They didn’t need a policeman to tell them something was wrong. He lifted his foot and kicked the door. It moved a little, not much. So he stepped back then barged the door using his shoulder and putting his substantial weight behind it. The door splintered and cracked. He looked over his shoulder at Agnes. They both knew the noise he was making was loud enough to wake the dead, so why hadn’t Mary opened the door?
As he launched himself at the door once more, it gave with a loud splintering sound and he stumbled forwards. He seemed to be trying to take in the sight before him, but his eyes would not or could not register what he was seeing. Agnes motioned with her hand for Edith and Lilith to wait there. She stepped in behind Crosby and, just as he had, she looked around trying to understand what it was she was seeing. The normally white walls were covered in splatters of red. The smell hit them both at the same time, making them gag. Agnes lifted her hand and made the sign of the cross. Crosby uttered one word: ‘Fuck.’
***
It had taken hours before the police had taken Mary’s body away. Father Patrick had taken them all into the front room where they’d prayed for Mary’s soul. There was no way she had killed herself and it couldn’t be murder either, could it? Constable Crosby had needed to break the door down himself. The windows were shut and locked from the inside.
Agnes’s first thought had been that somehow Lilith’s husband had gained entry into the house, looking for his wife, and killed Mary by mistake. Then she realised it had been her who had unlocked the front door to let the constable inside and all the locks and bolts had still been fastened. It didn’t make any sense and throughout everything Lilith had kept very quiet. She hadn’t suggested it was her husband and she had taken to her room, locking herself inside.
Agnes had spent over an hour with Crosby and Father Patrick, talking them over what had happened since Lilith had knocked on the convent door. Father Patrick had done his best to reassure both women that it wasn’t their fault. Yes, it was very strange, but they would find out what had happened. Edith, who hadn’t stopped crying for hours, had started to panic when Father Patrick had told them he was going back to the vicarage and he’d had to promise her he would go home, get a change of clothes and then come back and spend the night.
By this time Lilith had come out of her room and was loitering in the doorway of the front room. She kept smiling at the priest and Agnes didn’t like it one little bit. Agnes had asked Patrick if they could tell the woman to leave when they had been alone in the kitchen, but he’d shaken his head.
‘Agnes, I admit it’s all a very strange and sad coincidence, but that’s all it is. We can’t really tell her to leave when she has nowhere to stay that’s safe. The church has always been a safe place, a haven. How many times have we offered sanctuary for those in desperate need? Over the centuries, it’s been too many to count. Lilith needs our compassion and our help. We will let her stay here until she has somewhere safe she can go to.’
‘Very well, Father. There’s something about her that I can’t put my finger on though. She makes me feel uneasy.’
‘Agnes, if I didn’t help the people who made me uneasy I’d never be able to do my job. It will be fine. The poor woman must be terrified, escaping a violent husband then waking up to this. We must be patient with her and show her more kindness than before.’
‘Very well, Father, whatever you wish.’
Agnes wasn’t happy at the thought of Lilith still being a guest inside the house. Father Patrick had offered to bring someone in from the village to clean up the mess in Mary’s room and Agnes had declined. She thought it was the least she could do and she wanted to see what had happened, now that Mary had been taken away to the undertaker’s, the various parts of her body all wrapped up in a sheet.
Crosby had told her before he left that they could clean up the mess if they wanted to either tonight or tomorrow. As tempting as it had been to leave it until tomorrow, Agnes wasn’t a fool and knew that the room smelt horrendous already. To leave it another day before trying to clean up the blood and mess would make it unbearable.
Edith was in the kitchen with Lilith and Father Patrick, so Agnes went to the cupboard under the stairs where they kept the disinfectant and mop buckets. She took a big bottle of bleach, a box of rags and the mop bucket. Locking the door behind her, she went upstairs. Mary’s room was the seventh one along the landing. The door wasn’t shut properly because of Crosby’s attempts to kick it in.
Agnes’s mouth felt dry and her hands were trembling at the thought of going inside it on her own, but she needed to do this. She was in charge of running this convent and the responsibility weighed heavy on her shoulders. Mary’s family would be coming tomorrow and might want to stop here. It was the least they could do and she wouldn’t have them going into their daughter’s room if it was still stained with her blood.
Agnes was only a small woman, but she was strong. The corridor seemed to her as if it had increased in size because Mary’s bedroom door looked so far away from where she was standing at the top of the stairs. As she forced her feet to walk forwards, she began to pray under her breath. She prayed for Mary and for the rest of them because she couldn’t shake the feeling that what had happened to Sister Mary was just the beginning of something terrible.
The smell hit her as she got halfway along the landing and her empty stomach lurched. She crossed herself. How had this happened to Mary? What had happened? It didn’t make any sense to her whatsoever. They had all been fine last night.
Agnes thought she heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming from Mary’s room and she paused to listen. The police, doctor and undertakers had all left. There should be no one here. She waited, her heart racing. Stop it, woman, you’re scaring yourself. Holding herself straight, she walked the last few steps and listened at the door, pressing her head against the wood to make sure there was no one still in there. She was greeted by silence.
She pushed the door open and gasped once more; the sight in front of her eyes was horrendous. Earlier had been bad enough, although the shock had numbed some of it. The blood was everywhere. It was as if someone had taken a paintbrush and splashed it all around the white walls. The bed had the white outline of where Mary had fallen, but surrounding it and bleeding into it were dark, almost black congealing pools of blood.
The stench was how Agnes imagined an abattoir would smell. That was it. Mary had been butchered to pieces in her own bedroom and not one of them had heard a sound. How had that been possible? Her eyes fell onto the book on Mary’s bedside table: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Something bothered Agnes about that book, but she didn’t know what. Why had Mary been reading that? Mary and Edith had been to the picture house in the town to watch it and both of them had come back scared of their own shadows for days. So what was it that had compelled her to go out and buy the book?
Agnes stepped forward and reached out for the soft, leather-bound book. As she flicked open the front page, her eyes began to stream and her nostrils flared at the strong smell that was emanating from it. It smelt like embalming fluid, but what on earth would that be doing on the pages of a book? Agnes had helped out at the undertaker’s a few times back in her younger days and although it was hard to describe exactly what it smelt of, it always had the same effect on her. Dropping the book back, she stepped away. Something strange was happening in this house and she didn’t have any idea what it was.
Agnes started to blot, wipe, scrub and wash every trace of blood away that she could find. Every couple of minutes she would twist her head from one side to the other to look behind her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. Mary’s room was huge, but so were all the others. It was a massive house, which had obviously been designed for a wealthy family. Not a small group of women who had given up their
