The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

  He rubbed his chin. ‘It’ll grow again.’

  Their food arrived. Agnes tasted a mouthful of cheese, then said, ‘So if you’re so into love and peace, how come you’re allowing someone to employ you to spy on anti-road protesters?’

  ‘It’s a long story. And boring. Yours is much more interesting.’

  ‘That’s for me to judge. Something must have disillusioned you at some point?’

  ‘You find anyone of my generation who hasn’t suffered some kind of cosmic disappointment.’

  ‘Yes, but, specifically —’

  Bill broke a piece of bread in two. ‘I suppose it all went wrong after Melanie. I was crazy about her, we had a kid, though we didn’t live together. She fell in love with someone else when Simon was fourteen. They live in Melbourne now.’

  ‘That’s the problem with women, isn’t it? You chaps organise a groovy sexual revolution, they all go on the pill — and then they let you down by wanting to have kids and join the bourgeoisie.’

  ‘So the sexual revolution passed you by?’

  ‘I spent most of it incarcerated in a French chateau being abused by my then husband.’

  Bill blinked. ‘No wonder you’re a nun.’

  Agnes smiled. ‘Yes. In the end, I have that to thank Hugo for.’

  Bill speared a black olive. ‘When I met you, you didn’t appear to be someone who’d found their true path.’

  ‘And now?’

  Bill considered her, his head on one side. ‘Mmm. Better, maybe. I wouldn’t say cured.’

  ‘No. Neither would I.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When we met, you seemed so angry with everything. I couldn’t imagine you staying in your order for much longer.’

  Agnes took another sip of wine. She wondered how he’d managed to steer the conversation back to her. ‘Do they train you to do that, in MI5? How to avoid giving anything away, by asking your interrogators searching questions about themselves?’

  Bill shook his head. ‘No. I’m asking you because I want to know.’ His eyes darkened as he looked at her. Agnes was glad they were interrupted by the main course arriving.

  ‘OK,’ Bill said suddenly. ‘Seeing as you asked. But it is boring. My dad was a military chap, quite high up. Sent me to the best schools, was outraged when I dropped out. We didn’t speak for years. Then there was the eighties. I needed dough, got into the warehouse party scene, raves, that stuff. It was great. And he fell ill, and I felt bad about him, and we got to kind of talking again. And now we’re not bad. In some ways, we’re quite alike. And someone he knew was worried about this Emily Quislan scene. So I agreed to help. God knows why. I was intrigued, I suppose.’

  ‘And the Superhighwayman?’

  Bill rubbed his chin again. ‘I’m afraid —’ He stopped, then said, ‘It took me a while to work out who the enemy was.’

  ‘Did all that tuning in and dropping out wipe out all morality with it, or were you born that way?’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on me, Princess. When I first picked Emily up on the Net I couldn’t believe she was on her own. We thought she was part of something bigger.’

  ‘We did, did we? So what’s the next assignment, 007?’ Bill shook his head. ‘My father thinks it’s all cut and dried. Us and Them. I shan’t be doing this kind of thing again.’ He took a mouthful of food. ‘You don’t believe me,’ he said.

  Agnes studied him. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied. ‘It’s roughly what I thought.’

  ‘Complete with military father?’

  ‘I hadn’t got that bit, no. But then, don’t ask me about fathers.’ Agnes yawned.

  Bill was looking at her. ‘Do you remember, I once said I envied you.’

  ‘Probably just before you dumped me in a field in the middle of the night with an eco-terrorist on the loose —’

  ‘I’ve already said I’m sorry for that.’

  ‘Why did you vanish?’

  ‘Am I always going to be in the wrong?’

  ‘Until you’ve redeemed yourself in my eyes, yes.’

  ‘It might take years, that.’

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  He smiled, then said, ‘I felt a fool, to be honest. You were following the same trail as me, asking the same questions, and it seemed stupid not to involve you. And then there we were in that field, with Emily doing her bit, and I suddenly realised I couldn’t possibly explain. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing there. And then I thought, Emma might have done something really dangerous too. I had to go and see without dragging you into it. So I went.’ He grinned at her, then said, ‘And anyway, I knew you could look after yourself. Am I redeemed yet?’

  Agnes studied him. ‘Hmm. Not sure. And what’s going to happen to Emma Lees?’

  Bill sighed. ‘They caught her. She’ll be sent down.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Explosives, trespass, conspiracy —’

  ‘How did she get the stuff?’

  ‘Her father runs an engineering company involved in quarrying. He was working on a site over towards Colchester, she was “helping” him one day. With her van. Made off with several pounds of Gelamex.’

  ‘Maybe she wants to be sent down. Maybe that’s what she needs, sometime out of life, to take stock, stop fighting.’ Bill took a sip of wine, and then looked at her. ‘You sound envious.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Maybe we should both do some kind of criminal damage and end up inside.’

  ‘Your life’s OK —’

  ‘Oh yeah? No kid, no family, no job, and anyway, none of that would matter if I had your — your faith, really. That’s what I envy you.’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘We’re not that different. It’s just being human. If God was to send an angel now to tell us what to do, how simple life would be. Old Gabriel could tell me that a Yorkshire boarding school would be just fine, he could tell you to retrain as a management consultant and join a dating agency for glamorous forty-something executives, and we’d just do it. As it is, we’re all floundering around in the dark, faith or no faith.’

  ‘We wouldn’t even believe him anyway, we’d think it was some kind of performance art stunt laid on by the management here.’

  Agnes laughed. ‘Speak for yourself. Angels are big in my tradition.’

  Bill wiped his plate clean with a piece of bread. ‘Maybe management consultancy isn’t a bad idea.’ He drained his wine glass. ‘And Agnes — do you think my kind of woman would join an executive forty-something dating agency?’

  Later they walked towards Holborn in search of a cab.

  ‘Will I see you again?’ Bill asked her.

  ‘I hope so,’ Agnes replied. ‘If Gabriel visits, remember to ask him what I should do too.’

  ‘No,’ Bill laughed, waving madly at a distant taxi. ‘You’re OK, you are. If you know you’re floundering in the darkness, then you aren’t. It’s those of us who mistake darkness for light that you have to worry about.’

  The cab drew up and she opened the door, then hesitated.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘all Gabriel’s going to say to me is, throw away your razor.’ He bent and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘So angels are into designer stubble too?’ Agnes laughed, getting into the cab.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Bill said. ‘That’s all the theology I know.’ As the cab pulled away, Agnes looked back to see him wave, then he turned and sauntered away towards Farringdon Road.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  When Agnes appeared in Julius’s office two days later, he got up from his desk and hugged her.

  ‘I’ve been worried about you,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘If I can find anything drinkable amongst Madeleine’s camomile nonsense,’ he grumbled, rummaging along the shelf by the kettle.

  ‘You know,’ Agnes said, ‘there’s no need to worry about me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Julius replied,
peering at the label on a tin. ‘Who else is going to?’

  Agnes sat at her desk. ‘Anyway, I’ve been fine.’

  ‘Cornering dangerous young people, challenging crazy teenagers armed with explosives, and then walking the streets of Kings Cross until you can find someone worthy of your assistance, and not just spiritual but financial too —’

  ‘What’s Madeleine been saying?’

  ‘She thought it was hilarious, you insisting that the order keep that flat. No, not Madeleine.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  Julius sighed. ‘You don’t do yourself any favours, Agnes.’

  ‘How come you know all about it? I spent all yesterday in meetings with my provincial team, and you’re the first to hear. Perhaps you can tell me what they’ve decided?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Really, Agnes, all I know is from interrogating Madeleine because I hadn’t heard from you and I was worried and —’

  ‘They’re adamant that I’d be better off away from the hostel for a while.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  Agnes stirred a spoon round and round in her coffee. ‘I’m tired, you see. I’m getting to the point where I’m too tired to argue.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll go? To Yorkshire, I mean?’

  ‘You’re as keen to get rid of me as the rest of them.’ Julius smiled.

  ‘You know I’ll miss you. But it is only for a year or two. And it is more peaceful than all this —’

  ‘And why does everyone think I want peace? I had peace for fifteen years in my enclosed order, it drove me mad. I like it here.’

  ‘That’s just the point.’

  Agnes ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I know, I know, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what God wants. But if He knew me at all, He’d know that I simply can’t survive in temperatures below twenty degrees. And that anyone under ten years old brings out the absolute worst in me.’

  Julius smiled. ‘Perhaps they’ll give you the sixth form.’

  Agnes stared into her coffee. ‘Julius — what do you think I should do?’

  ‘Pray.’

  Agnes sighed. ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  *

  The following evening, Agnes was sitting quietly at home. It was Saturday, 2 September, and the summer had retreated in the face of a chilly autumn drizzle which now pattered against her window as night fell. She had a book open in front of her, but the words swam unread before her. Her mind roved restlessly over the events of the last few days. She wondered whether she’d always created conflict around her; perhaps there was a clear path from the horror that she’d witnessed at the Stanton house a week ago right back through the violence of her marriage to the silent battleground she’d inhabited as a child. She tried to think of a time in her life when she hadn’t been at the centre of conflict. Perhaps when she’d first joined her enclosed order, when, shell-shocked by her married years, she had meekly succumbed to the routine and restraint of convent life. Until she’d emerged again.

  She picked up her book, and was just finding her place when there was a buzzing at her intercom, followed by an insistent knocking on her front door. She opened the door, wondering what the hell was going on. Athena fell into the flat. She looked terrible, rain-soaked, her face a ghastly pallor, her eyes circled with dark shadows.

  Agnes held her. ‘Athena?’ But she knew what had happened.

  ‘I couldn’t go on with it,’ Athena sobbed. ‘I couldn’t pretend a moment longer. I’ve — I went to the … Oh God …’

  Agnes held her in her arms, feeling her wet hair against her face, while Athena sobbed as if she might die. Agnes helped her to her bed and Athena fell on to it face down, still weeping. ‘And it was horrible,’ she cried into the bedspread, ‘horrible white coats, and the floor was … and all I could think was that it was a baby and I was going to do this thing, and then I had an injection and I went all woozy …’ She burst into renewed sobs.

  Agnes sat next to her. After a while she took hold of Athena’s hand. Her throat felt restricted. Her eyes were dry. She cleared her throat. ‘Do you want anything?’ she said. ‘Tea? Whisky?’

  Athena shook her head. ‘I just want the pain to stop …’

  Agnes felt irritated. At least if she wanted a drink it would give me something to do, she thought. I knew this would happen. I knew she’d feel like this. I was right all along.

  Athena went quiet. Slowly, she sat up, fingering damp locks of hair. She looked at Agnes. ‘You think I’ve done the wrong thing,’ she said. She took a tissue and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Because you can see what I’ve done. You can see that I’ve …’ She swallowed. ‘But what you can’t see — what you can’t see, is that despite the pain and the bleeding and the horrible white coat I had to wear and the filthy floor …’ She took another tissue and blew her nose. She found her bag and rummaged inside it looking for a comb. Then she looked up. ‘What you can’t see is — I’ve done the right thing.’

  A strange calm descended upon the room. Agnes stared at her friend. She could think of nothing to say.

  At seven o’clock on Sunday morning, Agnes woke up. The sun was pouring through her window. Agnes lay in bed, wondering why she felt so alert after only three or four hours’ sleep. She pulled the covers over her head, hoping vaguely to go back to sleep. But the thought of Athena was too intense, too real, to shut out.

  She thought about how they’d sat in silence, sipping whisky. Then, tentatively she’d asked about Nic, and they’d talked a bit about whether he’d mind, and how Athena was going to tell him, and Agnes felt angry for Nic then, at having his child removed from the world with no consultation, but, finding herself lost for words in the face of Athena’s quiet resolve, she’d just drunk more whisky instead. At last she’d asked Athena why she’d come; why did you choose me to tell first, she’d said; and Athena said, because you’re my best friend. Because there was nowhere else to go.

  Lying in bed, Agnes thought about this. Athena had come to her, knowing that she, Agnes, would have no choice but to judge her harshly. But she’d come to her anyway in the certainty that she’d done the right thing. You’re my best friend, she’d said.

  Later, after several cups of tea, Agnes had called her a mini-cab. They’d stood in the street saying goodbye, and Agnes had suddenly hugged Athena, holding her for long minutes while the cab-driver sat bewildered with the car door open. And only then did Agnes feel her eyes, which had been dry all evening, well with tears.

  ‘Who are you crying for?’ Athena had whispered.

  Agnes had shaken her head, unsure whether it was the baby, or Athena, or herself.

  ‘For me or the baby?’ Athena asked. Agnes shook her head again.

  ‘Cry for the baby, not for me,’ Athena had murmured. ‘Someone must mourn for the baby.’

  At a quarter to eight, Agnes appeared in Julius’s church for the early Mass. She sat in the Lady Chapel, the first to arrive. She felt as if she was about to weep, but feared that once she started she might wail in great howls of grief. She looked at the representation of Mary in the stained-glass window, dressed in sun-filled blue, her arms spread out as if to embrace the world below her. ‘And would you judge Athena?’ Agnes asked her. ‘You who were brave enough to carry your child to term in extraordinary circumstances, would you judge a woman harshly for being less than you?’

  She heard Julius’s footsteps cross the church. Agnes knelt on the prayer cushion, her head bowed. She thought of Mary the Madonna, holding aloft her precious new baby; then, years later, at the foot of the Cross when the body of Jesus was brought down, carrying her dead son. You whose destiny it was, Agnes thought, to bear that life, yet also to bear the ending of that life, to hold your own child in your arms, to share all the pity of human experience in your own. Someone must mourn for the baby, Agnes heard again, as tears came to her eyes. Mary, Mother of God, pray for Athena’s baby. And for Athena; and for the whole damn lot of us, for Becky and Col, for Jerry, for Ro
ss, for Morris and Shirley living with their terrible grief. And for all those lives that, like Athena’s baby, briefly graced the world with their presence before moving on, for all lives cut short by violence, by war or famine, for the whole bloody, misguided, crazy, passionate, beautiful mess that is humanity itself — have mercy on us all.

  Julius, about to ring the bell, glanced at Agnes. She was kneeling three rows back. A shaft of sunlight touched the edge of her hair, flecked the tears on her cheeks with blue. He gazed at her, joining her reverie with his own, until the beeping of his watch reminded him it was time to start the Mass.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Agnes was glad of her Wellington boots. Tramping up a mud-washed windswept hill somewhere in Suffolk, in search of a celebration of the September equinox, she wished she’d worn two pairs of socks. It occurred to her she should have warned Athena about socks. And, she thought, she should have given Nic more detailed directions about the route they should take. Still, they’d probably found some charming little restaurant on the way instead. Agnes wrapped her raincoat tighter around her and strode on towards distant shouts and snatches of music.

  Arriving at the top she was cheered by the sight of a huge bonfire, a crowd of people. She could pick out several familiar faces. Rona appeared and hugged her, and Jenn, and Jeff, who was playing the guitar, nodded. Paz waved at her from a tree where he was trying to rig up a makeshift tent with a couple of tarpaulins. Further off were the drummers, already setting up an insistent beat as the sky changed slowly from pink to indigo, and the sun set behind the drizzly clouds.

  Agnes began to help Sheila wrap potatoes in foil and bury them in the ashes around the fire, endless numbers of potatoes it seemed, as the sky grew dark and more people arrived. Some friends of Sheila’s arrived with a baby, and Lily immediately snatched the baby up and insisted on carrying it about.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Sheila laughed. ‘Her next enthusiasm.’

  ‘Could be worse,’ Agnes replied.

  Sheila looked at her, then squeezed her hand. ‘Certainly could,’ she murmured.

  Paz and Jenn reappeared dragging a supermarket trolley containing several cases of wine.