Part 10 (1/2)

”You are a good man,” Bridget said, comparing him with someone he knew nothing about.

”Not at all bad at it,” said Murphy modestly, not understanding.

He wished he could spend the rest of the afternoon out here with Bridget. So did she, but other responsibilities beckoned. She'd have to get back to the nuns and the children soon. Children? Adolescent girls, this lot. Quivering in Murphy's presence like harp strings briskly plucked.

”You have very s.e.xy hands,” she said, ”but you should clean your dirty finger-nails.”

He liked the compliment about his hands. Of course they were s.e.xy. He knew how to use them. As for his nails being dirty, they'd be dirtier still in a minute. One of the off-side wheels of the bus needed attention. It had better be seen to now.

He pulled on his trousers and told Bridget to give him ten minutes. She'd need that anyway to get herself tidied up.

Zanny, from her lair, watched him go. She had heard him say ten minutes. Her time was short. She crept out of the bushes, feeling cold and sick. The pain in her flesh and in her bones slowed her like sudden senility. She had to force her limbs to move. The place had to be reconnoitred for the right spot. And for the right weapon. At last she found both.

Gently, plaintively, she began to call out. ”Miss O'Hare - Miss O'Hare.”

Bridget, fastening the b.u.t.ton of her shorts, looked up startled. The voice seemed to be coming from over the ridge where the sound of the sea was loud. She bent over and fastened her sandals and then went to look.

The pretty one - Zanny something or other - was crouching over something in the slippery gra.s.s. She was dangerously near the edge.

”Whatever you've got there,” Bridget said sharply, ”leave it and come back up here.” (How much had the girl seen? d.a.m.n her!) ”Oh, but I can't,” Zanny said plaintively, ”I think it's dying.”

”What is dying?”

”A dear little creature. A dear little soul.” (Willie in heaven picking apples for Jesus. Evans the Bread burning up a tree.) ”A what?” Despite her better judgment, Bridget went to look.

As she leaned over, Zanny brought the lump of granite down hard on the back of her neck and then gave her a shove. Half-concussed, Bridget slid several feet down the slope, scrabbled at the rough earth at the top of the cliff, and then sailed in a perfect crimson and blue arc downwards and into the evil green of the sea below.

It wasn't the most spectacular death of the three - it couldn't compare with Evans the Bread -- but for Zanny it was the most satisfying. She sat for a little while looking down into the gully while the sea creamed like dirty lace around Bridget's long dark hair.

Three.

When the bus didn't arrive until very late Mother Benedicta knew something was wrong. Her first thought was that Murphy had got drunk and crashed it. She had never seen him drunk, but she had sensed that her warning to keep away from the temptation wasn't maligning him. When the bus eventually ground up the convent drive at nearly half past nine she went to meet it.

Murphy, at the wheel, was white with suppressed rage, but there wasn't a whiff of the hard stuff near him. He had searched for Bridget for a long time. Eventually he had seen someone who had looked like Bridget - she had worn a crimson jersey and shorts - getting into a dinghy with a couple of yachtsmen. At a distance he could hear their laughter. One of the sods had his arm around her waist. That she should ditch him so blatantly for a b.l.o.o.d.y toff with a sailing boat had made his Irish ire explode. He had gone back to the nuns and the girls who were waiting anxiously and told them that he had seen her and that she could b.l.o.o.d.y walk. She could run screaming after the bus, he said, and he hoped her bleeding feet would drop off. Though he had been reasonably restrained (he could have put it much more colourfully), the nuns took it badly. And one of the girls got sick. Right there on the floor. He thought she was going to pa.s.s out, but she didn't. She was the pretty one. The s.e.xy one he'd helped over the wall. One of the nuns mopped up the mess and another one gave her a barley sugar to settle her stomach. She sat and crunched it and looked at him, her eyes wide with horror.

Most of this was told to Mother Benedicta by various members of the party. Zanny's sickness they attributed to sensitivity. They had no idea that Murphy's words had conjured up a ghoul climbing bloodily out of the gully, like Dracula out of a tomb, and shrieking vengeance as it sped after the bus on its route - its very fast route -- back to the convent. Mother Benedicta, attributing it to physical causes - too many sandwiches perhaps -- told Zanny to spend the night in the infirmary. If she were to be sick again she had better do it there.

As for Bridget O'Hare, girls of nineteen didn't behave with much sense unless they were novices or postulants - and not even then - and if she chose to have a night out then it was probably better not to advertise the fact. When she returned in the morning she would have her marching orders. It would be quite stupid, at this stage, to call the police.

She told the girls to go to bed as quietly as they could and not to wake anyone in the dormitory. They could for this once say their prayers quietly in bed. If anyone wanted milk she could help herself in the refectory -- also biscuits -- but not to linger over it.

”I hope,” she said crossly, ”that despite everything, you enjoyed your day.”

”Oh yes, Ma Mere,” they chorused, and with a degree of truth. The picnic had been memorable - quite how memorable they were yet to find out.

When Bridget hadn't returned by eleven o'clock the following morning, Mother Benedicta, with great reluctance, phoned Sergeant Thomas of the local police. She asked for him personally. He had recently dealt with a case of bicycle vandalism - the removal of pumps and pedals from four bicycles belonging to the younger, more athletic, nuns. She had liked his style. He hadn't joked about it. His subordinate had been facetious about the pedals, whereas Sergeant Thomas had taken it very seriously. He was up at the convent within the hour. His gravity, this time, was perfectly in keeping with what he had to say.

She wouldn't throw hysterics, he knew. She wouldn't scream, or shout. Even so, he had to lead in with some finesse. He couldn't throw the news at her like hurling an old boot. You didn't treat nuns like that.