by P. D. James
“Then, my dear, I shall turn to science. If my end promises to be unpleasant, I shall rely on morphine and the compassion of my doctor. Or perhaps I shall swim out to sea and take my last look at the sky.”
Emma asked, “Why do you stay here? Why did you take this job in the first place?”
“Because I enjoy teaching Ancient Greek to intelligent young men. Why are you an academic?”
“Because I enjoy teaching English literature to intelligent young men and women. That’s a partial answer. I do sometimes wonder where exactly I’m going. It would be good to do original creative work rather than analyse the creativity of others.”
“Caught up in the thicket of the academic jungle? I’ve taken good care to avoid all that. This place suits me admirably. I’ve enough private money to ensure that I don’t need to work full-time. I’ve a life in London not one the fathers here would approve of but I like the stimulus of contrast. I also need peace, peace to write and peace to think. I get it here. I’m never troubled with visitors. I fend people off with the excuse that I’ve only one bedroom. I can eat in college when I feel like it and be assured of excellent food, wines which are always drinkable and occasionally memorable, and conversation which is often stimulating and seldom boring. I enjoy solitary walking and the desolation of this coast suits me. I get free accommodation and my keep and the college pays a derisory stipend for teaching of a standard which they would otherwise find it difficult to attract or to afford. This murderer will put a stop to all that. I’m beginning seriously to resent him.”
“What is so horrible is the knowledge that it could be someone here, someone we know.”
“An inside job, as our dear police would say. It has to be, hasn’t it? Come on Emma, you’re not a coward. Face the truth. What thief is going to drive in the dark and on a stormy night to a remote church which he could hardly have expected to find open in the hope of breaking into the offerings box and collecting a few dud coins? And the circle of suspects isn’t exactly large. You’re out, my dear. Of course arriving first on the scene is always suspicious in detective fiction to which, I may say, the priests here are addicted but I think you can take it that you’re in the clear. That leaves the four ordinands who were in college last night, and seven others: the Pilbeams, Surtees and his sister, Yarwood, Stannard and myself. I suppose even Dalgliesh doesn’t seriously suspect any of our fathers-in-God, although he’s probably keeping them in mind, particularly if he remembers his Pascal.
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Emma didn’t want to discuss the priests. She said quietly, “Surely we can eliminate the Pilbeams?”
“Unlikely murderers I admit, but then so are we all. But it would distress me to think of so good a cook serving a life sentence. All right, delete the Pilbeams.”
Emma was about to say that the four ordinands could surely be eliminated too, but something held her back. She was afraid of what she might hear. Instead she said, “And surely you’re not a suspect? You had no reason to hate the Archdeacon. In fact his murder could settle the question of closing St. Anselm’s. Isn’t that the last thing you want?”
“It was coming anyway. The marvel is that the place has lasted so long. But you’re right, I had no reason to wish Crampton dead. If I were capable of killing anyone which I’m not except in self-defence it would more probably be Sebastian Morell.”
“Father Sebastian? Why?”
“An old grudge. He stopped me becoming a Fellow of All Souls. It isn’t important now but it mattered at the time. Oh dear me yes, it certainly mattered. He had just written a vicious review of my latest book with a barely concealed hint that I’d been guilty of plagiarism. I hadn’t. It was one of those unlikely coincidences of phrases and ideas which can occur. But the scandal didn’t help.”
“How horrible.”
“Not really. It happens, you must know that. It’s every writer’s nightmare.”
“But why did he give you this job ? He can’t have forgotten.”
“He’s never mentioned it. It’s possible that he has forgotten. It was important to me at the time, but evidently not important to him. Even if he remembered when I applied for the job, I doubt whether it would have worried him, not when it came to getting an excellent teacher for St. Anselm’s and getting him cheap.”
Emma didn’t reply. Looking down on her bent head, Gregory said, “Have some more coffee, then you can tell me the latest Cambridge gossip.”
i8 When Dalgliesh rang to ask George Gregory to come to St. Matthew’s Cottage, Gregory said, “I had hoped that I might be interviewed here. I’m expecting a phone call from my agent and she has this number. I have an intense dislike of mobile telephones.”
A business call on a Sunday seemed to Dalgliesh unlikely. As if sensing his scepticism, Gregory added, “I’m supposed to meet her for lunch in London tomorrow, at the Ivy. I’d rather assumed that this won’t now be possible, or if possible not convenient. I’ve tried to reach her but without success. I’ve left a message on her answer-phone asking her to ring me. Obviously, if I can’t be sure of getting a message to her today or early tomorrow, I’ll have to go to London; I take it there’s no objection.”
Dalgliesh said, “I can see none at present. I would prefer everyone at St. Anselm’s to remain here at least until the first part of the investigation is over.”
“I’ve no wish to run away, I assure you. Quite the reverse. It’s not every day one experiences vicariously the excitement of murder.”
Dalgliesh said, “I don’t think Miss Lavenham shares your pleasure in the experience.”
“Of course not, poor girl. But then she’s seen the body. Without that visual impact of horror murder is surely an atavistic fris son more Agatha Christie than real. I know that imagined terror is supposed to be more potent than reality, but I can’t believe that’s true of murder. Surely no one who actually sees a murdered body can ever erase it from the mind. You’ll come over then? Thank you.”
Gregory’s comment had been brutally insensitive but he hadn’t been altogether wrong. It had been as a raw detective recently appointed to the CID and kneeling beside the body of that first never-to-be-forgotten victim that Dalgliesh had first experienced, in a rush of shock, outrage and pity, murder’s destructive power. He wondered how Emma Lavenham was coping, whether there was something he could or ought to do to help her. Probably not. She may well see any attempt either as an intrusion or condescension. There was no one at St. Anselm’s to whom she could talk freely about what she had seen in the church except Father Martin and he, poor man, was more likely to need comfort and support than to be able to give it. She could, of course, leave and take her secret with her, but she wasn’t a woman to run away. Why, without knowing her, was he so sure of that? Resolutely he put the problem of Emma temporarily out of mind and applied himself to the task in hand.
He was happy enough to see Gregory in St. Luke’s Cottage. He had no intention of interviewing the ordinands in their own rooms or at their convenience; it was appropriate, expedient and time-saving that they should come to him. But on his own ground Gregory would be more at ease, and suspects at ease were more likely to let down their guard. He could learn far more about his witness from an unobtrusive scrutiny of his rooms than from a dozen direct questions. Books, pictures, the arrangement of artefacts sometimes provided more revealing testimony than words.
As Dalgliesh and Kate followed Gregory into the left-hand sitting-room, he was struck again by the individuality of the three occupied cottages, from the Pilbeams’ cheerful domestic comfort, Surtees’s carefully-ordered workroom with its smell of wood, turpentine and animal food, to this, obviously the living space of an academic and one almost obsessively tidy. The cottage had been adapted to serve Gregory’s two dominant interests, classical literature and music. The whole of the front room had been fitted with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, except above the ornate Victorian fireplace, w
here he had hung a print of Piranesi’s Arch of Constantine It was clearly important to Gregory that the height of the shelves should be designed to accommodate precisely the size of the books a foible which Dalgliesh shared and the impression was of a room clad in the ordered richness of softly-gleaming gold and brown leather. A plain oak desk holding a computer and a functional office chair stood beneath the window, which was uncurtained but fitted with a slatted wooden blind.
They passed through an open doorway into the extension. This was chiefly of glass and stretched the whole length of the cottage. This was Gregory’s sitting-room, furnished with light but comfortable wicker chairs and a sofa, a drinks table and a larger circular table at the far end piled high with books and magazines. Even these were orderly, arranged, it would seem, according to size. The glass roof and sides were fitted with sun blinds which in the summer, Dalgliesh thought, would be essential. Even now the south-facing room was comfortably warm. Outside stretched the bleak scrubland and a distant view of the tree-tops round the mere and, to the east, the great grey sweep of the North Sea.
The low chairs were not conducive to a police interrogation but no other seating was available. Gregory’s chair faced south and he leaned back against the headrest and stretched out his long legs like a clubman perfectly at ease.
Dalgliesh began with questions to which he already knew the answers from his perusal of the personal files. Gregory’s had been far less informative than those of the ordinands. The first document, a letter from Keble College, Oxford, had made plain by what means he had come to St. Anselm’s. Dalgliesh, who had almost total recall of the written word, had no difficulty in remembering it.
Now that Bradley has finally retired (and how on earth did you persuade him ?), rumour has it that you are looking for a replacement. I wonder if you have thought of George Gregory? I understand he is busy at present on a new translation of Euripides and is looking for a part-time post, preferably in the country, where he can get on with this major work in peace. Academically, of course, you could not do better and he is a fine teacher. It’s the usual story of the scholar who never quite fulfils his potential. He is not the easiest of men, but I think that he might suit you. He had a word with me when he dined here last Friday. I made no promise but said I would find out how you are placed. I gather that money is a consideration, but not the main one. It’s the privacy and the peace he’s really after.
Now Dalgliesh said, “You came here in 1995 and by invitation.”
“You could say I was head-hunted. The college wanted an experienced teacher with Classical Greek and some Hebrew. I wanted a part-time teaching job, preferably in the country with accommodation. I have a house in Oxford but it’s let at present. The tenant is responsible and the rent high. It’s not an arrangement I want to upset. Father Martin would have called our coming together providential; Father Sebastian saw it as one more example of his power to order events to his and the college’s advantage. I can’t speak for St. Anselm’s but I don’t think either party has regretted the arrangement.”
“When did you first meet Archdeacon Crampton?”
“On his first visit about three months ago when he was appointed as a trustee. I can’t remember the exact date. He came again two weeks ago and then yesterday. On the second occasion he went to some trouble to seek me out and inquire on what terms precisely I thought I was employed here. I got the impression that if not discouraged he would begin to catechize me about my religious convictions, if any. I referred him to Sebastian Morell on the first matter and was sufficiently disobliging on the second to send him off to seek out easier victims Surtees, I suspect.”
“And this visit?”
“I didn’t see him until dinner yesterday. Not a particularly festive occasion, but you were there yourself, so you saw and heard as much as I did, probably more. After dinner I left without waiting for coffee and came back here.”
“And the rest of the night, Mr. Gregory?”
“Spent in this cottage. Some reading, some revision, marking half a dozen students’ essays. Then music, Wagner last night, and bed. And to save you the trouble of asking, I didn’t leave the cottage at any time during the night. I saw no one and I heard nothing except the storm.”
“And you learned of the Archdeacon’s murder when?”
“When Raphael Arbuthnot rang at about quarter to seven to say that Father Sebastian had called an emergency meeting of all residents in the library at seven-thirty. He gave no explanation and it wasn’t until we all congregated as instructed that I learned of the murder.”
“What was your reaction to the news?”
“Complicated. Mostly, I suppose, initial shock and disbelief. I didn’t know the man so I had no reason to feel personal grief or regret. That charade in the library was extraordinary, wasn’t it? Trust Morell to set up something like that. I take it that it was his idea. There we all stood and sat like members of a dysfunctional family waiting for the will to be read. I’ve said that my first reaction was one of shock and, of course, it was. But it was shock I felt, not surprise. When I came into the library and saw Emma Lavenham’s face I realized that this was serious. I think I knew, even before Morell spoke, what he was going to tell us.”
“You knew that Archdeacon Crampton wasn’t exactly a welcome visitor at St. Anselm’s?”
“I try to distance myself from college politics; small and remote institutions like this can become hotbeds of gossip and innuendo. But I’m not exactly blind and deaf. I think most of us know that the future of St. Anselm’s is uncertain and that Archdeacon Crampton was determined that it should close sooner rather than later.”
“Would the closure inconvenience you?”
“I won’t welcome it, but I saw it as a probability soon after I arrived. But considering the speed with which the Church of England moves, I thought I was safe for at least another ten years. I shall regret losing the cottage, particularly as I paid for the extension. I find this place congenial for my work and I’ll be sorry to leave it. There’s a chance, of course, that I may not have to. I don’t know what the Church will do with the building but it won’t be an easy property to sell. It’s possible I may be able to buy the cottage. It’s early days to be giving it much thought and I don’t even know whether it belongs to the Church Commissioners or to the diocese. That world is alien to me.”
So either Gregory was unaware of the terms of Miss Arbuthnot’s will or was taking care to conceal his knowledge. There seemed nothing more to be learned for the present, and Gregory began to edge himself out of his armchair.
But Dalgliesh hadn’t finished. He said, “Was Ronald Treeves one of your pupils?”
“Of course. I teach Classical Greek and Hebrew to all the ordinands except those who read Greats. Treeves’s degree was in Geography; that meant he was taking the three-year course here and starting Greek from scratch. Of course, I was forgetting. You came here originally to look into that death. It seems comparatively unimportant now, doesn’t it? Anyway, it always was unimportant, as a putative murder, I mean. The more logical verdict would have been suicide.”
“Was that your view when you saw the body?”
“It was a view I formed as soon as I had time to think calmly. It was the folded clothes that convinced me. A young man proposing to climb a cliff doesn’t arrange his cloak and cassock with such ritual care. He came here for some private tuition on the Friday evening before Compline and seemed much as usual; that means he wasn’t particularly cheerful, but then he never was. I can’t remember that we had any conversation except that which related to the translation he had worked on. I left for London immediately afterwards and stayed the night at my club. It was as I was driving back on Saturday afternoon that I was stopped by Mrs. Munroe.”
Kate asked, “What was he like?”
“Ronald Treeves? Stolid, hard-working, intelligent but not perhaps quite as clever as he thought, insecure, remarkably intolerant for a young man. I think Papa played a dominant part in his lif
e. I suppose that could have accounted for his choice of job; if you can’t succeed in Papa’s field you can be as disobliging in your choice as possible. But we never discussed his private life. I make it my rule not to get involved with the ordinands. That way lies disaster, particularly in a small college like this. I’m here to teach them Greek and Hebrew, not to delve into their psyches. When I say that I need privacy, that includes privacy from the pressure of human personality. By the way, when are you expecting the news of this murder to break, publicly I mean? I suppose we can expect the usual influx of the media.”
Dalgliesh said, “Obviously it can’t be kept secret indefinitely. I’m discussing with Father Sebastian how the public relations branch can help. When there’s anything to say, we’ll hold a press conference.”
“And there’s no objection to my leaving for London today?”
“I have no power to prevent you.”
Gregory got slowly to his feet.
“All the same, I think I’ll cancel tomorrow’s luncheon. I’ve a feeling there will be more to interest me here than in a tedious discussion of my publisher’s delinquencies and the minutiae of my new contract. I suppose you would prefer me not to explain why I’m cancelling.”
“It would be helpful at the moment.”
Gregory was moving to the door.
“A pity. I’d rather enjoy explaining that I can’t come to London because I’m a suspect in a murder inquiry. Goodbye, Commander. If you need me again you know where to find me.”
The squad ended the day as they had begun it, conferring together in St. Matthew’s Cottage. But now they were in the more comfortable of the two rooms, sitting on the sofa and in the armchairs and drinking the last coffee of the day. It was time to assess progress. The time and place of the telephone call to Mrs. Crampton had been checked. It had been made from the instrument with the honesty box beside it mounted on the wall in the corridor outside Mrs. Pilbeam’s sitting-room. The call had been made at nine-twenty-eight. This was one more piece of evidence, and an important one. It proved what they had suspected from the first: that the killer was in St. Anselm’s.