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

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.
    ‘Or as they say, Stand and Deliver. You have just been cyberzapped by the SUPERHIGHWAYMAN!!!!’
    The screen went blank. Agnes heard Sheila come up the stairs and open the door.
    ‘What happened?’ Sheila asked, seeing the blank screen.
    ‘I — I’ve no idea. Someone calling themselves the Superhighwayman —’
    ‘What? Did it clear the screen?’
    ‘It seems so.’
    Sheila clicked the mouse. Nothing happened. ‘I don’t understand it.’
    ‘All the words sort of fell down the screen.’
    ‘A virus? But that couldn’t happen on the Net. How weird.’ She reset the computer, and after a moment the screen showed the file index again. ‘Phew.’ She clicked on a file, which came up as normal.
    ‘Would this Highwayman have left an address?’ Agnes asked.
    ‘I don’t know. Let’s see — where were you?’ Sheila scrolled through the messages again. ‘No. Nothing. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen — to leave no trace like that …’ She sighed. ‘Well, I guess that’s what scared Col.’
    ‘Hmm,’ Agnes said.
    ‘And it explains the break-in too. Someone must have left