The Mersey Monastery Murders

Chapter 3

Chapter 3When the Birds Stopped Singing

As Ross and Drake entered the refectory, the first thing that came to Ross's mind was that the place resembled a school dining room. Metal-framed chairs with plastic seats were situated at a series of similarly framed tables with wipe-clean pale grey surfaces, made of indeterminate laminate. At one end of the room stood a small servery, presently empty, beside which stood two large urns, presumably for tea and coffee, and a large water cooler.

Brother Ignatius and Sister Paulette sat opposite each other at the table nearest the urns, for ease of obtaining refills Ross assumed. As he and Drake approached them, the monk and the nun rose to greet them.

“Please, sit down,” Ross said and the pair resumed their seats. “I'm sorry we're forced to meet under such sad circumstances,” he said by way of greeting and then introduced himself and Drake. He could see that the young nun had been crying, evidenced by the redness around her eyes and the tear streaks on her flushed cheeks. The monk also looked upset and a look of something else, fear perhaps, seemed to lurk behind his eyes. “I'm sure you understand that it's important we speak to you both as you were the first people to encounter the body of Brother Bernárd.”

“Yes, of course,” Brother Ignatius said, apparently speaking for them both. “It was a heck of a shock, Inspector, I can tell you.”

“Of course, I'm sure it was,” Ross replied smoothly. “Please, can you tell us what you were both doing immediately prior to finding the body?”

“We were planting seeds—cabbages and cauliflowers. We grow fresh produce all year round if we can. It helps feed us. And we also sell our produce at local markets when we have enough.”

Before Ignatius could go on, Sister Paulette surprised Ross by interjecting, “It was horrible, just horrible. I've seen bodies before, but the look on poor Brother Bernárd's face. …It was as if he'd come face to face with Satan himself.”

Ross could tell that the young woman was clearly on the verge of hysteria. The glance at Drake was acknowledged and she sat beside the nun, taking hold of one hand and squeezing it, offering the poor woman a modicum of support.

“It must have been terrible for you,” Drake said quietly and calmly, trying to induce similar feelings in the nun who'd begun sniffling again,

“You say you've seen death before, Sister. You seem rather young to be saying such things. Where did you encounter the bodies you speak of?” Ross enquired.

“I spent two years as a volunteer for the order in South America, helping with our relief operation in Venezuela. There'd been a lot of internal strife in the country and there were, and still are, a large number of displaced persons there who need our help, Inspector. Sadly, there were many deaths, from wounds, starvation, natural causes, all sorts of reasons, but none of those poor people looked the way poor Brother Bernárd did.”

The conversation carried on for five minutes, with Ross and Drake alternately taking over the questioning as they sought anything of importance the pair might reveal. It soon became apparent that, apart from quite literally stumbling over the body, there was little the two could add that might be helpful.

Nevertheless, Ross made one more attempt to elicit something from the pair. “Please, think very carefully.” He could see that Ignatius and Paulette were doing their best to focus on his words, though he was certain their minds were still on the path at the moment they'd found the body, a fact that might prove helpful with the next question. “While you were both busy planting your seeds and then clearing everything, ready to finish work, did either of you see or hear anything—no matter how inconsequential it may have seemed at the time—coming from the direction of Brother Bernárd's body?”

“It's Bernárd, as in the French Bernaaard, Inspector, not as in the English, Bernard,” Ignatious said, correcting Ross's faulty pronunciation.

“I'm sorry, I stand corrected,” he responded. “But did you hear anything, either of you?”

Sister Paulette looked quizzical. Drake could tell she was hesitating about something. “Please Sister, if you've thought of something, no matter how small, tell us. It could be important.”

The nun wavered as she decided whether to speak. Finally, she made her decision. “You see, it's not so much a case of what I heard as more what I didn't hear,” she said cryptically.

“Please tell us, Sister,” Ross urged.

“Brother Ignatius had just told me it was about time we were calling it a day, and I looked up and thought what a beautiful evening it was. The sun was setting ever so slowly, casting a lovely pinkness on the clouds. There was a blackbird singing in a nearby tree and the little birds, sparrows and so on, were tweeting all around us, making it all seem even more perfect, a real gift from God I thought. I'd just placed my pack of seeds in the basket used for carrying them when all of a sudden, the birds weren't there any more … or at least, they weren't singing any more. Everything was silent, for about maybe twenty or thirty seconds, I'm not sure, and then gradually they started singing and tweeting again. I thought perhaps they'd been disturbed by a fox or something. Now, I'm thinking it might have been, you know, when poor Bernard was being …”

“Yes, thanks Sister. We get the idea. Do you have any idea what time that was?”

“I'm sorry, but neither of us was wearing a watch,” came the reply from Brother Ignatius.

“The 999 call was made at 6.44,” Ross advised, “and the uniform division arrived here just after seven p.m. It would seem if that was indeed the time Brother Bernárd was killed, it must have been between 6.30 and 6.40 p.m. which means you probably came along literally minutes after he died.”

“Oh my,” Paulette said in a voice that gave Ross the impression that the phrase was as close to swearing as the young nun would ever come to. “But no one came past us, did they Brother? So that means …”

“That means the killer left in the opposite direction, which leads where, exactly?”

“That's the route we'd have taken to get to the refectory,” Brother Ignatius provided. “In fact, that's where we did walk after putting our tools and seeds in the little shed on the corner of the garden plot. But the path opens out on to the cloister—what you'd call the courtyard—and allows access to most of the other buildings on the site, Inspector.”

“And how many people know the precise layout of the priory?” Drake asked.

“Everyone who lives here of course, plus any regular visitors, the doctor, the bishop and any of the various ecclesiastical people who have regular contact with us for a variety of reasons.”

“Did either of you know Brother Bernard well?” Ross asked.

“I hardly knew him,” Sister Paulette quickly replied. “I only spoke to him a few times, usually to pass the time of day, to be truthful.”

“I spoke to him quite a bit when he first arrived,” Brother Ignatius stated. “He was Swiss by birth apparently and I was interested in finding out about his homeland. We don't get much opportunity to talk about foreign lands and so forth, living our fairly cloistered existence, but Bernard really wasn't very forthcoming. Said it was a long time ago and he could barely remember his childhood years, he told me, so I didn't press the matter.”

“I see,” said Ross. “So he wasn't very talkative?”

“No, I'd agree with that,” said Ignatius, and Paulette nodded.

“So the killer would have had to walk across the cloister in full view of everyone?” Izzie Drake quickly caught on.

“Well, yes, I suppose they would have done,” the monk said, looking thoughtful.

“We're going to have to speak to everyone who was present in the priory during the early part of this evening,” Ross was thinking as he spoke. “How many people are here, Brother?

“In addition to myself and Sister Paulette here, and Brother Gerontius whom you've already met, we have six other monks, one less without poor Brother Bernárd, and four more nuns. We're not a large community, Inspector.”

“Right, Brother, Sister. I think that's all for now, thank you. We'll probably need to talk with you again some time tomorrow, unless either of you saw anyone suspicious hanging around before or after Brother Bernárd's death?”

With both monk and nun shaking their heads, Ross and Drake left them to get whatever sleep they could manage and walked towards the site where Miles Booker and his team were hard at work. Before leaving for the night, they'd need to have words again with Brother Gerontius but, for now, Ross was anxious to learn if the forensic technicians had discovered anything helpful.

The last remnants of daylight had given way to the night, and Ross knew there was little hope of Booker's people turning up anything they hadn't already located, at least until daylight returned to the Priory of St. Emma.