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

I was there when she was found. Sergeant Woods took my statement. I simply wondered whether there’s been any progress in your inquiries.’
    ‘It’s a bit late in the evening, madam. I’ll see who’s about if you’ll just hang on.’
    Eventually he returned. No, there’d been no progress. Nothing had come to light so far. She was welcome to phone again in a week or two.
    Agnes replaced the receiver. ‘Nothing had come to light.’ She got up and walked to the window. Who had they asked? They’d had nearly a week. What had they been doing? If it was me, she thought … If it was me, I’d have asked the family, of course. Yes, I’d have started with the family.
    Agnes went back to her desk and sat down. Unless it really was a random event. Unless it really was the case that Becky had only herself to blame, that the civilised world is surrounded by lurking psychopaths just waiting for someone to stray beyond the edges. Or was it, as Rona and everyone believed, some kind of out-of-control security guard? But then, thought Agnes, was it right just to accept that Becky’s killer might never be tracked down?
    Agnes felt a slow anger rising. ‘No,’ she whispered, rummaging for the notes she’d made from Becky’s file. ‘If we accept that Becky’s killer will never be found, then we are one step nearer chaos, one step further from the light. No,’ Agnes said aloud, and her voice reverberated in the room.
    *
    At two o’clock the next afternoon, Agnes rang the bell of a neat semi in a nice suburb on the east side of Chelmsford. The door was opened by Shirley Stanton, a tall, thin woman with nut-brown hair and a very pale face. She wiped her hands nervously on her apron as she led Agnes into the front room. There was a worn turquoise sofa, a carpet of beige and rust swirls, a small old-fashioned television. Over the mantelpiece Agnes noticed a simple cross placed above a large framed photograph of a rather dashing man in a suit.
    ‘Morris — Sister Agnes is here,’ she called up the stairs, and a moment later Morris Stanton appeared. He was large and bearded, with black hair and a red complexion. He was wearing a white nylon shirt. ‘Sister, eh?’ he said, in a voice which was gruff but welcoming.
    ‘Yes, I’m a nun.’
    ‘Catholic?’
    Agnes nodded. ‘Oh well, all equal in the eyes of the Lord. Shirley, pour the tea for our visitor.’ He sank heavily on to the sofa.
    Agnes chose the armchair opposite. ‘I was very sorry to hear about your daughter,’ she began. From the kitchen, she heard a cup fall and break. 
    Morris forced a smile. ‘The police came and told us. Constable — what was his name, Shirley?’ he called to the kitchen. ‘That nice police officer?’
    ‘Baxter,’ Shirley Stanton said, coming back into the room with a tea tray. Her face was even paler, and her hands shook as she put the tray down on the low table.
    ‘Though I don’t know how you come into it,’ Morris was saying.
    ‘Well, as I said briefly on the phone, I’d met Becky when she spent a night in our hostel earlier this year.’ Agnes took a deep breath. ‘And for various other reasons not connected with this, I happened to be there when her — when she was found.’
    Shirley threw a glance at her husband, then quickly looked down again.
    ‘I see,’ Morris said. There was a silence. The three cups of tea stood untouched on the tray.
    ‘Yes, the hostel. Of course. When she ran away to London. Silly girl. She was never the same after that.’ Agnes waited. He went on, ‘When I was young, we didn’t think in terms of problems. But these days, they’re encouraged to think they can do what they like. They blab to anyone who’ll ask — teachers, do-gooders like you —’
    ‘Morris —’ Shirley murmured, but he went on.
    ‘You’re supposed to rescue them, not make it worse.’
    ‘I don’t think we did make it worse.’
    ‘You give them a taste for it, you people. Running wild in London …’
    Shirley