Inside, the Convent of the Sacred Heart felt more like a castle, a fortress of some sort, than a place of worship. The scale of the place was breathtaking, far more so than one might imagine from the outside. Every room, even the kitchens where the girls were now unpacking, seemed to have twenty-foot ceilings, and the long stone corridors that had led them here snaked off into the distance for what felt like miles. Every twenty feet or so, spiral staircases, like something out of a storybook, rose up and up on the right and left into soaring, turreted towers. Presumably there must be some smaller rooms on the upper floors, at the top of these stairs, for the nuns’ cells or other private chambers. But the ground floor, with all the communal rooms, was uniformly palatial, and seemed all the bigger thanks to an almost total lack of furniture or adornments of any kind. No rugs were on the floors, and no paintings, not even religious ones, hung on the walls. In the distance, the soft echo of morning matins being sung added to the overall sense of serenity and peace, as did the scent of incense that hung, albeit faintly, in the air of every room they entered. Even the kitchens, although here it mingled with other smells: Freshly picked tomatoes and basil from the gardens; fried onions, perhaps from last night’s meal; some sort of smoked fish.
Two nuns in full habit glided silently around the room, fetching plates and cups and tableware, presumably in preparation for the feast day breakfast. They smiled briefly at the three women from the bakery, but otherwise ignored them, going about their business and letting Fatima and her helpers do the same. Ella unpacked her loaves, using any respite to practice taking mental photographs of the two sisters. Dix had made it sound so easy back at Camp Hope. ‘Just use your eyelids as shutters, mentally focus, and blink.’ But in the real world, all sorts of conflicting stimuli ended up blocking or blurring the picture. Besides which, it wasn’t that easy to stand stock-still and stare at someone, blinking furiously, without them noticing.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Fatima whispered in Ella’s ear, grabbing a loaf out of her hand and nudging her hard in the ribs. So much for that shot. ‘Something in your eyes?’
‘Just dust I think,’ muttered Ella, returning her attention to unpacking and waiting for a suitable moment to slip away and track down Sister Elena. She would head in the direction of the music, which presumably must be coming from the chapel. Fatima, who’d been here many times before, clearly knew her way around the various cupboards and began arranging the madeleines and simple pastries onto long, wooden trays. Helen followed her lead. While both were engrossed, Ella quietly picked up a stack of plates from the cupboard that the two nuns had just opened and followed the sisters out of the room. If anybody challenged her she would say she was helping set up for breakfast and lost her way.
The refectory was down a passageway to the left of the kitchens. Ella remembered passing it on their way, as she’d followed Helen and Fatima. The singing from the chapel came from the opposite direction. Heading right, Ella hurried towards the sound, sticking close to the walls and looking down so as not to attract attention, clinging on to her stack of plates like a shield.
The music grew louder, a hypnotic Gregorian chant comprised of upwards of a hundred female voices. ‘Benedictus, Dominus, Deus Israel …’ Did one of those angel voices belong to Athena Petridis? To the devil woman whose husband had murdered both of Ella’s parents, one of them in front of Athena’s eyes? Ella moved towards the sound like a moth to the moon, her heart hammering in her chest.
How would she find Sister Elena, among all the identically robed nuns? And if she did, and Elena was Athena, would Ella recognize her? All of the photographs Ella had been shown of Athena Petridis were at least fifteen years old.
Gabriel’s words came back to her. ‘Whether you positively ID Athena or not …’
‘Not’ was a possibility, whether Ella liked it or not. She might fail. If she did, all of her training, her time with Makis, her carefully constructed covers as Persephone and now Marta would be for noth—
‘No!’
Out of nowhere a man – strikingly tall, dark-skinned, and as out of place in this tranquil, all-female setting as a grizzly bear at a wedding – came staggering out of a side door and crashed straight into Ella. As broad and strong as a boxer, his weight instantly knocked her off her feet. With a gasp of horror, Ella watched in slow motion as the clay plates were knocked out of her hands and fell to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces, before she too landed on the hard ground. The pain was bearable, she’d just have bruises tomorrow, but the noise was deafening, a cacophony to wake the dead. Within seconds, four or five sisters had come running, all of them looking at the bakery girl with curiosity and confusion as she staggered to her feet.
So much for keeping to the shadows, thought Ella miserably. She could hardly have drawn more attention to herself if she’d climbed up onto the altar and started tap-dancing to ‘Singin’ in the Rain’.
The man who had hit her seemed barely to notice the commotion, however. As he turned briefly to check that Ella was OK, she noticed that his face was desolate and streaked with tears. He mumbled something that might have been ‘sorry’, and continued on his way, stumbling towards one of the spiral staircases a few feet down.
‘Are you all right?’ A gray-haired priest suddenly appeared on the scene. The sisters around Ella immediately stepped back, parting like the Red Sea to make a path for him. ‘I’m Father Benjamin.’ He had a neatly clipped mustache and a kind face, and looked strangely out of place in his priest’s robes, as if he would have been more suited to civilian clothes. ‘You look like you twisted your ankle on the way down. May I take a look?’
Ella nodded as he gingerly felt the muscles around her left foot.
‘It doesn’t look too bad.’
‘It’s fine. I’m fine, really. I banged my arm a little, that’s all.’
An older nun with an air of quiet authority came up and laid a comforting hand on Ella’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Father,’ she told the priest. ‘I’ll see to the young lady. You’re from Maria’s bakery, aren’t you?’ she asked Ella, as Father Benjamin bowed his head and took his leave.
Ella nodded silently, still in shock, staring after the man who’d knocked her down while the nuns who’d stepped aside for the priest got back to work, calmly cleaning up the mess at Ella’s feet.
There’s something familiar about him, Ella thought. But try as she might, she couldn’t seem to retrieve the memory.
‘Don’t look so worried my dear,’ said the older nun. ‘It’s only a few plates. We have plenty more where those came from. I’m more worried about your bruises. Father Benjamin seemed to think your ankle was all right, but I’d like to see your arm.’
‘Honestly, there’s no need,’ pleaded Ella.
‘Marta!’ Fatima’s voice rang out down the passage. She sounded a lot less sympathetic than the nun. ‘What on earth are you doing out here?’
‘It was just an accident,’ the nun began.
‘I am so sorry, Mother Superior,’ Fatima said, glaring at Ella.
‘Please, don’t apologize,’ said the nun, a beatific smile on her strangely bird-like face. ‘And you must call me Magdalena. The young lady was only trying to help, setting up our breakfast table. It wasn’t her fault the plates fell.’
‘Yes, well. Please clean up and then get back to the kitchens, Marta,’ Fatima shot Ella a look that clearly indicated she would have liked to say more but was holding back due to present company. ‘I know Mother Magdalena appreciates your help, but we’re leaving shortly. We still have a full day ahead of us back at the bakery.’
‘Yes, Fatima.’ Ella nodded dutifully. Once Fatima left, she turned back to the Mother Superior. The two of them were alone in the corridor now, the other nuns having disposed of the broken crockery and then retreated into the shadows as if nothing had ever happened. ‘Who was that man?’
‘A troubled soul,’ Mother Magdalena answered with a sigh. ‘Deeply troubled, I’m afraid.’
‘What’s he doing here?’