Miss Sheldon-Smythe was by contrast pa.s.sionately biased. "A very gentle man," she reiterated, sitting down. "He was unfortunate enough to be tempted by a bad girl. You knew, of course, that she was pregnant?"

Mother Benedicta hadn't known. The foetus was three months, according to the pathologist, but as yet its existence -- its short-lived existence - wasn't common knowledge. The fact that according to blood tests Murphy couldn't have been the father was known only to Murphy and the police. The papers would have a field day when evidence was submitted at the trial; for the time being n.o.body not directly concerned with the case knew anything about it -- except, apparently, Miss Sheldon-Smythe.

Mother Benedicta digested the information before speaking, though nothing could shock her any more. "It takes two," she said succinctly. "The blame is equal." Curiosity overcame her distaste for the subject. "How did you know?"

"She told me."

If the wicked and immoral young decided to have babies out of wedlock, Mother Benedicta thought, they would hardly make a confidante of an elderly spinster who was quite obviously lacking in common sense. They would go elsewhere for comfort and advice.

"Why did she tell you?"

Miss Sheldon-Smythe's rather yellowish face became less jaundiced as she blushed. "She wanted an abortion."

Mother Benedicta felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest brought about by a vision of something quite horrific. Here at last was something she couldn't cope with. For once unable to speak, she just looked at the other woman, appalled.

"I mean," Miss Sheldon-Smythe went on hastily, aware that the wrong impression might have been given, "she needed money to pay for the abortion. She happened to know that I had recently acquired fifty pounds through an insurance policy."

Mother Benedicta began to breathe more normally, but she still couldn't speak.

"I refused to give it," Miss Sheldon-Smythe said. "A bad action shouldn't be followed by a worse one. Apart from that," she added, "at my age you don't throw money around."

"Quite," Mother Benedicta agreed faintly.

She wondered if the police knew about Bridget's baby. They probably did. She wondered if Bridget had confessed it to Father Donovan. She probably hadn't. Either way, Father Donovan couldn't be pumped on the matter. It was rather extraordinary that Murphy should have murdered the mother of his child - if he had. Dear G.o.d, she prayed silently, forgive me for employing Murphy in the first place - and for employing Bridget in the second.

Miss Sheldon-Smythe had been the only girl in a family of five boys, and had tended them with devotion.

If they drank too much or womanised too much she reproved them gently about their peccadilloes but never censured them. When, one by one, they grew up and left home, she felt her world diminish. She would have liked to have married and had sons. She would have spoiled them dreadfully. To her Murphy was a brother, a son. In this barren wilderness of a convent he had been a reminder of days gone by and days that had never arrived.

He was Murphy. He could do no wrong. He liked her budgerigars. He was kind.

"He didn't do it," she said, "he just did not do it. What's the matter with the judicial system in this country? Are the police maniacs?"

She went on in similar vein for some time and Mother Benedicta heard her out patiently.

"The police," she said, interrupting her at last, "probably know what they're about. I've always found Sergeant Thomas to be a man of considerable common sense. If Murphy is innocent he has nothing to fear."

"But he shouldn't be under suspicion at all. His innocence shouldn't be questioned. Haven't you felt his aura?"

"His what?" "His essence -- his emanations -- his essential goodness." Miss Sheldon-Smythe was fingering the b.u.t.tons on her black cardigan as if she wanted to pull them off one by one.

Mother Benedicta had had enough. The convent would be in a ferment of hysteria if this stupid elderly woman couldn't control herself better. "I forbid you," she said, "to speak about Murphy to the girls. If they speak about him to you, stop them. If you can't conduct your cla.s.ses without reference to the garden, then don't conduct them at all. We have innocent young girls here under our care. I am relying on you to see that they are in no way disturbed or hara.s.sed by a particularly nasty situation. How old are you, Miss Sheldon-Smythe?"

i

The threat was implicit in the question.

"Fifty-eight," said Miss Sheldon-Smythe, who was sixty-two.

"Then you have two remaining years of good solid work -- of being a good calming influence. I can rely on you in this crisis, I hope?"

Miss Sheldon-Smythe said she could. But her fires weren't quenched; they were just turned inwards for a while.

"All the same . . ." she began, her eyes smouldering.

"Pray for him," Mother Benedicta said brusquely, "and leave the rest to G.o.d."

The girls took it in turns to steal one daily newspaper from the pile in the hall until the thefts were reported by the lay staff and all newspapers banned. That their one and only beautiful male was on a murder charge angered them deeply. That he was called Ignatius, shortened by some of the cheaper newspapers to Iggy, occasioned a few giggles, but not many. This was life in the raw. Life in the future. Love. Pa.s.sion. A few mourned for Bridget, but mostly they were on Murphy's side. If he had pushed her over, she had asked for it. On the whole they were rather enjoying themselves. The younger ones who were perceptive enough to sense the ban on garden topics -- and the reason for it - plagued Miss Sheldon-Smythe with talk of worms and crop rotation. When she tried human biology they spoke of the heart. The skeletal system led to thoughts on a broken skull. She would have found it insupportable if they hadn't made their allegiance to Murphy so clear.

For Zanny there was no amus.e.m.e.nt in any of it.

She wished she could go home and tell her parents. (On the whole, better not.) She wondered if they had read about Murphy being committed for trial. Iggy? That was ridiculous. Ignatius - well, better than the diminutive. What had his parents been thinking of? She had looked up the meaning of the name and discovered that it was Latin for fiery. That made it rather better. His parents had chosen a Latin name. They were educated people. And he was fiery - in a nice kind of way. She imagined his parents meeting her parents. At a London hotel. His parents would be quite elderly. Their anger at the unjust accusation would be controlled. The case, of course, would be dismissed. Everyone would be careful not to say too much about it. They would drink a toast to the future. Her future and Murphy's future. There would be approval all round. Later she and Murphy would slip away. The hotel staircase would be carpeted in red. They would go up it hand in hand. At the top they would turn and look down at the two sets of parents. Daddy would raise his wine gla.s.s in a little gesture of amus.e.m.e.nt. All would be well.

Graham, raising his whisky gla.s.s about the time that Zanny was thinking about him, drank deeply. His hand shook. "Jesus Christ!" he said.

Clare folded and re-folded the newspaper as if diminishing its bulk also diminished its impact. She wasn't a praying woman, but wished she were. Suffer little children, she thought, to come unto Me. At that moment she wished Zanny were dead. It was a terrible wish and had to be squeezed out of her mind like a dark stain. You loved your children no matter what - didn't you? All right - you tolerated them, no matter what. You put up with them. You suffered them. You agonised over them.

What the h.e.l.l were they going to do about Murphy?

Now that they had seen his photograph in the newspaper Zanny's motive for murder was perfectly clear. He was a desirable male. Very attractive. She had coveted him. As she had coveted Monkey of long ago -but differently. And got rid of the opposition.

"We could," Graham suggested, "see that he gets a reasonable defending barrister."

Clare looked at him pityingly. He was at times ex tremely naive. She explained why they couldn't -- on two counts. The first - they couldn't afford it. The second - it would implicate Zanny.

"Why should we," she asked, "pay for the defence of a man we don't know?"

"Because we are under a moral obligation."

"To shop our daughter - that's what it would amount to."

To shop or not to shop, that was the question. Both knew the answer.

"Let's hope," Clare said, "that she doesn't tell us. As yet we don't know - officially."

"Dolly told us."

"d.a.m.n Dolly!"

Graham agreed. "As far as I can see," he said with some hope, "the prosecution won't have much to go on. Had he been charged with strangling her or shooting her the case against him would be bleak. Pushing her over the cliff takes some proving."

Murphy was to be tried at the a.s.size Court in the early autumn. They decided to let Zanny go and spend the summer holidays with a pen-friend in Caen in Normandy. The less they saw of her at this sensitive time the better. Zanny's tongue, crippled by a foreign language, wasn't likely to do any damage there.

They would, of course, go to the trial. It would be like being pressed firmly down onto a bed of nails. A self-imposed martyrdom. Life, these days, wasn't comforting.

But it was nothing to the martyrdom of Murphy. Being held on remand to await trial for a crime he hadn't committed was a shock. He had never been inside a prison before. The poaching he had done in his youth had been skilful enough to evade capture. Not that the local farmers of Kerry would have prosecuted-- a few rounds of small-shot up the backside was about their measure.

During the long slow weeks of the pre-trial period he had endured everything as best he could. Bridget's being three months pregnant had astonished him. At first, when his solicitor told him, he hadn't believed it. Later, alone in his cell, his anger had grown and he had thumped the wall. What sod had had Bridget before he had her? d.a.m.n it, he might have married her. Would she have told him? Or lied about the date? Women were rare schemers. The constable on duty, hearing the thumps, had come into his cell to calm him and they'd had a heart-to-heart. "Women, boy bach," he told Murphy, "are the death of many a fine fellow." It had been a kindly and earnest comment, well meant, but not tactful.