Outraged, Mary Paul exclaimed, ‘You mean all along she’s been planning on running away, abandoning her post, right behind our backs?’

Evidently upset by Edith’s underhand behaviour, Sister Mary Paul stomped off back to her work in the kitchen muttering under her breath, ‘I can’t understand why anybody in their right mind would just walk out on their job.’

‘Not unless she had a good reason,’ Matron thought to herself. ‘To disappear so effectively must have taken quite a lot of organizing; it didn’t just happen on the spur of the moment.’

Sensing that she was wasting her time, Matron nevertheless checked Edith’s office, the sluice room and the delivery suite, but it was clear that the bird had flown the coop – Sister Mann seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Having a very active baby who rolled and kicked most of the night, Ada found lying in bed (especially once the sun was up heralding yet another hot sunny day) far too uncomfortable. As her delivery date drew ever closer, Ada was usually downstairs in the early morning, drinking tea and eating toast before she slipped into her pretty cottage garden. There, in the cool of the morning, accompanied by her chirpy robin friend and swooping swallows, she deadheaded her flowers, swept the path and did a spot of weeding.

On this particular lovely summer morning Ada decided to take the short walk up to Mary Vale to pick up her daily ration of freshly baked loaf and thereby save Sister Mary Paul the journey later on. Walking into the Home the back way, she found Sister Mary Paul with Sister Theresa in the yard.

‘Morning,’ Ada called out cheerily as she approached her friends. ‘Beautiful day,’ she added, then stopped short when she saw the stricken expressions on their faces.

‘What’s happened?’ she gasped. ‘Is it bad news from the Front?’

Sister Mary Paul crossed herself. ‘No, it’s not that, thanks be to God.’

‘Then what is it?’ Ada asked.

Young Sister Theresa quickly explained, ‘It appears that Sister Mann has gone missing.’

‘She’s gone and run away,’ Sister Mary Paul blurted out.

Ada did a startled double-take. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she gasped.

‘We’ve been searching for her all morning, everywhere,’ Sister Mary Paul added, as she swept an arm out in a wide circle. ‘The Home, gardens, station, marsh, everywhere!’

‘There’s no sign of her anywhere,’ Theresa added.

‘Her car’s gone too,’ Mary Paul muttered crossly.

Theresa gave her colleague’s dark robe a gentle tug.

‘We’d better get back indoors, Sister, we left the dinner cooking,’ she reminded her.

Hurrying after the two nuns, Ada asked a string of questions but got no helpful answers to any of them. Over a cup of tea and while peeling a pile of potatoes, Ada murmured, ‘Where on earth could she have gone?’