‘Sonnets, Brother,’ Brother Cosmas corrected him, tightly.

‘Apparently Brother Hugh has gone to …’ I interrupted them (trying – perhaps failing – to keep the desperation from my voice).

‘Ormskirk, yes,’ Brother Linus confirmed.

‘If you have a few, spare minutes, Brother’ – Brother Cosmas indicated towards the chair he’d just vacated – ‘I promised several hours ago to pick Brother Gabriel a handful of fresh oregano from the kitchen garden and Mrs Thane …’ (Mrs Thane? Perchance the school housekeeper?) ‘… has been kept busy all afternoon managing the leak in the small reading room.’

‘Oh … Uh …’ Brother Linus hesitated for a second (just to wind Brother Cosmas up, presumably) and then grinned, broadly. ‘Of course, Brother. I’d be happy to sit with the patient for a while.’

Brother Cosmas nodded abruptly and left the room. Brother Linus picked up the volume of poetry, closed it, sat down and rested it on his lap.

‘Did Father Hugh really leave for Ormskirk?’ I asked, just as soon as Brother Cosmas was out of earshot. Brother Linus had struck me – right from the off – as one of life’s straight dealers.

‘Yes, he did.’ Brother Linus nodded.

‘Was it only because I turned up?’

Brother Linus glanced towards the door, warily, before he answered. ‘Father Pietr is strictly forbidden from talking to strangers who arrive at the monastery and ask for him by his old name,’ he confided. ‘It’s official protocol. I’m afraid your fate was sealed the minute you opened your mouth and uttered the words “Father Hugh”, although I believe you might actually have called him Brother Hugh, which is also wrong as Father Pietr is ordained priest which means that – unlike myself or Brother Prosper or Brother Cosmas – he can officiate mass.’

‘Oh. That was clumsy of me.’ I scowled, irritated by my own stupidity.

Brother Linus shrugged, diplomatically.

‘Do you know Father Pietr well?’ I wondered, still determined to push for more information, nonetheless.

‘If you’re asking whether Father Pietr ever discussed his life as a parish priest in Ireland with me in any detail’ – Brother Linus smiled – ‘then my answer is no. Father Pietr has left that part of his chequered history far behind him now.’

‘I wish it was quite that easy for the rest of us,’ I muttered.

‘Mortification and prayer can play a useful role,’ Brother Linus suggested.

Mortification?

Prayer?!

‘I wish it was quite that easy for the rest of us,’ I repeated, drolly (and perhaps even a tad facetiously).

‘I didn’t say it was easy,’ Brother Linus demurred, ‘I said they could be useful, that’s all.’

‘Do many people come to see Father Pietr?’ I wondered.

‘Father Pietr mentioned, before he left for Ormskirk, that your wife recently passed.’ Brother Linus calmly changed the subject. ‘That must have been difficult.’

‘We were separated,’ I confessed, ‘for over a decade. But it was certainly a shock, yes.’

‘We offered a mass for the repose of her soul,’ Brother Linus divulged (again a glance towards the door). ‘It was beautiful. And Father Pietr became quite emotional at a couple of points. I imagine they must have been very close.’