Jack Higgins - Rough Justice

The sign read: St Mary’s Priory Little Sisters of Pity. Mother Superior: Sister Maria Brosnan .

Miller pushed open the great oaken door and went in. A young nun was at a reception desk sorting some sort of register. A large notice promised soup and bread in the kitchen at noon. There was also a supper in the canteen at six. There were times for Mass in the chapel noted and also for Confession. These matters were in the hands of a Father Martin Sharkey.

‘Can I help you?’ the young nun asked.

‘My name is Blunt, Mark Blunt. I’m from London. I believe the Mother Superior is expecting me.’

The girl sparkled. ‘You’re from Wapping? I’m Sister Bridget. I did my novitiate there last year. How is the Mother Superior?’

Miller’s hard work reading the files paid off. ‘Oh, you mean Sister Mary Michael? She’s well, I believe, but I’m working out of Monsignor Baxter’s office at the Bishop’s Palace.’

A door to the panelled wall at one side of her, labelled Sacristy , had been standing ajar, and now it opened and a priest in a black cassock stepped out.

‘Do you have to bother the boy with idle chatter, Bridget, my love, when it’s the Mother Superior he’s needing?’

She was slightly confused. ‘I’m sorry, Father.’

He was a small man, fair-haired, with a lively intelligent face alive with good humour. ‘You’ll be the young man with the plans for the improvements we’ve been waiting for, Mr Blunt, isn’t it?’

‘Mark Blunt.’ He held out his hand and the priest took it.

‘Martin Sharkey. You know what women are like, all agog at the thought that the old place is going to be finally put to rights.’ There was only a hint of an Ulster accent in his voice, which was fluent and quite vibrant in a way. ‘I’m in and out of the place at the moment, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know. You’ll find the lady you seek through the end door there which leads to the chapel.’ He turned and went back into the sacristy.

The chapel was everything Miller expected. Incense, candles and the Holy Water, the Virgin and Child floating in semidarkness, the confessional boxes to one side, the altar with the sanctuary lamp. Sister Maria Brosnan was on her knees scrubbing the floor. To perform such a basic task was to remind her to show proper humility. She stopped and glanced up.

‘Mark Blunt, Sister.’

‘Of course.’ She smiled, a small woman with a contented face. ‘You must excuse me. I have a weakness for pride. I need to remind myself on a daily basis.’

She put the brush and a cloth in her bucket, he gave her his hand and pulled her up. ‘I was talking to Mr Frobisher the other day. He asked to be remembered to you.’

‘A good and kind man. He saw what was needed here a year ago and doubted the order could find the money.’ She led the way into the darkness, opened a door to reveal a very ordered office, a desk, but also a bed in the corner. ‘But all that has changed, thanks to Monsignor Baxter in London. It’s wonderful for all of us that the money has been made available.’

‘As always, it oils the wheels.’

She went behind her desk, saying, ‘Take a seat for a moment,’ which he did. ‘As I understand it, you will examine everything referring to Mr Frobisher’s original findings and report back to Monsignor Baxter?’

‘That’s it exactly, but let me stress that I don’t think you have the slightest need to worry. There is a very firm intention to proceed. I just need a few days to check things out. I understand I can stay here?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll show you around now.’

‘I met Father Sharkey on my way in,’ Miller told her.

‘A great man, a Jesuit no less.’

‘Soldier of Christ.’

‘Of course. We are fortunate to have him. Father Murphy, our regular priest was struck down the other week with pneumonia. The diocese managed to find Father Sharkey for us. He was due at the English College at the Vatican, a great scholar, I understand, but he’s helping out until Father Murphy is fit again. Now let’s do the grand tour.’

She showed him everything, starting with the top floor, where there was dormitory space for twenty nuns, the second floor with specialist accommodation for nursing cases of one kind or another, a theatre for medical attention. There were half a dozen patients, nuns in attendance.

‘Do you get people in and out on a regular basis?’

‘Of course – we are, after all, a nursing order. Five of the people on this floor have cancer of one kind or another. I’m a doctor, didn’t you know that?’

All Miller could do was say, ‘Actually, I didn’t. Sorry.’

The doors stood open for easy access, and a couple of the nuns moved serenely in and out offering help as it was needed. Some patients were draped in a festoon of needles and tubes, drips of one kind or another. Sister Maria Brosnan murmured a few words of comfort as she passed. The end room had a man in a wheelchair, and what appeared to be plaster of Paris supporting his head, a strip of bandaging covering his left eye. He was drinking through a straw from a plastic container of orange juice.

‘Now then, Mr Fallon, you’re doing well, but try a little walk. It will strengthen you.’

His reply was garbled and they moved to the next room, where a woman, looking pale as death, lay propped up against a pillow, eyes closed. Sister Maria Brosnan stroked her forehead and the woman’s tired eyes opened.

‘You’re very good to me,’ she whispered.

‘Go to sleep, dear, don’t resist it.’

They walked out. Miller said, ‘She’s dying, isn’t she?’

‘Oh, yes, and very soon now. Each is different. A time comes when radiotherapy and drugs have done their best and failed. To ease the patient’s journey into the next world then becomes one of our most important duties.’

‘And Fallon?’

‘He’s different. According to his notes, he has a cancer biting deep into the left eye and it also affects his speech. He’s only been with us for two days, waiting for a bed at the Ardmore Institute. You see, radiotherapy is beyond our powers here. Up at Ardmore, they do wonderful things.’

‘So there could still be hope for him?’

‘Young man, there is hope for all of us. God willing. With cancer, I’ve seen total remission in my time, in some cases.’

‘A miracle?’ Miller said.

‘Perhaps, Mr Blunt.’ Her simple faith shone out of her. ‘Our Lord performed them.’

They were on the ground floor: kitchens, canteen, a dormitory for twenty-five, with a divider, women one side, men the other.

‘Street people. They queue to get a bed for the night.’

‘Amazing,’ Miller said. ‘You really do good work.’

‘I like to think so.’ They were back in the entrance hall, Bridget at her desk.

She produced a parcel. There was a bright painted label which read Glover Hi-Speed Deliveries .

‘For you, Mr Blunt,’ she said. ‘A young man on a motorcycle – I had to sign for it.’

Miller took it and managed to smile, ‘Something I needed to help me in my work,’ he said to the Mother Superior.

She accepted that. ‘Just come this way.’ He followed her towards the chapel entrance, and she turned into a short corridor with a door that said Washroom and two doors opposite.

‘Father Sharkey has one room, now you, the other.’ She turned the key in the door and opened it. There was a locker, a desk and a small bed in the corner.

‘This will be fine,’ Miller told her.

‘Good. Obviously, you’re free to go anywhere you want. If you need me, just call. One thing, do keep your room locked. Some of our guests can be light-fingered.’

She went out. Miller locked the door, sat on the bed and tore open the package. Inside in a cardboard box was a soft leather ankle holder, a Colt .25 with a silencer and a box containing twenty hollow-point cartridges, a lethal package if ever there was one. There was no message, the name Glover Hi-Speed Deliveries