The Disciple: a gripping psychological mystery (The Sister Veronica Mysteries Book 2) Page 7

  Sister Catherine, on finding out her friend was booked into a spiritual guest house in Glastonbury, had surrendered to an epiphany.

  ‘Oh do take Hope with you,’ she’d begged. Sister Veronica, who’d secretly been hoping for this result, stared into Sister Catherine’s tired eyes. ‘She’s much more bonded with you than me, and I’m going to go mad, Sister, MAD, if I don’t get some proper sleep soon. Just take her and I’ll square it with Mother Superior when you’ve left, I’ll explain that Hope was looking a bit peaky and needed a holiday too.’

  Of course, Sister Veronica had agreed, privately knowing that Sister Julia would be incensed with rage when she found out the baby had gone too, but prepared to weather that storm when the time came. Act now and worry later, had always been her motto.

  ‘Do you like it here, Hope? Do you like it?’ Melissa cooed in the baby’s ear. She’d hardly put her down since their travels had started at London’s King’s Cross station, dressing her today in an outfit she’d bought – a soft green-and-yellow, long-sleeved stripy dress with matching tights and hat. Sister Veronica privately suspected that it would do Hope good to stretch out in the pram for a bit, but Melissa and the baby seemed so happy she didn’t like to suggest it.

  ‘Gah,’ Hope said, waving her fist in the air.

  ‘Look, Sister, Hope likes Glastonbury,’ Melissa said. ‘She’s given it the wave of approval.’

  ‘Yes, very good,’ Sister Veronica said absent-mindedly. She’d spotted a shopfront that boasted the name Goddess World in swirly writing above its large window. It was sandwiched between Arthur’s Pet Supplies and The Witch’s Cauldron. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘We’re here. You should probably take that infernal gum out of your mouth now, it’s rude to chew when you’re meeting new people.’

  ‘All right, bossy boots.’ Melissa laughed and spat it into a nearby bin. ‘It’s actually nicotine gum, Sister. I’m trying not to smoke cigarettes any more, which is a healthy life choice. You should be supporting me with that.’

  ‘Yes, yes, quite so,’ Sister Veronica mumbled, not listening to a word her friend was saying. Her attention was fully focused on the shop, and what they might find in there.

  Ignoring the sudden onset of nerves flitting around in her stomach, she pushed the pram determinedly through the front door, causing a bell to jangle. Melissa and Hope followed close behind.

  Racks of unusually beautiful clothes in greens, dark pinks, black and aquamarines were packed together so tightly that at first Sister Veronica felt like she’d walked straight into a wardrobe. Where was the counter? Some hearty shoving with the pram – causing a cascade of dresses and hangers to fall to the ground – soon located it.

  An older woman with frizzy red hair sat behind it, filing her nails. She was definitely not who Sister Veronica had been expecting to see. The woman looked up, her lined face wearing a bored expression.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Ah yes, quite well, thank you. Actually, we are looking for Celeste Adkins, and were rather hoping to find her here.’ Sister Veronica stared down briefly at the array of crystal balls before her. Good grief, did people really buy this kind of stuff?

  ‘Have you got an appointment or are you hoping for a drop-in service?’ the woman said.

  Sister Veronica turned to Melissa.

  ‘Er, drop-in, please,’ Melissa said quickly, hanging up the last of the dresses scattered by Sister Veronica.

  The woman stood up and went down a little corridor behind the counter that was lined with piles of messily-stacked boxes.

  ‘Celeste?’ the lady shouted. ‘Are you free? There’s people here hoping for a reading.’

  ‘Just coming,’ a voice shouted back.

  ‘She’ll be with you in a minute,’ the woman said, resuming her place on her stool and picking up her nail file. Sister Veronica stood and stared up at the musical instruments hanging from the ceiling, while Melissa took Hope around the shop, showing her the pretty colours.

  Footsteps could be heard springing lightly down some stairs, then a girl who couldn’t be more than mid-twenties breezed down the corridor and into the shop. Sister Veronica found herself mesmerised by the girl’s face. She had such bright eyes, brown in colour but brimming with unbridled, wild energy. A flowery headband sat on top of her golden hair, and she wore a pale-blue bodice – neatly done up – over a long white skirt.

  ‘Is it a group reading?’ Celeste smiled at them, revealing a dazzling set of teeth.

  ‘Er, yes,’ Sister Veronica said. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Come this way,’ she beckoned, waving them round the side of the counter. ‘Probably best to leave the pram with Liz, I don’t think it will fit past these boxes. Is that all right, Liz?’

  ‘Suppose so,’ Liz grunted.

  Sister Veronica followed Celeste up a very narrow flight of wonky stairs, Melissa and Hope at her heels. At the top was a landing, chock full with more boxes, some with clothes bursting over their sides.

  ‘Sorry, it’s a bit cramped up here,’ Celeste called over her shoulder. ‘I promise it will be better once we get into my room.’

  She led them through one room that looked like a study, and then into an adjoining room.

  ‘Wow,’ Melissa breathed, hitching Hope onto her hip as she walked through the door. ‘This is so lovely, Celeste.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The young lady smiled. ‘I decorated it myself.’

  Sister Veronica had never seen anything like it. Swathes of pale voile fabric were hung across the ceiling in waves. Rivers of fairy lights hung down like icicles between the folds and they lit up the room in a magical way, which was otherwise dark due to the golden taffeta curtains draped over the windows.

  Magical? Sister Veronica reprimanded herself. Now don’t get carried away for goodness’ sake. It’s very pretty but we are here for research purposes and you need to keep a clear head.

  Celeste gestured towards the large cushions that lay either side of the low rectangular coffee table in the centre of the room.

  ‘Please, choose a pew. I’ve got a soft pillow here the baby can lie on.’

  Minutes later, Sister Veronica and Melissa were stationed on satin cushions, and Hope was lying happily on her back on a silk pillow, staring up at the lights.

  ‘Now,’ Celeste said with a smile. ‘Are you related? Mother and daughter, I’m guessing?’

  Melissa snorted with laughter.

  ‘Er, no, not related. We’re just friends.’

  Celeste nodded.

  ‘Of course, my mistake. Now do you have a preference for which card deck I use? I have Psycards, the Angel cards or the Forest of Enchantment with me today.’ She pointed towards the different packs, neatly lined up at the end of the table.

  ‘Actually, Celeste,’ Sister Veronica said, ‘before we get started, there’s something we wanted to talk to you about.’

  The girl looked up, her eyes wide.

  ‘Talk to me?’

  ‘Yes. Now there’s no easy way to introduce this topic, so I’ll just come out with it,’ Sister Veronica said, biting down the awkwardness of the situation. ‘We’re looking for someone we believe may be your sister, Mona Adkins.’

  An unrecognisable emotion flickered across Celeste’s face. She sat up straighter.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Who are you, please?’

  ‘Of course, how very ill-mannered of me.’ Sister Veronica smiled gently. ‘I should have introduced myself right at the start. I am Sister Veronica Angelica, I live and work at the Convent of the Christian Heart in London.’

  ‘And I’m Melissa,’ Melissa said with a warm smile. ‘We’re so sorry for this unexpected intrusion, Celeste. It’s just that we do need to find Mona. She’s the mother of this little baby here, Hope, who was left on the convent steps a few weeks ago.’

  Sister Veronica filled Celeste in on a brief rundown of events, including how Sister Catherine – a distant relative of the Adkins girls – had been temporarily granted custody of Hope, how the
baby was living with them at the convent while the nuns and police tried to locate her mother, who had seemingly disappeared for the time being. How they had come to Glastonbury after finding Celeste’s name on ‘this internet’, and how they were really hoping she could shed some light on Mona’s whereabouts.

  ‘Hope?’ Celeste breathed, turning her eyes towards the baby. ‘So this beautiful little thing is my niece?’

  ‘Yes, if you’re Mona’s sibling?’ Sister Veronica said.

  ‘Yes, Mona’s my sister,’ Celeste said, still staring at the baby, her eyes wide. ‘But I’ve never heard of Sister Catherine.’

  ‘Ah, fantastic.’ Sister Veronica let out a big breath. Excellent. They had a tangible lead at last. The girl was answering their questions, albeit with short answers. But maybe she would warm up a bit if they kept pressing her. What luck it had been to find her so easily.

  ‘I’m afraid Mona and I haven’t spoken for nearly three years,’ Celeste went on. ‘We had a falling out, and I haven’t seen her since. That’s all I can tell you about her, really.’

  The optimism rising in Sister Veronica’s heart plummeted back down again.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that. Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Celeste?’

  ‘Ask away, although I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be,’ Celeste said. She was still staring at the baby, absolutely entranced by her small relative.

  ‘We heard that you and Mona grew up in a, ah, commune, is that right?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Celeste said. ‘It’s a beautiful place of shared living, just outside Glastonbury Town.’

  ‘And there’s no chance Mona would have gone back there?’ Sister Veronica said, watching Celeste’s face carefully.

  ‘No,’ Celeste said. Aha, Sister Veronica thought. There it is, the briefest of emotions in her eyes, what is it – disgust? It must have been a bad falling out.

  ‘And no one there might know where she could be?’

  ‘Sister,’ Celeste at last took her eyes from the baby and stared at the nun opposite her, ‘Mona chose to cut ties with all of us when she left. It was sad, but there it is. It was her choice, her business. I had no idea where she’d gone, and I didn’t know I was an auntie to this gorgeous bundle here until you told me just now. Like I said, I wish I could be more help, but I really don’t know where Mona is, and I’m the last person she’d come to if she was in trouble.’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Melissa said, ‘can I ask what your falling out was about?’

  Celeste hesitated, her face blank.

  ‘I can’t really remember,’ she said. ‘You know what families are like.’

  ‘And the place you lived in is called…’ Melissa said.

  ‘New Avalon.’

  ‘It sounds lovely,’ Melissa said with a sigh.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Do you still live there?’

  Another pause.

  ‘Yes,’ Celeste said. She sighed. ‘Shall we get back to your reading?’ The girl’s face was no longer full of open friendliness. ‘I have another client arriving soon.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Sister Veronica said. ‘Just one last thing, did Mona have any enemies that you know of?’

  A hint of a smirk whisked across Celeste’s mouth.

  ‘Who, Mona?’ she said. ‘Of course not. She’s such a lovely girl.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sister Veronica said. She shifted position. ‘If you have another client coming we can always leave now, and pay you the full price of a normal session? You’ve been ever so helpful.’

  ‘No, stay a minute, Sister.’ Celeste reached across and grabbed the packet of Psycards. ‘I’d love to do a reading for you.’ She shuffled the cards with the ease of an expert, then in one whoosh of a movement spread them face down across the coffee table. ‘Just pick four and hand them to me.’

  Sending up a silent prayer to the universe to forgive her if she was, in fact, transgressing any metaphysical rules, Sister Veronica did as she was asked. Celeste arranged the cards in a square, then slowly turned them over.

  Two gasps filled the room.

  ‘It’s that card again.’ Sister Veronica’s heart raced into a pounding gallop. ‘Destruction. It’s the same one that was left on top of Hope.’

  ‘Oh, Sister.’ Celeste clapped her hands to her mouth as she stared at the four cards in front of her. ‘I hate to tell you this, but you’re in danger. You must leave Glastonbury at once, and go back to London.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Melissa said, her tone sharp, leaning forwards.

  ‘First, we have the time in your life in question.’ Celeste pointed to the top left card. ‘It clearly says: Now. Next, we have your future,’ she pointed to the card underneath it, ‘prison. This can be an emotional or psychological prison, not just a physical one. Then, we have the likely course of action if you don’t heed the cards’ warnings.’ She pointed to the top right-hand card. ‘Destruction. And lastly the outcome.’ She pointed to the bottom right card. ‘Death.’

  ‘What a load of tosh and nonsense,’ Sister Veronica said loudly, heaving herself to her feet. ‘I’m certainly not in prison and I have no plans to die, I’m far too busy for that sort of carry on. What I am in need of is a nice cup of tea and perhaps a custard cream. Come on, Melissa, we’ve taken up enough of Celeste’s time.’

  ‘Thank you so much for answering our questions.’ Melissa picked up Hope, who was chewing on her fist. ‘I think this little lady is hungry too.’

  Celeste, her face now ghostly white, rose gracefully to her feet.

  ‘Before you go, would it be all right if I gave my niece a cuddle?’ She tried to smile but her face was strained. ‘It would mean so much to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Melissa said, handing the baby over. Celeste hugged her close but Hope wriggled uncomfortably in her arms, straining to get back to Melissa.

  ‘Don’t take any notice,’ Sister Veronica said as she made for the door. ‘It’s just because she doesn’t know you and she gets ever so grumpy when she’s hungry. Thank you, Celeste. You’ve been incredibly helpful. And I apologise again for our rude, unannounced invasion.’

  As they left Celeste behind in her room, and made their way out of the shop, blinking as daylight hit them, Melissa whistled.

  ‘Blimey,’ she said in a low voice. ‘What did you make of all that?’

  ‘On the whole, we now have more questions than answers,’ Sister Veronica growled, heading for the nearest café, The Chocolate Berry. ‘Although I’ll tell you something, I’m never having my tarot cards read again. What a load of codswallop.’

  14

  Confusion mixed with resignation alerted Lance to his surroundings. Machines and monitors emitting beeping sounds; the humming of ventilators, the long notes exuding from blood pressure contraptions and the high-pitched trilling of infusion devices. He was back in intensive care. Again. For God’s sake, how hard was it to accidentally die? He hated himself for not having the courage to actually take his own life with purpose. Just always hoped that a drug-fuelled blackness would handily slide him from life to death without him having to do much. And to think, Art always said he was the brave one. But then his father had got a lot of things wrong.

  His eyes flickered open but the brilliant daylight pouring in was too bright. He tried again a few minutes later, and this time took in the cannula inserted into his arm, that had two tubes winding out of it, leading all the way up to bags of fluid suspended above his bed.

  The horrible feeling of sobriety was making Lance’s brain ache. Because now he had feelings he didn’t want and he couldn’t block them out. When Mona had left him behind after their row, after sad old Gareth had come shouting up at their window, he’d vowed to spend the rest of his life in as much of a drug-fuelled haze as was possible. He wouldn’t be hurting anyone, he wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. No one needed or wanted him anyway, so he’d doubted whether anyone would even notice. With the remains of the money he’d stolen from his
father, Lance had successfully funded his newly chosen hedonistic lifestyle for three weeks, during which time he’d been taken to hospital twice. This time was the third, and appeared – from the feeding tube shoved down his throat – more serious than the last.

  ‘Oh good, you’re awake.’ A nurse bustled in and placed a small monitor on his finger. ‘You’re lucky, you know. We nearly lost you.’

  If only, Lance thought. Why didn’t you just let me go? What use am I here on earth?

  ‘The police were here last night,’ the nurse said, pulling a clipboard from a shelf at the end of his bed. ‘Wanted to talk to you about a missing girl or something. They told me to ring them if you pulled through, but I’ll leave it a day or two, until you’ve got some strength back.’

  Missing girl. Mona. The words went round in Lance’s head. She wasn’t actually missing though, was she? Just didn’t want to be found. They’d been silly to think it would work between them, him and Mona. After they’d left New Avalon they’d gone their separate ways for a while, trying to forge new lives and desperate not to be found by Art. Then Lance, weak and broken by too much heavy living, had found Mona a few months ago. Devastated that the silly girl had got into prostitution. She was so much better than that. But her spirit had been wrecked at New Avalon, he understood that now. He should have helped her, supported her more. But instead he just numbed his own emotional wounds with drugs.

  Pain stabbed through Lance as he relived the moment Mona told him she couldn’t be sure whether he was Asha’s father or not. Now that had hurt. He’d had to soothe that agony with an enormous amount of skunk. He loved that baby girl like she was his own. Maybe she was his. Who else’s would she be? Mona wouldn’t say, just that a couple of clients’ condoms had burst so she could be theirs. But he wasn’t fit to be a father, not at the moment. Try as he might, he just couldn’t keep making the right choices. The baby deserved more than that. She deserved more than he could give her right now. He couldn’t even remember where Asha was. Was she with her mother? Probably, Mona loved that child more than anything. Why wouldn’t she be with her mother? Lance couldn’t make sense of his thoughts but there was something nagging at the back of his mind, something about baby Asha. Had he left her with a babysitter? He’d been so out of his brain the last day he’d seen her, he could hardly remember anything about it at all. Ah well, she was probably with Mona again now.