A Dark and Sinful Death

by Alison Joseph

  James paused at her side. ‘I don’t know — ’ he began. ‘I can’t say anything helpful.’

  ‘Julius told me to think about the good things, and he’s right, there are moments, even here, in chapel sometimes, or here on the moors, when it feels right, when I feel that I’m doing the right thing, and certainly in London, there’ve been moments in the community house, when I’m cooking for the sisters or something, when I’ve felt, just for a moment, a sense of being in the service of something greater than myself. It’s a kind of freedom, being deprived of choice, it does allow one’s spiritual side to grow and develop.’

  ‘And yet we have choice.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We continue to have to make choices.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Until you get to the point I’ve reached.’

  Agnes looked at him. The walk had tired him, and his face looked grey.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘in the end, we die. And I’m not sure it makes any difference.’

  Agnes smiled. ‘Some help you are.’

  ‘I did warn you.’

  ‘Between you and Julius, I’m completely on my own in this.’

  Evelyn kissed Agnes on the cheek and led her inside. It was a spacious house, with a wide hallway and an open-plan living room looking out on to an immaculate garden.

  ‘Tea?’ Evelyn said.

  Agnes sat down, admiring the dashes of colour in the garden in spite of the wintry day.

  ‘Joss has taken James off to show him his plans for a rose trellis,’ Evelyn said, returning with tea things. ‘It’s so tedious,’ she said, pouring two cups of tea and offering Agnes a slice of fruit cake. ‘And poor old James isn’t going to be here to see it, is he, those climbing roses take ages to get established. I think it’s Joss’s clumsy way of expressing hope, of trying to say that he’s going to miss him. Which of course he is, poor dear.’ Evelyn blinked back tears. ‘And anyway, it’s such a nuisance, it cuts down my space for the hives, I’ve got to move them further back, the bees won’t like it. Oh, here they are.’

  ‘Perhaps white roses would be more elegant,’ James was saying. He took a cup of tea and sat down next to Agnes. ‘And how were the Radleighs?’

  Joss grunted.

  ‘They were very welcoming, as usual,’ Evelyn said.

  ‘Full of gossip,’ Joss said. ‘Can’t think why they think we want to hear what everyone in the village is up to. Who’s extending their patio, who’s traded in the Jeep for a Merc, who fell off their mount at the last hunt meeting — we don’t know half these people, but they will keep on.’

  ‘They told us about William Baines, dear, you were very concerned.’

  Joss stared into his cup. ‘Yes. William Baines. Though, frankly, it’s none of their business.’

  ‘They’d seen him at bridge the week before. He’s not at all well, apparently. Not himself.’

  ‘They should just leave the poor bugger alone,’ Joss said, helping himself to a large piece of cake.

  ‘Someone’s got to look after him. With all his children having abandoned him.’

  ‘They’re grown up. What does he expect?’

  ‘I thought ... ’ Agnes hesitated. ‘I thought Patricia was very loyal to him?’

  ‘Well,’ Evelyn said, offering more cake, ‘apparently he was very unhappy about all of them. He was saying terrible things about Anthony Turnbull, her husband.’

  ‘He said he thought he was capable of anything,’ Joss said.

  ‘What kind of anything?’ Agnes took some cake.

  ‘It’s all hearsay,’ Joss said.

  ‘He’s not himself,’ Evelyn said. ‘He wasn’t really making sense. And he left early, they said. It’s grief, about Hannah. I’m sure of it. He’s kept it all buttoned up, and now it’s driving him mad.’

  ‘All the same,’ Joss said. ‘The poor man deserves better than to be fodder for the Radleighs’ tittle-tattle. More tea, Agnes?’

  Agnes noticed, once again, the tension in his face at the discussion. He handed her the cup clumsily, before she’d properly got hold of it, and it fell to the floor between them, splashing hot tea. Agnes jumped up in a rush of confusion, cloths were brought, apologies made, Evelyn insisted it was an old rug and really, not to worry, and had it scalded her?

  ‘Don’t worry about Agnes,’ James said. ‘I’ve known her spill a whole plate of tomato soup. Deliberately.’

  Agnes glanced at him. He smiled back at her.

  *

  The moors were shaded with the last, of the day when they set off back to James’s cottage, refusing Joss’s offer of a lift, promising to come back soon. They walked in silence, as the twilight deepened.

  ‘I was only fourteen,’ Agnes said at last.

  James smiled. ‘I was completely on your side. I almost joined in, just to give you support. But they wouldn’t have noticed me either. And I felt sorry for your nice maid, having to clear it all up. I remember looking at Aylmer and Marie-Claude, locked in that terrible battle. And there you were, caught up in it all, an innocent bystander. I was very angry with them. I told Aylmer, afterwards, I tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t really listen. Guilt, I think. He knew I was right.’

  Agnes knew that if she tried to speak she would burst into tears.

  ‘I love this time of day,’ James said, aware of her silence. ‘Particularly now. This landscape is so — timeless. I like thinking how it will still be here when I’m not. It makes me feel insubstantial. It gives me hope that — that when it comes to it, it’ll be easy to let go.’

  ‘If Julius knew you — ’ Agnes was trying not to cry. ‘If he knew how well you know me — he’d understand why I need — why I need ... ’

  James touched her shoulder.

  It was almost too dark to see the path, as they descended the hill towards the lights of the village.

  *

  ‘And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to Your word.”’

  Agnes looked up, at Elias, at the window behind him, the white of the altar, the morning sun streaming in, glancing off the candlesticks with flashes of silver.

  Let it be to me according to Your word, Agnes thought. Let me obey.

  *

  ‘It was all right for Mary, though, wasn’t it?’ she said to Teresa as they walked back to the staff room. ‘I mean, it was obvious what she was supposed to do.’

  ‘She could have said no,’ Teresa said.

  ‘No? How could Mary have said no? If an angel came to you and suggested that you might bear a divine child — ’

  ‘ — I’d say no. Wouldn’t you? I’ve gone to all this trouble to have an orderly life, and then that? Absolutely out of the question, I’d tell him. Go and pick on someone else.’ Agnes laughed.

  ‘So,’ Teresa said, ‘what’s your angel asking you to do?’ They were standing in the empty corridor.

  ‘Either stay here. Or go away. In a good cause.’ Agnes stared at her feet.

  ‘And you can’t tell which?’

  Agnes nodded.

  ‘I suppose compared to that, immaculate conception is a doddle.’ Teresa squeezed her hand, and then left her at the staff-room door.

  *

  ‘This isn’t a bleedin’ lending library,’ Nina said, at lunchtime. ‘Marching in here, going straight to my files, helping yourself.’

  ‘I was surprised to find you here,’ Agnes said. ‘I thought you’d stay well clear after your experiences.’

  ‘I need the money. And the whole place is falling apart. The Turnbulls haven’t been seen for days. No, you can’t have Baxter, that’s my mum’s maiden name, she worked here for a few years. And you can’t have Warburton either. And you didn’t even bring me a sandwich.’

  ‘I’ve spent the morning trying to coax a few words of halting French out of girls who in other circumstances can’t stop talking. It ruins the appetite. I’m sorry, Nina.’ Agnes sat on a chair with a heap of files on her lap.

 
; ‘All those?’

  ‘I’ll bring them back.’

  ‘Better had do.’

  ‘Nina — are you really OK working here? I’m worried about you.’

  ‘It’s fine, honest. The coppers keep popping in, I couldn’t be safer.’

  ‘What does your mum think?’

  ‘I’ve played it down for her.’

  ‘But the newspapers?’

  ‘She can’t see to read them no more. I read bits to her.’

  ‘But the radio — the local TV news — ’

  ‘I know, it’s a matter of time. Maybe they’ll have caught the bastard by then.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  *

  Agnes left the mill and climbed the hill up to the Millhouse estate. She turned down Radcliffe Street and knocked on the third door on the right. It was opened by a woman whom Agnes recognised from the conversation in the mill with Cathy Phelps during the school visit.

  ‘Maureen Keenan?’ Agnes said.

  ‘Aye.’ The woman eyed her suspiciously. She wore a large pink jumper and woollen skirt, and her feet were squeezed into mauve slippers.

  ‘I’m Sister Agnes. We met when our school visited the mill. St Catherine’s.’

  ‘Oh, aye, yes. I remember.’

  ‘One of our girls, Cathy Phelps — ’

  ‘Aye, that one, said she was my cousin. D’you hear that, Kitty,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘never told you at the time, there’s a girl at that school up t’hill, the convent one, says she’s my cousin. Through the Rudges, them what married the Wilsons, t’other branch. Come through, love.’

  Agnes followed Maureen into the front room. The television was on, with the sound turned down. A woman was sitting in front of it. She was thin and upright, with dark hair scraped back from her face.

  ‘And what can I do for you, Sister?’ Maureen said.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about Billy, actually,’ Agnes said. Maureen’s face fell. ‘What’s he done this time?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing he’s done. I’m concerned that his name keeps coming up in this Mark Snaith business ... ’ Maureen sighed heavily and lowered herself into a chair. ‘Weren’t nowt to do wi’ him, and everyone’s pointing the finger. Take a seat, love. This is Kitty, my friend, we work together at Allbright’s.’

  ‘I’ll put t’kettle on,’ Kitty said, and went into the kitchen.

  ‘So, where do you come in?’ Maureen said.

  ‘It’s a long story, but one of my sixth formers was involved with Mark.’

  ‘Poor kid.’

  ‘And she said that Billy gave Mark — ’

  ‘I know I know, our Billy drove him up to t’moor, don’t think I haven’t heard it over and over again, them coppers have been coming here asking me, asking our Billy too, poor kid, all he’ll say is, he dropped him off on the moor, that’s all he knows. Last to see him alive, you see, in’t that right, Kitty?’

  ‘Poor lad,’ Kitty said, coming back into the room, ‘hasn’t done nothing wrong. Sugar?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Agnes watched Kitty return to the kitchen. ‘I gather they knew each other through the sports centre.’

  ‘That’s right. It were good for our Billy, that, to get involved in summat like that. Not that it’s come to much. Folks say they got all this money, but where is it, eh? Still all boarded up, that centre. They promised they’d have it reopened, all fitted out nicely.’

  ‘Perhaps it takes time.’

  ‘Time?’ Kitty said from the kitchen. ‘They’d had time enough.’

  ‘They’ve not long had this new funding,’ Agnes said.

  ‘They could have made a start at least.’ Kitty handed her a mug of instant coffee. ‘They were talking about doing up that centre before Mother was even taken ill, and now she’s gone and nowt’s changed.’ Her voice wavered. ‘And that Mr Turnbull, I don’t trust him, not one bit, Mother always said, if the mill got into his hands, it would be the worse for us all ... ’

  ‘Now now, love.’ Maureen got up and helped her friend into a chair. Kitty sat, biting her lip, her hands clasped round her mug of coffee.

  ‘Do you think Billy would mind if I had a word with him?’ Agnes asked.

  Maureen sighed. ‘He’s had that many people wanting to have a word wi’ him. I can tell when he’s lying, he’s my lad after all, and I know he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘I owe it to Charlotte — ’ Agnes tried.

  ‘Well, you can try if you like. He’s often down the pub, the Wetherby Stakes. Most nights.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘You can’t miss him, our Billy. He’s got his head shaved, like they do, you know, with kind of zig-zags in it, and he wears all designer clothes, don’t he, Kitty?’ Kitty sat, staring at her fingers. ‘And an earring. All I can say is, I’m just glad my old man in’t around to see it, how these lads dress these days. And if our Billy in’t in t’pub, you can catch him at the mill, we’ll be going down there later, won’t we, Kitty?’

  ‘Wha — Oh, aye, yes.’

  ‘She’s in a world of her own,’ Maureen whispered to Agnes at the door, as she showed her out. ‘Poor Kitty. Lived with her mother all her life, just the two of them, and now her mother’s died. Just a couple of months ago. Just before Christmas too, only sixty-eight. She’s lost her bearings. I’m doing what I can for her, but she’s taken it badly.’

  Agnes tore a page from her notebook. ‘Here’s my number,’ she said, writing it down. ‘Just in case.’

  Maureen took the piece of paper carefully and held it in her fingers. ‘Sister, eh? We were your kind, once. My grand-daddy came from Ireland, fetched up here. He were taught by the brothers when he were little. Best education you could get, he used to say.’

  *

  Agnes continued up the hill, past a row of three shops, one of them boarded up. She turned off the main street, and came to a crossroads. On one corner stood a modern single-storey building in red brick with bright red railings. The windows had grilles bolted across them, the door was boarded up and padlocked. ‘Millhouse Community Centre’, the sign said. Agnes walked round it. Someone called ‘Biker’ had sprayed his name across the walls, along with ‘Chub’ and the ‘Acid Girls’. The board across the door was fastened with a heavy padlock, and was scorched where it touched the floor. On the ground Agnes saw blackened silver foil, an empty packet of cigarettes. A filthy, discarded, football glove.

  Agnes bent and picked up the glove between her thumb and forefinger. She looked at it, then dropped it again, and set off back down the hill to the town.

  *

  On the way back to the school she bought some fresh bread and a bunch of early daffodils. She arranged the flowers in the vase that James had given her, so familiar that she’d passed her whole childhood without noticing it. Now she seemed to see it for the first time, illuminated by the bright splash of yellow, the promise of spring. The message of the Annunciation, Agnes thought, a promise of new life. Of salvation. No wonder Mary said yes. She ran her finger along the pattern of the vase, and her eye fell on the two photos that James had given her.

  And what good is such a promise, she thought. What good is it to James, this promise of new life? What good is it to him, when this might be the last spring he sees, when these daffodils might be the last he ever sets eyes on? The clock, and the skull, and the roses, she thought, like Joanna’s work, like the old paintings in Baines’s attic, the Jesuit lemons, made all the more beautiful by their transience, and by our own impermanence. Perhaps for James, the daffodils this year are the most beautiful he’s ever seen.

  Oh Julius, she thought, surely it is better that, to celebrate each moment, than to wait patiently, steadfastly, for a spring that may never come.

  She drew her curtains against the dusk, switched on her lamp, and unpacked all the files from the mill. She stacked them up on her desk. She’d taken all the names she could find, Styring and Coulter and Longley and Pashley and Snaith and Hanson and Chadwick and Highworth. A line
of young faces from the athletics team; and now a stack of files on her desk. And somewhere, out in the world, real people, real, living people with their own lives, their own stories.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Agnes — David.’

  ‘David. Did you go to the police?’

  ‘She’s phoned me. I’m going to the hut. She’ll be there.’

  ‘Joanna?’

  ‘Who else. If you want to see her, you’d better get a move on.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, now. Before she disappears into the ether again.’

  ‘How do I get there?’

  ‘You know the Bingley road over the moors? You reach a crossroads, and there’s a farm and a signpost to Baildon.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll write this down.’

  ‘There’s a track just there, park your car and I’ll meet you there.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Agnes got out of her car and locked the door. The only sound was of the wind gusting across the moors. She stared into the darkness around her. She reached into her bag for her phone, for David’s number, when she heard footsteps from the track, and a flash of a torch.

  ‘Agnes?’

  ‘David.’

  ‘You were quick. Come on.’

  She followed him up the track, stumbling over the uneven ground as his torchbeam swerved ahead of her.

  ‘I told her what you said about the mill,’ David said, breathlessly. ‘About Turnbull selling it. That’s why she’ll see you.’

  They turned off the track and descended a slope, coming upon a tiny cottage. There was a flickering light at its window. Agnes could smell woodsmoke.

  David pushed the door. Joanna turned. She was standing in front of the fireplace in which there was a blazing fire. A blackened kettle hung from a hook. There were candles everywhere, balanced on the windowsills, the mantelpiece. There was rough rush-matting on the floor, and cushions, and a mattress draped with a multicoloured quilt. Joanna was wearing a long velvet dress, whether cheap bazaar or Nicole Farhi it was difficult to tell. She smiled, then turned back to the fire.

  ‘I was just making tea,’ she said.