Shadows: Skeletons in the cloister

By Charles W Barry

The story begins when a detective visits a respectable convent school in Dublin to trace what happened to a nun who died in mysterious circumstances in Kilkenny.

In his efforts to find out what happened to the nun, Inspector Trimble gets drawn into a sinister web which exposes the convent as something much more unholy than it apears to be. 

In his efforts to solve the case, Trimble and stalwart Sergeant Begley have to expose a grisly selection of skeletons in the cloister relating to the convent school and the nearby boys's school which involve sexual harassment, suicide and murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles W Barry
• Release date: Dec 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201057565

Charles W Barry

Charles W. Barry is Irish but works as a teacher in Poland. He has published poems and plays online. Chatroom Mystery is his first full-length novel

Book preview

Prologue

A berobed figure was creeping down a passage. It stopped outside a room. It entered the room cautiously but at the same time confidently. Across the floor it crossed till it came to a writing desk cabinet. Silently the cabinet was opened. It creaked. A moment of hesitation passed. Fingers delicately felt one of the short drawers in the cabinet and pulled it forward. A piece of paper was removed. The figure sat down just as the moonlight streamed into the room lighting the interior dramatically. A long shadow was cast over the writing desk cabinet. It was then withdrawn. The illumination was so bright that it was possible to read what was on the paper. Its creases were pressed out. Two shaking hands were placed on it. It was a letter which read as follows:

Dear Col,

I’m asking you again for the money. My patience is coming to an end. If you don’t get the 10,000 euros for me by the end of this week - all will be revealed. And I mean it Col! God knows I’ve waited long enough for it. I’ll give you till February 14 OK? That’s St Valentine’s Day! Sure isn’t that fitting considering what we’re talking about? You have to fork it out by then. Maybe her nibs will give her share. You can settle it between you both. If I haven’t got it by then, the pair of you will be dragged through the mud - right? You have my bank details so everything is crystal clear. I hope I won’t have to split on yous.

Beannacht leat

Olala

There was an audible sigh as the figure bent backwards. Another drawer moved out. There was a slight scratching inside it and then an envelope was withdrawn. The letter was carefully halved and folded inside the envelope. Both were replaced in the cabinet. By now the moon had gone behind a cloud and the figure stood up. It moved stealthily to the door and paused. It left the room silently and returned to the passage from where it came.

Chapter 1 The Photo

It was a bracing late winter morning. The sun shone delicately in the pale blue sky. A beige Peugeot Mayfair pulled up outside a forbidding pair of entrance gates.

There were two men inside the car. The man beside the driver was bald on top but had thick grey hair growing on both sides of his head. He looked in his early fifties. His companion looked about twenty years younger. He was tall and stocky and had a rather innocent expression on his face. He made to open his door.

‘No. Not yet Sergeant. I want to think for a few minutes. Don’t you think the perfect place to make a plan of campaign is in the inside of a car?’

‘Well it might be sir’.

Sergeant Begley was always guarded about his superior’s suggestions. It was difficult to know when he was being sarcastic and when he was serious. He would often say something grave in a comical way and then again he would make a light comment giving it all the heavy breath it could possibly have to make it all the more absurd. From years of experience the sergeant knew that it was better to stand by and await further developments.

‘You are from Dublin, Sergeant aren’t you?’

‘I am indeed sir’.

This question had been asked on many occasions. Sergeant Moran was not sure why he regularly had to reaffirm his place of birth. But he was certain it was not connected with any lapse of memory on the part of his boss. The latter gentleman had always shown a startling power as far as remembering facts - be they significant or insignificant - was concerned.

‘From the northside or the southside?’

‘I was born in Kilbarrack sir’.

The sergeant hadn’t specified which side of the city he was from. In Dublin it had mattered in the past but with the huge international influx that had started at the end of the last century it was hardly a matter of concern anymore. Unless you knew the city well it was unlikely you knew Kilbarrack. Again the sergeant was pretty sure he had been through these details before but he knew better than to show any impatience with his chief.

‘Your city is divided by a river. My city is divided by two counties’.

Geography had never been Sergeant Moran’s strong point. He’d only managed to get a D in it in his Leaving. Which city in Ireland was divided by two counties? He glanced at his boss and wondered if he should probe for more information and decided against it. The sergeant did not have much of an ear for accents but he thought he caught a northern twang in his chief’s way of speaking. He was now smiling in that cherubic and yet annoying way he had, looking into the distance as impenetrable as a Sphinx. The sergeant did not want to say the wrong thing. He’d had enough scornful dressing-down in the past.

There was sigh, a quick taking in of breath, followed by it being held, and then a slow exhalation. The sergeant knew that this was a sign of his superior thinking hard.

‘We must move sensitively, Sergeant. If we do things carefully we might learn a lot but if we rush in we may mess it all up’.

‘It’s a disturbing case sir’.

‘All crime is disturbing Sergeant’.

‘Crime? So you think………?’

‘What do I think? If you can kindly remember to finish each sentence you start it will be better for both of us. You know how much I detest this idiosyncrasy of yours Sean’.

Again Sergeant Begley was put out by his boss. Being criticised for idiosyncrasies was, to put it bluntly, the pot calling the kettle black. One of his superior’s most prominent idiosyncrasies was when he gave a reprimand and addressed the sergeant by his first name. Why couldn’t he just call him Begley and let it be? But that was not his chief’s line. Moran thought it was best to ask a direct question.

‘You think she was murdered?’

‘Did I say that? It is obvious that she came to a violent death but that is not to say she was murdered’.

‘You don’t think she had an accident?’

‘I think it unlikely’.

The sergeant saw a pair of sharp eyes gazing at him. What an intensive stare! They seemed to penetrate right through the brain of the observer. It would surely make any criminal wilt. But he didn’t want to show that he was discommoded. Without batting an eyelid he moved to his next question.

‘And what about suicide?’

‘That possibility has to be considered. Even so, suicide is a crime’.

Sergeant Begley wanted to add that although suicide might be rated as a crime it was usually difficult for the police to catch the culprit! But he declined from making a comment. His chief sniffed.

‘We are wasting our time talking here. Let us proceed to business’.

There was a note of impatience in this remark. It sounded as though the sergeant had been holding up the course of justice. He decided that the best course was to be amenable.

‘So we get out sir?’

‘You get out Sergeant. My eyesight is not what it was. Can you check that we have come to the right place? I think the name is on the gates’.

Sergeant Begley stepped out of the Peugeot and walked up to the imposing pillars that marked the entrance. In curled faded gold writing on a dark brown plaque were the words Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

‘We’ve come to the right place alright Chief. This is it’.

‘Good. Yes that’s good. I wonder - I rather think that I will handle this alone Sergeant’.

‘You don’t think it’s dangerous sir?’

They both looked at one another and smiled in the knowing way that friends do. His chief winked.

‘I think even I have the ability to handle a few old nuns!’

He raised his eyebrows and seemed to press forward his eyeballs. He scratched his left jaw and sat back.

‘At first I thought it best if we went together. Two notice more of what happens than one. But on second thoughts I fear that two policemen may intimidate our good sisters. They might close up completely and we need to get their pretty tongues wagging!’

Although there was nothing patently objectionable in this remark, Sergeant Moran felt a sudden shudder of revulsion. His chief was certainly one for an odd turn of phrase.

‘So I’ll just stay here - right?’

‘Quite. Keep your phone to heel. I will doubtless provide you with updates soon’.

‘I’ll be waiting sir.’

The sergeant saw his boss take his hat, leave the car and walk up the long pathway to a small building some way ahead. He moved down the car window and took out a cigarette. He tried to light it but the winter wind would not allow the lighter to ignite. He mouthed an oath, grunted, and watched the disappearing figure in the distance.

***

Inspector Trimble admired the well-kept, extensive lawn that spread out in front of him on both sides of the path leading up to the buildings that comprised the convent school of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. A good gardener or maybe more than one looked after it. When he had time, the inspector liked to do a spot of work himself in his own modest garden but, he sadly admitted to himself, it was his wife who did most of the gardening these days.

He enjoyed feeling the crunch of the cobblestones under his feet as he approached the nearest building.

As he slowly progressed along the way, he wondered how he should confront the nuns. Confront was perhaps too suggestive a word. It seemed to mean that he was expecting a heated argument from his respondents. The inspector knew that this was an unlikely event. From his admittedly limited experience of cross-examining nuns they had in the past at least appeared to be informative and respectful. But he liked to be prepared for the worst.

He would try to come across as a polite detective inspector investigating an unusual case. Inspector Trimble knew himself reasonably well. He was well aware of his temptation to appear impish. He realized he must keep the brake on it when dealing with the ladies of the cloth. But it would depend on who he talked to, of course. Having been in the police force for 30 years, the inspector knew that it was impossible to have a template of interrogation. Everyone reacted to prompts and remarks in such different ways. As always he would just have to play by ear.

He had now come to the building and realized that it looked like an outhouse for the school. It was unlikely that any nuns would be here but it was worth looking into all the same. He pulled the handle of the whitewashed front door. It opened easily. He poked his head inside and found a selection of garden tools and brushes thrown in carelessly. He frowned at the untidiness. He looked around and decided that this was nothing more than a shed. There were one or two locked doors inside the outhouse. If he had to, he could ask about opening them later but at present he wanted to get information by word of mouth.

The inspector suddenly noticed that one door was open. He looked inside and saw a toilet in a quite reprehensible state. He smiled to himself. Nobody knew what friends toilets were to inquisitive policemen! They could hold the most incriminating of evidence. But Alas! - this ruin appeared to have nothing more than its bare necessities. He was just about to leave but something caught his eye. It was a small drawing on the wall at the side. . He scratched between his eyebrows and gave a strange hybrid of a grin and a frown. The drawing depicted quite directly an act of sex being performed. This was surely the work of some cheeky or frustrated teenager.

Although Inspector Trimble thought of himself as quite liberal he did suffer from falling for several stereotypes. Adolescent boys might be the culprits of drawing dirty pictures but here he was in the convent school of - of whatever that long title which Sergeant Moran read out - Santa Minerva was it? This was an all girl school. It seemed somehow distasteful to the inspector to think that girls - especially girls attending a convent school - would draw a thing like that. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to the winter air outside.

The picture made the inspector think of the case he had come to the school to investigate in all its unpleasant details. As he walked past the outhouse and saw the main building of the school looming up ahead of him he thought again of how careful he would have to be with the nuns. He didn’t mind shocking them for any ethical reason - in fact he rather enjoyed rattling cages - but he knew that when people are shocked they are less likely to reveal information unless perhaps they happen to be the guilty parties themselves. In this case of course there might be no guilty parties anyway. He would wait for the right time and place before getting anyone shocked.

The main building contrasted with the outhouse. It appeared more welcoming and in good shape at least from the outside. Part of it was a prefab. In the middle of the last century prefabs had been popular. Although the inspector did not consider himself an expert on the history of architecture he thought that the outhouse probably dated from the beginning of the last century.

He moved forward and mused on the name of the school. Santa Minerva. It seemed oddly inappropriate as a name for a convent school. Santa of course meant saint but wasn’t Minerva one of the pagan goddesses? If his memory did not play him false he suspected that she was the Roman goddess of love. Or was it the Greek? It was difficult to remember which was which. But wasn’t the goddess of love, Aphrodite? Yes it was Aphrodite of course! Even still the inspector was sure that Minerva was the goddess of something.

Inspector Trimble scanned the different wings of the building. There didn’t appear to be any life emitting from any of them. But then he admitted to himself that he could hardly expect convents to be hubs of activity. And this was a Saturday of course. Schools are normally pretty dead on the weekend. The inspector had specially chosen to visit Santa Minerva then. He had no intention of letting the lid blow off his case to be eagerly discharged amongst a group of gossipy girls. Not that he had anything particularly against schoolgirls - in fact if he had to choose he preferred them to their male counterparts. But he knew how quickly and inaccurately they could spread stories and he wanted this one held tight for the moment.

He looked at his shadow accompanying him on his way to the main building. Suddenly he noticed a light on in the prefab. It was the only light he’d seen. Did light mean life? He would certainly try for it. It might be the light that an elderly nun needed to read by despite it being a sunny morning.

Opening the flimsy door of the prefab, he entered the building. He walked down a short corridor, passing two adjacent classrooms. Not for the first time he was struck by the eeriness of being in an empty school. It was like an empty hospital. Something was definitely missing.

But the school was not empty. At the end of the corridor in the lighted room he saw a door ajar. Behind it, he distinctly saw a shadow. Someone must be there. No shadows without their owners. He came up to the room. There was the sound of shuffling within. From where the inspector stood the room looked like some sort of reception.

He tapped on the door. Silence inside the room. He knocked. A nun appeared. She was tall and thin. The inspector estimated that she must be in her late forties. She wore gold spectacles and stared point blank at him. If it wasn’t for her intensive stare she would have been quite pretty, the inspector thought. But he wasn’t here to assess the beauty of nuns. He raised his hat in a rather outmoded way.

‘Good morning! My name is Trimble. Alec Trimble’.

The nun’s stare morphed quickly into a glare.

‘What do you want?’

Inspector Trimble rarely rattled by unwelcoming behaviour made an idiotic giggle.

‘I seem to have come like - what does our Saviour call it ? - like a thief in the night!’

There was no smile of recognition to the Biblical allusion. The nun pulled up her spectacles and pursed up her lips.

‘The school is closed today’.

‘Apparently not if you are here’.

‘Are you trying to sell something?’

‘Oh definitely not madam. Emphatically not madam - eh - I beg your pardon - Sister!’

He knew that first impressions were very important when interviewing the public. He was sorry that he seemed to have got off to a bad start here but he was too old a hand to give up easily. From experience he knew that a little of the whimsical touch might either warm the solemn sister facing him or at least it might make her dismiss him as harmless. He felt sure it would not make her suspicious. She looked him up and down insolently.

‘Why are you here?’

‘Before I tell you that - can we complete our introductions? What has become of introductions in the present century? A terrible thing about the young generation is their lack of manners don’t you agree? We must always give them good example whenever we can - am I right?’

He hadn’t expected an answer and was therefore not surprised when none was forthcoming. He giggled again .The nun frowned and looked puzzled. The inspector smiled angelically at the nun.

‘I have given my name but I fear I am a disadvantage by not having yours’.

The nun seemed to be in some doubts as to this sudden appearance of an unexpected guest. Her eyes shifted and finally she sighed.

‘I am Sr Oran’.

‘Delighted to meet you Sister! I’m within my rights to shake your hand amn’t I?’

For the first time Sr Oran showed a delicately ironic expression. Was he starting to make her feel more at ease? He didn’t know. Had she warmed to his eccentric mannerisms? Most unlikely. Sr Oran didn’t appear to contain much heat. Perhaps she had been amused by the usage mistake he had made in his last question. It was a characteristically Dublin one. But she did not look the type who was easily amused.

‘I am looking for information Sr Oran and I would be most grateful if you could help me’.

Inspector Trimble’s tone suddenly sounded serious. The nun looked down as if to find some clue resting in the heavy snow boots he customarily wore for the winter. She moved her eyes up again.

‘What information do you want?’

‘It’s a case of identity, Sister. I’m sure you can help me’.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are you?’

‘Oh bless my soul! How could I not remember to say it earlier? I am Inspector Trimble. Of the - the Garda Siochana - did I pronounce it right?’

So far the inspector had been largely stage managing his behaviour. He had wanted to cause a certain atmosphere of confusion and playfulness and he felt he had succeeded. Sr Oran gave a glance of nervous puzzlement.

‘If you don’t know how to pronounce Garda Siochana I don’t think you can be in the police here in Ireland’.

Inspector Trimble raised his eyebrows.

‘No….?’

‘I know you have to speak the language in order to work as a garda’.

‘Permit me to contradict you there Sister. That was the way in the old days. Nowadays everything is much more…..flexible’.

She frowned and stood back. He rooted in his inside pocket sensing that she might be giving way a little.

‘Just in case you don’t believe me…….’

He withdrew his police card and flourished it in front of her.

‘Ha! Here are my credentials’.

Sr Oran looked carefully at the card and unblinkingly gazed back at the policeman. He blinked at her in a ludicrous manner.

‘Yes I know it is rather difficult to believe I am a detective inspector isn’t it? But I am - oh yes - I am!’

He giggled again and looked around the room quickly. It was a typical small school office. There were some shelves on different sides of each wall where books and files stood. A crucifix rested just behind the nun’s chair. A desk on which lay a large supply of papers and another chair facing it made up the frugal display of furniture in the room. The nun pressed her spectacles to the bridge of her nose and smoothed her lips out in a less hardened way than earlier.

‘How can I help you?’

‘Would it bother you if I sat down?’

‘Of course - do!’

‘Much obliged. I prefer to talk when seated. You too?’

The nun sighed. It sounded to the inspector as though she had come to a decision.

‘I’m sorry I have to tell you but I am very busy today. I’ve got a lot of work to catch up with. Can you tell me why you’re here?’

Inspector Trimble stared into his opposite’s eyes. She looked worried alright. Was it because she was being distracted from her work or was it for another reason? Time might tell.

‘Could I ask you to sit down, Sister? I’ve come to the age when my back counts. It strains my spine to keep looking up at you’.

The nun sat down. Was the inspector wrong in thinking that it was ‘reluctantly’? Well no doubt he was interrupting her from her duties, noble though they might be, but that was just too bad. Now they were eyeball to eyeball. For some odd reason it made the inspector feel more relaxed. He wondered how he should ask the first important question.

‘I would like you to tell me about Sr Agata’.

Sr Oran frowned, turned her head up so that the inspector could hardly see the front of her veil and then faced him again.

‘Sr Agata? I don’t know who you mean’.

So she was going to play the innocent lamb was she? Well he was ready for it.

‘Perhaps this photo will revive your memory’.

Inspector Trimlbe removed a photograph from the inside pocket of his overcoat. He knew it very well, so well that its horrific content no longer had any effect on him. He looked carefully at the nun’s expression whilst she was examining it.

‘I don’t recognize that -that is a nun is it?’

‘Oh undoubtedly it is. It’s Sr Agata’.

He had already shown the photo to several others who had reeled in repulsion at the sight of it. And here was this calm cool and collected nun who displayed no reaction whatsoever. He had had his share of hard boiled customers but Sr Oran surely beat the lot.

‘I’ve never seen her before. I’m sure of it. Where did you - where was this picture taken?’

Her remark made Inspector Trimble have a momentary light-hearted digression.

Just step inside and stop your shakin’. Kodak cameras get your picture taken.

The inspector thought it was high time to take a more serious line.

‘The photo was - was taken in Kilkenny. The Wishers’ Well’.

‘What a terrible thing…... ‘

The