Free The Religious Body by Catherine Aird

difference.”
    â€œWe’ve got a lead, anyway, which is something. I’ll go to see the mother in the morning and also find out a bit more about this man. We’ve checked on The Bull already. He arrived at about seven-thirty, spent an hour over his meal, had a couple of drinks in the bar and then went out for a stroll.”
    The superintendent’s head went up. “When did you say she was last seen alive?”
    â€œAbout a quarter to nine—at the end of Vespers.”
    â€œWhen did he get back?”
    â€œThe landlord didn’t notice. Says he was busy with the usual crowd.”
    â€œWhat’s he like?”
    â€œNot a fool.”
    The superintendent wasn’t a fool either. “What was he doing at this bonfire?”
    Sloan shook his head. “I don’t know, sir.”
    â€œAnd who rang here and told us about it?”
    â€œA man’s voice, it was, but that’s all that switchboard can tell us.”
    Leeyes indicated the guy. “Someone wanted us to see this before it was burnt to a cinder. Why?”
    â€œI don’t know, sir. Not yet. There’s one thing—the footprints we found weren’t Cartwright’s.”
    â€œThose glasses—are they the missing ones?”
    â€œI don’t know that either, sir, yet.” Sloan undid them very carefully. “We’ll try them for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll get anything worth while.” He undid the habit and coif and slipped them off, leaving a large stuffed farm sack lying on the bench. The habit, deeply scorched in places, was old and darned. He felt its thinness between his fingers.
    Superintendent Leeyes grunted. “I don’t get it, Sloan. This woman, Sister Anne, she wasn’t naked or anything?”
    â€œOh, no, sir,” said Sloan, deeply shocked. “It’s not that sort of place at all.”
    â€œPerhaps she was killed in her Number Ones,” said Leeyes. “Or perhaps this tomfoolery has got nothing whatsoever to do with it and you’re wasting your time, Sloan. In that case,” he fingered the charred habit, “it would seem that the wrong one’s wearing the sackcloth and ashes—eh?”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Sloan dutifully.
    Sloan had been married for fifteen years.
    Long enough to view his wife’s nightly ritual with face cream with patient indifference.
    Long enough for her to be surprised as he slipped into bed beside her when he pulled the white sheet right round and across the top of her forehead.
    â€œDenis, what on earth are you doing?”
    He tucked the blanket as far under her chin as it would go and considered her.
    â€œThat’s all you can see of a nun.”
    â€œI should think so, too. What more do you want?”
    â€œFunny what a good idea of a woman you can get from this bit.”
    She shook her head. “Don’t you believe it, dear. Men always think that. It’s not true.”
    â€œNo gray now.”
    â€œBeast,” retorted his wife equably. “On the other hand, you can’t see my ankles.” Margaret Sloan had very good ankles and very little gray hair.
    He relaxed his hold on the sheet and lay on his back. “Margaret …”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œWhat would make a woman go into a convent?”
    â€œDon’t they call it having a vocation or something? Like nursing or teaching.”
    â€œThey can’t all have felt a call, can they? There’s over fifty of them there.”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Perhaps they were religious-minded anyway and then something happened to drive them there.”
    â€œLike what—as Crosby would say?”
    â€œBeing lonely, would you think, or jilted perhaps, or the man in their life loving another. That sort of thing.” She tugged at the pillow. “Or not having any man there in the first place, of course.”
    Sloan yawned. “Escape, too,