Blood Sisters (55 page)

‘I’ll be keeping a watch outside, ma’am,’ he told her. ‘And you don’t have to worry. I’ll arrange for a relief to take over when it comes to the end of my shift.’

‘I’ll fetch you out some tea,’ Katie told him. ‘And you can come in and use the toilet if and when you need it. You don’t have to pee in the bushes.’

The protection officer almost managed to lift the corner of his mouth into a smile. He accompanied her up to the front door and waited until she had let herself in. Barney came charging up to her with his tail thrashing and almost knocked her over.

‘It’s all, right, Barns. Don’t jump up. I’m feeling a little sensitive, just at the moment.’

‘You’ll be okay, ma’am?’ asked the protection officer. ‘If there’s anything you need, give me a shout.’

‘Thank you,’ said Katie.
I need a rest. I need somebody to hold me. I need a shoulder to cry on. I need my baby back, but my baby’s gone for ever. I’m hurting, my stomach’s hurting and I need to cry
.

Dermot hooked up the single horse trailer to the back of his car while Riona waited impatiently, holding Sparkle the Second’s bridle.

‘You’re not going to change your clothes?’ Dermot asked her.

‘No, because we’re going to the convent first. It’s not only Sparkle the Second we’re going to get rid of today.’

Dermot shook his head. ‘Listen, is this such a bright idea, like? There could be shades at the convent, too.’

‘That’s precisely why I’m not changing my clothes,’ said Riona. ‘What chance would I have of getting into a convent in my fur jacket and thigh-boots?’

‘Oh well, fair play. But this is getting more and more cracked by the minute, there’s no mistake about that. And I thought
I
was the one who was supposed to be rulya.’

‘Go and fetch your shotgun,’ said Riona.

‘What?’

‘I said go and fetch your shotgun. And a box of cartridges, too.’

‘What have you got in mind, then? The Gunfight at the Fecking OK Corral?’

‘Just fetch it, Dermot. You’re wasting time.’

Dermot walked across to his lean-to shed at the side of the stables while Riona led Sparkle the Second up the ramp into the horse trailer and tied him up. Sparkle the Second let out a snort and she patted his nose.

‘Sorry about this, Sparkle. This isn’t your fault. There’s a heaven for horses, don’t you worry. All grass and sunshine and mares who feel like it.’

Dermot came back with the up-and-over shotgun that he used for killing rats around the stud farm and a box of Eley 28 gram cartridges. He tossed them on to the back seat and then he and Riona climbed into the car.

‘Maybe we should say a prayer,’ Dermot suggested.

‘Good idea,’ said Riona. ‘Dear Lord save us from sadistic nuns and people who can’t be trusted and incurable idiots. Now, let’s go!’

* * *

It took them over an hour to reach Gardiner’s Hill because they were towing the horsebox. Riona told Dermot to wait about fifty metres down the hill from the entrance to the Bon Sauveur Convent, in a cul-de-sac called Herbert Park.

‘Turn around, though,’ she said. ‘You need to be ready to leave as soon as I get back.’

‘You’re still sure you want to go through with this?’ Dermot asked her.

‘Jesus. I don’t know who’s the worse nag, Sparkle the Second or you.’

‘Okay, sorry. Just asking.’

Riona climbed out and slung her raincoat over her shoulders. Then she opened the back door, picked up the shotgun and broke it open.

‘You’re not taking
that
with you?’

‘What does it look like?’ said Riona. She took out two cartridges and loaded the shotgun, then she took out another four and pushed them into her raincoat pockets. Dermot was about to say something but decided against it. If he had learned anything about Riona, it was that once she had made up her mind that she wanted to do something she was unstoppable. Today she was making him feel totally helpless, as if he were being washed out to sea. He hadn’t felt like this since he was first sent to Carraig Mor.

Riona shrugged her raincoat higher on her shoulders and hid the shotgun underneath it, holding it by the barrels. She gripped her lapels tightly together with her left hand to make sure that it didn’t show.

‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be,’ she said. ‘It depends how quickly I can find Sister Virginia.’

‘Take your time,’ said Dermot, lighting a cigarette. ‘It’s not like I’ve got a doctor’s appointment or nothing.’

‘You were right before,’ said Riona. ‘You are a comedian.’

She walked off up the hill to the limestone pillars of the Bon Sauveur Convent. Two uniformed gardaí were standing outside, but as she approached they nodded and smiled and said, ‘How’s it going, Sister?’ She smiled back, but said nothing.

She climbed the steeply sloping car park. A green van was being loaded with shovels and riddles and folded blue sheets of vinyl and some of the search team of Garda reservists were standing around, talking and smoking. Riona walked past them and up to the convent’s front door.

She didn’t have to ring the bell. The door opened as she was approaching it and an elderly nun came out, and smiled at her. ‘Good afternoon, Sister,’ she said and held the door open for her. Riona nodded, but still she said nothing.

Her footsteps echoed as she walked along the gloomy corridor past the gleaming statue of Saint Margaret of Cortona. The shotgun was beginning to feel heavy and awkward underneath her raincoat and inch by inch it was slipping down, so she stopped for a moment to adjust her grip on it.

As she did so, a young nun in white came out of a side room. She smiled at Riona at first, but then she frowned because she obviously didn’t recognize her.

‘Can I help you at all, Sister?’ she asked her.

Riona said, ‘Oh! Yes, maybe you can. I’m looking for Sister Virginia O’Cleary. I’ve been told that she’s staying here for a while. She left her medallion of Saint Perpetua behind at her grand-niece’s house and I’ve fetched it for her.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said the young sister. ‘I believe Sister Virginia’s still sleeping at the moment because she hasn’t been too well. If you give it to me, I can make sure she gets it when she wakes up.’

‘I’d really prefer to put it in her hand myself, thank you. Can you show me where she is?’

‘I don’t think she’s supposed to be disturbed. She’s had some heart trouble.’

‘I won’t disturb her, I can promise you that. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. I’ll just tiptoe in and press it in her hand. It means so much to her.’

‘Well... I suppose that would be all right. She’s upstairs. Do you want to follow me? Shall I take your coat for you?’

‘No, no, I’m grand altogether. It’s fierce cold outside and I haven’t warmed up yet.’

The young sister led Riona to the end of the corridor. Two flights of pale-oak stairs led up to a landing on the first floor, illuminated by a yellow stained-glass window. They climbed the stairs and went all the way along another corridor, with Riona’s raincoat rustling as she walked. The shotgun was now feeling almost unbearably heavy and she was on the verge of dropping it.

‘Here,’ said the young novice. They had reached a door with a pewter crucifix on it and the number seven. She gently turned the handle and opened it up, turning around to Riona as she did so and pressing her fingertip to her lips.

Inside, in semi-darkness, Sister Virginia lay asleep. She was lying on a plain iron bed with brass knobs on it, covered by a fawn wool blanket. Apart from a walnut-veneered wardrobe and a framed print of Jesus holding up His hand in blessing, the room was completely bare. It smelled of antiseptic ointment and cloves.

Riona approached the bed. There, with her head resting on a flat skimpy pillow, was the woman who had made her Sorley sleep all night in cold urine-soaked sheets. Her eyes were closed and her toothless mouth was half open, and she was breathing in quick little gasps as if she were dreaming that she was running.

She was much older, of course, than Riona remembered her. Her cheeks were sunken and her hair was white, tied with a black velvet band. But Riona could never forget that hawk-like nose and the wart in the middle of her chin.

Riona turned around to the young novice, who was still standing in the open doorway. The novice didn’t say anything but gave her an encouraging nod, as if to suggest that she should go ahead and place the medallion in Sister Virginia’s hand, so that they could leave her to sleep in peace.

Instead, though, Riona turned back to the bed, opened up her raincoat and lifted out the shotgun. The young novice clearly didn’t understand what she was doing, because she didn’t move and didn’t utter a sound. Riona took a step back and pushed the muzzle of the shotgun into Sister Virginia’s mouth, right up against her gums.

Sister Virginia instantly opened her pale-grey eyes and half raised one hand. She stared at Riona for a split second as if she were saying,
Who are you, and what are you doing?
But then Riona pulled both triggers, one after the other. There was a deafening double bang and Sister Virginia’s skull exploded, so that the pillow and the wall behind it were sprayed with blood and flesh and gelatinous lumps of brain and fragments of bone.

All that remained of her face was her lower jaw, with her long mauve tongue lolling over it. The bedroom was filled with pungent gunpowder smoke and the feathers from her pillow floated down on to the blackened, bloodied hole where her head had been resting.

Riona’s ears were singing and she felt as if she had been kicked in the shoulder by a horse. She turned around and the young novice was staring at her in shock. She took a step back from Riona, and then another, and then she rushed off along the corridor. Riona stood quite still for a moment. She was sorry that she hadn’t been able to inflict on Sister Virginia the prolonged agony she had intended for her. The best she could hope for was that she had realized in that final split second who Riona was, and why she was being shot.

Riona broke open the shotgun to eject the spent cartridges and took two more out of her raincoat pocket to reload it. Then she left the bedroom without looking again at Sister Virginia’s body and walked back along the corridor. She walked briskly, but she didn’t rush, and now she was carrying the shotgun openly.

Although she was still partially deafened by the shots she had fired, she could hear doors slamming and nuns calling out to each other and the pattering of feet. She started down the stairs, but she was only halfway down when a door on the right-hand side suddenly opened.

A nun came out, dressed all in black except for her white cowl, elderly and diminutive. She looked up at Riona and the lenses of her glasses gleamed yellow in the light from the stained-glass window.

‘What have you done?’ asked the nun in a thin, quivering voice.

Riona continued to descend the stairs until she was standing right in front of her. The nun barely came up to Riona’s chest.

‘What have I
done
?’ she said. ‘I’ve done what should have been done years ago. I’ve given Sister Virginia the punishment she deserved. I’ve shot her. She’s dead.’

‘You’ve
killed
her? In the holy name of Jesus, what did she ever do to deserve that? She was a pure and saintly woman. She did nothing but good all her life.’

‘No, she didn’t. She was a murderer. Just like Sister Bridget, and Sister Barbara, and Sister Mona, and Sister Aibrean.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that you killed
them
, too?’ said the nun in horror, and crossed herself.

‘They were all murderers,’ said Riona. ‘How many children did they murder between them? How many lives did they crush? Now, step out of my way, will you? I’ve done what I came here to do.’

‘No – you stay right there,’ said the nun. ‘I’m going to call the guards and have you arrested for murder.’

Riona lifted the shotgun and pointed it directly at the nun’s heart. ‘You will not, Sister. I would have no hesitation at all in killing you, too. Now, step out of my way.’

The nun took off her glasses and said, ‘I am the mother superior of this convent and I am ordering you in the name of God to put down that gun and stay where you are.’

Riona stared at her. ‘I
know
you,’ she said.

‘What are you talking about? Put down that gun! Sister Rose! Can you hear me, Sister Rose? Run outside and fetch those two guards! Warn them there’s a woman here with a gun!’

Riona came closer to Mother O’Dwyer until the shotgun was almost touching the silver cross around her neck.

‘I
know
you. You’re Sister Hannah!’

‘What? Who are you?’

‘You’re Sister Hannah! Horrible Hannah, I used to call you behind your back! You were just as mean to me as Sister Virginia! You were worse! You were always picking on me. You were always making me stay inside while the other girls went out. You were always sending me to bed without any supper. Don’t you remember that time when I hadn’t washed the dishes properly and you slapped me and slapped me as if you wanted me dead! You were
horrible
to me! You were always making me cry! And it was
you
,
you bitch, it was you who told me that it was a good thing that my Sorley was taken away from me because I was nothing but a whore!

She lifted the shotgun higher and curled her finger around the triggers. ‘Oh... I could happily kill you here and now!’

‘
Sorley
?’ whispered Mother O’Dwyer. ‘Your son was called
Sorley
?’

‘Oh! So you
do
remember? Poor little Sorley who you treated almost as bad as me and then sent off to America to be adopted.’

‘Riona?’ said Mother O’Dwyer, still whispering. ‘Riona Nolan?’

‘You do have a good memory, Sister Hannah. Or
Mother
Hannah, or whatever you call yourself now. Now, for the last time, will you step out of my way because I am finding it very difficult to restrain myself from blowing an enormous great hole in you.’

‘You can’t,’ said Mother O’Dwyer.

‘What do you mean, I can’t?’