The Remorseful Day

Chapter sixty

Once in Charlton Kings, a suburb on the eastern side of Cheltenham, Sergeant Lewis had followed the map directions carefully (he loved that sort of thing), turning right from the A40 through a maze of residential streets, and finally driving the unmarked police car past the sign on the whitewashed wall beside the gateway — “Sisters of the Covenant: Preparatory Boarding School for Girls” — and along the short graveled drive that led to a large, detached Georgian house.

Destination reached; and purpose, shortly afterward, fulfilled.

With a few extra suggestions from Morse, Lewis had found it comparatively easy to fill in most of the picture. The Barrons’ GP had professional and wholly proper reasons for his guarded reticence. But other sources had been considerably less cautious with their help and information: the Burford Social Services, the NSPCC, the headmistress of the village primary school, the local Catholic priest, and, last of all, the middle-aged nun, dressed in a chocolate-brown habit and white wimple, who was expecting him and who found little difficulty in answering his brief, pointed questions.

Five nuns, all of them resident, looked after the school, which was specifically dedicated to the physical and spiritual well-being of girls between the ages of four and eleven (currently eighteen of them) who for varied reasons — poverty, indifference, criminality, cruelty — had been ill-used in their family homes. In spite of a modest benefaction, the school was a place of limited resources, at least in human terms, and was appropriately designated “Private,” with the majority of parents paying fees of between £1,000 and £1,500 per term.

Alice Barron, yes — now aged six — was one of the pupils there, referred to the school by her mother. She had been abused, not sexually, it seemed, but certainly physically; certainly psychologically.

No, Alice was not one of our Lord’s brightest intellects; in fact she was in some ways a slow-witted child. This may have been the result of her home environment, but probably only partially so. Her younger sister (the teaching staff had learned) was as bright as the proverbial button; and such a circumstance could well have accounted to some degree for an impatient, expectant, aggressive parent to have...

“The father, you mean?”

“You’re putting words into my mouth, Sergeant.”

“But if you were a betting woman — which I know you’re not, of course...”

“What on earth makes you think that?” Her eyes momentarily glinted with humor. “But if I were, I would not be putting much money on the mother, no.”

“How are the accounts for each term settled?”

“I looked that up, as you asked me. I can’t be quite sure, but I suspect it’s been in cash.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Does Alice know about her father’s death?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Do you think this whole business is going to...?”

“Difficult to tell, isn’t it? She’s improving, right enough. She’s stopped wetting her bed, and she doesn’t scream so loudly in the night.”

“But if you were going to have another bet?”

“If I were a bookmaker, I’d lay you even money on it.”

As he drove back up to the A40, Lewis felt fairly sure he knew only a quarter as much about horse racing (and probably about life) as Sister Benedicta.