While he was hesitating, the Dean said, “You had a second point?”
“Yes, sir. I had. Sergeant Telfer wants his car back.”
“He shall have it. On payment of the stipulated fine. For a first offense, five pounds.”
“Aren’t you being a little unreasonable, sir?”
“Not in the least. When you were calling on me, I notice you parked your car in my drive. Very reasonable. Why should Sergeant Telfer not have parked his car inside the Archdeacon’s gate, instead of leaving it in a position where it blocked three other cars which were legally parked?”
“Being on duty, I expect he thought it would be in orde”If he thought that, I would suggest a medical check.”
“Sir?”
“Because he must be stone deaf. Mullins informs me that he told him not once, but twice that he was breaking Close regulations.”
Bracher got up abruptly, put down a five-pound note on the table and said, “If you’ll kindly tell me where the car is, I’ll have it fetched.”
The Dean also got to his feet. He said, “Mullins will show him where the car is. And might I give you a word of advice. Inside the walls of this Close all routine matters are regulated by the Church through its constituted authority, the Cathedral Chapter. There is no reason for controversy and friction.”
By this time they had reached the front door. The Dean held it open politely. He added, “There are enough troubles in this world, Superintendent, without going out of one’s way to look for more.”
The Superintendent strode down the path, got into his car and drove off without a word.
Lady Fallingford’s cottage was at the far end of a row of cottages along the west wall of the Close. It was rather bigger than the others and had a sizable garden. James found Mrs Henn-Christie there, with Francis and Betty Humphrey. Paul Wren, the organist, arrived soon after he did.
“I thought of having tea in the garden,” said Lady Fallingford, “but the flies are really intolerable.”
“I don’t mind flies,” said Mrs Henn-Christie. “It’s mosquitoes by night and wasps by day. Toby was stung on the nose yesterday and made a terrible fuss about it.”
Toby, James gathered, was a Siamese cat.
Since everybody knew everybody and everybody talked at once, it was not easy for James to ask the question he was dying to ask. A fleeting opportunity occurred when their hostess was distributing second cups of tea. He said, “Can someone please tell me. What exactly did happen to Leo Sandeman’s hat?”
This produced a laugh and everyone tried to answer the question at once. In the end Mrs Henn-Christie had to call the meeting to order. She said, “If you all talk at once, the poor young man won’t hear any of you. It’s your story, Constantia. You tell him.”
“He’s a terrible little man,” said Lady Fallingford. “He does nothing but make trouble for everyone. He’s on the Council, you know. He’s got some special job. I forget what it is.”
“Chairman of the Roads Committee,” said Canon Humphrey.
“Is that right? But what he revels in is his other job. He’s local boss of Newfu. You’ve heard of Newfu?”
“I’m afraid not,” said James. “It sounds like a health food.”
“It’s the National Estate Workers Federated Union. They managed to recruit all the men who work on the big estates, particularly the ones that are open to the public. People like the Weldons of Kings Sutton House and the Bridports at Bayford Castle. Last summer they brought them out on strike. I expect you read about it.”
“I think I did,” said James untruthfully. Among so many strikes this one had hardly caused a ripple.
“The owners had to give in. It was the beginning of their season, and if their workers wouldn’t work and pickets blocked the entrance gates, they weren’t going to get any visitors at all.”
“What was the strike about?”
“What strikes are always about. More money. Lady Weldon said they had to pay so much more that it took away any profit there was. Not that they ever made much. This year they won’t be opening the house at all and most of the staff have lost their jobs. So what good was it supposed to have done?”
“Union organisers never think about that,” said Betty Humphrey. “Mostly they organise strikes to make themselves feel important.”
“Well, anyway,” said Lady Fallingford, “the next thing that happened was they tried to rope in the staff here. Sam and young Ernie and the builders. Sam went to see the Dean. He told Sam they were to have nothing to do with it. So, early this summer Newfu tried to blockade the Close.”
“They did what?”
“It’s quite true. They put pickets with banners on all three gates. Can you imagine it?”
“I can indeed,” said James. “What happened?”
“The Dean was very angry. Particularly as it was the day of the Diocesan Women’s Institute service. They come in, you know, from all over the diocese. Hundreds of them. The Dean took his largest stick and hobbled down to the High Street Gate. People who saw him said he was white with fury. I’m sure he’d have broken a few heads with that stick. Luckily, he didn’t have to use it. Because just as he got there, the head of the Women’s Institute procession reached the gate. They were good solid women with solid sensible shoes. They’d come a long way and they weren’t going to let a miserable little picket stop them. They walked straight over it. Do you know the hymn they sing at their meetings? Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’.”
“’And did those feet in ancient time’,” hummed Paul Wren happily, “’walk upon England’s mountains green?’ They certainly walked upon Newfu. Sandeman’s hat got knocked off and a very large woman trod on it. The press had been expecting trouble and that young man from the Melset Journal was on the spot. The one who plays football.”
“Bill Williams.”
“That’s the man. He got a beautiful photograph of it. It was published in the Journal next day.”
Mrs Henn-Christie said, “I thought it was so funny I cut it out and stuck it up in the kitchen. I have a good laugh every time I look at it.”
“So what happened to the strike?”
“It fizzled out. The Dean announced that preventing people coming to church was sacrilege. And that sacrilege was a felony, and if the police refused to do anything, the Chapter would institute a private prosecution.”
“That wasn’t what stopped them,” said Canon Humphrey. “Your keen trade unionist likes being prosecuted. What Sandeman couldn’t stand was being laughed at.”
“You can’t keep a man like that down,” said Betty Humphrey. “I’ll warrant that he’s the man behind this business about Fletcher’s Piece.”
This produced a brief silence while people thought about Fletcher’s Piece. Canon Humphrey said, “Are you sure about that, my dear?”
“I couldn’t prove it. But he’d give anything to get his own back on the Cathedral, and it’s just the sort of meddling thing he’d be bound to have a finger in. You see if I’m not right.”
“I always suspected he might have been one of the people behind the supermarket scheme, too,” said Mrs Henn-Christie. “I’m sure I was swindled. Not that I could prove that, either.”
“Come now,” said Canon Humphrey. “Just because we don’t like the man, we mustn’t turn him into a universal villain. There’s good in most of us somewhere.”
“You’re too charitable, Francis,” said his wife. She was gathering up her things. “We’ll have to be getting along. We’ve got a lot to do to get things ready for this evening. We’re starting at eight o’clock sharp. We’re expecting about forty people.”
“And you’d better not be late,” said Canon Humphrey. “Because we’ve only got about forty chairs.”
With this advice in mind, James had an early supper in the town and was in the West Canonry garden by a quarter to eight. Four music stands and four spindle-legged chairs had been set out on the lawn, which sloped gently down to the river. In the meadow on the other side, brown-an
d-white cows were grazing. House martins and swifts were dive-bombing the riverbank for insects. It was one of those long late-summer evenings that seem to go on forever.
James recognised many of the people as they arrived, identifying some who had been players in the chess game. The two vergers, who had been the white knights, came together. The senior verger, Grey, with the deportment of a ducal butler, and the young cricketer, Len Masters. Canon Maude had his mother with him. The Archdeacon rolled in, with a train of theological students. Since he was there, James guessed that the Dean would not turn up, and, sure enough, at the last moment Amanda arrived alone. One of the few empty chairs was beside him and he willed her to come and sit in it. For a moment he thought he had lost her to the Consetts, but she ignored Penny’s wave, hesitated for a moment by Canon Lister, then came over and joined him. She said, “Peter told me you knew about music. So you can explain what’s being played and whether it’s good or not. I’m hopeless at things like that.”
“If you’d come in at the right time, you’d have got a programme.” He gave her his. “It’s a feast of seventeenth-century chamber music. Purcell, Mattheson, Christopher Sympson and William Brade. And ‘Beauty Retire’ by Samuel Pepys.”
“You mean the man who wrote the diary?”
“He did other things, too.”
The players took their seats. Paul Wren had a tuning fork, and the three recorder players each sounded a trial note.
“Like birds starting up the dawn chorus,” said Amanda.
James remembered very little of the performance. It was a ritual which depended for most of its charm on the setting and the sense of history which it imposed. Just so a group of peruked and periwigged clerics and their womenfolk must have sat three centuries ago; some enjoying the music, some pretending to enjoy it, some frankly bored. Henry Brookes was smoking cigarette after cigarette, putting the stub carefully in the lid of his cigarette case. Penny Consett was flirting with Peter. Mrs Henn-Christie was keeping an anxious eye out for mosquitoes. Canon Lister seemed to be asleep. The Archdeacon was motionless, but he was not asleep. His black eyes were open. Penny was right: he really was rather like a bear. Big, deceptively clumsy and slow, but capable of a lightning pounce when the occasion called for it.
The last piece was Purcell’s Golden Sonata. The September dusk had closed in, and the faces of the listeners were indistinguishable, but they were all sitting still now, gripped by the liquid simplicity of the playing. As the last notes of the viol died away into silence, they gave a sort of communal sigh of pleasure before breaking into a round of applause. James drifted out into the Close with Amanda beside him.
As they were passing the school cottage, he saw that there was a light in the sitting room window. He said, “Come into our bachelor retreat and have a cup of coffee.”
Amanda said, “Good idea. I’d love a hot drink. We got colder than we realised, sitting out there. It’s September, not June.”
They found Peter and Bill Williams drinking beer. Both seemed pleased to see Amanda and gave her the only comfortable chair while Peter made coffee for them.
“Instant coffee and powdered milk,” he said. “Not what you’re accustomed to, I expect.”
“I’m not a coffee snob myself,” said Amanda, “but a lot of people round here are. Last year, after the Friends of the Cathedral lunch, there were so many snide remarks about our coffee that we’ve bought a huge machine and this time we’re going to dish out the real stuff. It’ll cost us the earth.”
She was wearing a pair of jeans faded almost to white and a blue roll-necked sweater and fitted easily into the all-male company. “When we were in Ethiopia, we got our supplies up about once every two months. Daddy used to put all the coffee into one of his socks. When we wanted a drink, we used to boil up a saucepan of milk and dip the sock into it and give it a little squeeze. That way we made it last. I must admit it did taste a bit peculiar toward the end.”
“What sort of sock?” said Bill Williams.
“Actually, it was an old white cricket sock. Why?”
“If it had been a coloured sock, the coffee would have tasted even more peculiar.”
They drank for a few moments in silence. Bill said, “I’m told that Fletcher’s Piece is rearing its ugly head again.”
“Please instruct me,” said James. “Who is Fletcher and what is his Piece?”
Amanda said, “It’s the field on the other side of the river, opposite where we were sitting just now. Inhabited, at this moment, by cows.”
“But if the developers have their wicked way,” said Bill, “the cows will be evicted and it will be covered by an extension eastward of Wessex Instrumentation Limited, which is the building you can just see beyond the far hedge. They’ve been after it for years. It would suit them very well. Access to the road and all the services. Maybe a housing estate as well. The buzz is that the Planning Committee has already informally given them the green light.”
“What’s stopping them?”
“What’s stopping them is that the land belongs to the Cathedral. And they don’t somehow fancy having a factory overlooking the gardens of the Deanery and the West Canonry and the Theological College.”
“One sees their point,” said James. “Who’s behind it?”
“We know who’s in front of it. It’s Gerry Gloag.”
“That pseudo-military character we saw in the pub?”
“Maxwell Gloag and Partners, Surveyors and Estate Agents. The biggest in this city, and there aren’t many bigger in the county. They’ve gobbled up a lot of the smaller firms.”
“Including Henry Brookes,” said Amanda. “They picked him up two years ago. He then retired to what he fondly imagined would be the more peaceful occupation of being Chapter Clerk.”
“Was he an estate agent?” said Peter. “I never knew that.”
“Not a very good one, I should think. Too nice.”
“It’s no business for a gentleman,” agreed Bill. “Gerry Gloag would cut your throat and smile distantly while he was doing it. He was the man who fronted the supermarket deal, too.”
“And swindled Mrs Henn-Christie,” said James.
“So how did you know about that?” said Bill.
“They were talking about it at tea.”
“I suppose you could say they swindled her,” said Amanda. “In the sense that they made more money out of it than she did.”
“It was the south end of Station Road,” said Bill. “It wasn’t much of a site, because that road was the main way out of the town to the west and was normally jam-packed with traffic. There were a few old shops in it.”
“Five tatty little shops,” said Amanda. “With sleeping quarters over them, except no one could sleep in them because of the racket.”
“Four of them were empty. Gloag picked them up for peanuts. The only one they had any trouble with was old Mrs Piper. She and her family had run their little sweet shop for ages. They had to pay quite a bit to get her out, I believe. When they had the lot, Gloag bought the freehold from Mrs Henn-Christie and sold the whole thing to the supermarket chain.”
“So where does the swindle come in?” said James.
“The swindle was that Gloag knew and Mrs Henn-Christie didn’t know that the new bypass had already been approved. It siphoned all the westbound traffic out of Station Road, and that turned it into the best shopping site in town.”
James thought about it. He said, “If Gloag guessed that the bypass was coming, it wasn’t really a swindle. It was smart business. He outguessed the others.”
“He didn’t guess,” said Bill. “He had inside information. His closest friend is Leo Sandeman, and Leo is chairman of the Roads Committee of the Council.”
“That does look a bit dirty. Have you got any proof?”
“No real proof. But I’m certain of one thing: Gloag must have backers. He’d need a fair amount of cash to set up a ramp like that. And he wouldn’t be putting his own money into it. He’s only an agent.�
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“And it’s the same crowd who are after Fletcher’s Piece?”
“That’s my guess. They’ll make a packet if they get it.”
“Over Father’s dead body they’ll get it,” said Amanda.
“Your dad enjoys a fight,” agreed Bill.
“I’m afraid he overdoes it sometimes. He had a punch-up with Superintendent Bracher this afternoon. I was eavesdropping from the dining room. Very wrong of me, I suppose.”
Everyone agreed that it was very wrong of her and urged her to tell them all about it. When she had done so, Peter said, “If Len Masters is a sneak thief, I’m a rotten judge of character.”
“Of course he isn’t,” said Bill.
“The choristers approve of him,” agreed Amanda, “and they’re good judges of character. They’d be very upset if they heard about it.”
“You’re behind the times,” said Peter. “They’ve not only heard about it. They know who the informer was.”
“How could they?”
“One of the maids was in the marketplace and saw the whole thing. She told the cook. The cook told the gardener’s boy, Charlie, and Charlie told Andrew Gould.”
“Beats the African tom-tom, doesn’t it?” said Bill. “Who was the sneak?”
“Rosa Pilcher. Who else?”
“Rosa,” explained Amanda for James’ benefit, “is a natural disaster. And, like a natural disaster, she can’t be avoided. She does for the Archdeacon and for us and has her finger in half a dozen other pies as well. We only put up with her because we can’t get anyone else.” She added, with satisfaction, “When I tell Daddy who it was started this Masters business, he’ll tear a strip off her.”
“If he’s too rough, she won’t help with the Friends’ lunch on Saturday.”
“I don’t care,” said Amanda. “It’s time someone told that nasty little toad where she gets off. Time I was going, too. Thanks for the coffee.”
“I’ll come with you,” said James. “I’ve got a lot more questions to ask. I realise now that when I was here before, I never really got outside the school. I’d no idea that so much was going on all round me.”
The Black Seraphim Page 5