The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

  Agnes put one foot in the stirrup. ‘I can’t imagine you’d let that get in your way.’ She swung herself up into the saddle and set off up the lane at a trot, breaking into a canter as she turned along the bridle-path, as the sun flooded the fields around her with golden light.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘So that was Saturday? And it’s only Tuesday now. You have been busy, poppet,’ Athena giggled. ‘Hasn’t she, Nic?’

  Nic appeared in the doorway of Athena’s living-room with two glasses of white wine. ‘So it seems,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you won’t have a glass, love?’

  Athena shook her head. ‘There’s no point me pretending I’d enjoy it.’ She raised her glass of mineral water and pulled a face.

  ‘So it wasn’t past lives at all,’ Nic said, settling into an armchair next to Agnes.

  ‘Not in that way, no,’ Agnes said. ‘Only in the way that the past imprints itself on the present.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nic said. ‘But we all have to deal with that up to a point.’

  ‘Emma’s was an extreme case. There was a peculiar resonance between her own life and this ancestor of hers.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Nic nodded. ‘And I guess finding out that stuff on top of being pretty unstable in the first place …’

  Athena sipped her water. ‘Those church people have a lot to answer for, don’t they? That boy, the one who killed himself — terrible.’

  ‘Yes. Terrible.’ Agnes tried to block out the image that flashed into her mind.

  ‘You’d think they’d be more tolerant. I bet Jesus wouldn’t mind people being gay if He came back now, would He?’

  ‘It’s often disputed —’

  ‘And they just pick and choose bits of the Bible to back up the most preposterous views on women having to be second-class citizens and it being wrong to be gay and … and that you can’t even go shopping on Sundays, can you? Ridiculous.’

  Agnes looked across at Athena. She looked well-groomed, and was wearing a deceptively simple loose shirt in rust-coloured linen. But there was a pallor about her, a shadow around her eyes.

  ‘And what happened to that girl, Lily, was it?’ Athena was saying.

  ‘I spoke to her mother yesterday. She seems OK. She’s glad to be home, and she seems to be clear about what happened. But you can’t unthink things you’ve thought, not overnight.’

  ‘I suppose if something has seemed right but then you realise it’s wrong —’ Athena began, then glanced across at Nic.

  Nic stood up. ‘Anyone hungry? Lunch was hours ago. I’ll see what’s in the fridge.’

  ‘Well, I’d lock them all away. For life,’ Athena went on, as Nic left the room.

  ‘Lock who away?’

  ‘People like that Ross chappie.’

  ‘But Athena —’

  ‘Telling lies, trying to get everyone to follow him —’

  ‘He might not have thought it was lies.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘He might have thought he’d discovered a wonderful truth and wanted to share it with as many people as possible.’

  Athena stared at her friend. ‘You can’t really think that.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘But him? After all he did, trying to change people, making them hate the way they were, even trying to marry off his own lover —’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t see it that way.’

  ‘Do you really have to forgive everyone?’

  ‘It’s not for me to forgive.’

  ‘There must be some actions that you’d say were beyond forgiveness.’

  ‘It’s not for me to judge. It’s for —’

  ‘God?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But killing someone else …’

  Agnes sensed a haunting uncertainty about her friend, an undertow of anguish. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘Jerry hated himself. For whatever reasons. And I think, while he could believe that Satan was everything bad, he was OK. And then when he did kill, he thought that would make it all better, because it really was Satan he was killing.’ Agnes sighed. ‘In the end, killing himself or killing someone else — it was all the same.’

  Athena muttered something. Agnes caught the words, ‘someone else’. ‘Did you say something?’ she asked.

  ‘No, sweetie,’ Athena said brightly, as Nic appeared in the doorway. ‘Nic, dear, do you know, I think I might have a teensy-weensy drop of wine after all.’

  Sometime later, after a supper of cheese omelette, Agnes set off for home. It was barely ten o’clock. Perhaps it will be all right, she thought, walking along the Fulham Road, watching the chic crowds jostling outside the cafes, the lithe T-shirted young people. Perhaps everything really does turn out for the best. Perhaps God meant Jerry to shoot himself. Perhaps it was part of His plan that Emma should be driven mad by having her baby adopted. Perhaps it was part of an ongoing process of redemption that Becky should be killed, that Sam should end up back on the streets, that Tom should spend the rest of his life looking for his daughter. And that Athena should … Agnes allowed herself to be distracted by a group of large teenage girls singing ‘Dancing in the Street’, linking arms and trying not to fall over as they crossed the road.

  *

  Since the events of Saturday, Agnes had stayed in her flat, alone, only venturing out for the odd pint of milk. On Sunday she was expected at her community, but she’d spoken to Madeleine and explained that she simply wasn’t up to it. Instead she’d sat at home by the phone, waiting for it to ring, wondering whether she’d ever see Tom, or Sam, again. Once she’d tried the hostel number scrawled on Col’s bus ticket, but a voice had said, ‘Nah, mate. Not ’ere. ’E left ’ere last week sometime. Nah, can’t ’elp ya.’

  On Monday morning, Julius had phoned.

  ‘Tell me, Agnes,’ he’d said, ‘did it involve the firing of pistols this time?’

  ‘No. Yes. Well, sort of.’

  ‘Sort of? How very reassuring. And how are you?’

  ‘Julius, you remember how this all began? How Sam ran away from us, and I was so preoccupied in looking for her that my Provincial suggested I move somewhere else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, nothing’s changed. Sam’s back on the streets, again because of me, and I’m determined to find her, and my fellow Sisters, according to Madeleine, are far from happy. I’m a terrible person, Julius. Becky’s dead, Col’s dead, Jerry’s dead, Ross is dead, and I’ve learned absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Agnes, at the beginning of all this you were angry. You were burning up with anger, and scorching most of us who got in your way. You were hostile, inflexible, dogmatic and it was a tribute to my spiritual training that I was able to feel any affection for you at all.’ Agnes heard the chuckle in his voice, then he was serious again. ‘And are you still angry, Agnes?’ Julius asked. ‘Are you still blaming God for your own folly in making Him in an image of your own?’

  Agnes had hesitated. Her mind unfolded a dance before her, of Jerry toppling sideways, bathed in blood; of Emma’s hair swinging at her cheek by the side of the M25; of Tom Bevan limping down Mike’s drive.

  ‘No,’ she’d said to Julius. ‘No, I’m not angry anymore.’ Now she walked along the Embankment, feeling the evening breeze against her face, scenting the stirrings of autumn in the air. She thought of her father. Methodically, she recalled him; fingering the yellow pages of his first editions; pouring thick black coffee in the morning; turning away as her mother complained of something, some failing, some untidiness; frowning as he opened a stack of bills; laughing as his daughter danced for him. Driving on the gravel in the rain.

  No, she thought. No, I’m not angry any more.

  It was nearly midnight when she got home. She was just brushing her teeth when the phone rang. She picked it up, glancing out of the window, seeing the familiar bearded figure in the call box.

  ‘Tom — thank God!’

  ‘I’m down here again.’

  ‘Come up —’

  ‘No, come
down, I need you. I’ve found her, but I need you.’

  They set off into the night, Agnes tying her raincoat belt around her waist as Tom took her arm, his eyes shining with the urgency of his mission.

  ‘She doesn’t know I’ve seen her. I tried on Sunday. I found her down Leicester Square. She was with them girls. She pretended she hadn’t seen me.’ His eyes were moist.

  ‘Where is she now?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘Kings Cross. Her friend said she’d gone up there.’

  Agnes was walking fast to keep up with him. ‘Tom — are you sure this’ll work?’

  He turned his face to her. ‘You’re here, see? She trusts you.’

  Tom, Agnes wanted to say — can’t make her something she doesn’t want to be. She saw a cab turning into London Bridge Station and hailed it.

  They walked up York Way, Agnes glad of Tom’s tight grip on her arm. The huge gasometers made ornate skeletal curves against the sky. Under the railway arches Agnes could see the smoke and flames of bonfires, cars slowing, braking, thin legs silhouetted in the glare of headlights. As they approached, a couple of young men emerged from the shadows, nodded at Tom, walked by. Tom led the way into the smoky darkness. His leg touched a bottle and someone looked up at the noise, a pale young face, eyes briefly flickering with interest before looking down again as Tom and Agnes passed.

  Suddenly he froze. ‘There,’ he whispered. A group of three girls in tiny skirts and high heels clustered together by the side of the road. Agnes could just make out someone who might be Sam amongst them. Tom was staring fixedly at her, then slowly he approached the group.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Agnes heard Sam say. She was arm in arm with another girl, both tottering on their shoes. ‘Oh Christ.’ Then seeing Agnes, she said accusingly, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You’ve got to listen,’ Tom said, his deep voice almost a whisper.

  Sam rolled her eyes, shifted on her shoes.

  Agnes said, ‘We’ve got a deal, Sam. He’s to say his piece now, and then he’ll go, OK? He’ll leave you alone.’ She felt Tom next to her, but persisted, ‘After tonight, you can forget you ever had a father.’

  Sam shrugged, waited. Her friends melted away towards the cars.

  Tom took a step towards her. ‘Sam — I’m your dad.’ Sam looked at the ground. ‘I always have been. When Linda had you … all I know is, when Nicky told me you were my baby girl, it was like I’d known all along. And from then on, there wasn’t a waking moment when you weren’t in my thoughts. I’m not like the others, Sam, I’m not like your stepdad. I’m your dad, Sam.’

  Sam glanced at Tom, and for a second recognition flashed between them, the same clear grey eyes, the same dark eyelashes. Then she looked away. Tom went on, ‘I’ll care for you, Sam.’

  Sam chewed her lip. The breeze wafted smoke around them. ‘Can I go now?’ she said at last.

  ‘Sam, I’ll look after you.’

  ‘I don’t fuckin’ need it,’ she said.

  ‘But Sam —’ Tom’s voice cracked.

  ‘S’ too late,’ she said.

  ‘And what if I need you?’ he whispered, hoarsely.

  ‘You ain’t got nothing, though,’ she said. ‘You ain’t even got a home.’

  ‘And you have?’ he replied.

  She shrugged, scuffed one pointed shoe against the pavement.

  Tom looked beyond her. He saw the filthy street, the pale young faces, the mini-skirted legs against the dazzle of headlamps. His face glowed with anger. ‘This, you mean?’

  Sam looked at him, shrugged, turned away. ‘Can I go now?’ she said.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s your life.’ Sam glanced back at him. He gestured to the scene before them. ‘There you are, then,’ he said. ‘Yours for the taking. I know all about it, because, you see, it’s mine too. Look,’ he said. ‘See the woman there, the old one, flaunting herself to that john, nothing to lose? Give yourself another few years, Sam. One day, kid, all this will be yours.’ She hesitated, looked at him. ‘You’re right,’ he went on, ‘you want to get back to work. No doubt there’s some boy ready to slap you if you don’t. Who am I to argue, eh? These are your people, Sam. These are my people too. We belong here. Tomorrow I’ll blag my first drink for five years, and after that, I’ll be singing and swaying by the fire like that geezer over there. I’ll be happy like him. Won’t I?’

  Sam blinked against the smoke. ‘I ain’t stuck here, right? This is just for now.’

  ‘Oh, I see. And then what?’

  Sam faced him. ‘There’s just me, right? I ain’t relyin’ on no one no more.’

  Tom reached out his hand towards her. ‘Try me,’ he said. She took a step back. Tom spoke again, and his deep bass voice seemed to echo with the rumble of the distant trains. ‘The thing is, kid, you and me, we know these streets. No one else is going to understand, not like we do. You see — I know your demons, girl, ’cos they’re the same as mine. I know what it’s like to scrape a razor-blade across your wrist just to find out if you can still feel. You watch the blood and you think, I’m still here, then.’ Sam shifted her feet, pulled her little denim jacket around her. ‘These streets — we’ve made ourselves at home here, ain’t we? Cosy, innit?’ He stepped towards her, and this time she didn’t move. ‘Without you, kid, this is my home. Without me, this is where you’ll stay. But together … together we stand a chance. That’s all it is, a fighting chance. But it’s better than nothing.’ He turned to her, his face alight with love, and Agnes, watching, saw Sam recognise in the lines of his face and the passion in his eyes something she’d been yearning for all her life without even knowing. Sam looked at Tom, scanning his face, taking in every line, every scar, every hair. Then she shook her head.

  ‘It ain’t gonna work, is it?’ Her eyes filled with tears, and she moved away from him.

  ‘Sam — please —’ He took her hand but she shook him off.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m better than nothing.’

  ‘You ain’t got nothin’.’ She took a few steps from him, towards the waiting cars. Agnes saw her go, saw the harsh realism of her youth next to the innocence that Tom had learned with age. She cleared her throat, said to Sam, to Tom, ‘I’ll find you somewhere.’

  Tom looked at her with his childlike eyes. Sam glanced back to her. ‘Another bleedin’ hostel —’

  ‘A flat.’

  Sam looked at Agnes. ‘You’re just sayin’ it, ain’t ya, just so’s you don’t have to feel responsible for me bein’ back ’ere. I’ve ’ad it, right? Can’t you see? I’m done wiv all that.’ She turned away from them both and went back to her friends, her heels scraping the pavement. Tom watched her go, his fists clenched at his sides, as a car drew up beside her.

  ‘If that fuckin’ scum so much as speaks to her,’ he snarled. Sam glanced back, hesitated, then walked away from the road, away from the cars, disappearing into the shadows of the crumbling brickwork. Tom wandered over to the fire. Agnes joined him. They sat in silence, watching people come and go, a fight flare up, two men squaring up, fists and abuse flying before someone intervened and the night grew calm again. Agnes wasn’t sure how long they’d sat there, but she knew she was feeling chilled and stiff, despite the warmth of the night, the heat from the fire. Sometime later, she was aware of someone watching them. Sam was standing on the other side of the fire. She came and sat down next to Tom. No one spoke. After a while Tom took Sam’s hand. Sam didn’t move. He pushed the cuff of her jacket up her wrist and looked at the scars she’d left there, rough red lines crisscrossing the skin. He traced the marks with his finger. Sam sat, immobile, looking beyond to where the railway lines stretched away into the fading night.

  *

  ‘What do you mean, Kathleen’s flat?’ Madeleine said to Agnes on the phone later that morning. ‘It’s nothing to do with us.’

  ‘We paid a retainer on it, right? The order did?’

  ‘Yes, but —’

  ‘And now she’s
moving into sheltered housing before it expires?’

  ‘Yes, but we’ll just reclaim the money —’

  ‘We bloody won’t. I’ve got two very deserving causes who need that flat.’ Agnes looked across at Tom and Sam who were sitting on her rug giggling over a rather haphazard game of chess.

  ‘But that means the order must —’

  ‘Fine, that’s settled then. Bless you, Madeleine. I’ll pop into the office later to sort out the details.’

  Agnes hung up. ‘That’s sorted then. A two-bedroomed flat not far from here, over in Bermondsey. Ground floor, access to garden, riverside views …’

  ‘Checkmate,’ Tom said, and Sam laughed.

  *

  ‘Well, you are a fairy-godmother,’ Bill said that evening. ‘Can you rustle me up a Porsche out of this ash-tray?’

  They were sitting in a bistro in Clerkenwell, surrounded by high white walls with touches of matt black. Agnes was wearing her black silk jacket and trousers and a crisp white shirt. She smiled. ‘I reckon that ash-tray probably cost more than a Porsche in the first place.’

  ‘Shall we nick it, then?’

  ‘It’s against my religion, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It must be nice to have rules,’ Bill said, suddenly thoughtful. ‘I used to have all that, but —’

  A milky-skinned waitress with bright red lips arrived to take their order.

  ‘But what?’ Agnes said, once they’d chosen goat’s cheese salad with roasted red peppers, followed by Thai fish parcels.

  ‘Sorry?’ Bill took his eyes from the departing form of their waitress, her starched mini-apron and long black leggings.

  ‘You said you used to have rules.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘It wasn’t so much rules, as knowing what you believed. Love, peace, sex, drugs and rock and roll. We had such optimism, you know? The world was going our way.’ Agnes looked at him. His hair was trimmed, he was wearing a well-cut shirt, and the stubble on his chin had gone.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he said.

  She took a sip of Australian Chardonnay. ‘I was rather missing your beard.’