Chapter 100
There was a schism in the Cryptic Crossword Club.
Colin Clemence’s weekly solving challenge had been won by Irene Dougherty for the third week running.
Frank Carpenter had made an accusation of impropriety and the accusation gained some momentum.
The following day, a profane crossword clue had been pinned to Colin Clemence’s door, and from the moment he solved it, all hell had broken loose.
The upshot of all this was that the Cryptic Crossword Club had been postponed this week to let all parties cool down, and so the Jigsaw Room was unexpectedly free.
The Thursday Murder Club are in their regular seats, and Chris and Donna have brought through a couple of stacking chairs from the lounge.
Matthew Mackie sits in an armchair in the corner. The focus of attention.
“I was not long over from Ireland. I’d only left for adventure, really.
In those days they could send you all sorts of places—Africa or Peru, but that’s not for me, converting and what have you.
So this place came up, and I sailed over in nineteen sixty-seven, sight unseen.
It was what you see now, really. Very beautiful, very quiet, a hundred sisters, but quiet enough you wouldn’t know it.
They’d pad about. There was peace here in the convent, but it was also a place of work, and the hospital was always busy.
So I’d stroll about the place. I’d give sermons, and take confessions.
I’d smile when people were happy, and I’d cry with them when they were sad, and that was my job.
Twenty-five years old, without a thought in my head, and without a bone of wisdom in my body.
But I was a man, and that seemed to be the only thing that counted. ”
“And you lived here?” Chris asks the question. Elizabeth had suggested that Chris and Donna take charge of any questioning, as she was aware she would probably need a few Brownie points by the time today was done.
“There was a gatehouse back then, and I had rooms there. Nice enough, certainly nicer than the sisters’ rooms. No visitors, of course. That was the rule, at least.”
“A rule you followed?” asks Donna.
“At first, of course. I was eager to do well, eager to please, didn’t want to be sent home. All of that.”
“But . . . things change?” asks Chris.
“Things change, yes. Things do change. I’d met Maggie very early on; she would clean the chapel. There were four of them cleaning.”
“But only one Maggie?” says Donna.
“Only one Maggie,” says Matthew with a smile.
“You know when you look into someone’s eyes for the first time and the whole world breaks apart?
And you just think, ‘Of course, of course, this is what I’ve been waiting for all this time’?
That was Maggie, all right. And at first it would be, ‘Good morning, Sister Margaret,’ and ‘Good morning, Father,’ and so on, and she’d get on with her work, and I’d get on with mine.
Such as it was. But I would smile, and she would smile, and sooner or later it would be, ‘A fine morning, Sister Margaret, we’re blessed with this sunshine,’ and ‘You’re right, Father, how blessed we are,’ and then it would be ‘What’s that you’re using on the floor, Sister Margaret?
’ and ‘It’s floor polish, Father.’ This wasn’t immediate; this would be a few weeks in. ”
Ron leans forward to say something, but Elizabeth shoots him a look and he doesn’t.
“Anyway, let’s say I had been there a month or so, when Maggie came in for confession.
There we both were. And neither of us said so much as a word.
We sat there, and we sat there, our bodies inches apart, just the wood between them.
I can hear her breathing, and I can hear my heart thumping.
It’s trying to jump clean out of my chest. Don’t ask me how long it was, I wouldn’t have the first clue, but eventually I say, ‘You’ve probably work to be getting on with, Sister Margaret,’ and she says, ‘Thank you, Father,’ and that was that.
That was the whole thing clinched, and we both knew it.
We both knew the confession was the sin, and it wouldn’t be the last.”
“Would you like a top-up?” asks Joyce, tipping her flask of tea. Mackie lifts his fingers to say no, thank you.
“We would meet in private, which goes without saying, I know. I would see her every morning, but obviously we couldn’t speak with others around.
So I would take her confession, and we would talk.
And on those two wooden seats we fell in love.
Maggie and Matthew. Matthew and Maggie. Speaking through a grille. Can you imagine a love so doomed?”
“And, forgive me, but just for the record, Maggie is Sister Margaret Anne?” asks Chris.
“She is.”
“Nineteen forty-eight to nineteen seventy-one?”
Matthew nods. “I knew we had to get out. It would be easy enough. I’d find a job, I had all my exams, Maggie would nurse, we’d buy a place on the coast. We both grew up by the sea.”
“You were going to quit the priesthood?”
“Of course. Let me ask you, why did you join the police, DCI Hudson?”
Chris thinks for a moment. “Honestly? I’d finished my A levels, my mum told me I had to get a job, and that night we were watching Hill Street Blues.”
“Well, isn’t that just it?” says Matthew.
“In a different town, in a different country, I’d have been a pilot or a greengrocer, but for no good reason other than circumstance, I was a priest. In truth, I’m not a great believer, and never have been.
It was a job, and a roof, and a passage away from home. ”
“And Maggie?” asks Donna. “She was going to quit too?”
“It was harder for Maggie. She had the religion; it was still in her. But she would have. I think she would, one day. I think she’d be in Bexhill with me now, green eyes blazing.
But it was hard for her. Mine was the risk of a young man, and hers was the risk of a young woman, and that was a greater risk in those days, wasn’t it? ”
Joyce reaches over and takes his hand. “What happened to your Maggie, Matthew?”
“She would visit me. At night, if you get the picture. In the gatehouse. It was easy enough to slip away after lights out. Maggie was no fool; she would have fitted in with you lot, no problem. Tuesdays and Fridays she could see me, those were the safest. I would light a candle for her in an upstairs room. If there was no candle, it meant I’d been called away, or had guests, and she knew not to come.
But if I lit the candle, she would always come.
Sometimes straightaway, and sometimes I’d be waiting and pacing, but she would always come. ”
Matthew clears his throat and furrows his brow. Joyce squeezes his hand.
“I haven’t told this story in fifty years, and now twice in a day.
” He gives a weak smile, then presses on.
“It was a Tuesday, the seventeenth of March, and I had lit the candle, and I was waiting and pacing. There was one floorboard in the sitting room that when you trod on it would give three little squeaks. And I was back and forth and back and forth and it was squeak-squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak-squeak. And I would hear little sounds outside and think, ‘It’s her,’ and stop and listen some more, but each time, just silence.
The wait went on too long, and I got worried.
Had she been caught sneaking out? Sister Mary was fierce.
I knew everything would be fine, really, because at that age, everything always was.
So I went upstairs, blew out the candle, came down, laced up my boots, and headed up to the convent. To see what I could see.”
Matthew looks to the floor. An old man telling the story of young man. Elizabeth catches Ron’s eye and taps her breast pocket. Ron nods, then reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a small hip flask.
“I’m just going to have a little nip of whisky. I hope you’ll keep me company, Matthew?”
Without waiting for an answer, Ron pours whisky into Matthew’s mug. Matthew nods his thanks, eyes still to the floor.
“And what did you see, Father Mackie?” asks Donna.
“Well, the convent was dark, which was good. If she’d been caught sneaking out there’d be a light somewhere.
Sister Mary’s office, maybe. Or some midnight scrubbing in the chapel.
But the only lights were in the infirmary.
I just wanted to do a little tour, make sure Maggie was safe and sound.
I could think of a hundred good reasons she hadn’t come to me that night, but I wanted to ease my mind.
I thought I would pick up some papers from the little office I had, off the back of the chapel.
You know, if anyone saw me, I was just catching up on some work.
I couldn’t sleep. Maybe have a wander around.
If I could have, I would have had a peek into the dorms, just to see her lying there. ”
“This room we’re in,” says Joyce, “this was one of the dorms.”
Matthew looks around, nodding. His left hand gently pats the arm of his chair, and he continues.
“I had the chapel key. You know that door, it’s so heavy and the lock was so noisy, but I opened it up as quietly as I could, then shut it behind me.
The place was pitch-black, but I knew my way around, of course.
Near the altar I bumped into an old wooden chair that shouldn’t have been there, and that clattered across the floor, making a terrible racket.
I thought I should light one of the lamps by the altar, just to make me feel a little calmer, a little less like a thief.
I lit the lamp, and it was a very dim light.
You wouldn’t have seen it from outside, I don’t think, not a bright light at all.
Just a dim glow, really. And that’s what I would say about the lamp. ”
He picks up his mug and takes a sip. He places the mug back down.
“So, that was the light, the one that I lit. And really all you could see was the altar, just shadows, but enough to see. Enough to see.”
He rubs his mouth with the back of his hand.
“And there was Maggie. There’s a beam above the altar.
At least there was. You could hang incense or blessings.
It was structural, I think, the beam, but we used it.
Anyway, Maggie had looped a length of rope around the beam and hanged herself.
And not long before I’d got there. Perhaps she did it when I was tying my laces.
Or perhaps it was when I blew out the candle.
But she was dead, I could see that clearly. That’s why she hadn’t come.”
There is quiet in the Jigsaw Room. Matthew Mackie takes another sip from his mug.
“Thank you, Ron, for this.”
Ron makes a “don’t mention it” gesture with his hands.
“Was there a note, Father Mackie?” asks Chris.
“No note. I raised the alarm—quietly, of course; this wasn’t a scene for all to see. I woke Sister Mary, and she told me the story, really.”
“The story?” asks Donna.
Matthew nods to himself, and Elizabeth takes the reins for a moment.
“Maggie was pregnant.”
“Bugger me,” says Ron. Matthew looks up and continues his tale.
“She’d confided in someone, another of the young nuns.
I never found out who. Maggie must have trusted her, whoever she was, but that was a mistake.
The nun told Sister Mary, and then, about six, after prayers, Sister Mary called Maggie to her room.
Sister Mary didn’t tell me what was said, but I can guess, and that was Maggie packed and on her way.
She was to stay one last night and be collected in the morning, straight back to Ireland.
I’d have lit my candle around seven, I suppose.
Maggie went back to the dorms, maybe right here where we’re sitting.
She knew how to slip out, of course, so she slipped out.
But that night she didn’t come to me. She came to the chapel, and she slipped a noose around her neck.
And she took her life, and the life of our child. ”
Matthew looks up at the six other people in the room.
“And that’s my story. So you see, it wasn’t fine, was it, now? And nothing was ever fine again.”
“So how is she buried up on the hill?” asks Ron.
“That was the deal I made,” says Mackie.
“I was to leave, which I did, not a word to a soul. Back to Ireland; they found me a job in Kildare, at a teaching hospital. All records destroyed, new records made—the Church could do what it wanted back then. They wanted me out of the way, no trouble, no scandal. Not a soul but me and Sister Mary saw the body hanging. Whatever story they told in the end, I’ve no idea, but it wasn’t the story of a priest and a baby and a suicide.
And in return I asked that they allow her to be buried in the Garden of Eternal Rest. She wouldn’t have wanted to go home, and Saint Michael’s was the only other place Maggie knew. ”
“And Sister Mary agreed?” asks Donna.
“It looked better for her too. There would have been questions otherwise. Me leaving suddenly, Maggie sent away for burial, people would have strung two and two together. So we made the deal, and the next morning, the car that was coming to pick up Maggie picked me up instead, and we drove through the day to Holyhead. I went back home, and that’s where I stayed until I heard that Sister Mary had died.
She’s up there in the graveyard too, you’ll see the cherubs on her headstone.
The day I heard the news, I walked out of my job, I packed a case, and I came back to stay. As near as I could to Maggie.”
“And that’s why you did everything you could to stop the bodies being moved?”
“It was the only thing I could do for her. To find her some final peace. You’ve all been up there, you understand.
It was all I had, to say sorry and to say, ‘I still love you.’ Somewhere so beautiful, for the only love I ever knew, and for our baby boy.
Or baby girl, but it’s a boy I’ve always carried in my heart.
I called him Patrick, which is silly, I know. ”
“Without being indelicate, Father,” says Chris, “I would say that gives you an extraordinary motive for killing Ian Ventham.”
“It’s not a day for being delicate. But I didn’t do it.
Can you imagine Maggie ever forgiving me if I’d killed Mr. Ventham?
You didn’t know her, but she’d a temper on her when she wanted.
Every step, I did what Maggie would have wanted, and what would have made Patrick proud.
I fought in all the ways I knew how, but one day I’ll see Maggie again, and I’ll meet my little boy, and I intend to do that with a pure heart. ”