The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

‘Apparently he got quite heavy with Mary, her social worker. She asked whether you’d phone him, although in the circumstances —’

  ‘No, that’s fine. Maybe tomorrow? I’m having supper with Athena, if I can stay awake.’

  Leaving Julius, Agnes was tempted to linger in the empty church for a while. But she thought of Becky lying dead in the woods, and the image was so strong, so overwhelming, she was frightened to allow it in.

  *

  ‘Well, frankly, poppet, if you must set up home in some filthy patch of trees, what can you expect? Oh these blasted cartons, the stuff inside’s delicious, but you die of starvation before you can ever get to it. Thanks, sweetie,’ she added, as Agnes came over and neatly opened a carton of fresh asparagus soup.

  ‘So you think she deserved it then?’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, no, of course not. But I mean, the rest of us manage to live our lives without having to swing from trees. Does that wood-smoke smell ever wash out?’

  ‘I hope so. It’s the fleas I’m worried about.’ Agnes laughed as Athena recoiled in horror. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, breaking off a piece of bread, ‘you seem happier than before. It must be that some lovely man has appeared on the horizon.’

  ‘Not at all, darling,’ Athena said, absently scratching her head. ‘It’s not as if I depend on having a man around to give me a purpose in life. I just decided to think positive, that’s all. I enjoy my work, Simon’s really pleased with how the gallery’s going, I’ve got friends, a nice flat …’

  ‘And?’

  Athena poured the soup into bowls and brought them to the table. ‘Well, there is this man, actually, not like that, I’ve hardly spoken to him, but he’s been coming into the gallery a lot, and there is a sort of something between us, you know, a frisson … and yesterday he came in with these leaflets and asked if I’d display them. Some workshop thing he’s doing.’

  ‘What sort of workshop?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Probably one of those drumming things for New Men when they all cry about their dads. And he’s got a ponytail, I never trust that in a man, you know.’

  ‘No, quite.’

  ‘Nice eyes, though, sort of blue, intense. When he looks at you, it’s kind of like he knows you — am I boring you?’ she added, as Agnes yawned again.

  ‘No, of course not, I’m just knackered, that’s all.’

  ‘Poor you. Finding that girl dead like that, it must have been awful. Mind you, there must be all sorts of people who’d want those kids out of the way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, there they are, trying to take on the Government, and big business, and people like bailiffs and security guards — in fact, it’s amazing they survive at all.’

  *

  Next morning, Agnes sat in the chapel of her community, joining her voice to those of her fellow sisters in the Mass. She listened to the murmuring liturgy and felt cleansed by it, soothed, like sand at the tide's edge. Afterwards Madeleine joined her in the kitchen.

  ‘So, you OK for the hostel rota this week, Agnes?’

  ‘Oh. Um, yes. Except, not tomorrow. And maybe not the next day, I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘Julius told me about Becky. But I don’t see why —’

  ‘I’m needed at the camp,’ Agnes said, as if it was obvious. They were alone in the kitchen now. Madeleine sat at the table.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, Sam’s there, and she’s quite upset, and there’s this business with this Michael, her father. In fact, that reminds me, I must phone him today, I promised Julius — and anyway, I think Sam’s in danger too.’

  Madeleine traced the rings of the pinewood with her finger. ‘Aren’t the police dealing with it?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course, but —’

  ‘It’s just — well, I might be talking out of turn, but I gather that you had a meeting with Christiane …’

  ‘Oh. That.’

  ‘Did they mention Yorkshire?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘They did the same to me, once,’ Madeleine said.

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It was years ago now. Did me the world of good.’

  ‘What, really?’

  ‘It turned out to be the right thing.’

  ‘But how can it be right, to take me away from something I’m good at and put me somewhere where I’ll be unhappy —’

  ‘Agnes — why did you choose the religious life?’

  Agnes looked up. ‘Well, I don’t — well, I suppose, it chose me.’

  ‘That’s just it, isn’t it. Maybe it’s time you chose it. Maybe that’s what they want.’

  Agnes met her eyes. ‘Why did they send you to Yorkshire, then?’

  Madeleine sighed. ‘It was a long time ago. I had what was considered an inappropriate relationship. To me, it didn’t feel inappropriate at all. It felt bloody brilliant. But they sent me away. And I was so angry with them all, for forcing us apart, for breaking up something so good, so right …’ She sighed again. ‘I thought it was the end of my religious life. And it looked like it would be, for a while.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I spent a long time thinking about my priorities. Once I stopped feeling angry, I realised that life’s too short to put yourself first, to put this illusory sense of self before the greater good.’

  ‘My God, I’d have eloped. Of course you have to put your own needs first, you can’t serve God seething with resentment.’

  ‘But beyond the resentment?’

  Agnes looked at Madeleine. ‘Well, you’re just a higher life form, then. If you can allow them to do that to you and still be serene … And what happened to your lover?’

  ‘She left. She writes to me sometimes.’

  Agnes considered her friend. Then she smiled. ‘All the same,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure that teaching French to little girls is the fast track to eternal enlightenment.’

  Before leaving to drive back to the camp, she phoned the number that Julius had given her.

  Michael Reynolds’s voice was warm and friendly.

  ‘Hi, Agnes, great to hear from you. Just call me Mike, everyone else does. I’m sorry if I’ve seemed a little forceful, I just want to get this thing moving. I just want what’s best for my little girl … Sure. No, of course we must respect Sam’s wishes, sure, I understand that.’ His warm tones modulated to deep regret when he told her how he’d come to try to trace Sam after all these years. ‘I should have done more, I shouldn’t have disappeared off the scene, but you know, I was young, it was very difficult for me … Still, water under the bridge, eh? I’ll wait to hear from you, Agnes, great talking to you.’

  All the way back to Epping, Mike’s voice rang in Agnes’s ears. She wondered whether it was a coincidence that he should appear on the scene so soon after Sam’s sixteenth birthday, at the moment when she ceased to be the legal responsibility of the care agencies. It was very unusual, in fact almost unheard of, for a father to want to make contact again after so long. She’d never encountered such a thing before. Still, she thought, just because it was odd, it was no reason to distrust him.

  There was an electrical charge in the humid air, in the heavy clouds that hung over the motorway. As she turned off towards the camp, she heard the first thunder starting in the distance.

  Chapter Three

  Everyone at the camp seemed weighted down with a flat depression. Jeff was wandering about with a leaflet which he’d designed, but no one could find much enthusiasm to discuss it with him.

  ‘We’re bound to be evicted in the next month or so. We need to mobilise support from the locals. I thought if we printed off a few of these then they’d be ready …’

  People nodded, went about their business, made more cups of tea. Of greater concern was the presence of the Press, who had already started to visit. Rona suggested a policy of saying nothing at all. Jenn was arguing that if it helped find Becky’s killer perhaps they should cooperate. Jeff put
down his leaflets and picked up his guitar. A few languid notes issued from his fingers.

  Sam and Col appeared from the woods, arm in arm. Sam brightened on seeing Agnes and came and sat next to her.

  ‘I spoke to Mike Reynolds,’ Agnes said to her. ‘You know, your — um — father.’

  Sam shrugged.

  ‘You might as well meet him,’ Agnes went on.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You can come back to London with me tomorrow, if you like.’

  ‘And then will you bring me back here?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  Sam fidgeted. ‘Dunno.’ She looked up at Agnes, troubled. ‘It’s kind of changed, since Becky, all that.’

  ‘Well, you can stay a few days at the hostel, if you’d prefer.’

  Sam shook her head. ‘Don’t want that lot to come lookin’ for me. Me mum, I mean.’

  Agnes paused, then said, ‘And you’re not frightened of anyone coming for you here?’

  Sam narrowed her eyes. ‘Nah, I ain’t scared of no one here. No one’s gonna ruin this for me.’

  ‘Fine,’ Agnes said, watching her closely.

  Later Agnes walked aimlessly in the woods, drawn towards the site of Becky’s body, still cordoned off with police tape. She glimpsed a figure squatting by the edge of the tape.

  ‘Col.’

  He looked up, then looked down again. He was digging at the edge of the mud with a stick, and in one hand he was clutching a plant of some kind.

  Agnes squatted next to him. ‘It’s very sad, isn’t it.’ She noticed that he had the same air of panic that she’d seen in Sam whenever Becky was mentioned. His fingers worked to deepen the hole in the mud.

  ‘Col — if you’re in danger — you and Sam — you can trust me, you know. If you need to escape —’

  ‘There’s no escape,’ he murmured. He finished digging, then placed into the hole the ragged cutting with its withered blue flowers. He looked up at Agnes. ‘Forget-me-not,’ he said.

  ‘Like rosemary?’ Agnes said quickly. ‘Rosemary for remembrance?’

  Col stared at her. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘All I know,’ Agnes said, ‘was that there was rosemary sprinkled on the body.’

  Col fixed her with his eyes. ‘If she’s sent you —’ he began, then stopped.

  ‘If who’s sent me?’

  He shook his head.

  Agnes sighed. ‘Col, no one’s sent me. I don’t know more than that.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, turning back to his flowers. ‘Just leave it that way, OK?’ He began to pat at the earth around the flowers.

  ‘Col, if you’re in danger,’ she said again. ‘If Sam’s in danger —’

  He ignored her, finished his planting, and stood up. He smiled down at Agnes, a smile that seemed ironic, even mocking, then sauntered away towards the camp. Agnes stared at the flowers, planted under the orange tape as if it was a graveside.

  ‘Kids, eh?’

  The voice made her jump. She looked round to see a man standing over her, chewing on a twig, eyeing her with his head on one side. The man grinned. ‘You’ll get no sense out of them.’ He had neat grey hair, quite long at the back, and his eyes were dark, flecked like quartz. He was half-draped in a rough grey blanket looped through the belt of his jeans, which were clean and rather well-cut. Agnes noticed, as he sat down next to her and she braced herself for the customary smell of the tree-dwellers, that he smelt only of wood-smoke and the odd whiff of tobacco.

  ‘You must be Bill,’ she said.

  He nodded, chewing on his twig, looking at the spot where Becky had been found. ‘And you are …?’

  ‘Agnes. Sister Agnes. I’m a friend of Sam’s, at the camp, and I knew Becky too.’

  ‘Ah.’ He scratched his head. ‘Sister, eh? Which goddess do you worship?’

  ‘Same old God, I’m afraid. I’m just a traditional nun.’

  ‘They still have them, then?’

  Agnes looked at him. If you’ve been out of the world for so long, she wanted to say, how come you’re so clean? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They still have them.’

  He produced a hip flask from under his blanket. He unscrewed the top and took a swig, then handed her the silver bottle like a challenge. She took it and drank from it. It was whisky. Decent whisky. Single malt. Agnes wondered how an ex-hippy forest-dweller could afford whisky like that. She imagined him slipping off to the bank in town to cash cheques from some family trust or other, keeping a suit hidden in a hollow tree specially for such occasions, nicely wrapped up in its plastic hanging bag from the dry cleaners.

  She handed back the flask, smiled at him and said, ‘So, what do you know about Becky and Sam and Col?’

  He raised one eyebrow. ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Very little. Apart from the fact that, like you, I’ve concluded there was some connection. They seem to know something. Once —’ He stopped himself, then continued, ‘Once, I heard them talking. Other lives, you know?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Reincarnation. Karma, you know. Coming back in a new form.’

  ‘I don’t see …’

  ‘They were saying something about someone coming back. I mean, it’s OK finding out you used to be Trotsky or Jimmy Dean — but no one reckons on a bad trip, do they?’ He took another swig from his flask.

  ‘And you think the three of them were involved in something to do with their past lives?’

  ‘It’s just something they said, that’s all.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  Bill produced papers and tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. ‘Not much. It was all about who owned the land, this land, and people coming back from the past to claim it. Only, they seemed scared. Shit scared. Like, it wasn’t just a laugh.’

  Agnes looked at the mud where Becky had lain, and frowned. ‘Do you think it’s likely —?’

  Bill grinned. ‘Hell, Sister, how should I know? This is the New Age, man, people can believe whatever they like. You have your God-For-Grown-Ups, the hip daddy in the beard, Heaven, Hell, Queen and Country. But here, right, it’s whatever turns you on.’ He stood up to go, and Agnes got up too. They walked towards the camp. The quiet of the woodland was broken by voices, laughter, the smell of supper cooking.

  ‘Til leave you here,’ Bill said. ‘This is my patch.’

  Agnes saw a little way away from them a bender of blankets and tarpaulins, a smouldering fire, a neat stack of wooden boxes on which were stored pans, mugs, candles. A coiled rope hung from a hook. Bunches of herbs were drying on overhanging branches.

  Bill offered her his hand with ironic formality. ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Sister,’ he said.

  Agnes shook his hand politely, then left him. At a distance she turned back to see him poking at the fire, burning something over it.

  That night she woke suddenly in the bender she was sharing with Sam. She listened, hard, through the rhythm of Sam’s breathing. She took her coat and shoes and crept out of the tent.

  The storminess had passed. From time to time the moon appeared from behind a cloud. Agnes listened to the forest silence, the crack of twigs, the occasional hoot of an owl. She put on her coat and shoes over her clothes and, taking a torch, set off through the trees to the place of Becky’s death. The thin moonlight washed through the branches. She thought she heard footsteps behind her and stopped dead, straining to hear. Nothing. She reached the site of the murder, and staring at the ground, saw once again the twisted face, the horror of untimely death frozen on those features. She wished she’d never left the safety of her bender.

  Then there was a noise, an approaching footfall sound, but quick, quicker than footsteps, a thundering approach of — of hooves. Out of the darkness Agnes saw a horse, only a few feet away, and in the brief flash of moonlight she made out the rider, a woman in bonnet and long skirts, riding side-saddle, cantering past in an instant, receding into the damp silence of
the forest.

  Agnes stood trembling in the darkness. She waited a few moments before she dared to switch on her torch, afraid she might catch some other phantasm in its beam. A bat whirred above her. She set off at a fast striding pace back to the camp, arriving with relief to see Jeff sitting with a candle by the smouldering embers of the fire.

  ‘The delights of forest living.’ He grinned at her. ‘The call of nature in the middle of the fucking night.’

  She sat down next to him ‘I thought — I thought I saw someone. In the woods.’

  He nodded. ‘You get used to it. There’ll be more now the eviction’s coming up. Security heavies, detectives from the agency.’

  ‘But — she was on horseback.’

  Jeff looked at her. ‘A rider — at this time of night? Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, I —’

  ‘Usually it’s creeps with cameras. People sniffing around. I’ve never heard of ’em using horses before.’ He laughed. ‘Perhaps it was a ghost.’

  Agnes brushed mud from the hem of her coat. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ she said.

  *

  Agnes’s first thought on waking was that Bill had stage-managed the whole weird incident. She thought of him dressing as a Victorian lady on horseback just to add weight to his claim that Becky’s death was all about people returning from the grave to claim their land.

  ‘What you laughing at?’ Sam muttered, sitting up, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Oh, nothing. Shall we see what’s for breakfast?’

  ‘Flippin’ peanut butter sandwiches again,’ Sam grumbled, wriggling out of her sleeping bag.

  Agnes left her by the fire and wandered towards the forest, taking the same path as the night before. Again, she found herself standing near the site of Becky’s death. The mud around the police tape was churned from endless investigation. She followed the path a few steps further into the woods, then stopped. A clear hoof print, then another; a line of horseshoe crescents, stamped into the forest mulch, stretching away towards the fields beyond the trees.

  ‘So,’ Agnes began as the traffic thickened towards London, ‘tell me what you know about Becky’s death.’

  Sam looked at her, her eyes wide. ‘What ’bout it?’