The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery) by Alison Joseph Page A

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