The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery) (8 page)

‘Col — who have you seen?’ He shook his head. ‘If you’d only tell someone, we could begin to —’

‘It’s impossible.’

Agnes heard the wheezing at the edge of his voice again. She stood up, touching his shoulder briefly as she did so, and began to open cupboards, getting out cornflakes, sliced white bread and cheap margarine for the hostel residents.

In the relative quiet of the afternoon, Agnes left Sam and Col giggling over tattered old copies of
Hello
magazine and slipped into the empty office. She got out her notebook, and then dialled the number she’d copied down from Becky’s file. ‘Is that Roger Murphy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hello, my name’s Sister Agnes. I believe you host a church group.’

‘That’s right.’

‘That the Stanton family attend?’

‘Who did you say you were?’

‘Sister Agnes. I knew Becky Stanton.’

There was a silence on the line. Then Roger Murphy said, ‘I’m not sure — I’m not sure I can be of assistance.’

‘I just wondered,’ Agnes said, ‘whether you’d be able to give me a few moments of your time. Later this week, maybe? It’s such a tragic business.’ 

‘I’m not sure why you —’

‘Just a brief meeting?’

There was another momentary silence. Then he said, ‘Can I take your number and get back to you?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Agnes said warmly. She was about to give him her home number, but something made her give the office number instead.

That evening she arranged with Daniel that Sam and Col could stay until Thursday. She’d enjoyed seeing them both grow more and more relaxed as the day had worn on. By suppertime they were whispering rude words to each other and giggling helplessly like five-year-olds. She wondered what would happen when they had to leave. Sam was at least meeting Mike tomorrow, and perhaps something would come of that. But Col? Did he have family? Wasn’t there somewhere he could go, someone he could run to, to protect him from this terror that had frightened him into speechlessness?

Just before they went to bed Agnes caught Sam on her own. ‘Sam — when Col went to the office in town — who was he with? We’ve got to find out what happened.’

‘I’ve tried asking him but he won’t say.’

‘You’ve got to tell me what you know — what you’ve both been so frightened of.’

Sam chewed her lip. ‘I told you, it’ll make it worse. If Col knows I’ve been going on to you about it —’

‘Who is this person you’re scared of?’

Sam sucked in her cheeks and stared out of the darkened window.

Agnes wanted to slap her. ‘Does she ride a horse?’ 

Sam paled, looked at her, looked back to the window again.

‘For God’s sake, Sam, why does she frighten you both so much?’

Sam glanced at Agnes, then turned back to the window.

‘OK,’ Agnes went on, ‘you win for now. Just tell me who’s at this office where Col was working?’

Sam shrugged. ‘It’s the local road campaign. It’s just someone’s spare room with a phone and a fax machine.’

‘Can I talk to them?’

‘Sure, she’s called Sheila. She’s really nice, she lets us have baths and everything. They’ll have the number at the camp.’

‘That reminds me, I’ve washed everything you two were wearing, twice. It still smells of smoke but it’ll have to do. And I’m sure something bit me when I was handling it all.’

Sam looked pointedly at Agnes and scratched at her head with both hands.

Early the next morning Agnes found Col alone in the kitchen again. Again she made them both some tea.

‘Col,’ she began, ‘isn’t there somewhere you could go — someone you could go to?’

He shook his head.

‘Somewhere safe?’

‘Safe?’ He laughed, abruptly, and all the softness of yesterday was suddenly gone. Agnes looked at the harsh lines of his face which seemed suddenly old. ‘Safe?’ he said again. ‘You’ll be fucking lucky.’

‘You mean wherever it was you came from, is worse than — whatever it is you’re frightened of?’

Col smiled mirthlessly. ‘Since when have I been fucking safe?’ He drained his cup, got up from the table and left the room.

After breakfast, Agnes went straight to her flat. She showered, put on some clean clothes, made some coffee and sat down to open her mail and listen to her messages.

‘Hi, it’s Athena. Everything’s wonderful. Isn’t love just the thing? Catch you later, byeeee.’

‘Agnes, it’s Julius on Tuesday evening. Someone called Roger Murphy phoned for you. He said you’d got his number. I trust you’re still enjoying playing mother hen.’

‘Silly old Julius,’ Agnes muttered.

‘Hello, this is Mike Reynolds on Wednesday morning. Just wondering if we could have a briefing chat before this evening — feeling rather nervous and all that. I’m at my desk all day.’

There was another message, but the caller rang off before speaking. Agnes picked up the receiver and dialled Mike’s number, and his secretary put her straight through.

‘You phoned me.’

‘God, Agnes, I’m nervous. So much depends on all this.’

‘It’ll be fine. Sam’s very keen to meet you — there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘They have so much bloody power, these social workers. If they hadn’t interfered when Sam was a baby —’

‘Listen, the best thing you can do is get all negative attitudes towards social workers out of your head before this evening. Go in smiling, positive —’ 

‘God, I haven’t set eyes on her since — I’m just frightened I’m going to burst into tears or something.’

‘No one’ll mind if you do. Just don’t come in reeking of booze, and try not to smoke either.’

He laughed. ‘You’ll be there, won’t you?’

‘Absolutely. Don’t worry.’

The next number she dialled was Roger Murphy’s. She was surprised to hear a new warmth in his voice.

‘Sister Agnes, wasn’t it? Yes, of course, you wanted to meet us, about poor Becky.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, we’re here. I’m sorry I was so reluctant yesterday, only there’s been a lot of local interest, people wanting to meet us, the police, of course. But it’s only right that we make ourselves available to people who need to talk about the whole ghastly business. When would you like to come?’

‘Well, um —’

‘Saturday — during the day sometime? You can meet Ross Turner then, he’s our Pastor. Eleven o’clock?’

‘Fine. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

As she replaced the receiver, Agnes caught herself wondering whether Roger Murphy had secretly vetted her since their first phone conversation. The paranoia of the anti-road movement was obviously infectious.

Then she phoned Rona, to reassure her about Col’s health and to get Sheila’s number. Finally she phoned Sheila.

‘The thing is,’ Agnes said, having explained who she was, ‘Col came back from the office very upset.’

‘Yes, I know, I was worried,’ Sheila said. ‘He was on the machine at the time.’ 

‘On the machine?’

‘The Internet. He popped in to send an e-mail about the eviction or something. When he left he was white as a sheet. Wouldn’t tell me why.’

‘Look — would you mind if I visited you later this week and had a go on this machine myself?’

‘By all means, help yourself. I’m around most days, though I’ve got my sixteen-year-old daughter on her summer holidays who thinks she knows best. If you can cope with the fragile atmosphere, you’re welcome.’

That evening Agnes and Sam walked into a bright room newly painted in apricot-pink and sat rather stiffly on two cheap red armchairs. Mary, Sam’s social worker, was with them.

‘Mike’s already here,’ she smiled. ‘Shall I show him in?’

Sam nodded, chewing on her lip, and a few moments later Mike appeared. Agnes watched him as he came into the room. He stared at Sam, his gaze transfixed, until she became uncomfortable and looked at the floor, fiddling with her nails.

‘Won’t you sit down,’ Mary said, and he took a chair, still gazing at his daughter. Agnes noticed that he was completely dry-eyed.

‘Well,’ Mary said, brightly, ‘we’ll leave you two alone together for a while.’

Out in the office Mary went to get some tea. Agnes wandered over to the window and stared out across the grimy street to the huddle of shops; a bookies, a kebab take-away, a newsagent. Agnes gazed absently at the fingers-crossed lottery symbol in the newsagent’s window and wondered why Mike’s failure to cry should make her feel so uneasy. She turned from the window and went to sit at a desk. Just because he said he might, she thought. It means nothing. She glanced down at the desk and saw Sam’s file lying there. She opened it, and flicked through the pages until she saw the name Michael Reynolds. She read through the various notes taken from meetings with him, then on a scrap of paper wrote down his address and the details from his photocopied birth certificate, and the phone numbers of Sam’s mother, and Annie, her aunt, whom Mike had contacted. She closed the file just as Mary reappeared in the room with two polystyrene cups of tea.

In the car going back to the hostel, Sam chattered happily about the meeting. ‘He’s got a lovely house, he showed me a photo, and there’s this school nearby that’s got its own swimming pool, and I could go back and get some exams, and he likes loads of different kinds of music, and he even knew who Bjork was, and don’t you think he was wearing nice shoes? You wouldn’t have to be embarrassed about a dad who wore shoes like that.’

Agnes checked that Sam and Col were comfortably ensconced at the hostel and then went home to bed. That night she dreamed of Mike Reynolds, only after a while she could tell by the scratchy tweed jacket that it wasn’t Mike at all, it was her own father, and he was weeping, really sobbing, and she felt embarrassed at the tears, and then she heard herself say in the dream, only she seemed to have the voice of a little girl, ‘Don’t cry … don’t cry, Papa, it makes no difference now.’ 

Chapter Eight

The next morning Agnes was woken early by the phone. She snatched it up, but immediately the line went dead. She replaced the receiver and stared at it, then lay down again. The rain had passed, and warm sunlight filtered through the curtains. Agnes closed her eyes against the light, and thought about Mike Reynolds. In a few weeks’ time Sam would become his daughter. Agnes had an image of her, gift-wrapped like a parcel, delivered to the door of his nice semi by a party of smiling do-gooders, herself included. It was Sam’s choice, she told herself. She’s sixteen, it’s up to her. And it solves everyone’s problem. Social Services can sign her off, she doesn’t have to go back to her abusive home … Agnes curled up in bed and pulled the covers around her. Was it jealousy, then, this feeling? Was it too much for her, the idea that your father might really come back, might really sweep you up and take you off to a new life and love you after all? And all those years of waiting, of suffering your mother’s escalating bitterness, being palmed off with assorted staff and governesses and second-rate schools, waiting for your father to turn round and realise that his daughter needed him,
needed
him
, for God’s sake … Was it just too much for her to accept that in Sam’s case the dream had come true?

She got out of bed and went into the shower. Then, washed and dressed, she knelt in prayer. ‘Our Father,’ she began, then stopped. Another image came to her, of herself, gift-wrapped, being handed over by her father to Hugo, her husband, whose reign of terror had lasted for the few years of their marriage and then for a long time afterwards.

She opened her eyes, and got up from her knees. She sat on her bed and stared into space for a while, frowning. Then she stood up, picked up her raincoat and left.

‘There are other ways to understand divinity,’ Julius said half an hour later. ‘God the Father is just one. And shouldn’t you be at the hostel by now?’

Agnes ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. ‘Yes, I should go. It’s just, I suddenly couldn’t face the day. I’m glad you were here.’

‘There’s Mary, the mother of God. And Jesus, who shares our humanity, and I know he’s male but at least he’s not in the patriarchal tradition of the Old Testament —’

‘I suddenly couldn’t stand the idea of calling God “Father” —’

‘You’ve never minded before.’

‘No, it’s odd. After all this time.’ She stood up to leave, then said suddenly, ‘Julius, I’m worried about Sam.’

‘Sam?’

‘She’s about to sign her life away.’

‘She’s going to live with her father.’

‘Julius — this sounds ridiculous — I think he’s not her father.’ 

Julius blinked at Agnes against a sudden dazzle of sunlight. ‘Agnes, sit down, sit down. Is that what all this is about?’

Agnes sat next to Julius and he took her hand. She stared at her fingers, at his own entwined with them. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. These days when I pray it’s — it’s all confused. I mean, I’ve even caught myself thinking that I only ever became religious so that I’d have a proper father. An absolute, unconditional father. It’s ridiculous, Julius.’

‘Agnes, it’s not ridiculous at all.’

She touched the nail of his forefinger which was blackened from a recent injury. ‘What do I do about Sam?’

‘Well, she won’t go immediately, will she? If I were you, I’d use the time left to reassure myself that he is who he says he is.’

‘But we’ve already established that he is.’

‘All his papers are in order, and he has no criminal record. Everything that can be checked out has been. But if you’re still feeling like this, then you must put your mind at rest.’

Agnes stood up. ‘And in the meantime, who do I pray to?’

Julius walked to the door and opened it for her. ‘What I do sometimes, is just listen. Just listen and see who’s there.’

Agnes looked up at him. ‘It’s OK for you. You have a direct line.’ She kissed his cheek and left.

Julius went to his desk and sat down, his hand on the side of his face where she’d kissed it.

*

At eleven that morning Agnes sat down with Sam and Col. 

‘We’ve got to think about where you two are going to live after today.’

‘I’m going to live with Mike,’ Sam said.

‘Not immediately,’ Agnes said. ‘Let’s be realistic.’ Sam set her face sullenly. ‘Look,’ Agnes went on, ‘nobody’s disputing that he’s entitled to a relationship with you. But living with —’

‘And does anyone care what I think?’ Sam said. ‘It’s not about what he’s fucking entitled to — it’s about my bloody future, right? And anyway, those social workers can’t wait to get me off their hands. Where else am I going to go?’

‘Fine,’ Agnes said wearily. ‘But between now and whenever it’s all settled, where are you going to go?’

‘The Ark,’ Sam said. ‘Where else?’

‘And you, Col?’

Col’s eyes flickered nervously to Sam’s face, then to Agnes’s. ‘Yup. The Ark,’ he said quietly.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’ve nowhere else to go.’

And the dangers? Agnes wanted to ask, but realised there was no point asking. He was right, there was nowhere else. She felt suddenly annoyed with herself for having no solutions. The bed she’d scavenged for them was entirely temporary. She was as incapable of providing long-term solutions as anyone else.

‘Although —’ Col began, looking at Sam. He went on, ‘Sam says maybe when she gets to stay with Mike, I could go too.’

‘I’m not sure —’ 

‘It’ll be my house then,’ Sam said. ‘I can have all my mates to stay.’

It occurred to Agnes that this whole scheme of Mike’s might fall at the first hurdle; that once Mike had fully grasped the reality of having a teenage daughter, he might abandon the scheme at once. The idea of Mike being off the scene brought a feeling of relief; once again, Agnes wondered why.

That afternoon she drove Sam and Col back to the road camp, and decided to sleep there herself. As she turned off the main road up the dirt track, she was startled by a camera flash close to the windscreen. She just caught sight of a figure vanishing into the trees.

‘It’s starting, then,’ Sam said.

‘What’s starting?’

‘All that hassle they do. Jeff told me. Detectives, security people, harassment. It’s the run up to the eviction.’

She parked at the end of the track and the three of them walked across the field to the camp. The air was heavy with the heat of early August. Agnes carried two shopping bags of food into the kitchen bender and unpacked them. Fruit, bread, cheese, vegetables, a tub of peanut butter and several packets of biscuits. Rona tucked her head round the tarpaulin.

‘Get flashed at, did you?’

‘Apparently so.’

‘It’s number plates. Or something. They record it somewhere, I suppose. Or maybe it’s just for fun.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Bloody everything. The phone box down the road got vandalised. We’re getting all sorts of clicks on the mobile phone. Oh, and also, Sheila thinks someone broke into her upstairs room at the weekend, where the computer is. She’s not sure, but the window was left wide open although nothing was nicked. It’s typical of them, you see, harassment just to make themselves feel better.’

‘Do you know when the eviction is yet?’

Rona shook her head. ‘Nah. We’re expecting a month’s notice. But you can never tell.’ Agnes followed her out of the tent. Rona looked at the sky and twitched her nose. ‘Rain in the air; we’ll all get smoked out under the tarp again tonight.’

By the time Jeff had boiled several pounds of potatoes, and Agnes had sautéed aubergines, peppers and tomatoes in olive oil and garlic, the rain was pounding on to the tarpaulin above them, trickling off the sides, filtering around the edges of the benders. The fire barely lasted the time it took for everyone to eat, and no one felt like singing. Earlier than usual the climbers sought refuge in their cosy tree-houses, and those staying on the ground crawled into their benders.

Agnes settled down in her sleeping bag next to Sam. Her feet felt cold and damp through her thick socks, and she lay awake for a while listening to the rain hammering out its varying rhythms around her. She was just settling down to sleep when she thought she heard footsteps and voices some way off in the forest. She listened hard, prepared to go out and investigate; but she heard nothing more, and eventually she drifted off to sleep.

The next morning the sky had cleared again. Agnes left Sam still fast asleep and emerged from her bender to find Jenn rolling back the tarpaulin to dry in the sun.

‘Sleep OK?’ Jenn said.

‘I thought I heard people.’

‘Yeah. They’re out there.’

‘Who are they?’

‘The usual form is detectives hired from a private agency. Though they don’t usually hang out for no reason like that. And nothing’s been nicked so far. Otherwise, it’s security people staking out the ground. Or the bailiffs.’ She shrugged and laughed. ‘They just can’t take it, you see. They haven’t the faintest idea what we’re about. Tea?’

‘Yes, please. And then I must go. I said I’d visit Sheila this morning.’

‘Right.’

‘Jenn — these lurking people — how long have they been around?’

‘We’ve only noticed them since the weekend really.’

‘So — when Becky —’

Jenn bent down to put the kettle on the fire, then straightened up. ‘Who knows, eh?’ She rubbed her back. ‘The police are silent. The local view from those old Tories down in the village is that if you live as we do, you can expect to get bumped off by a passing nutcase.’

‘So you don’t expect the police to solve it, then, Jenn?’

Jenn rearranged the kettle on the fire, then looked up at Agnes, blinking through the smoke. ‘I think these days, life is cheap. And according to the powers that be —’ she stood up again — ‘some lives are cheaper than others.’

*

Agnes followed Sheila down the narrow hallway of her cottage aware of a warm smell of coffee and toast. The hall gave way suddenly into a wide, sunlit kitchen, the far end of which was entirely glass. There was a huge abstract painting in red and purple taking up one wall, and a jumble of house plants, some hanging from the ceiling in curly baskets, some trailing haphazardly along the polished wood of the floor and skirting boards.

Agnes sat on a stool at the table while Sheila poured coffee and buttered toast. Sheila was a thin, wiry woman, with untidy grey hair and high cheekbones. Her eyes were piercing blue and surrounded by laughter lines. She wore a large baggy jumper and a multi-coloured skirt that fell in floating layers.

‘So, are you really a nun?’ she asked, depositing various jars of home-made jam onto the table. ‘Oh, wait, you must try this,’ she added, rummaging through her cupboards and eventually producing a sticky, unlabelled jar. ‘I’ve started helping a neighbour with her bees, and this is my reward.’

‘Yes, I am a nun,’ Agnes replied, spreading her toast with honey, licking her fingers.

‘Smelt the coffee, did you?’ Sheila called suddenly towards the door. A slender young girl appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a huge white T-shirt and she peered out at Agnes from straight, jet-black hair which fell around her face. ‘This is Lily,’ Sheila was saying. ‘My daughter.’ Lily leaned against the doorframe and yawned.

Half an hour later Sheila sat Agnes down at the computer and switched it on. ‘Do you know about these things, then?’ she said.

‘Only a bit.’ 

‘If you want to send an e-mail you just have to — I’ll show you when it’s done all this bit.’

‘I don’t really want to send anything. What I really wanted to do was find out what Col was doing when he — when he got all upset the other day.’

‘Right, well, let’s get into GreenNet and start from there.’ Sheila moved the mouse around and clicked it. ‘I got this for my business. Then I got involved in the campaign against that horrible old road, so I ended up on GreenNet and various other news group things. Here we are. What do you want to do now?’

Agnes scanned the index. ‘What are these?’

‘Just messages received. We can go through them if you like, that’s probably what Col was doing.’

‘OK.’

Sheila pulled up a chair next to Agnes and called up the first file. It said: ‘Update on Twyford Down.’

‘I’ll download this. Hang on. Right, next one. Oh, this is boring, we’ve already had that.’ Some clickings later, a new file filled the screen, just as the phone downstairs started to ring. ‘Mum, it’s for you,’ Agnes heard Lily call. ‘Some boring woman.’

Sheila sighed, got up. ‘Back in a moment.’

Agnes read the screen. It was something about a European-wide network of anti-road groups based in Amsterdam. Suddenly, all the letters began to move and jumble themselves up. Agnes blinked and stared as the words collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the screen. Then a message flashed up in huge letters.

‘Put your hands in the air. Go on, do it.’ 

Agnes hesitated, common sense telling her that no one could see her. Another message appeared.