Free Blood on the Bones by Geraldine Evans

I'm still striving for serenity, but it's proving elusive as yet. Clearly, I'm a long way from being ready to take my final vows.'
    Rafferty, in spite of Mother Catherine's attempts to convince him otherwise, still appalled that such a pretty girl should choose to ‘waste’ her youth and beauty by shutting them away behind a convent's walls, was similarly inclined to be over-emotional.
    He smiled sympathetically, and told her. ‘You're young yet. I imagine this is your first contact with death?’
    She gave him an uncertain nod.
    ‘I don't suppose even your Prioress, admirable as I'm sure she is now, was quite so in control of her emotions when she was your age.’
    ‘Do you really think so?’ she asked, clearly finding difficulty with the idea, but equally clearly, rather taken by the suggestion.
    ‘Sure of it,’ Rafferty affirmed. Though he admitted to a certain thankfulness that the Mother Superior wasn't around to hear him say it.
    To have attained her current rank indicated a truly awesome mastery of ordinary human weaknesses.
    But after ten minutes of questioning, it was clear that the young novice, like the rest, was unable to tell them anything much. Whether they were all really unable or simply unwilling and involved in a conspiracy of silence for reasons of their own, Rafferty was as yet, unable to discern.
    When the young novice glided through the door, rather less smoothly than the Mother Superior, and back to her duties at the computer, Rafferty, who sympathised with the elusiveness of her serenity, sat back and remarked to Llewellyn, ‘Looks like we've got the religious version of the three wise monkeys here, Daff. Shame they've multiplied.’
    Llewellyn's lips twitched. ‘Indeed. And though they still, it seems, see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil – I can't believe that they don't sense the presence of evil and have a pretty good idea from whence it springs.’
    The nuns, perhaps because they were unused to inconsequential chatter, had mostly shown themselves to be sparing with words.
    Rafferty could only hope this propensity altered the next time he questioned them. Maybe, if he was to get more revealing chatter, he'd have to liberate the communion wine and encourage the sisters to make free with it.
    'Let's just hope that between them, Sam Dally, the forensic anthropologist and the forensic entomologist, can pin down a shorter timescale for the man's likely death. Hope, too, that we're able to quickly identify him. One thing I find hard to believe is the sisters' denial that our cadaver could possibly have any connection to the convent or any of its inhabitants.'
    Llewellyn nodded his agreement. ‘And if it wasn't for the fact that the spare keys to the building are missing, it would not be easy for some outsider to gain access without the assistance of at least one of the community. If the murderer wasn't admitted via the normal route, he would have had to scale the walls–’
    ‘Dragging a corpse behind him for good measure,’ Rafferty interrupted, to add the thought that had already occurred to him.
    ‘Quite.’
    Llewellyn's tightly-drawn lips expressed his displeasure at this description. Rafferty chose to ignore his sergeant's silent reproof. 'Though why an outsider would choose to bury his victim here at all when he – or she, which would be even more unlikely if we are talking about an outsider – has miles of countryside, not to mention the North Sea close at hand.
    ‘No.’ Rafferty shook his head. 'The outsider as murderer scenario is too bizarre for words. And it's a damn shame those spare keys to the convent are missing as it confuses the issue. But I think – unless either the doctor or Father Kelly turn out to be the culprit, having helped themselves to the spare keys – that we may well have already met our murderer.'
    But the thought that their killer might well turn out to be a contemplative nun was bizarre and really rather chilling. It meant that this case