A Traitor to Memory

The convent sat on a piece of land that was probably worth a king's ransom, tucked among a host of listed properties dating from the 1690s. This would have been where the movers and shakers had built their rural retreats during the time that William and Mary had built their own little humble country cottage in Kensington Gardens. Now the movers and shakers in the square were the employees of several business establishments that had shoe-horned themselves into the historic buildings, denizens of a second convent—where the bloody hell did nuns get the lolly to have digs round here? Barbara wondered—and inhabitants of a number of homes that had probably been handed down through families for more than three hundred years. Unlike some of the city squares that had suffered bomb damage or the ravages of greed from consecutive Tory governments with big business, vast profits, and the privatisation of everything in mind, Kensington Square stood largely untouched, with four sides of distinguished buildings overlooking a central garden where the fallen autumn leaves made an umber skirt on the lawn beneath each tree.

Parking was impossible, so Barbara pulled her Mini onto the pavement at the northwest edge of the square, where a strategically placed bollard prevented the traffic from the distant high street from creating a short cut and disturbing the quiet of the neighbourhood. She shoved her police identification onto what went for the Mini's dashboard. She clambered out and in short order found herself in the company of Sister Cecilia Mahoney, who was still a resident of the convent and who was, when Barbara called, at work in the chapel next door.

Barbara's first thought upon encountering the nun was that she didn't look much like one. Nuns were supposed to be women two or three decades past their prime who wore heavy black robes, clanking rosary beads, and veils and wimples from the Middle Ages.

Cecilia Mahoney didn't fit this picture. In fact, when Barbara was directed to the chapel to find her, her first assumption when she saw the figure up on a small step ladder with a can of marble polish in her hand was that she was a tartan-skirted cleaning woman, since cleaning an altar that featured a statue of Jesus pointing to His own exposed, anatomically incorrect, and partially gilded heart was what she was doing. Barbara told this woman that, pardon me but she was looking for Sister Cecilia Mahoney, whereupon the woman turned and said with a smile, “Then it's me you're looking for,” in a brogue that sounded as if she'd just landed from Killarney.

Barbara identified herself, and the nun took some care in climbing down from the steps. She said, “Police, is it? Why, you haven't the look of a policeman at all. Is there some sort of trouble, Constable?”

The chapel was dimly lit, but down from the steps Sister Cecilia put herself into a pool of rose light created by a single votive candle that burned on the altar she was polishing. It did much to flatter her, smoothing away the lines on her middle-aged face and casting highlights into hair that was short but whose curls—as black and as shiny as obsidian—couldn't be disciplined even by the slides she used to manage them. She had violet eyes, darkly lashed, and they looked upon Barbara kindly.

Barbara said, “Is there somewhere we can go to have a word?”

The nun said, “Sad to say, Constable, it's unlikely that we'll be disturbed in here if it's privacy you're wanting. Time was that would have been out of the question. But these days … even the students who live in our dormitory frequent the chapel only when they've got an exam and are hoping for God's intervention in the matter. Come. Let's go up here and you can tell me what it is that you're wanting to know.” She smiled, revealing perfect white teeth, and went on to say, as if in explanation of her smile, “Or is it that you're wanting to join us in the convent, Constable Havers?”

“It might give me the fashion make-over I need,” Barbara admitted.

Sister Cecilia laughed. “Come this way. It'll be a bit warmer by the main altar. I've an electric fire there for the Monsignor when he says Mass in the morning. He's become a bit arthritic, poor man.”

Taking her cleaning supplies in hand, she led Barbara up the single centre aisle in the chapel, beneath a deep blue ceiling punctuated by gilded stars. Barbara saw that it was a church of women: Apart from the statue of Jesus and a stained glass window dedicated to St. Michael, all other windows and statues were female: St. Theresa of Lisieux, St. Clare, St. Catherine, St. Margaret. And atop the ornamental pillars on either side of each of the windows were carvings of even more women.

“Here we are.” Sister Cecilia went to one side of the altar and switched on a large electric fire. As it began to heat, the nun explained that she'd continue her work right here in the sanctuary if the constable didn't mind. There was this altar to be seen to as well: the candlesticks and the marble to be polished, a reredos to be dusted, and altar cloths to be replaced. “But you might wish to sit by the fire, my dear. The cold seeps in.”

As Sister Cecilia set to her cleaning, Barbara told her that she'd brought what might be bad news for the nun. Her name had been found inside several books on the lives of saints—

“Not a surprise, I hope, considering my calling,” Sister Cecilia murmured as she removed the brass candlesticks from the altar and set them carefully on the floor next to Barbara. She went on to the altar cloths, folding and placing them over an ornate altar rail. She then fished in her bucket and brought out a jar and some rags, which she took with her to work upon the altar.