A Dark and Sinful Death

by Alison Joseph

  He went to place the chalice and the host on one side. ‘Perhaps murder is nothing to you,’ Agnes snapped. ‘Perhaps it’s just part of the random universe of your post-modern God.’

  There was a crash as Elias dropped the decanter of wine. He stared at his feet, at the spreading red stain on the polished floor, his hand cupped as if to hold the bottle still. Then he turned to her.

  ‘Do you think that’s how I am?’ His voice was a whisper.

  Agnes bent to pick up shards of glass. ‘I’m sorry — ’ she began, ‘I didn’t mean — ’

  He knelt down next to her and gathered up some larger pieces. ‘She won’t be there,’ he said.

  ‘I just thought there might be — I wanted to find out — ’

  ‘If you want to, then we’ll do it. David Snaith can wait for his bloody key.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Limits after all,’ Sister Philomena said, thumping her tray down next to Agnes at lunch. Agnes waited for the reprimand. ‘Starving away to bloody nothing,’ Philomena went on, retrieving her bread roll from the other side of the table. Agnes realised she was not the subject of this particular discussion.

  ‘Who do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘The Swann girl. Look.’

  Agnes glanced across the dining hall to where Rachel Swann, a fifth-year member of her house, was sitting in front of a very small salad.

  ‘Hasn’t touched it,’ Philomena said.

  ‘We had this last year,’ Teresa said.

  ‘Been watching her,’ Philomena said. ‘Yesterday she ate one small helping of cornflakes, dry, two digestive biscuits and several cups of black tea. Wasting away to bloody nothing. And one of our brightest girls. Time to call a halt, what?’

  ‘Well,’ Teresa began, ‘she’s had counselling, and I spoke to her last week, and we agreed that she’d think about what I’d said.’

  ‘Think about it? Be dead before she’ll think about it. Parents?’

  ‘They’re Foreign Office.’

  ‘Your bag then. Sister. Up to you, old chap.’

  *

  There was a thin rain falling when Agnes and Elias set out across the moor that afternoon. Grey clouds blotted out the sun. Agnes was hot and breathless, hurrying to keep pace with Elias. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said.

  ‘Right in what way?’ It was the first time he’d spoken.

  ‘That she won’t be there,’ Agnes said.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said, raising his voice against the wind as they reached the path that led down towards the Millhouse estate.

  Agnes loosened her scarf around her neck, in spite of the rain which flattened her hair and dripped into her eyes.

  *

  Elias turned the key in one lock, then another. The door opened a crack.

  ‘Something’s blocking the other side.’ He leaned hard against it and pushed his way inside. Agnes heard him say, ‘Oh Christ.’

  The place had been ransacked. An upturned table had been placed behind the door. In the living room the sofa had been slashed, the curtains hung in shreds from their rail. The television had gone. Agnes and Elias went from room to room, dazed by the chaos, the outpouring of hatred that had alighted, randomly, on this one place before moving on. In the bedroom there was a stink of perfume. Empty cosmetics bottles littered the floor. A pile of clothes lay across the bed, soaking wet.

  ‘Do you think she’s seen it?’ Agnes whispered at last.

  Elias was opening the door of the tiny second bedroom. ‘I’ve no idea. Oh God,’ Agnes heard him cry. ‘Bastards. What good did it bloody do them? Not this as well ... ’

  Agnes saw curtains pulled from the walls, drawers pulled out. Then she noticed paintings ripped from their frames, an easel overturned, tubes of paint squeezed out across the room, smeared over the walls.

  ‘Subhuman, worse-than-mindless bloody yobbos ... ’ Elias was muttering, picking his way across the mess. He bent and picked up a canvas that had been slashed in half. Elias began to search feverishly for the other half, his hands working through the wreckage, the unnamed stickiness, the stench of urine.

  ‘Elias — be careful ... ’

  ‘Here it is.’

  He held up the other half and Agnes saw a bowl of golden apples in oils, a vase of yellow roses.

  ‘Still life,’ Elias said. There were tears in his eyes.

  *

  ‘Shall we tell the police?’ Agnes said. They stood in the kitchen, washing their hands under running cold water.

  ‘What good will that do?’

  ‘You mean this happens all the time?’

  ‘Look.’ Elias pointed outside. Agnes could see, through the shabby net curtains, the row of houses opposite. On the roof sat two boys, levering tiles away from the beams, throwing them down to a boy below who was stacking them into piles.

  ‘What difference is one trashed house going to make?’ Elias dried his hands.

  Agnes took the towel he passed to her. ‘All this hatred and violence and destruction — ’ she began. ‘If someone was actually to get killed ... ’

  Elias picked up the two halves of Joanna’s painting. ‘Like Mark, you mean?’ He glanced across at the kids on the roof. ‘As far as they’re concerned, it’s just another day.’

  They came out into the street. The boys started jeering at them and throwing bits of broken tile.

  Elias stood by the door, the key in his hand. He glanced at Agnes, then at the smashed front window. He shrugged, locked the door, pocketed the key.

  *

  On the moors the rain had eased, and the twilight was pricked with stars. Elias’s pace had lost its urgency, and he walked slowly, staring at the ground ahead.

  ‘I didn’t realise — ’ Agnes began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she was working as an artist.’ Elias was silent. ‘Had they trashed much of her work?’

  ‘Sorry? Not really, no, that room was just a storeroom.’

  ‘So — does she have a studio somewhere else?’

  ‘What — oh, um, yes. No.’

  ‘Hadn’t we better search for her there, then?’

  Elias glanced at her. ‘She won’t be there.’

  Agnes looked at him, at his profile shadowed by the fading light. ‘Well, where else might she be?’

  Elias’s fingers touched the side of his coat, where the torn painting was folded away. He shook his head.

  The path across the top of the moor narrowed, and Agnes fell into step behind him, as the sky grew dark and the lights of the town spread out beneath them. Elias stumbled, stopped. They stood there, as the wind whispered through the bare grass. Elias blinked, looked at the ground. Agnes reached her hand out uncertainly to him.

  ‘We’ll find her,’ she said.

  Again, he shook his head.

  ‘You know this skull business?’ Agnes asked him, putting her hands into her pockets.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘David Snaith put one in his work.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

  Agnes fished out some gloves and put them on. ‘Perhaps we should pray for her.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Pray for people.’

  ‘I used to.’ He started off down the hill again.

  ‘But not now?’ Agnes walked next to him.

  ‘False hopes,’ he said. ‘I try to avoid them.’

  ‘So — do you believe anything at all?’

  ‘Hardly anything.’

  Agnes dropped behind him as the path narrowed. When she caught up with him again, she said, ‘Nothing at all?’ He stopped and looked at her. ‘The best we can hope for is to find stillness in the face of suffering.’

  Agnes looked at him. The wind blew his hair over his eyes. ‘And does that kind of faith sustain you?’

  ‘It’s not for long, is it?’

  ‘But what about joy? What about celebration, what about thanksgiving? Isn’t that what
God wants of us too?’

  Elias looked at the lights spread out beneath them. ‘Once I thought that.’ He turned and set off away from her, towards the school. ‘Not any more,’ she heard him say. She thought perhaps he said something else, but the wind caught at his words and carried them away.

  *

  She went to her room, changed and set off again in the community car. James let her in and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘The Campbells are here, the friends I mentioned. I wanted you to meet them, I hope you don’t mind. And Evelyn’s done most of the cooking.’

  ‘Nonsense, Jim, I just helped a bit.’ An elegant, middle-aged woman emerged from the kitchen and shook Agnes’s hand warmly. ‘I gather he’s known you since you were a baby.’

  Agnes laughed. ‘It sounds ridiculous,’ she said.

  ‘No it doesn’t, not at all. Joss, this is Agnes — or is it Sister Agnes?’

  ‘Just Agnes is fine.’ Agnes shook hands with Joss, who was grey-haired with an angular, weathered face and a kind smile.

  ‘And how do the photos look?’ James said, handing her a glass of wine.

  ‘Lovely. I’m so glad to have them,’ she said.

  *

  They sat down to a lamb ragoût with baked potatoes and salad.

  ‘St Catherine’s, is it?’ Joss asked her. ‘Good reputation, I believe. Nice place to teach?’

  ‘Um, yes.’ Agnes glanced at James.

  James smiled. ‘Agnes is an exile, you see. She’s a Londoner by instinct.’

  Evelyn laughed. ‘No wonder, then.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Agnes said. ‘Never a dull moment, between the crises and the dramas. I’m amazed anyone passes their exams at the end of it all.’

  ‘So what are the current dramas?’ James asked.

  ‘Well — we have an art teacher who’s mysteriously disappeared. Joanna Baines — ’

  Evelyn put down her fork. ‘Joanna Baines — not William’s daughter?’

  ‘From the mill, yes.’

  ‘I had no idea she was an art teacher,’ Joss said.

  ‘Yes, we knew that, dear, don’t you remember, at the funeral she said she was teaching — ’

  ‘I didn’t associate it with that school, I suppose. And she’s vanished, you say?’

  ‘Does everyone know everyone else around here?’ Agnes asked.

  James laughed. ‘It’s a very small community. And the Campbells have been here for years.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true,’ Joss said, ‘we had all that time in the States, we only settled back here last year.’

  ‘Yes, but you count. You get to play bridge with the Radleighs, for example.’

  ‘It’s hardly an honour,’ Evelyn laughed.

  ‘It’s a tiresome bore,’ Joss said, pouring Agnes some more wine. ‘So when you say vanished ... ’ he said.

  ‘She seemed upset, and then one day she didn’t turn up for work. And we’ve had no word from her.’

  ‘Of course,’ Evelyn said quietly, ‘it’s the anniversary.’ She glanced at her husband who was twirling the wine around in his glass. ‘Their mother died almost a year ago,’ she went on. ‘Cancer. It was very sudden, a terrible shock. Barely in her sixties. The family took it very badly, William in particular.’

  Joss stood up. ‘I’ll clear the plates, shall I?’

  ‘He’s handed the mill to his daughter,’ Agnes said, as Joss carried a stack of crockery into the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, I’d heard,’ Evelyn said. ‘And her husband. It’s very odd.’

  ‘Grief,’ James said. ‘Does terrible things.’

  A loud crash came from the kitchen. ‘I’d better go and help,’ Evelyn said. Agnes, left alone with James, had the impression he was about to speak to her. He glanced at her a couple of times, but remained silent.

  *

  ‘There’s a call for you,’ Mary Watson called to Agnes in the staff room next morning. ‘Nina Warburton.’

  ‘Nina — but — oh. Right.’ Agnes went to the phone. ‘Hello, is that Agnes? We met at the Turnbulls — ’

  ‘Yes, of course, I was going to ring you.’

  ‘Well, I wondered if you wanted to come out for a drink tonight. I can get babysitting for Rosie, and the thing is, I can’t talk now but what with you knowing Jo, and Mark and everything, and I thought you’d be someone I could trust — ’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ve found these files. Here. About Mark. Are you free tonight?’

  ‘Yes. Where?’

  ‘There’s a pub near where I live. The Queen’s Arms. It’s on the corner, you go down the hill from the mill, I’ll give you the address.’ Agnes wrote down the details. ‘Eight o’clock?’

  ‘Fine. See you then.’

  Agnes hung up and returned to the staff room. Philomena was there, consulting her watch. It was a huge man’s watch with a broken strap. She put it back in her pocket and turned to Agnes.

  ‘Talbot girl, Leonora — one of yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ Agnes said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Missing. Supposed to be in English this morning, no sign. Bolter?’

  ‘Well, yes and no.’

  ‘Your bag, old chap.’ She swept away.

  ‘Your bag indeed,’ Colin said, watching the diminutive form speed away along the corridor. ‘How does she do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Philomena. The way she moves. Look. It’s as if she’s on wheels.’

  ‘That’s my morning, then. Searching the grounds for a fourteen-year-old escapee. It’s my own fault. I was the one who told her that the best time to run away is when you can catch a train.’

  ‘So she’ll be on her way to Manchester by now, and it’s your own fault.’

  ‘Great, isn’t it?’

  ‘And it’s raining. Happy hunting.’

  *

  ‘She got a letter, Sister,’ Clemmie Macintosh shifted from one foot to the other. ‘That’s all I know. She took it and went off somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’ Agnes squeezed the rain out of her hair. ‘I’ve spent the last hour looking for her.’

  ‘I don’t know, Sister, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Did she pack a bag?’

  ‘No. She’s always packing bags, so I noticed it was a bit unusual.’

  ‘Even worse. Thank you, Clemmie, you may go.’

  What will the child’s parents say, Agnes thought, striding through the school to the entrance hall, if she tells them that the only thing she learned at school was how to run away? She glanced out of the front door at the rain. The drive stretched away from the school like a sheet of steel. A lone figure was standing at the gates. Then she slowly turned and began to walk back towards the school.

  Agnes sat on the low wall by the entrance steps. Leonora approached, glanced at Agnes, then sat down next to her. Rain dripped from a broken guttering above them, splashing on to the gravel a few inches from their feet. They both watched it for a while.

  Then Leonora said, ‘I hate them.’ She glanced sideways at Agnes, then produced from her pocket two damp, crumpled pages. ‘Look,’ she said.

  Agnes took it. ‘Darling Leonora,’ she read out loud.

  ‘As if they give a shit.’

  Agnes handed the letter back to the girl. ‘Tell me what it says.’

  Leonora put the letter in her pocket. “‘Darling Leonora, I’m so happy, Daddy’s met a lovely new girlfriend so now it doesn’t matter if I’ve been screwing someone else for bloody yonks, lots of love, Mummy” ... I hate her. And him, why couldn’t he have stood up to her, why didn’t he fight to keep it all together instead of just going off and finding someone else ... I hate him.’ Her eyes were quite dry. ‘I expect Mummy’s already planning some bloody double wedding for them both, “Oh, do let’s have a marquee, so suitable for a summer wedding, and so much easier for the caterers ...”’

  ‘They’ve got to get divorced first.’

  ‘Do you think they will?’ Leonora turned her blue eyes to Agnes. ‘Did yours?’


  ‘It wasn’t the done thing in our circles. My father drifted away. Well, when I say drift, several thousand miles away.’

  ‘At least you could blame him.’

  ‘Him? Not him. I thought it was my fault. For years.’ They sat in silence again. The guttering continued to drip. After a while Agnes found a clean handkerchief and handed it to Leonora, who dried her face, which was wet with rain and tears.

  *

  Nina arrived at the pub late, wearing a huge black fun-fur coat. ‘Sorry,’ she said, flinging her coat on to the leather bench. ‘Had to take Rosie over to Mum’s and it got late. What’ll you have?’

  ‘I’ll get these,’ Agnes said, getting up.

  ‘Half a lager then, please.’ Nina settled down at the table.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re used to pubs,’ she said when Agnes returned.

  ‘I had a mis-spent youth,’ Agnes laughed.

  ‘It’s a bit of a dump, this one.’

  ‘I like it. It’s a change after St Catherine’s.’

  ‘What’s it like there?’

  ‘Total chaos, in the middle of which they’re all supposed to do fabulously well in their exams to justify the huge fees. Eating disorders, divorcing parents, promiscuity ... ’

  Nina laughed. ‘To think what I missed out on. Local comprehensive for me. Nine GCSEs, three A levels, French, English and Art, went on to college, had a baby. Retrained as a secretary through that job creation thingie. Joined Allbright’s about a year ago. That’s me so far. What about you?’

  ‘How long have you got?’

  Nina laughed again. ‘Well, how long have you been a nun?’

  ‘Hmm, let’s think. Nearly half my life.’

  ‘At that school?’

  ‘Thank goodness, no. I’ve been in London for years.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Oh, you know, just a privileged French upbringing and a violent husband.’

  ‘Right.’ Nina was surveying her closely. ‘I suppose your friends get to know when you’re joking.’

  ‘My friends, what few there are, know that I’m a very serious person.’

  ‘Hmmm. Perhaps.’

  ‘Shall we get to work?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Look — ’ Nina pulled a file out from her bag. ‘I found this at Allbright’s yesterday. According to this stuff, Mark was threatened.’