The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery)

by Alison Joseph

  ‘I don’t think we did make it worse.’

  ‘You give them a taste for it, you people. Running wild in London …’

  Shirley gave a choking sound. She was working her apron in her lap, scrunching the fabric into a ball between her fists.

  Agnes spoke quietly. ‘As I’m sure someone explained to you at the time, the hostel is a safe house. We work with the police and Social Services. You were contacted when she stayed with us, and after discussions with her social worker, she was returned to you.’

  ‘Only to run away again,’ Morris said. ‘After all we did, too. Going off to join these hippies and travellers and what-have-you —’

  ‘That’s hardly what we —’

  ‘In fact, I don’t know why you bothered to come. The police told us all we need to know.’

  There was a knock, and a boy put his head round the door. He looked about twelve, with his mother’s brown hair and large, nervous eyes. He went and stood by his mother, and without taking her gaze from her lap she leaned slightly towards him. The tea had cooled in the cups, leaving a creamy scum on top of each.

  Agnes stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you might want to talk about — about Rebecca. It was wrong of me to come.’ She walked to the door. Shirley was suddenly on her feet, darting into the hallway ahead of her. Before her husband had pulled his weight out of the sofa, she grabbed Agnes’s arm and whispered, ‘How — how did she die? How did she look? Was she — how did she — they thought it was best if I didn’t — see her …’

  Agnes took hold of Shirley’s hand. She said softly, ‘She was at peace. She looked peaceful.’ Agnes hesitated, seeing in Shirley’s eyes a burning urgency. ‘If you’d like to —’ she began, but Shirley shook her head as they heard Morris approach. As Morris came into the hall his wife opened the front door and showed Agnes out.

  *

  ‘No, you were right,’ Agnes said, sitting with Julius in their favourite Indian restaurant that evening. ‘I shouldn’t have gone.’ She broke a poppadum in half and took a bite.

  ‘I said nothing,’ Julius said.

  ‘You didn’t have to. As ever.’ Agnes smiled at him. ‘I just upset them. They’ve got a nice police officer dealing with them, and they blame us for getting Becky into bad ways, and they didn’t want to talk about her. Well, he didn’t.’

  ‘Do you mean she did — his wife?’

  Agnes nodded.

  Julius took a sip of lager. ‘Becky ran away again, didn’t she? After she’d been with us, she went home, and then turned up at the road camp some time later.’

  ‘You’ve been reading the file.’

  ‘It caught my eye this afternoon. The thing is, we’re supposed to be more successful than that. If someone passes through the hostel, we set in motion a process that should change their lives for the better so that they don’t need to run away again. Right?’

  ‘Well, yes, but we can’t do it every time.’

  ‘No.’

  Agnes looked at him. ‘You mean, there might be something she didn’t disclose to us at the time?’

  Julius nodded. ‘It crossed my mind.’

  ‘There’s not much in the file.’ Agnes spooned some pickle on to her plate. ‘She hated her parents, apparently. The family are part of a house church group. And she might have been gay.’

  ‘We really did fail her, then, didn’t we,’ Julius said.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.

  Agnes looked up. ‘I thought I wasn’t supposed to get too involved.’

  ‘As I said, what will you do now?’

  Agnes laughed. ‘I can go in two different directions, it seems to me. One involves following the same trail as the police, forensic evidence, asking questions, returning to that family again, Heaven help me. The other way, I’ll find myself dabbling in a load of mumbo-jumbo about past lives and reincarnation, and ghostly horsewomen in forests.’ She smiled and shrugged.

  Julius broke the last bit of poppadum into two small pieces and offered one to Agnes. ‘It’s just as well it’s you, then,’ he said. ‘After all, you’re used to believing several different things at the same time.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Athena, it’s me,’ Agnes said on the phone at ten on Friday morning.

  ‘Sweetie, how are you?’

  ‘You sound very chipper.’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘So what’s happened?’

  ‘I saw him last night.’

  ‘Nic?’

  ‘Uh-huh. He phoned to confirm the details for tomorrow, and we were talking and he just said, why don’t we meet for a drink. So we did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s lovely. A sweetie. And mature, you know? Like, not one of these silly boys, really thoughtful, like, he’s been there, you know, he’s got a son who’s seventeen, and now he feels able to be clear about what he wants from life, and the workshop stuff is going really well and —’

  ‘And you sat there and listened and didn’t get a word in edgeways.’

  ‘Deliberate strategy, darling, there’s no need to be snide.’

  ‘And are you going on Saturday?’

  ‘Absolutely, sweetie. He said that I had enormous power, not just sexual but, you know, kind of life energy, and if I learned to direct it I could change things in a positive way. You’re not really interested in coming along too, are you?’

  ‘I — um, yes, actually, Athena, I think I should.’

  ‘It’s not your type of thing.’

  ‘No, but —’

  ‘To be honest, I’d love you to be there. It all sounds a bit scary from what he was saying.’

  ‘Oh. Well, we can always nip out for a cup of tea if it gets too much, can’t we.’

  *

  The young woman at the Inquiries Desk of the Essex Record Office pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘The village of Broxted, did you say? And did you want the tithe maps, or the land tax records, or was it more recent than that?’

  ‘Well, um —’

  ‘Land ownership is quite a tricky one, you know. When was it for?’

  ‘Um, as far back as possible —’

  ‘I know, I’ll get you the Ordnance Survey maps and the tithe rolls and we can start from there.’

  Agnes pored over the maps, familiarising herself with the terrain. There was the church, and next to it Glebe Farm was marked. There was the stream, the same in 1950, and in 1879, and in 1841, as it was today. Although, not for much longer, if the road went ahead. There was the farmhouse — that must be the one belonging to — Nicholson, that was what Paz had said — before the Department of Transport took it over. In 1879 it was marked ‘Harton’s Lower Field’.

  In the earlier tithe maps, Agnes noticed, it was part of a larger farm, plots 43-45, which extended much further east. It must have been divided after that.

  She took the tithe rolls and searched through them. Plots 2-16, Loamy Field, First Stubb Piece, Second Stubb Piece, owned by the Revd Philip Velley, occupied by Edward Gibson … plots 20, 30, here we are, plots 43-45, owned and occupied by Miss Emily Quislan. Checker Mead, Well Mead and the Homestead.

  Agnes looked at the map again, at the old ink marks that outlined the patch of land, once an unassuming couple of fields, now the site of a controversial battle. She recalled Bill’s suggestion about some past legacy returning. She checked the name again. Miss Emily Quislan. It meant nothing, she thought, this name, this Victorian lady long since dead. Just because some phoney forest-dwelling hippy had led her to believe that Becky and Sam and Col had dabbled in the past … Agnes sighed. It was twenty past three and she’d had no lunch.

  *

  That evening she went to St Simeon’s. It was late and the church was locked. She let herself into the office, went to her desk and switched on the anglepoise lamp. The crucifix on her desk was illuminated in the bright pool of light, beyond it the shadows of the office, the door in darkness, still slightly ajar where she had left it. Above h
er head the old floorboards of the church creaked from time to time. She took out Becky’s file from where Julius had tidied it away and read through it again. She felt as if she was searching — but for what? For some explanation, among the various testimonies, from teachers, social workers, GP — as if they might describe something of Becky that made it all make sense. But here it all was: good school work, a bit of truancy just recently; a supportive home environment; no apparent drug problem; just a normal girl.

  The word normal began to stand out from the few thin pages as Agnes turned them. A normal teenage girl. She just happened to be a murder victim. And would it help, wondered Agnes, if I could find something abnormal, something to pin it on? In the end, she thought, it wouldn’t change a thing. However Becky chose to live, she chose to live. It was someone else who decided differently.

  On one of the pages of notes she found the address of Becky’s house church group. 39 Fairfax Place, Chelmsford. She noted it down, switched off the lamp and left.

  *

  Athena appeared at Agnes’s door at nine o’clock sharp on Saturday morning, clasping a large bag of warm croissants.

  ‘You never know when they’re going to let you eat on these things,’ she said, breezing past the yawning Agnes and going to put the kettle on. ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea,’ mumbled Agnes, going into the shower.

  Half an hour later they set off in Agnes’s car for Kilburn, Athena in the passenger seat brushing the last few croissant crumbs from her short-sleeved mauve angora jumper. ‘It’s not too overdressed is it, sweetie? Only, I refuse to wear some ghastly track suit affair when I’m still at the making-an-impression stage.’

  ‘I think we’ll all be too busy breathing our way back through the cosmos to ancient bloody Egypt to worry about what anyone’s wearing. Shall I do Westminster Bridge?’

  ‘You’re not keen, are you, poppet?’

  Agnes’s eyes were firmly on the road. ‘Maybe Waterloo’s as good, I can do Camden Town from there.’

  *

  Nic welcomed them all into a warm, light room, its pine flooring piled with large cushions. There was soothing, tinkly music playing, and a vague scent of jasmine. Everyone filed in rather uncertainly and then found a place and a cushion in a ragged circle. Nic sat in front of the window silhouetted against the bright sunlight.

  ‘I want you to feel that this space is absolutely safe,’ he said. Agnes was surveying the woman opposite her. She wore tight black leggings and heavy mascara, and now she produced from her chic patent leather handbag a large pack of tissues and laid them down neatly in front of her with the air of someone who knows what to expect.

  ‘… so whatever you feel,’ Nic was saying ‘that’s OK. There’s nothing to be frightened of.’ He smiled warmly at Athena, who gave him one of her best smiles back. ‘And if something happens, that’s fine — but have no expectations, OK? If nothing happens, that’s fine too. We are just pinpoints in time, right? We’re little flickers of consciousness. It’s all about being aware when we’ve touched down. I’m going to start on some exercises where we can all get to know each other a bit, but first, is there anything anyone wants to share at this stage?’

  A tanned, middle-aged man in a beautifully cut white shirt said, ‘Nic, I wondered how you felt about someone having a place they want to get back to. Like, the self that I need to be at the moment is kind of locked away, and I need to return to it.’

  Nic nodded for a moment. ‘My feeling is, Patrick, that that’s the self that will come.’ Agnes wondered whether she had a self which was locked away, and how many workshops it would take to find out.

  Half an hour later she had learned everyone’s names and what they wanted from the workshop. There was Lynne and Andy and Patrick, and Phoebe with the chic handbag who rather tearfully explained that she had been talking to her dead mother a lot recently and it was important she find her own direction now; and Helga, who said that her husband had done a lot of regression therapy and now he felt she should too. When it came to Athena she said with studied thoughtfulness, ‘I do think it’s so important to accept the challenge of releasing one’s own potential,’ and allowed her gaze to alight, charmingly, on Nic. And then it was Agnes’s turn and she muttered something about being interested in other spiritual paths whilst pulling at the sleeves of her worn grey shirt.

  And then she wasn’t really sure what happened. They all lay on the floor and did relaxation and breathing, and Agnes thought she must have dozed off for a while. She seemed to have a dream about a child sitting in the window seat of a large and beautiful house, gazing out at a car in the drive. She remembered the detail of the child’s dress, made in layers and layers of fine cotton, with little violets embroidered at the hem. Something about the violets made her want to cry. Then Nic was talking to them gently, and Agnes came out from the dream with an overwhelming sense of relief. She noticed that he’d pulled down the blinds to block out the bright sunlight. Lynne told some kind of story, murmuring about carrying a large weight on her back, a basket, and she has to take it across a river, it has food in it, and the weather is cold, so cold, and the eggs will spoil. Nic was gently encouraging her, and Agnes, watching her, was struck by how happy she seemed, lying curled on her cushion, recounting bits of an altogether different life. When it was Patrick’s turn, he simply said, ‘So it is you. It is you,’ in tones of radiant discovery, and Nic was talking to him, too, in a low voice.

  Agnes noticed that Athena was lying artfully across a floor cushion, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. She opened her eyes briefly to check where Nic was in the room, then seeing he was next to Agnes, she closed them again.

  Nic said to Agnes, ‘How’re you doing?’

  Agnes looked up at him, and felt like bursting into tears. ‘There was this girl, this child,' Agnes began, and then stopped.

  ‘Go on,’ Nic said gently.

  ‘It was just a dream,’ Agnes said.

  Nic said, ‘Has it upset you?’

  ‘No,’ Agnes said.

  Nic considered this. ‘It sounds like you’re resisting this person.’

  ‘It was only a dream,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Or a memory,’ Nic said, watching her.

  Agnes thought about the embroidered violets, so real she could taste them.

  ‘I think I’ll go home now,’ she said. She stood up, found her bag, and without looking back left the room. As she went out through the reception area, she was amazed to find that the sun was still shining brightly. It was ten past one.

  Agnes drove home, went straight into her tiny kitchen, put eggs on to boil, opened a tin of anchovies and ajar of olives and assembled something resembling a salad niçoise. As she laid out a fork and a plate, and poured herself a glass of mineral water, she realised she was angry. Very angry. She sipped at her glass and wondered whether she was cross with herself for leaving. Or with Nic, for allowing all those people to feel those disturbing, illusory things. Or with the others, for having so little sense that they were happy to be there, these Lynnes and Andys and Phoebes with nothing better to do than breathe themselves into a state and then witter on about their other selves instead of concentrating on the one they were stuck with.

  Agnes put the salad out on a plate and began to eat. At least I’ve got my faith, she thought. At least I don’t have to do that, experiment with other ways of being. At least as far as I’m concerned it’s between me and God, and that’s all, she thought. Yes, that’s all.

  She took an olive stone from her mouth. She knew what it felt like to wear that dress with the embroidered violets. She knew that when she looked out of the window of the large and beautiful house, on to the drive with the waiting car, it would be raining.

  She washed up her dishes, changed into her scruffiest clothes that still smelt of wood smoke, and set off for the camp. On the M25 she pulled into the fast lane as soon as she could and drove hard, her jaw clenched, flashing her lights at anyone who got in her way.

  Sa
m ran to greet her. The fire smouldered as usual, but there was no one else about. ‘Paz has hitched into Brentwood to sign on, Jeff’s up in the chestnut there, the others are somewhere. Do you want some tea?’

  Jeff descended from a tree and asked Sam if she wanted to climb. A few moments later, all rigged up in abseil harness, she disappeared after him into the branches. Agnes surveyed the deserted camp, the benders, their blanket coverings lifted to air in the sunshine, the makeshift clothes-line with one filthy pair of jeans swinging from it; beyond the camp the gentle slope away from the forest down to the village, the church spire just visible through the trees. To the right of the church Agnes could see Nicholson’s farmhouse. The man whose family had acquired the land before passing it on to the DoT. Agnes picked up her bag and set off.

  Half an hour later the farmhouse door was opened by a ginger-haired boy of about fourteen, who squinted up at Agnes, then turned and called, ‘Dad — someone to see you.’ A man appeared from an inside door, stooping under the lintel, his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows.

  ‘Sister Agnes,’ Agnes said. ‘I’m involved with the road protest camp, in particular with Becky, who — um, died. I wondered if you had a moment.’

  He gestured with his head for her to come in, and she followed him into the dark hallway and then beyond to the kitchen. She sat at the wide oak table and he sat heavily opposite her, waiting. She looked beyond him to the peeling beige paint of the walls, the crumbling, dirty window frames. A black Labrador was sleeping in a basket on the old flagstone floor, and now it lifted its head, considered Agnes for a moment and then lay down again.

  ‘They said you owned the land here,’ Agnes began.

  The farmer nodded. ‘Nicholson,’ he said. ‘James Nicholson. My great-uncle bought it in the fifties, cheap.’

  ‘Were you from round here, your family?’

  ‘Lincolnshire, to start with. My great-uncle, called James like me, he moved away, settled here.’ He paused, waiting.

  ‘But now you’ve sold it.’

  ‘For ten times what he paid for it, yes.’