The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery) (24 page)

She sat, waiting until Steven was out of sight. She knew she should go back to the battle, but her legs were shaking at the thought. After a while she got up, and walked slowly back toward the camp. The first thing she saw was Sam, standing next to Bill. She ran to her.

‘What happened? I saw you fall from the bulldozer …’

‘Oh that,’ Sam said. ‘Bill picked me up.’

‘She ran straight back and tried to attack the cherry picker,’ Bill smiled. ‘I pulled her out before anyone could arrest her.’

‘I don’t think your dad would forgive us that one,’ Agnes said, ignoring him.

‘Mike? Oh he can get stuffed,’ Sam said. ‘Oh God, look at it,’ she added, and burst into tears. Around them was strewn the wreckage of the camp, tarpaulins ripped and churned into the mud, sodden rags of clothes and bedding, the kitchen bender upended, broken china everywhere. The last few bits of fencing were being put into place, the bulldozer had already started to flatten the land. People were standing in a crowd outside the fence, some tearful, some shouting. There were television cameras, helicopters overhead, the angry buzz of chainsaws. In the trees the battle raged, and above the music Agnes could still hear the shouts of laughter from the walkways. Planks of wood dangled from the branches, all that was left of the platforms that had been home to the Ark people for weeks, for months. Sam’s face suddenly lit up. ‘There — look — Jeff — he’s still up there.’ Far away on the highest branches, Jeff sat. The crane was nudging against the tree, and a climber was struggling with the walkway ropes to reach him. Sam ran to the edge of the fence, to join the crowd, shouting encouragement, laughing to see him still free as a bird. 

Bill turned to Agnes. ‘Go on then,’ he said, ‘punch me on the nose.’

Agnes looked at him. ‘I might just do that.’

‘I’ll turn the other cheek or something, following your good example.’ She didn’t smile. ‘I don’t know what you must think of me,’ he went on.

‘I’ll tell you what I think of you. People like you go walking on quicksand, telling the rest of us it’s solid ground.’ The climber was gaining ground on Jeff, who still sat peacefully. Agnes turned back to Bill. ‘If you won’t stop Emily Quislan, then at least stop protecting her. Tell the police, tell someone. There’s explosives at large now, though I’m sure you know that already, like you know why you’ve been allowed to dip in and out of this protest without the police harming a hair of your head. Whose side are you on, Bill?’

Bill looked at her with something like sadness in his eyes. ‘I envy you,’ he said. ‘One day I’ll tell you why.’ He touched her arm, then looked up to where Jeff was now cornered by the climber. In one leap Jeff abseiled away from the climber, scuttled along a walkway to the next tree, grabbed the rope and whooshed down it to the ground. He grinned at Sam, as a group of policemen closed in on him. Agnes darted to the fence, grabbed Sam by the arm and walked her firmly away as Jeff was bundled forcefully into a van. When she looked back, Bill had gone.

*

Later, sitting at Sheila’s kitchen table, Agnes found she couldn’t stop shaking.

‘It’s the adrenaline,’ Sheila said. ‘Takes ages to wear off.’ 

‘Where did Lily go, then?’ Agnes asked her, surveying her trembling fingers with interest.

‘I found her with Amy, an old friend of hers. They left together, they went to Amy’s to lick their wounds and swap tales of their bravery.’

Sam sat sipping tea from a mug. ‘What’s going to happen to the others, the ones that got taken away?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘They’ll be OK, love,’ Sheila said. ‘They’ll be down at the police station getting processed, and then they’ll be let out. They’ll probably end up here,’ she laughed.

‘Won’t they go to prison?’ Sam asked.

Sheila sighed. ‘It depends. Maybe.’

‘Didn’t see Charlie anywhere,’ Agnes remarked.

Sheila smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not Charlie.’

It was dark when they left Sheila’s. Sam had had a shower and borrowed some of Lily’s clothes, and had eaten some toast, and then everyone waited for news of the others, and at nine thirty Rona, Jeff and Paz turned up and couldn’t stop talking and Sheila made more toast. At last Agnes had persuaded Sam it was time to get back.

Now, sitting in the car outside Mike’s house, Sam looked at Agnes. ‘Here goes,’ she said. ‘You coming too?’

Agnes unfastened her seat belt. ‘I might as well be the one to take the rap for this. After all, I haven’t got to live with him.’

‘Who says I have?’ Sam slammed the car door hard.

As her key chinked in the lock, Mike opened the door. He was white-faced, his features pinched with rage. He grabbed Sam by the arm and pulled her into the house, then turned to Agnes. ‘Get out,’ he said.

‘Mike —’

‘I said out.
Out
! I will not be disobeyed.’ The door slammed in Agnes’s face.

Agnes put her mouth to the letterbox. ‘Mike, you carry on like that,’ she shouted, ‘you’re going to lose her.’ She peered in and saw Sam running up the stairs to her bedroom, Mike standing in the hallway, his arms hanging at his sides.

And if you were her father, Agnes thought, straightening up, walking back to her car, you’d know better than to expect obedience.

She drove home, let herself into her darkened flat and sat at her desk. Her clock flashed eleven fifty-four. She leaned her chin on her hands, deep in thought. When a minute later her phone rang, she didn’t even jump. She picked it up, glanced out of the window. She saw once again the man standing in the phone box, holding the receiver, looking up at her window. Only this time he spoke.

‘I wasn’t sure — your lights weren’t on.’ His voice was deep and hoarse.

‘I’m here,’ Agnes said softly.

‘It’s Tom Bevan,’ he said.

‘At last. You’d better come up.’ 

Chapter Nineteen

At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Agnes rang the bell of Mike Reynolds’s house. Eventually it was answered by Sam in a huge crumpled T-shirt, rubbing her eyes.

‘He won’t let you in,’ Sam said.

‘He’s got to.’

Sam leaned wearily against the door frame. ‘I’ve ’ad enough. Come back when he’s calmed down … ’

‘No, listen, he’s —’

‘What the hell is she doing back again?’ Mike shouted, appearing in the doorway next to Sam. ‘I thought I told you to fuck off —’ His voice faltered as he looked beyond Agnes.

A man was limping the few steps up to the house. He was tall and upright, with rough brown hair and a tanned, weathered face. He was dressed in a clean white shirt, suit and tie, and his beard was trimmed. Agnes was gratified to see him looking so good in Julius’s clothes.

His eyes, soft, grey, childlike, were fixed on Sam, and as he came near her he stretched his arms out awkwardly towards her, as if in that moment his whole being was drawn to her, consumed by her.

As he approached, Sam shrank from him, from the hunger in his eyes. He blinked, stopped short. He glanced at Agnes, then at Mike.

Mike sighed. He stepped to one side to make way for them. ‘Tom,’ he said wearily, leading them into the house.

Sam went to put some clothes on. She seemed to take a long time. When she came into the living-room they were all sitting there, Agnes looking tired but determined, Mike perched uneasily on the edge of his chair, and the bearded man sitting calmly, his hands on his knees. He looked up as she came in, and again there was that expression of burning need. She avoided his gaze, choosing to sit on the chair nearest to Mike.

‘So?’ she said. ‘Here we go again.’

Agnes spoke first. ‘Sam, it hasn’t been easy for anyone.’

‘What you want now, sympathy?’

‘This is Tom Bevan. He’s your father.’

Sam looked at the floor.

‘Mike agreed to help him by pretending to be your father.’

Sam glanced up, her eyes flashing. ‘Great.’

Agnes went on, ‘Tom was dating your mother when they were in their teens, briefly. Then she finished with him and started going out with Mike. But she was already pregnant. With you. Only no one knew.’

‘Stupid cow,’ Sam said.

‘As she thought her future lay with Mike, she decided it was easier to pretend you were his. And she got away with it. Meanwhile, Mike was making money, working on building sites and doing rather well. In fact, he was the foreman when Tom, his mate, had an accident.’

Tom looked across to Mike. Mike got up and left the room. 

Agnes went on, ‘Tom was in hospital for ages, with head and leg injuries. When he at last emerged, the recession had begun and he found it difficult to get work. He didn’t get compensation or anything. After a while it was easier just to drink. Just to forget. And then one day in a pub, he met a mate of your mother’s, one of the girls who’d hung around with them all on the estate. And she said that he ought to have got money for his accident, and it was Mike’s fault, and anyway, didn’t he know about the rumours about Linda’s baby girl, and he said, what rumours, and she said, that it was yours, Tom. Your baby.’

Sam lifted her head briefly and glanced across at Tom. Tom was smoothing the velvety fabric of the arm of his chair, slowly, methodically.

‘But in a way,’ Agnes was saying, ‘this made matters worse. He’d gone too far, into drink and petty crime and the odd burglary. And then a prison sentence, and by the time he was out, Linda had moved away. So he tried to forget you, but he couldn’t. When you were about ten he tracked Linda down and confronted her with it, but she said he’d never be able to prove it. After that he went abroad, got by on casual work, and managed to dry out. A year ago he came back to this country, determined to find you. He knew that no one was going to take his claim seriously — no proof, no home, a dried-out alcoholic with a criminal record, living on the streets. So he sought out Mike and asked him to help. It was a crazy scheme, that Mike should pretend to be your father wanting you back — but it was the only one that was going to work. And Mike felt guilty about Tom, about the accident all those years ago, and he agreed to help.’ 

Agnes looked at the two of them, Sam curled into the armchair, facing away from Tom, Tom staring at her as if his eyes would burn through her. In the silence, Sam slowly turned to meet his gaze. He smiled at her, and she looked away again.

Mike came into the room carrying four mugs of tea which he distributed. As he offered one to Sam she said, ‘You lied to me. I knew all along. I knew you were never my dad, and you lied. You fucking lied.’

Mike put her mug down on the table. ‘Sam, I was going to tell you. But it was difficult, we’d gone so far, me and Tom, I kept waiting for the right moment.’

Tom’s voice was a bass rumble, and seemed to come from the depths of his being. ‘You were never going to tell her.’ They all turned to him.

Mike said, ‘I was.’

‘You wanted to keep her for yourself.’ It was like the stirrings of a long-dormant volcano.

‘I didn’t,’ Mike said. ‘I had no intention of keeping her.’

‘Thanks a bunch,’ Sam said.

Mike turned to her, grey and weary. ‘The thing is, love, he is your father. It’s the truth.’

Sam looked at Mike. She looked at Agnes. Then she turned and looked at Tom. She saw his face, lined with pain and loss, she saw the pleading in his eyes; and a flash of recognition passed between them. He whispered, ‘Sam.’ She stood up and walked out of the room. Her footsteps thumped up the stairs.

‘This was just what I was trying to prevent,’ Mike said.

‘But you didn’t try to tell her, did you? You didn’t even try,’ Tom said. 

‘I knew if it was sprung on her like this she’d take it badly.’

‘But if you’d at least tried to explain to her — that’s why I tracked down Sister Agnes here.’

‘And Col?’ Agnes said.

Tom sucked on his teeth. ‘That was wrong of me. I was desperate about Sam then. I could see her settling into life with Mike, him buying her all she could ever want. I thought, how can I compete. And I followed them, and I arranged to meet Col, and I befriended him, tried to get him to understand that Mike was bad for her. But, poor boy, he was the wrong person to choose. He had something else on his mind, running scared from some girl or other —’

There was the sound of footsteps dashing down the stairs, the front door opening, then a slam, and footsteps running down the drive, receding into the street, into the silence.

Tom said, ‘Fuck.’

‘You see,’ Mike said, angrily. ‘I told you it would backfire this way. You just can’t trust me, can you, not even after all this time, not even when I’m trying to help. Dammit, Tom, I gave you my word. What more could I do? If I’d been left to choose my moment —’

Tom got to his feet, and gazed at Mike, and his eyes were dark as he tried to find words, tried to convey all the years spent searching, hoping against hope; a hope now betrayed. His lips moved, and at last he spoke.

‘My God,’ he said, hoarsely, as the rage smouldering within him found voice. ‘I did trust you, Mike. I let go of the past and I gave you my trust. And where has it got me? I’ve lost my little girl. Again.’ He lumbered towards the door.