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

booze.’
    ‘Perhaps everyone here is thinking the same thing,’ Agnes said.
    ‘Sad but true.’ Nic smiled, as Athena appeared with three glasses of white wine. Agnes drifted away to study a painting, glass in hand. It was oil on canvas, a series of rough whorls in granite grey and ochre. ‘Portland Beach’ read the label, then Agnes’s eye was caught by a little shelf of leaflets and she saw the heading ‘Regression Workshops’. She picked one up and read it. ‘Encounter your multiple selves,’ it said. ‘The way we live our lives often excludes many facets of our personalities, leading to a sense of dislocation, and sometimes to depression and ill health …’ At the bottom of the leaflet was: ‘Workshops led by Nic Rosborough’, with an address in Kilburn and a phone number.
    ‘You’ve found my leaflet, then,’ Agnes heard him say, and looked up to see him standing next to her.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Interested?’
    ‘I’m not sure, I haven’t really thought about it before.’
    ‘It has astounding results,’ he said.
    ‘Why leaflet this place?’ Agnes asked.
    ‘I have a system. I target different bits of London each week. I’m on Soho at the moment.’
    ‘And does it work?’
    ‘I’ve had people come in on the edge of total despair and go out just glowing with energy.’
    ‘I meant, does the leafletting work?’
    ‘Oh. Yes. I’m doing pretty well at the moment.’
    Agnes noticed his soft voice, his gentle manner. ‘Don’t you worry about being responsible for people, though?’
    He smiled. ‘I like helping people. They trust me, you see. A lot of it’s just intuition, you know. That, and healing energy.’ Agnes turned the leaflet over in her fingers. ‘You should come along — with your friend.’
    ‘Yes, um, I might. I mean, I think she’d like, I mean, we’d like — Athena, Nic’s suggesting we go to one of his workshops.’ 
    ‘Poppet, how lovely. Are you sure, Nic? We’re mere novices at that kind of thing, aren’t we, Agnes? And anyway, she’s a nun, and Catholic — probably not the right kind of material at all, but I’d love to, how super.’
    ‘What, really?’ Nic said to Agnes. ‘A nun?’
    ‘Yes,’ Agnes said. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll probably find out I used to be Pope Joan in a previous life.’
    Athena said, charmingly, ‘Oh, she’s always like that, take no notice. And why don’t I give you my number — you can let me know when you’re next doing one. I’d love to be there.’ Sometime later Agnes found Athena in the crowd to say goodbye. Nic was nowhere to be seen.
    ‘He’s invited me to the workshop on Saturday — he gave me his home number and everything,’ Athena said gleefully at the door.
    ‘Are you really going to go?’
    ‘On Saturday? Yes, absolutely. Wouldn’t you?’
    ‘Wouldn’t I what?’
    ‘If you really fancied someone?’
    ‘I’m not like you, Athena. But I can’t wait to find out who you used to be. Boadicea, maybe.’
    *
    Agnes walked towards Regent Street in search of a bus. It was only nine o’clock but it felt later, despite the warm evening, the sky still deep blue. Discover the power of your multiple selves, thought Agnes. Though, in my case, one is probably quite enough. She walked briskly, aware of the rhythm of her feet. Each of us, she thought, a bundle of history, a summation of our own past. But surely it wasn’t right to get distracted with other pasts, and other stories — particularly if it led you to an ending like Becky’s, so brutally cut short. 
    She felt time passing with each click of her heels on the paving stones. The street lights had come on, turning the sky to indigo behind their yellow haze. It was time to act.
    ‘Can I speak to Charlie Woods, please?’
    ‘I’m afraid Sergeant Woods isn’t on duty tonight. Can I help?’
    ‘I’m inquiring about Becky Stanton, she was murdered on the twenty-first of July.’
    ‘And who’s speaking?’
    ‘Sister Agnes. I was acquainted with her.