A Dark and Sinful Death

by Alison Joseph

  ‘Oh, much worse, I think.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘I think it’s because one’s expectations are higher. Like you, I only look at it from the sidelines. Not having children ... ’ She gathered crumbs together on the tablecloth. ‘For a long time I idealised it, the family, the children gathered around. I used to envy people with children, made myself ill with it sometimes. And it wasn’t because I particularly liked children, because I’m not sure I do, but when people have children they seem to acquire a kind of ready-made unquestioning purpose in life, a focus to the relationship. When I think of how hard we’ve worked at our marriage, Joss and me, because there’s been only us. Only us ... ’ She stopped, breathing hard. ‘And it’s worked. It’s been tough at times, but — we’ve really made it work.’ The eruption of feeling seemed momentarily to have overpowered her, and Agnes watched her struggle to regain her composure. The high colour in her cheeks faded back to gentle rose, her face settled once more into polite attention. She spoke again. ‘Not that it’s like your life. It must be much more difficult, your way.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. In the end, it’s just life, isn’t it.’ Agnes smiled, and the two women sat in companionable silence, both vaguely wondering how James could be taking so long to make a simple pot of coffee.

  ‘What made it more difficult,’ Evelyn said suddenly, ‘was that I’ve always known I was the one who couldn’t. Have children, I mean. I went through a few desperate years, terrible painful years, and I went to my doctor, secretly, and he referred me. And to cut a long story short ... Anyway ... ’ She smiled, gazing down at the rug at her feet. ‘It resolved things for me a bit, but then I had the dilemma of whether to tell Joss. On several occasions I nearly did.’

  ‘What stopped you?’

  ‘My own terrible, selfish impulses. I was frightened of losing him. I thought he might go off and find someone else to have children with.’ Her voice shook slightly, and her cheeks coloured with the strength of her feeling. She smoothed her skirt, making small sweeping movements with her delicate fingers. ‘It stayed on my conscience. In a way, it always has done. Although, he, in his turn ... ’

  Agnes waited. Evelyn had raised her eyes and was now looking directly at her. Then she shook her head and smiled. ‘The funny thing is, now I think Joss prefers it this way. He says he likes to have me to himself.’

  James came into the room bearing a tray. ‘I couldn’t decide between Kenyan and Colombian,’ he said. ‘And now here’s Joss, and I’ve only made enough for three.’

  ‘Bradshaw’s got enough bloody hazel to see us through the next ice age.’ Joss came into the room, his face flushed, his hair flecked with bits of tree bark. ‘I’d love a cup, thank you, James.’ He took the largest mug. ‘And the Radleighs have been spreading malicious gossip about poor old William, I’ve a good mind to take out an injunction against them, gone completely off his rocker, they’re saying, one of their cronies was out walking her dogs at crack of bloody dawn this morning, ghastly beagle things, caught sight of him with his two dogs. Poor chap was only taking the air, but by the time the Radleighs had finished with the story, he was stark raving mad, shaking his stick at the sky, talking to himself ... Didn’t even recognise the old trout. Come to think of it, I’d act crazy if any of the Radleighs’ set hove into view while I was up on the moors ... ’ He drained his mug and refilled it from the coffee pot, then sat down, glowing with good humour.

  ‘Joss ... ’ Evelyn spoke quietly, and he turned to look at her. ‘Joss — they might be right, for once. William’s housekeeper says he’s gone missing. And he was very upset last night, apparently.’ Joss met her gaze, suddenly serious. ‘And it is Good Friday,’ she added.

  ‘I know it is. Do you think I’d forget that?’ He turned away from her, staring at the rug at his feet.

  ‘I’ll make some more coffee,’ James said, standing up.

  ‘Poor William,’ Joss said, suddenly subdued.

  ‘Joss.’ James touched Joss’s shoulder. ‘I think after our coffee we should drive over that way and look for him.’

  Joss glanced up at James and nodded.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Evelyn said, and looked across to Agnes.

  ‘I’ve got to be in chapel in an hour,’ Agnes said. ‘But James has got my phone number.’

  *

  The fading daylight drained the colour from the altar

  window, as if the light of the heavens was being gradually extinguished. Agnes heard Elias’s voice ring out through the chapel.

  ‘He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief ... Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ... ’

  Agnes allowed the words of the gospel readings to surround her, as the story unfolded of the darkest hour, the suffering to end all suffering. When she went forward to kiss the foot of the cross, her face was wet with tears.

  After the service she went straight to her room and knelt in prayer. Outside it was dark, and the silhouetted trees shivered in the chill wind. When her phone rang, it made her jump.

  It’s Evelyn. They’ve just come back, but they’re going out again. They saw him.’ Agnes heard her voice catch. ‘He’s in a very bad way. He didn’t seem to see them, although they were right up close to him. Joss said he was calling his wife’s name ... ’ Again her voice faltered. ‘The dogs won’t leave his side, they were growling, even though they know us. Joss was very upset. They’re getting warm clothes and stuff and going back. I’ve phoned Patricia too.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Agnes could barely speak.

  ‘Joss said ... to see him like that ... such a man ... it’s pitiful ... I’ll phone you again.’ The line went dead.

  In her mind, Agnes heard a voice that seemed to be Elias’s reciting the Twenty-Second Psalm. ‘My God, I cry to You by day but You do not answer; and by night also, I take no rest ... ’ The window rattled with a gust of wind, and she glanced up at it. Beyond the lights of the courtyard she could see the dark slopes and hollows of the moor, receding into the black sky. ‘O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand; and there is none to help ... ’ She thought of William Baines, alone with his dogs, cast out on the moor.

  The phone rang and she snatched it up.

  ‘Agnes, it’s David.’

  ‘David — but — Thank God — ’

  ‘She’s gone, I was only away a couple of hours, oh God ... ’

  ‘What — who?’

  ‘Jo ... Oh my God, please help ... ’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the hut.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Agnes found she was hammering on Elias’s door, thumping with both fists. He opened the door in astonishment.

  ‘Agnes?’

  ‘Listen, you must come, they’re up on the moors, Baines and Jo and Turnbull. Oh God, David’s just phoned me, please — ’ her breath could carry no more words.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not quite with you.’

  She noticed his eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. ‘There’s no time to explain, please, only you know where he’ll go, please — ’

  ‘Baines?’

  ‘He’s mad, please, there’s no time, and Turnbull’s up there too — ’

  ‘Agnes ... ’ His eyes looked huge against the pallor of his face. ‘If I go back there ... ’

  ‘We must go now.’

  ‘I can’t go back. Please don’t ask me ... ’

  She walked past him into his flat, picked up his coat from the hook by the door and handed it to him.

  ‘You’re asking more of me than you realise,’ he said. He took the coat and put it on, all the time holding her gaze with his own. She handed him his gloves. His hands shook as he put them on.

  He followed her to the car, and got in wordlessly. She accelerated hard out of the school on to the main road. As they turned off the road towards the moor, she heard him murmur, ‘There is no past, there’s only the pres
ent.’

  She glanced at his hands, which were still shaking. ‘Elias — I’m sorry — I had to — they need us — ’

  He murmured something. She thought he said, ‘I shall go mad.’ He clutched the thick wool of his coat to quieten his hands. She parked the car at the track and they walked fast up to the hut by the light of her torch and the clouded half moon.

  The hut was in darkness and there was no smoke from the chimney. She knocked at the door. ‘David?’ she whispered. The door opened a crack.

  ‘Thank God,’ David breathed. He saw Elias, and blinked.

  They sat by the light of David’s torch, crouched by the chill stone of the grate. The sparse light intensified the angles of his face, hollowed with exhaustion and fear.

  ‘I wanted to go after her, but then I found this.’ He handed her a note and Agnes pointed her torch at it. It was scribbled in charcoal:

  ‘Don’t follow me. Please. You are in more danger than you know. Please stay away. Jo.’

  David took the note back. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where she’s gone, or why. We’ve been here for days, and she’s been really calm. That’s why I didn’t phone you, Agnes, it’s been wonderful, it’s been like a holiday. But yesterday she went back to her father’s house, she had a meeting with Andrew and today she’s been really agitated, going on about Turnbull and the mill, and then I thought maybe he’d come for her, but then, why the note?’

  ‘Were there signs of a struggle?’

  ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘She’s protecting you,’ Agnes said.

  ‘From Turnbull? But — ’

  ‘You see, you can stop him selling the mill. And he knows that. He’s known it for some time.’

  ‘Me?

  ‘There was a trust. Jeremiah Baines in the mid-nineteenth century married a woman called Dorothea Culverton. He adored her, they had loads of kids. But she became blind. And he was so touched by the fortitude with which she bore it, that it became his cause. To the extent that anyone working at the mill who lost their sight was paid an allowance from a trust he set up, and if they left the mill or died it was paid to any living children or grandchildren of that person.’

  ‘But that’s — why me? And no one else knows about this — ’

  ‘In the fifties it was transmuted into shares. And then quietly forgotten about. There was a good thirty years when no one claimed it, it didn’t apply to anyone, and it was forgotten.’

  ‘My grandfather — ’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So I own ... ’

  ‘You have a small share of Allbright’s. Enough, with you and your brother and Nina Warburton, who’s the other living recipient of this trust — enough to prevent Turnbull selling the mill.’

  David sat back on his heels. He stared at the empty hearth, at the grains of soot which fell from time to time from the chimney. ‘So where has she gone?’ he said at last.

  ‘This meeting with Andrew,’ Agnes said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She said that Turnbull had betrayed her father. She was very angry with him.’

  ‘Was her father there?’

  ‘No, and she was very worried about that too. And Patricia’s at her wits’ end, apparently, her life has fallen apart.’

  ‘Did she say anything about meeting Turnbull?’

  ‘Meeting him?’ David turned worried eyes to Agnes. ‘But no one knows where he is.’

  ‘Perhaps she does. Perhaps she’s going to try and talk to him.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  Elias stirred. ‘We must find William,’ he said. ‘She’ll have gone after him.’

  They both looked at him. ‘Oh God, of course,’ David said.

  Elias stood up, and they followed him out of the hut. David lit the path before them, but Elias pushed the torch away. ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘no light ... ’ He was trembling. The moonlight touched the side of his face with silver. Agnes felt a sudden terrible fear, that she was indeed asking too much of him; that it would prove to be more than he could bear.

  They walked, stumbling at times against the uneven ground. After a while Elias led them away from the path, climbing steadily, negotiating every rabbit hole, every muddy stream as if they were totally familiar to him. Agnes wasn’t sure how long they’d walked, maybe a mile, maybe more, when the air was cut through with a terrible cry. A human cry, a primeval deep-voiced howl of grief. Agnes and David froze. But Elias began to shake, as if the cry had echoed in his deepest self, and then he answered the voice with a low sob of his own.

  ‘Elias ... ’ David took a step towards him, but Agnes put her hand out to stop him. She felt sick with fear; with guilt.

  Again came the howl. Elias called out — ‘William ... ’ and then broke into a run, following the cry, stumbling over the rough ground, David and Agnes close behind. ‘William,’ he was shouting, and then, ‘Kate, oh God, no, not Kate, no ... ’ and he was sobbing and running, and the wind seemed to take up Baines’s cry and sound it across the moor into the distant clouds.

  They ran with their torches on, stumbling down a slope towards a hollow edged with spindly trees. Agnes was aware of a figure slumped on the grass, of Elias approaching, and as she and David reached the scene she saw in the beam of their torches Baines sitting on the ground. His clothes were torn, and his face was streaked with mud. His hair was matted, twisted with leaves. He was staring, unseeing, at Elias; and in his arms he was cradling the blood-soaked form of Joanna.

  Elias stood, frozen to the spot, staring at Joanna. His face wore an expression of bewilderment. David rushed to her, grabbed her wrist and shouted at Agnes, ‘There’s a pulse, for God’s sake — there’s a pulse!’

  Agnes pulled out her phone and dialled 999. ‘Is she breathing?’ she called to David.

  Baines stared down at his daughter in his arms and smiled, softly. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No breath. No life.’

  ‘Yes. Sort of ... ’ David bent over her.

  Agnes heard the operator ask where they were. ‘Near Silsden — yes — hang on — Elias, tell me — where are we?’

  Elias stirred and said, ‘Laithe’s Hollow. Near Holden Beck.’

  She repeated his words into the phone. ‘One injured, very seriously, head injuries, attempted murder ... Yes, I’m sure. Right. Thanks.’ She hung up.

  ‘No,’ Baines was murmuring again, ‘no life ... ’ he shook his head and cradled Joanna closer. At his side his dogs whimpered.

  One of them went to Elias, and Elias put out his hand absently and touched the soft fur of the animal’s head, and murmured, ‘Greer.’ Then he looked at the dog as if seeing it for the first time, and again Agnes saw a look of puzzlement.

  ‘How’s her pulse?’ she asked David.

  ‘Steady. Ish.’ David sat by Joanna, holding her hand.

  They waited. The wind had quietened, and the moon rose in the sky. Agnes sat on the ground. Elias stood, transfixed. In the silence, Baines began to sing a lullaby, gently rocking the still form of his daughter, his words rising in a cracked voice. ‘Sleep, little darling, do not cry ... ’Then he stopped, and stroked her face, smiling down at her.

  David began to talk to Joanna. ‘Stay with us,’ he murmured, ‘stay with me, don’t leave, please don’t leave me, I love you, Jo, I always will, stay here for me ... ’

  Baines raised his head and stared into the distance, lost in grief. Agnes took his hand. ‘Mr Baines — she’s alive,’ she said, staring into his eyes, willing him to understand. But he gazed beyond her to some other grief, some other loss. He looked towards Elias, and Agnes saw their eyes meet in recognition.

  The breeze whispered with David’s murmuring. Agnes strained her ears to hear the helicopter, willing it to come. Then she was aware of another sound, of footsteps approaching. A tall figure was descending the slope towards them. Agnes could make out very little about him, but she saw Elias see him, saw Elias start with terror and cry out, his hands clutching at his coat. As the figure came into the circle of
torch light, Elias leapt to his feet and fled towards the dark reaches of the moors as the whirring hum of the helicopter sounded in the distance.

  The man approached. Agnes saw his face was cut and bruised. He was wearing a tartan scarf. ‘You must be Agnes,’ he said, gasping for breath. ‘I’m Marcus.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The dogs left Baines’s side and ran to Marcus, licking his hands, bringing him towards their grieving master as if somehow he might help.

  ‘Is she — ’ Marcus said, looking towards Joanna.

  ‘She’s alive,’ Agnes said, raising her voice above the noise of the helicopter which circled above them. Then it was landing, the white searchlights searing the grassland, the blades spinning, flattening the ground beneath them. Men jumped to the ground with stretcher, blankets, oxygen. As they surrounded Joanna, her father stumbled to his feet and tried to fight them off. Through the noise of the engine Agnes could hear his roars of rage. David tried to restrain him and was flung backwards. The dogs left their master and circled Joanna, escorting her as she was lifted on to a stretcher and taken inside the helicopter, and David was talking to one of the men and then he too climbed into the helicopter which took off, its swirling blades slicing through the air above the head of Baines who stood shouting and boxing the air, calling out and sobbing into the night as his daughter was taken from him.

  Marcus hesitated next to him. He took a step towards him, his hand stretched out. Baines turned and looked at him, then looked at Agnes. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, to no one in particular. He took a few steps in the direction of the helicopter, then stopped and bent down. He touched the flattened grass where the helicopter had landed, an expression of wonder on his face. Agnes could hear the sirens of police cars as they reached the road, and a police helicopter approached and began to circle overhead.

  Marcus watched Baines, and his eyes welled with tears. ‘He doesn’t know who I am,’ he said.

  Baines was kneeling on the ground, pulling up the grass in handfuls and arranging it in a neat pile like a miniature pyre. His dogs lay one at each side of him. From time to time they glanced back to Marcus. Agnes approached him. ‘Mr Baines,’ she tried again, ‘Jo is alive. They’ve taken her to hospital.’