The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery) (16 page)

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think it’s connected with — heavens! Do you think I’m in danger?’ He smoothed gingery strands with his fingers, blinking down at Agnes.

‘No.’

‘Should I call the police? I’ve been thinking of it.’

Agnes smiled warmly. ‘It’s entirely up to you.’

‘I’d rather not add to the rumours at the moment. As long as I’m not in danger. What do you think?’

‘Perhaps wait and see.’

‘Mmm.’

They shook hands by Agnes’s car. ‘We get all sorts dropping in. It’s not for me to ask, but if you’d mentioned the leaflets first, well, saved a lot of time, that’s all.’

Agnes smiled. ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. There’s one other thing. I’m a nun. Sister Agnes, it is. Look, here’s my number in London,’ she said, scribbling it on a page from her notepad. ‘Just in case.’

‘Quite,’ he said, waving the scrap of paper at her as she got into her car. ‘Y’ never know.’

*

Emily Quislan, thought Agnes, pulling out into the middle lane, does not exist. The sun had bleached the sky to shimmering steel, and the traffic zipped and rumbled in a haze of smog. She did exist once, but she doesn’t now. Emily Quislan is a person from the mid-nineteenth century. So how the heck does she think she can poison Fyffes Well? In all the Church’s teachings on the subject of the after-life, and God knows there’s enough said about it, there is nothing to say it is possible to come back and wreak revenge.

Revenge, thought Agnes. The bitter harvest from the stolen land. Emily Quislan lived on the land until Edmund Wytham took it over sometime in the 1840s. In 1843 something happened to James Quislan. And Emily — perhaps — Emily filled in the well. In revenge. And now the well is reopened — by a Witham. And Emily is back.

Agnes dropped her speed and slipped into the left-hand lane again. She found herself thinking about Nicholson, the farmer, wearily tilling the fields for the last summer before the road was built. And the land that had never quite gone right for him, been uphill all the way, he’d said. She pulled out to overtake a Volkswagen Beetle, remembering how Nicholson had said the Hartons were desperate to get rid of their land. A brother and a sister. Agnes saw in her mind once again the neat script of the essays, the words passing across her eyes so that the lights of the car in front rushed towards her and she only just braked in time, the Vauxhall behind hooting in rage and swerving to overtake her with a mouthing of silent invective. Agnes slipped back into the left-hand lane, still seeing, in somebody’s best handwriting, someone long since dead, the words, ‘That was the summer we made our den in Harton’s field … where the witch was buried.’

She joined the endless lines of traffic into London, skirting the Thames, seeing beyond the bleak tower blocks the City’s distant opulence, the jewelled prisms of sheer glass. The modern world, she thought. Whoever you are, Emily Quislan, you are neither ghost nor witch.

Agnes drew up outside her block and parked her car. It was a quarter to five. She caught the bus to Southwark Central Library, went straight to the telephone directories for Essex and flicked through their pages in search of anyone named Harton. Ongar and Epping proved fruitless, Chelmsford produced two names and Colchester one. She wrote down the numbers, then trawled through Suffolk too, finding one Harton in Lavenham. She wrote down that number too. Lastly she looked up Quislan and found none at all.

What do I hope to gain, she thought, leaving the library and heading for the bus stop, by phoning complete strangers and asking them whether their ancestors had ever buried a witch? It is hardly the action of a rational person, thought Agnes, boarding a number 21 bus and realising she was starving hungry.

*

‘I’ve brought us buns,’ she announced to Julius, walking into his office. ‘And fruit cake. And bread for toast.’

Julius looked up from his desk, nodded vaguely over the top of his gold-rimmed spectacles, and turned back to a letter he was reading.

‘Does this thing work?’ Agnes said, fiddling with an ancient toaster.

‘I believe Madeleine got a spark of life out of it last week sometime,’ Julius said, not looking up.

‘I suppose we could just be content with the buns but I really did fancy toast,’ Agnes said, peering into the slots.

‘I think in the end Madeleine had to stand there holding the thingie down,’ Julius said, still reading.

‘Ah. Right.’ Agnes put two slices of bread into the machine, pushed down the switch, and stood there. After a while Julius finished his reading, looked up and grinned at her.

‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ Agnes said, leaning against the table. ‘I wanted some toast, that’s all.’

‘And I was the nearest source of a toaster, albeit an unreliable one.’

‘It’s perfectly rational.’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Julius — what do you think about revenge?’

‘Well, this is turning out to be an exciting afternoon after all.’

‘Do you think it could really make someone want to do something a hundred and fifty years after the event?’

‘In that the human spirit carries great passion within it, yes. In that they’d be dead, no. Agnes, it won’t pop up by itself, you know, with you leaning on it like that.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ Agnes said, removing two beautifully golden slices of toast from the machine. She fetched plates and knives from a corner cupboard, and proceeded to butter the toast. Julius stood up and put on the kettle.

‘Tea and toast,’ he said. ‘How surprisingly English of you.’

‘It’s Normandy butter,’ Agnes replied.

‘Of course,’ Julius smiled to himself.

‘It’s just these two deaths, Becky and Col,’ Agnes said, sitting at the other desk and taking a huge bite of toast, ‘seem to be tied up with someone who lived in that area in the early 1840s, but who’s leaving messages again. Now. From what I can gather she may have lived in Broxted with a boy, possibly her son, then left, maybe, probably not happily, and in revenge, perhaps, because the land was divided up, she blocked the well. And then it might have been this same woman who was known as a witch and was buried in the neighbouring field, which has never been successfully farmed ever since and is now going to be a road. Oh, and she might be a ghost too, sprinkling rosemary about the place.’

‘And what about her husband?’ Julius poured boiling water into the teapot.

‘Her what?’

‘The boy’s father?’

‘What about him?’

‘If we’re talking the 1840s, women didn’t have children on their own. Apart from widows, of course.’

Agnes had finished her toast and was now dividing a large chunk of dark fruit cake into two. ‘Do you know, it hadn’t crossed my mind. But that might explain —’

‘Single mothers would have been hounded from the village. And lone widows were never far from accusations of witchcraft. Although 1840 is a bit late for that, perhaps.’ Julius took the cake Agnes was offering him, and a Chelsea bun, which he delicately divided in half, brushing sugar from his fingertips.

‘You’re right, Julius. The father. Again.’

*

Walking back home, Agnes saw an image in her mind of a woman in a long skirt and bonnet dismounting from her horse and walking through the fields towards Fyffes Well with a purpose in her stride, a purpose born of anguish and despair. How do you block a well? Agnes wondered, seeing the woman carrying stones, her fingers raw against the rock. An act of revenge; if she can’t have the water, then no one will. In Agnes’s mind the well was as she knew it, with its superstructure of steel tanks and the hum of bottling machinery. But the woman was the same, in the skirts and shawl and bonnet of 1843.

Agnes walked up the stairs to her flat. Emily Quislan, she thought. Once you might have dressed like that. But not now. She let herself in and stood in the middle of her room as the late-afternoon sunlight streamed in. Now you wear, what? Jeans? Leather jacket? Leggings and floaty layers, dreadlocked hair, earrings? For you see, Emily Quislan, Agnes said to herself, sitting down at her desk, I don’t believe in ghosts. There is someone else. Someone following the same trail that I’ve been following. Someone who knows what made you block the well, who knows about your son and your leaving the land and the land being divided up, and the rosemary; and maybe they know, too, that you were buried as a witch in Harton’s field. If you were. Someone who is angry on your behalf. Emily Quislan Junior is a very angry person.

Anger, thought Agnes; a dangerous emotion, remembering Col’s fear at seeing the name on the screen. She got up and paced the few steps across her room, then sat down and leafed through her notebook until she came to the list of Hartons. She picked up the phone, hesitated, and replaced the receiver. Her eye fell on the other names and numbers listed in the notebook; Mike Reynolds, Roger and Elizabeth Murphy, Becky Stanton’s parents, Nic. She felt suddenly weary. A phone call made to any one of these people would mean going down that path, intruding into that life, trying to make sense of any number of small chaoses that, in the end, were perhaps nothing to do with her. If Mike was lying to Sam, what good would it do to say so? If Sam was deluding herself about Mike, why bother to tell her? If the Murphys wanted to follow Ross, if Ross wished to marry off his flock, who was Agnes to intervene? If Athena wanted to … It was today. Athena’s appointment.

Agnes knelt down in front of her crucifix and her unlit candle. ‘You, Lord,’ she said. ‘You know. You alone know the extent of Mike’s deception. You alone know the anguish of Shirley Stanton as if it was Your own. You alone know whether Ross is speaking the truth, Your truth, when he talks of Christ entering the human soul. And I, Lord, I do not. You alone know whether Athena is right to …’ Agnes opened her eyes and for a while watched the pattern on her rug made by the tree outside her window in the pink evening light, a feathered ripple across the plain chenille. And if You know everything, she thought, and I know nothing, what does that mean? Does that mean I should do nothing? And if I do nothing, if I have failed to convince Athena, then I, too, am responsible …

‘Thy will be done,’ she murmured, tracing the flickering light with her fingers. The phone rang, loudly, and she jumped.

‘Agnes, it’s Nic.’

‘Hello.’

‘Has Athena rung you?’

‘No.’

‘I thought she might. She didn’t go. Today. She cancelled the appointment.’

‘Oh,’ Agnes said. There was a silence, then she said, ‘How is she?’ 

‘I — I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. She phoned me. She’s at home. I said did she want company, but she said no.’

‘Oh. You — you must be pleased.’

‘I think so. Yes.’

‘Right.’

‘Agnes?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks.’

He rang off.

Thanks, he’d said. Nic had thanked her. She picked up the phone to dial Athena’s number to say — to say what? To say, ‘Well done, you must be very happy’? Agnes knew her friend too well for that. It was just a postponement, probably, to give herself more time to think.

Agnes put down the phone again and sat motionless. It was hardly right of Nic to thank her. She couldn’t claim to have had any influence. It wasn’t as if she’d directly saved that baby’s life. And yet she supposed, in some small way we all contain the potential to do harm or good. She stood up and walked to the window, then back to her desk. In which case, she thought, doing nothing is simply not an option.

She picked up the phone and dialled the Murphys’ number. Roger answered.

‘Hello,’ she said, ‘it’s Sister Agnes again. I was just wondering … well, I was very interested in what Ross had to say when I met him, and I wondered whether I might come along to one of your more general meetings, if it’s convenient, of course. I don’t wish to intrude …’

There was a pause, and a brief sound like whispering. 

Then Roger said, ‘There’s a study group tomorrow night. Here. You’d be very welcome. There’ll be a couple of new members, so you won’t be on your own.’

‘That would be lovely,’ Agnes said.

‘Eight o’clock.’

‘I finish work at seven, so that should be fine.’

Agnes hung up and wondered what Madeleine would make of her bolting out of the hostel on the dot of seven instead of hanging around and drinking tea as usual. ‘I’ve decided to attend a house church group,’ she’d say; and Madeleine would just laugh.

Chapter Fourteen

‘Satan loves our weaknesses, he feeds on our weaknesses,’ Ross was saying. ‘Satan is hungry for our sins.’ His eyes shone with the urgency of his words, as he allowed his gaze to alight on each person in the group in turn. Agnes counted twelve people including herself, all squashed into the Murphys’ front room.

‘And it is we who feed Satan, by allowing him to feast on our sin,’ Ross went on. ‘Even in the face of the great sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ do we continue to nourish Satan in our hearts.’

Agnes shifted on her floor cushion, glad that she had arrived too late to take one of the chairs. At least here, sitting with her legs curled under her behind an armchair, she was half-hidden from Ross’s view.

‘People ask me, “Pastor, what can we do about this?” And I say to them, the answer is simple. In Jesus is our salvation. And however hard Satan tries, however much we in our frailty give him cause for triumph, the Lord Jesus is there. Because, and this is the great glorious message of the Gospel, Jesus died for us. Once and for all, in that great act of love, he cleansed us of our sins. And as long as we remember that, as long as we recall to mind every day, every moment of every day, that act of love, then Satan will never find a way to our hearts.’

Agnes glanced at the faces around the room. Morris Stanton was there, but not Shirley. Elizabeth, near the door, ready to greet latecomers. Roger by the window. Steven next to him, and Jerry at Ross’s feet, as he was before. There were two young women sharing an armchair rather uncomfortably, both wearing jeans, both with long blonde-tinted, cheaply permed hair. There was a smartly dressed Afro-Caribbean man in his twenties, sitting straight-backed, gazing at Ross. Lastly, there was a shabby-looking grey-haired woman sitting with a stooped elderly man who appeared to be her husband.

‘In the passage from the Bible that Steven chose to read to us earlier, St Paul clearly states to us what we must do. We must follow Christ. That is all we have to do. As long as you keep that idea firmly in your mind, that you are a follower of Jesus, then all else will come from that. In all your daily dealings with people, in your work, with your friends, you are above all else a follower of Christ. And this is the next piece of good news. Because the more you allow Jesus into your heart, the more empowered you will be. You will find Jesus living amongst you, as real as I am now; and you will see Satan recoil from you.’

Ross’s eyes were bright, his tanned skin seemed to glow. Agnes studied the broad forehead, the straight nose. He really was very good at his job. She watched the two girls in the armchair, both concentrating very hard on staring at Ross to avoid having to catch each other’s eye. Agnes had arrived too late for the reading, and now she wondered which epistle it was that Steven had chosen.

'Let us consider a minute how Satan works to distract us, to confuse us so that we serve him instead of our Lord. I have said to you all before, that we must beware the world. We must beware the gifts that the world appears to offer us, the rewards that it spreads before us for following its ways. And let us give thanks that St Paul chose to give us this message —’

‘Amen,’ the smart young man murmured.

‘— for the Lord knows how best we may serve him, and we do well to obey him. And does it not say in Genesis — male and female created He them. And do we all not know this, brothers and sisters, that the Lord has called us to use our strengths as best as we may, and that he does forgive us our weaknesses. The Lord loves us as we are, man and woman. You know my thoughts on this subject, that it is laid down that men must be men and women must be women. And not only is it what the Lord wishes us to be, but, and hear this, brothers and sisters, it is the only way we can find true happiness in this world.’

Ross paused, produced a fine cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. He smiled around the room, then resumed. ‘But what does the world tell us? The world tells us, we know better than that. We know that whatever men do, women can do as well. If not better, eh?’ Ross smiled, and the room smiled with him, apart from the hunched elderly man. ‘So, what do we do about these words? If they’re telling us something we disagree with, do we ignore them, or do we think about them? What do you think, Janine?’ 

One of the girls in the armchair blinked at Ross, blushed, looked at her friend, grinned, looked at the arm of her chair and said very quietly, ‘Dunno.’ Both girls giggled.

‘Anyone?’ Ross said, looking at Agnes, before allowing his gaze to pass to Roger.

‘I think first and foremost,’ Roger said, taking off his glasses, ‘we must accept the authority of St Paul.’ Ross nodded. ‘And then, after that, we must see how the teachings of the Gospel can have relevance to our lives. After all,’ Roger smiled, ‘we can change our lives to fit the teachings of Jesus, but we can’t change the teachings of Jesus to suit the way we live our lives.’

‘And that’s just it,’ Ross said. ‘The Bible is the word of our Lord. It is clear for all to see. If we can’t see what the Lord is trying to say to us, then it is because we are not allowing our view to be clear. So, what is St Paul saying here?’

Jerry shifted, crossed his legs over the other way, and said very quietly, ‘Is it that the man is stronger in some ways, and the woman is stronger in other ways?’

‘Good,’ said Ross, and Agnes saw Jerry lower his eyes, a faint smile pass across his lips. ‘Anyone else?’

Steven said, ‘Men and women are different,’ then smiled at his mother who fiddled with her apron on her lap, blushing.

‘Precisely,’ Ross said. ‘But what are we told these days? We’re told that men and women are the same. We’re told that women can be brain surgeons, men can be nurses, women can work on building sites, men can stay at home and raise the children. And yet, what we are not told is the suffering this causes. People are forcing themselves to behave in ways that are not true to them. Women who want to stay with their children are being forced to go out and work; men who would gladly take a job and support their family are deprived of work, deprived of their true role.’ Ross leaned forward and took a sip of water from the glass on the table in front of him. ‘”I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to speak reproachfully. For some are already turned aside after Satan.” So says St Paul to Timothy. Brothers and sisters, I tell you, it is only in the ways of the Lord can we find true happiness.’

Agnes saw Ross’s fingers move as if to touch the top of Jerry’s head, felt rather than saw Jerry shift at the movement as Ross checked himself. In her head suddenly she heard what Paz had said about Becky’s mysterious friend; ‘I thought maybe they were a couple, but then you do think that if someone turns you down, don’t you …’ And there was Jenn, hesitating, on the verge of telling her something. Something about Becky.

Agnes was staring at Steven, at Elizabeth Murphy in her neat feminine clothes, at Morris Stanton, nodding florid-faced at Ross’s words, until he sensed Agnes’s gaze and looked up with a flash of hostility. Agnes blinked and looked away. And Jerry, sitting at Ross’s feet, leaning back imperceptibly until his soft blond hair brushed Ross’s knees, his eyes half-closed as he listened to the Pastor’s lilting voice; ‘The Lord’s path is the true path …’ Agnes thought of Becky running away, being brought back, running again, fighting to keep her sense of self, to live as she needed to live; to survive. No wonder Morris could hardly bear to hear her name.

Afterwards, Elizabeth served cups of tea and plates of Bourbon biscuits. Ross had talked for well over an hour, fluently, persuasively. At the end they had bowed their heads in prayer. ‘Lord Jesus Christ, grant us the strength to match Your supreme sacrifice with our own …’ Agnes glanced towards Ross and saw once again that compulsive movement of his fingertips towards the blond softness of Jerry’s head.

Now, having sipped a few mouthfuls of tea, she stood up to go.

‘I hope you found our little evening helpful,’ Elizabeth smiled as she led her into the hall. ‘I thought Ross was in fine form, ready for Sunday.’

‘What’s Sunday?’ Agnes said.

‘Our first big public prayer meeting. We’ve hired the old Methodist Hall in town, put up posters, everything,’ Elizabeth said with girlish enthusiasm, as Ross appeared in the hall.

‘Going already?’ he said. ‘I was hoping to have a chat.’ Agnes smiled into the warm, bronze eyes. ‘I have to catch a train,’ she said.

‘Do come again,’ he said, taking her hand.

Agnes felt the warmth of his grip. ‘You’re a very good preacher,’ she heard herself say.

He smiled down at her. ‘But not good enough for you.’

‘I would never presume to judge —’

‘There is much of the Lord’s work still to do.’

‘Yes.’ She glanced at him. ‘Your views on marriage —’ she began.

‘Not mine, the Lord’s. As written down in the Holy Bible.’

‘You seem to feel it very strongly.’

‘As strongly as St Paul.’ His eyes darkened and Agnes saw the tension around his mouth.

‘Is it part of your mission, then?’ she persisted.

‘It’s part of my mission to protect our young people from Satan’s desires,’ he said, flashing her a glance. ‘The world out there lays before them such filth, such works of evil as to turn the strongest heart from Jesus. On Sunday I hope to offer safety to anyone who will hear, to bring them into the fold —’

‘But marriage?’

Ross’s voice came unevenly. ‘How else can we be safe?’ he said, and it seemed to be a cry from the heart. “‘The young women do turn aside after Satan.’”

‘And the young men?’ Agnes ventured.

Ross stared down at her. His face was flushed, and he was breathing shallowly. ‘What would you know of young men?’ he said at last.

‘I just meant —’

‘“’Tis better to marry than to burn”,’ he said, hoarsely.

Agnes said quietly, ‘St Paul’s true meaning is obscure.’

Ross shook his head. ‘No, not obscure,’ he said, his voice so low he was speaking almost to himself. ‘Not obscure at all. I know all too clearly what he meant. To burn with desire, with Satan’s desire …’ He turned back to her, his eyes hollow, his lips working. ‘And you too, Sister, can you honestly say you have never known desire? Even to betray your calling, your vow of chastity?’

‘No, but —’

‘Satan touches us all,’ Ross said. He looked beyond her, staring at the comer of front lawn visible through the glass in the door, and Agnes saw him grow calm again, as if the anguish she’d just witnessed had been a mere performance. He leaned across her and opened the front door. He looked out into the warm night, the darkness punctuated with the regular glow of lamplight. ‘Satan’s power is everywhere,’ he said, his lilting voice restored.

‘But if you concentrate on Satan,’ Agnes said, ‘aren’t you denying the greater power of God?’

‘Ah, but that’s where you people are wrong,’ Ross said, turning back to her with a hint of a smile. ‘Satan’s greatest triumph is in convincing so many of us that he no longer exists.’

He stepped back to let her pass, shook her hand with another warm smile, then turned and went back into the house. Agnes walked to the station through the tidy streets, imagining Lucifer jeering at her from the privet hedges and the crazy paving. ‘So, Satan,’ she addressed him. ‘You know so much about evil — which of those people in that room is capable of murder?’

*

Agnes woke the next morning still reflecting on her conversation with Ross. She imagined him presiding over a mass wedding, great crowds of young people in dinner jackets and frilly white dresses, all holding hands in smiling couples. She made herself some coffee, feeling more and more uneasy. Still in her pyjamas, she dialled Sheila’s number.

‘I was wondering,’ she said, ‘whether Lily’s mentioned this prayer meeting on Sunday?’

‘Mentioned it? She doesn’t stop talking about it. Anyone would think they were going to bring Peace in Our Time or something. Why?’ 

‘Has she talked any more about getting married?’

‘A bit, yes. Mostly to criticise me for not staying with her father.’

‘She hasn’t mentioned anyone’s name?’

‘No, too busy evangelising, I think. They’re out in force by the shopping precinct most days at the moment, with their tambourines and things. I have to wear my Jackie Onassis dark glasses if I’m passing in case I’m recognised. Although —’

‘What?’

‘Come to think of it, she did say something the other night. What did I think of her having a boyfriend, or something. I felt like saying I didn’t mind as long as he was a hard-drinking, hard-swearing, chain-smoking biker, but luckily I managed not to. What’s all this about?’

‘I saw that preacher of theirs last night. He seems very interested in marrying people off. It’s difficult to tell what’s real with him, but it crossed my mind that he might be on that kind of power trip, you know, not to seduce anyone himself but to have control over people in some other way.’

‘Great. How very reassuring. What should I do?’

‘That’s just the trouble. What can you do? Just let me know if anything more happens, I suppose.’

‘And then what? We’ll organise a mass kidnap?’

‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ Agnes laughed.

*