall to find Mother Dorothy talking to Detective Sergeant Mill.

‘I’m being told you are being an invaluable help to the police,’ the former said in a tone of unexpected amiability. ‘I will not, of course, ask for any details at this stage, but Detective Sergeant Mill has a few questions to ask you. You have twenty minutes before benediction, Sister. You may use my parlour.’

‘Thank you, Mother Prioress,’ Sister Joan said.

‘I’ll have Sister Teresa bring you some tea since you’ve missed yours, Sister,’ Mother Dorothy said, heroically refraining from adding the word “again”. ‘Did you make any headway with your preparations for the reading next week?’

‘A great deal, Mother. Sister David has been very helpful,’ Sister Joan said. When she and Detective Sergeant Mill were seated in the parlour with the tea, carried in by a Sister Teresa obviously bursting with curiosity, on the desk between them, he opened his notebook, unscrewed his pen, and lifting a dark eyebrow at her asked, ‘What reading would that be, Sister?’

‘At supper we take it in turns, week and week about, to read aloud from an improving book,’ she explained. ‘Next week’s my turn.’

‘At the risk of being snubbed,’ he said amused, ‘which improving book are you going to entertain the community with?’

‘The story of my own patron saint, using extracts from various biographies and the text of her trial.’

‘Well, at least you have something in common,’ he said. ‘You both ride around on horses—’

‘Sticking our noses into what doesn’t concern us. I know.’

‘I was going to say setting the world to rights. However, let’s not digress. The body you reported seems to have disappeared.’

‘Aren’t you looking for it?’

‘On a foggy Sunday afternoon with only a skeleton staff on duty we’ve sufficient on hand with investigating into the murder of Jane Sinclair,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve locked up the house and left a man on duty there and tomorrow morning we’ll start looking for the lad. That means knocking on doors, finding out about him — he doesn’t seem to have any kind of criminal record, by the bye — and hopefully he’ll turn up safe and sound or the converse. What I’d like to know from you is how you got involved in all this. Why were you looking for Jeb?’

‘To ask him why he broke into the chapel last night.’

‘What!’ His glance sharpened. ‘You didn’t mention that before!’

‘You didn’t ask me. Detective Inspector, please keep your voice down. Nobody except Sister Gabrielle and I know that anyone did break in.

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