‘Did the other Sisters regard the closing of the grave as a miracle?’
‘Of course! What else could it have been?’
I shook my head, waiting for my companion to make the connection between the ‘miracle’ and the discovery, over a week ago now, of Isabella Linkinhorne’s body. But Sister Apollonia merely smiled serenely at me, her faith unshaken. The raising of the door latch made her turn.
‘Ah! Here is Sister Walburga. Sister, you have a visitor. In fact, two,’ she added, gazing down fondly at Adam, who had not stirred. ‘I trust you found Goody Lewison on the road to recovery?’
‘Better,’ was the terse reply. Sister Walburga eyed me suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here again, Chapman? You had all the information I could give you concerning my cousin last time you called.’
‘The Sister here has been telling me about the nunnery’s miracle,’ I said pointedly.
I felt sure that the significance of the recent find in conjunction with this story could not have been lost on Sister Walburga, but she waited until Sister Apollonia had fluttered happily out of the room before closing the door and saying, ‘You think the grave was used to bury Isabella’s body?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘The thought has crossed my mind in recent days.’
‘I’m right in believing that the two events tallied?’ I asked, making certain of my facts. ‘I mean the disappearance of your cousin and the recovery of Sister Justina.’
Sister Walburga drew down the corners of her mouth. ‘I’m afraid so. I had not long entered the nunnery when the “miracle” happened. It never occurred to me to connect it with Isabella vanishing like that.’ She shrugged. ‘Indeed, why should it? It never occurred to me, either, that any harm had come to my cousin. The miracle seemed just that — a miracle!’
‘You didn’t mention it when I was here four days ago.’
‘I’d forgotten the incident. As a matter of fact, it was only yesterday, when Apollonia was bemoaning what she sees as the desecration of the graveyard, because of the miracle, that I suddenly saw that it had been no miracle at all, but a gift from the Devil to my cousin’s murderer.’ She spoke with great bitterness, and I noticed that there were unshed tears in her eyes.
I asked, more gently, ‘Who would have known about the grave? The nuns themselves, obviously. I don’t know how many of them there were in those days.’
Sister Walburga put a hand to her forehead. ‘No more than at present, I fancy. Another joined the order some years later, Sister Jerome, but she left suddenly some three years ago. Just ran away. I forget the circumstances.’
I knew all about the woman who had been called Marion Baldock and the reason for her sudden flight.
‘You can discount Sister Jerome,’ I said and, ignoring my companion’s raised eyebrows, went on, ‘Apart from the nuns, then, who else would have been aware that a grave had been prepared for Sister Justina?’
‘The men who dug it, one would suppose. But it’s no use asking me who they were. I had not long arrived here, as I said. The names of people attached to the nunnery in a lay capacity were unknown to me in those days.’
I sighed. I was at a standstill again, but at least one question that had been worrying both Adela and myself was answered. The difficulty of how anyone could dig a grave, even after dark, without attracting attention had been solved. But, as so often happened, a solution posed yet more queries. How did the murderer know of the grave? How did he (or perhaps she) convey the girl’s body to the top of Steep Street? From which direction did he or she come; up from the city or down from the heights above?
I told myself severely not to be greedy, but to be grateful for one problem the less. I turned to thank Sister Walburga and found her standing by the door, holding it open, impatient for me to be gone. I took hold of the handle of Adam’s little cart and, with a ‘God be with ye’ to my companion, took my leave.
But as I made my way home, trundling my still sleeping son behind me, I couldn’t help reflecting that there had been something more than impatience in Sister Walburga’s manner. It was almost as though she had been afraid of me — of what I might find out if I was allowed to probe any further. Did she know more than she had so far admitted about her cousin’s death? Or was I, as I was so often accused by my wife of doing, simply letting my imagination run away with me?
But there was no time to pursue these thoughts, for the present at any rate. Some uneven cobblestones jolted Adam suddenly awake, and he did what he always did when he considered that an unspeakable outrage had been committed on his person; he screamed with annoyance at the top of his voice, and continued screaming all the way to Small Street.
‘Have you ever heard of the miracle of the Magdalen nunnery?’ I asked Jack Nym.
It was a beautiful morning, spring having at last decided to favour us with her undoubted presence. One would have dared hazard that winter had gone for good (or at least for the next four or five months) except that no Englishman would be so foolish as to wager on such a likelihood, experience having taught us that one can swelter in April and freeze in July. ‘Island weather,’ as people used to say.
Jack, together with his cartload of soap, which he was to drop off at Gloucester before continuing further afield to pick up a consignment of Cotswold wool, had called for me at the crack of dawn, wanting to make good progress before dinner. He had been none too pleased that Hercules was to accompany me (furious at being forcibly separated from his lady love) but when I whispered to him that Adela insisted, he accepted the explanation without further argument, merely uttering the word ‘Women!’ under his breath. He knew all about strong-minded wives.
An hour later, we had left the city behind, climbing up out of Bristol, past the windmill, in a north-easterly direction. Trees, like gilded statues, rose out of the mist ahead of us as the sun rose to full glory over the horizon. The white light of dawn had been replaced by glass-green distances, shot through with shadows of blue and plum; and the rippling and lapping of a boulder-studded stream had given Jack’s old nag the chance of a much needed drink, and ourselves the opportunity to alight and stretch our limbs. It was while we were doing this that I asked my question.
‘Miracle?’ Jack queried as he climbed back on to the seat of the cart and once again took up the reins. ‘What miracle?’
I told him the story as Sister Apollonia had told it to me, and when I had finished, he at first shook his head very decidedly, but then had second thoughts.
‘Mmm. Maybe I do recall some talk among the older folks about summat that’d happened at the nunnery. P’raps that was it. But nothing much could’ve been reckoned to it because it never, so far as I know, made much of a stir. And if it’d been summat as us Bristol folk could’ve made money out of, it wouldn’t’ve been let drop, as you well know, Chapman.’
I laughed. ‘Come on, Jack! As someone not having the privilege of being born in the city, you don’t expect me to agree with you, do you? You’d cut my head off.’
It was his turn to laugh, displaying his broken and blackened teeth. ‘True enough. We don’t generally take to strangers. You’ve been lucky to be as well accepted as you are. But this ’ere miracle you’m talkin’ about. Are you thinking it’s got summat to do with this Issybelly what’s-’er-name?’
Jack, I admitted to myself, was no fool. He could put two and two together better than most men.
‘I’m thinking it might. Indeed, I feel certain of it. Sister Walburga, Isabella Linkinhorne’s cousin, confirmed that both events — the murder and the filling in of the grave — happened at around the same time.’