Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(48)

The few friends and acquaintances Alex had listed who were not from the school had been more widely dispersed and hence more difficult to track down. Those Lynn or Carl were able to speak to only confirmed the prevailing picture of a rather highly strung woman with a bright mind who was happily, closely married to an articulate, intelligent, caring man. The kind of man, it was suggested, you didn’t let go of easily.

Only one person, an osteopath whom Jane had consulted some eighteen months before, and whom she and Alex had met socially a few times since, suggested anything different. His automatic response, when questioned by Lynn, was to assume that Jane had left her husband, and gave her decision a seal of approval by adding, “Not before time.”

When Lynn asked if he would care to explain what he meant, he first declined, then agreed to speak to her in person at eight forty-five the following morning. His first appointment, he explained, was at nine.

Resnick had noticed Sister Marguerite’s name on the list of people who had attended the seminar on fetishism and fashion, and he made the short journey down to the sisters’ house in Hyson Green himself.

When he arrived, a red-faced Sister Bonaventura was hauling great loads of washing out of the machine and sorting it for hanging from the crisscross of lines they had set up in the small back yard.

“Every dozen things we peg out,” she complained, “two get swiped by the kids from the youth club next door.”

Sister Marguerite was sitting in the front room, calculator in one hand and pencil in the other, figuring out that month’s accounts on the backs of several envelopes before transferring the figures into the triple-entry ledger that lay nearby.

“Wouldn’t you think, Inspector, people in holy orders should be exempt from paying VAT?”

Resnick waited until she had double-checked the household expenses column, before asking her about the day school.

“I was only present for the one seminar,” she explained. “Fashion, dress, the meanings we attach to them; it’s always been a subject that’s interested me greatly.”

“Isn’t it true,” Sister Bonaventura called from the other room, “you’d have been a model if you weren’t a nun?”

“It’s true,” Sister Marguerite agreed, “it is a calling I felt very responsive to.”

“You and Naomi Campbell on the catwalk at the same time, no one would know where to look.” Sister Bonaventura set a mug of strong-looking tea in Resnick’s hand. “PG Tips, it’s all we can afford. Biscuits are out of the question.”

Resnick thanked her and asked Sister Marguerite whether she had realized who Jane Peterson was and if she had seen her at the seminar.

“Sister Teresa pointed her out to me when I arrived, as one of the organizers, you see. And yes, she was with us, but not for long. Until the questions started, I think that’s when it was.”

“Roughly how long would this be after the session had started?” Resnick asked.

“Oh, forty minutes, no more. Certainly not as much as an hour. I assumed she had popped into the other seminar to see how they were getting on.”

But Resnick had already checked that this was not so, and he did so again when Sister Teresa arrived, back from visiting a residential home for the elderly and infirm. “No,” she stated confidently, “the lunch break was the last time I saw her, I’m positive about that. She certainly didn’t come in to us.”

Teresa walked with Resnick along the side passage and out onto the street. Traffic was heavy in both directions, backed up from the lights, and youths with squeegees and tattered ends of chamois leather darted in and out between the cars, prizing back windscreen wipers and furiously polishing at the glass, hands thrust out for small change.

“Our mutual friend,” she said, “have you seen any more of him?”

“We paid a visit,” Resnick said.

“We?”

“A colleague and myself.”

“He’s in trouble again, then, is he? He’ll go to prison?”

“That’s very much up to him.”

Teresa glanced up at him, narrowing her eyes against the fading sun. “Repent, is that what he has to do? Confess his sins and be cleansed?”

“I think,” Resnick smiled, “something in the way of restitution might be involved.”

“A little penance, too?”

“Rather more than ten Hail Marys, the Stations of the Cross.”

Sister Teresa took a step back toward the house. “I have it in mind to travel down to London shortly; there’s an exhibition I very much want to see. Degas.”

“And you were thinking you might ask Jerzy to join you?”

“It’s so much more pleasurable, looking at paintings with someone who knows more than you do.”

“I’m sure.”

“And you’d have no objection?”

Again Resnick smiled. “You might want to let me know when it is you’re going. Just in case there’s a message it might be advantageous for you to pass along.”

“Advantageous,” Teresa asked, “to whom?”

When Resnick got back to the station, Alex Peterson was waiting for him, the expression on his face making it clear he had heard nothing from his wife. “Come on up to my office,” Resnick said, “we can talk there.”