*
At eleven, Agnes knocked on Sister Philomena’s door.
‘Agnes, come in, sit down, what is it?’
‘Joanna Baines,’ Agnes began, taking a seat.
‘Funny you should say that. Just had a letter of resignation from her.’ Philomena waved a piece of paper. ‘Writing back to accept, can’t have all this bally AWOL all over the shop.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Just as well you popped in. Swann child, Plan B, I think.’
‘Sister, I cannot stress enough that if we send her to hospital — ’
‘Can’t do a thing with her. Yesterday it was two Brussels sprouts, total.’
‘But she’s having counselling.’
‘She had counselling last time, still ended up in hospital.’
‘But — ’
‘No, Sister, it seems to me that Plan A is not working.’
‘Give me time, please, she and I are talking — ’
‘We can talk to her all we like, it’s no use if she’s starving to death. She’s thinner every time I look at her.’
‘But — ’
‘I’ll give you another day or two.’
‘Thank you, Sister.’
*
Agnes spent the rest of the morning discussing the problems of the Paris suburbs with the fourth years, then at lunchtime she drove to the mill.
‘I thought I heard you coming up the stairs,’ Nina said, looking up from a heap of files.
‘I brought you a sandwich.’
‘How was your weekend?’
‘Completely over the top.’ Agnes sank into a chair. ‘Terminal illness and world cruises and still-life painting and breaking and entering, and I can’t really take it all in.’
‘Normal convent life, then.’
‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’ Agnes took off her coat.
‘The kettle’s in that little kitchen there. Teabags on the shelf.’
‘Any sign of Baines again?’ Agnes asked from the kitchen.
‘None at all. Quiet morning.’
‘Was he looking for something?’
‘Don’t think so. Not seriously.’
‘Which box was it that he went through?’
‘This one.’ Nina indicated a shabby cardboard box. Agnes knelt on the floor and began to rummage through it. There were some Victorian share certificates, a framed Memorandum of Association from 1885, an order addressed to Baines’s Wool and Worsted Company, dated 1867. An ancient handwritten deed in the name of Wilhelm Albrecht, dated 1702, and framed in glass.
‘He didn’t take anything out, then?’
‘No.’
Agnes went back to the kettle. ‘Don’t you have a teapot?’
‘Oh, you with your fancy London ways. Teabags are good enough for the likes of us.’
‘Have you got access to Reg Naismith’s personnel records?’ Agnes put two mugs on the desk and got out the sandwiches.
‘Sure.’
‘Did the police have a look at the file?’
‘Yeah, they did. You can borrow it if you like. Here. And this one, there’s more on the athletics team in this one.’ Nina passed her two files. ‘Don’t tell anyone, though. Oh no, I don’t like prawn.’
‘You can have mine — chicken OK?’
‘Ta.’
There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
‘Act natural,’ Nina said. When Anthony Turnbull walked in, they were intently eating their sandwiches.
‘Nina — and Sister Agnes. Again.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t get you a sandwich,’ Agnes said.
‘I’m not hungry.’ He smiled, and hung his coat carefully over the back of a chair.
‘Would you like some tea? Coffee?’ Agnes stood up. She glanced at the desk. The files she had taken were tucked into her bag, out of sight. She put the bag on the floor and folded her coat over it, then went to the little kitchen.
‘Coffee please. Is it part of your religious duties to go into the community and make coffee for working people?’ Turnbull asked.
‘That’s the problem,’ Agnes said, finding mugs and instant coffee. ‘It used to be nursing and teaching, but now that’s being done so competently by the secular world, we have to find new markets to corner.’ She handed him a mug.
‘Did you sugar this?’ He held out his mug to her, his eyes meeting her gaze. Agnes took it. ‘Two please,’ he said. She went back to the kitchen, put two very large spoonfuls of sugar into the mug, was about to add a third, a fourth, even, thought better of it, found a teaspoon, and returned to the room. She placed the mug on the desk next to him. ‘It’ll need a good stir,’ she said.
Turnbull turned the spoon in his coffee, still holding her gaze. Then he turned to Nina. ‘Still sorting, then?’
She nodded. ‘The new stuff’s OK, I just don’t know where to put the old stuff.’
‘I’ve yet to go through some of that, just leave it out for me.’ He tasted his coffee, glanced at Agnes, took another sip. ‘And what were you doing here?’
‘Just escaping the routines of convent life,’ she said.
‘Are you allowed to do that?’
‘I’m not supposed to want to.’
He smiled. ‘You mean you’re supposed to find fulfilment in the simple life, the everyday tasks ...
‘Yes. Exactly.’
‘And do you?’
‘I wish I did.’
‘Perhaps it comes with time.’
‘Perhaps.’
He sipped his coffee. She glanced at her watch, then picked up her coat and bag, and stood up to go.
‘Already?’ He got up and opened the door for her. In the doorway he said, ‘If you ever want to escape again, you could let me buy you lunch.’
‘I always want to escape.’
‘Wednesday, then?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I’m always serious. I’d really like to talk about the religious life.’
‘I’m not the person to ask — ’
‘I’ll call for you at your school, twelve thirty OK?’
‘But — ’
‘Please?’
She glanced up at him, then nodded. ‘OK. Twelve thirty.’
‘I’ll walk down to the car with you,’ Nina said, getting up, ‘I’ve got to pick up some orders from the buyers.’
In the courtyard, Nina burst into giggles.
‘You — having lunch with him!’
‘It’s research, Nina.’
‘Pervy bastard — ’
‘I don’t see — ’
‘ — wanting to talk about “the religious life”. Like what you wear under your habit.’
‘But — ’
‘Or in your case, under your jeans. I bet Turnbull’s hoping you wear big blue knickers.’
‘Perhaps I do.’
‘Nah, not you. I bet you wear black. Silk. And lace. That’s what I think.’
Agnes laughed. ‘But Nina, even if I did, who would it be for?’
‘That’s just the point. That’s why I wear nice stuff. For me. For the feel of it.’
‘And for Rosie’s dad?’
She laughed. ‘Maybe.’
‘And you think Turnbull prefers big blue knickers?’
‘Yep.’
‘Perhaps he wears them himself.’ Agnes unlocked her car.
Nina burst into more giggles. ‘Are you really going to go?’
‘Of course I am. It might shed more light on things.’
‘That’s not the real reason.’
‘And it’s ages since I was taken out for lunch by a rich man.’ She laughed. ‘Actually, the ones I’m wearing now are white cotton.’
‘You’ll have to do better than that on the day.’ Nina was still giggling as she crossed the courtyard. Agnes locked her car again. She walked back to the mill, pushed on the old door, which creaked open, and climbed the stairs to Baines’s office.
It was dusty and neglected. The desk was bare. There wa
s an empty storage crate on the floor. The grate was still full of ash, and the hearth was stacked with files, scattered with soot. The room seemed weary with loss, with the passage of time. Agnes was filled with pity for William Baines, grasping at old certainties only to find they’d turned to dust. She shut the door and went back to her car.
*
That evening she sat at her desk in front of the files she’d gathered so far from the mill; the papers from Mark’s personnel file, Billy Keenan’s file, and the two new files. She flicked through them, then closed them all and went out. She got into the car and drove to the Woolpack pub.
She blinked in the warmth and the smoke, scanning the faces. David was sitting in one corner, hunched over a pint, alone. He looked up as she approached.
‘You meant it, then,’ he said.
‘I always mean what I say. Can I get you another?’
‘You certainly can.’
She bought him a pint and sat opposite him with a glass of white wine.
‘You heard from my friends, then,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I’m meeting them in Leeds next weekend. It’d be ace to get a gig in London.’
‘I hope it works out.’
‘You like my stuff, then?’
‘Yes. Some of it I liked a lot.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘It surprised me that Turnbull financed that show of yours, though.’
David laughed. ‘He knows nothing about art. Nah, it was just to keep an eye on me.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cos he knows I know where Jo is. And he has this thing about her. And also, since Mark ... ’
‘What about Mark?’
‘He doesn’t want me around as a loose cannon, so he’s trying to buy me. I can see through him, and he knows that, he doesn’t trust me. He’s not what he appears.’
‘So what is he?’
‘He gambles, for a start. He’s been doing gaming tables. A mate of mine’s a blackjack player, sees him regularly. I don’t think even Patricia knows. He’s worried I’m going to tell.’
‘And Mark?’
‘This sports centre, these papers going missing, all that — there’s more to that than anyone’s saying.’
‘And Turnbull thinks you might start digging for information?’
‘He’s wrong.’ He gulped the last of his drink. ‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s, me.’
‘But — ’
‘Why should I?’ His voice was suddenly loud. ‘It won’t bring him back, will it? He was all I bloody had and now he’s gone.’
Agnes turned her glass round in her fingers. ‘Your mother and father ... ’ she began.
‘Dead. My mum died of cancer when I was nineteen. My dad died in a car accident a couple of years later. Mark was all I had.’ He got up and went to the bar. Agnes watched him leaning heavily, waiting for their drinks.
‘It’s a kind of club,’ he said, coming back, placing her glass of white wine in front of her, two pints for himself. He sat down and took a long draught of his first pint. ‘A kind of awful club. You see us regularly on the front pages of the papers, you can tell us by the blank looks of grief, the pleas to help us find the killers of our wives, husbands, parents, brothers. Children.’ He drank some more. ‘And we’re grateful for the attention and the police and the press, and we cry in public and they photograph us — and then they go away. And then there’s nothing. Nothing at all.’ He flicked a beer mat over and over. ‘They’re talking of releasing his body for burial soon.’.
‘But if they found the person who did it — ’
‘Sure it would help. But don’t ask me to look for him. I’ve been on the edge of bloody madness with this as it is.’
‘It must help to have Joanna.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure “have” is the word.’
‘But you’re close?’
‘She’s got her own troubles at the moment.’
‘But you must see her?’
‘What’s with your interest in Jo?’
‘I saw her in the art room the night before she vanished. She was very upset, she’d tipped paint everywhere, she’d arranged a few things into a kind of still life — ’
‘Skulls and roses — ’
‘Yes.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘She’s such a free spirit, she’s stark raving bloody bonkers. That family of hers, her mother dies, so for some reason her father thinks she can inherit the mill with Patricia — Jo, a mill owner, it’s like asking Sinead O’Connor to manage Manchester United. She’s pure artist, her, and it drives her mad. And she thinks I’m getting too commercial, but at least I’m not lurking up on the moors living on nettle soup.’
‘Do you love her?’ Agnes asked quietly.
He met her gaze, and his eyes darkened with feeling. ‘I love her more than any woman I’ve ever known,’ he said at last.
Agnes hesitated, then said, ‘On the moors — ’
‘She’s there sometimes. Although I think she’s staying with Marcus some of the time.’
‘Where on the moors?’
‘We have a hut, a derelict barn. She’s adopted it. God knows who it belongs to. Don’t tell a soul, will you, I’m only telling you because I trust you.’ He started on his second pint. ‘We meet there. If I’m lucky. I wait at the barn, then she’ll appear, rip off my clothes and we’ll have crazy, kinky sex. And then she vanishes again. You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘Well — ’
‘It’s up to you. I never know when I’m next seeing her. She calls me on my mobile, when she wants me. I’m happy enough with that. Perhaps she loves me too, what do you think, you seem to know about these things?’
‘I don’t really, I’m a ... ’
‘A nun. I know.’ He leaned towards her. ‘What do you think? Does she love me?’
‘Perhaps. I really can’t say.’ Agnes reached for her coat.
‘Don’t go.’
‘I must. And they’ll be chucking you out soon, it’s late.’
‘I like talking to you.’
‘Thank you.’ Agnes stood up.
‘I’m always here, you can buy me a pint any time.’
‘David, it doesn’t help.’
‘It does. It makes it go away for a while.’
‘And then it comes back worse.’
‘Well, that’s for later to worry about.’
*
Driving back to the school, Agnes thought of David, alone, wandering back to wherever he lived. Alone. She felt like crying.
She let herself in and poured herself a whisky, then took out the files from the mill and arranged them on her desk with the others. She opened Billy Keenan’s. Amongst the routine papers she found a memo relating to an incident in 1992 in which, it said, Keenan had incited a group of lads to provoke another, resulting in a brawl. There was another memo about an event last December, involving Billy and his mother Maureen, and someone called Kitty Hanson. Agnes read the note.
‘Miss Hanson was clearly upset, but Billy claims he’d only been trying to help. His mother was supportive of Miss Hanson too, and Miss Hanson now appears quite fond of Billy, so at this point we are taking no further action against Billy. As always, he is under supervision, and we will see how his behaviour improves in the new year.’
Agnes closed the file. She wondered what the incident was about. A vivid picture of Billy Keenan was coming together in her mind.
She started on the file on the athletics team that Nina had given her that lunchtime. It contained routine correspondence going back some years, concerning the team, its fixtures, its triumphs, occasional lists of members which changed over the years. Throughout it all, the name Reg Naismith, a thin, uncertain signature at the foot of letters, or printed at the head of the roll call. Agnes closed the file. An unremarkable life, to end so violently.
Agnes sipped her whisky, then picked up Reg’s personnel file. His address was there, and she made a note of it. There were some memos concerning his certificate of long serv
ice, which he was awarded on his retirement last year. He’d joined the company in March 1939, and in October 1942 was called up on war service. He resumed his job at Allbright’s in February 1946.There was a medical note concerning a period of absence from April 1947, suffering from ‘nervous exhaustion’. Agnes wondered what that meant.
She closed the file, got up from her desk, and lit a candle for her evening worship. As she settled in prayer, she thought about David, drowning his grief in ale. She thought about Reg, his blameless life, his brutal ending unmourned. The candle flickered, and she saw once again the human skull of the still-life painting. She thought of Joanna’s roses, etched across the canvas in crimson gashes, seared with the flashing digits of time passing. ‘Lord, You sweep us away like a dream, we fade away suddenly like the grass ... ’
Perhaps she and Elias had found a clue after all.
Chapter Eleven
Philomena stared beadily across the dining hall. ‘Anyone would think that girl had sealed her lips with Sellotape.’
‘Rachel Swann?’ Agnes could see her through the breakfast bustle, sitting straightbacked, resolute.
‘Those cornflakes are untouched.’ Philomena spread marmalade on her last piece of toast. ‘Plan B, I think, Sister.’
‘But Sister Philomena — ’
‘She’s not eating.’
‘Sending her to hospital won’t work.’
Philomena arranged her knife on her empty plate. ‘And is Plan A working?’
Agnes sighed. ‘It’s the nature of it, Sister, it’s all about willpower and concealment. It needs time.’
‘We don’t have time. The girl’s starving to death.’
‘If we send her to hospital we’ll just make her hate us.’
‘She can hate us and live,’ Philomena said, getting up from the table. ‘Better than being awfully fond of us but being dead. Don’t you think?’
Agnes watched her cross the room, saw her stop by Rachel’s chair and rest her hand lightly on her shoulder as she exchanged a few words with her. There was something of steel in that touch, as if to say, I shall not let you die. However much you want to.
As she left the dining room, Agnes was called to the phone.
‘It’s DC Cole here.’
‘Janet, how are you?’
‘Did you meet Lianna Vickers?’
A Dark and Sinful Death Page 15