by Mike Ripley
Bill Bailey risked another slurp of sherry to fuel his courage. ‘I’ve met Campion, Bishop. We had dealings over that business with the Carders gang at Lindsay Carfax. The last thing I’d call him is simple, and if you get that impression of him, it’s because he wants you to.’
‘So he’s a reliable sort of chap? What I would call a stout fellow?’
Bill Bailey suspected that the bishop’s definition of ‘stout fellow’ was a man who agreed with him and did his bidding without question. From what he knew of him, that was a bill Campion did not fit, and it might not be wise to sing his praises too loudly. Bailey was the one, after all, who had to live on the bishop’s patch.
‘Charlie Luke speaks very highly of him,’ he said after due consideration.
‘Who?’
‘Commander Charles Luke at Scotland Yard. He knows Campion of old, mostly in London but also here in Suffolk; he would be the best person to speak to if you’re looking for a character reference. I’m assuming Campion is in the running for the Visitor job.’
‘It’s not a job, it’s an honorary appointment,’ said the bishop, ‘and his name has been mentioned, but what about this Commander Luke? You hinted he had Suffolk connections …’
‘I think his wife was from around Pontisbright.’
‘Was?’ The bishop was instantly en garde.
‘She died giving birth to a daughter,’ said Bailey, and when the bishop brightened at the revelation of widowhood rather than divorce, he added, ‘but a senior serving policeman couldn’t take on such a position, however honorary, and it could only inflame the more radical students.’
‘You have a point, Bill. Student protests don’t go down well with ratepayers and there are … elements … only too keen to confront the police.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said the policeman.
‘Quite so, but you think Commander Luke would speak up for Campion?’
‘He’s far more qualified than I to sing Campion’s praises,’ said Bill Bailey, thinking that Luke would also be well out of range of the bishop’s wrath if anything went wrong with the selection process.
‘Then I may very well call in on Commander Luke when I’m up in London next.’
Bailey had no doubt that the bishop would demand an appointment with the commander, even if Parliament was on fire and the streets a sea of rioting crowds. ‘I look forward to seeing a puff of white smoke emerging from the roof of New Scotland Yard,’ said Bailey without thinking.
The bishop scowled. ‘White smoke? I’m not picking a pope. That would be highly Catholic!’
Charles Luke had realized, from his very first day on the beat as a uniformed constable, that the lot of the policeman was to deal with difficult people. As his career had progressed and he had advanced in rank, the people he came into contact with changed but they always came with difficulties; just a better class of difficulty.
He had agreed to see the Bishop of St Edmondsbury because commanders of the Metropolitan Police are expected to grant such requests out of politeness and good public relations. There might also, in this case, be an operational necessity, in that the See of St Edmondsbury, for peculiar reasons lost in London’s smoky history, happened to own the freehold on two venerable seventeenth-century public houses in the city, both of which were within a few minutes’ walk of Fleet Street, which made them important cogs in the wheel of public opinion.
The bishop, who was not unaware of his responsibilities as a nominal licensed victualler, soon made it clear that his visit to Commander Luke had nothing to do with the licensing law (or the lack of its observance given the proximity of Fleet Street). It was a private matter, though professional not personal, and he was sure he could rely on the commander’s discretion.
When the call of duty did not draw him away from the building, Luke preferred to take his morning coffee in the canteen with his officers, where he often learned much to his advantage, but the visit of a bishop called for the best crockery and the fanciest biscuits served in his office. At least there he could set an alarm clock in the form of his secretary, who was primed to interrupt him with an important telephone call after exactly seventeen minutes – the odd number being selected to divert the suspicions of his visitor.
‘It’s about this chap Campion,’ said the bishop, once his coffee had been sugared and his Bourbon biscuit dunked. ‘I believe you know him.’
‘Albert Campion? Yes, I’ve known him for nigh on twenty-five years and for most of them I’ve been proud to call him a friend,’ said Luke, settling himself into his broad uniform jacket, which a colleague had once said had been ‘tailored to fit an oak tree’.
‘Most of them?’ The bishop raised an eyebrow.
‘I won’t deny there have been times when he’s infuriated me to the point of wanting to strangle him, but that was invariably when he turned out to be right on the money over something I’d missed. He’s a clever boy is our Albert and, though it often looks as if he’s playing the idiot, just remember, he is playing.’
‘Would you say you knew him well, then?’
‘Apart from his wife – and she had him pegged from the moment she first set eyes on him – there’s only one other person who really knows him. Albert likes to keep a low profile and does so, which is remarkable considering what he gets up to. Amazingly, given his society connections, he manages to stay well under the radar of the gossip columns.’
‘Good,’ said the bishop, ‘that’s very good. Would you know if he has an interest in the university sector of higher education?’
‘Well, he’s a Cambridge man …’ Luke began.
‘Excellent,’ breathed the bishop.
‘St Ignatius College, I believe …’
‘Oh well, never mind.’
‘And his son Rupert went to Harvard over in America, but if you’re looking for a brainbox in that family, Lady Amanda’s got degrees and honours from three or four universities.’
The bishop fondled another biscuit as he considered this. ‘Lady Amanda … one of the Fitton family … she became some sort of aeronautical engineer, didn’t she?’
‘Quite a successful one,’ said Luke. ‘She advises numerous companies and even the government.’
‘Odd choice of career, for a woman.’ The bishop’s tone suggested that he rarely used the words ‘woman’ and ‘career’ in the same sentence.
‘She would make a very impressive Visitor for your university,’ pressed Luke. ‘I know she does talks in schools and technical colleges encouraging young girls to take up more of the science subjects.’
The bishop shook his head slowly in a passable imitation, thought Luke, of genuine regret. ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he said slowly. ‘The University of Suffolk Coastal has a very liberal policy when it comes to admitting females, but we do not offer degrees in engineering and I think Lady Amanda’s talents would be wasted on us. The Visitor does not have to be an academic; goodness knows we employ plenty of them.’
‘Then what are you looking for in a Visitor?’ asked Luke, desperately resisting the urge to look at his watch to see if seventeen minutes had passed.
‘Someone more diplomatic than academic. Someone personable rather than intellectual. In fact, they don’t actually have to be that bright at all, just someone who gets on with people.’
‘Well, Albert certainly gets on with people – all sorts of people – but I’ve no idea if he’s looking for a new job. He’s supposed to be retired now and he’s got his seventieth birthday coming up next May.’
The bishop waved a biscuit-less hand in dismissal. ‘Oh, it’s hardly a job. The Visitor’s duties are hardly onerous. He would be expected to say a few words to new students at the start of the academic year and perhaps at congregation when the third-years get their degrees. Other than that, they can be called on to adjudicate if there are any minor disputes between the university and the staff or students. They don’t have to have the wisdom of Solomon, just a fair amount of common sense, and to be able to show a
sincere empathy with the younger generation.’
‘Well, Albert always said that sincerity was an important trait, and if you could fake it successfully, you could get away with murder.’ Luke caught the frown appearing on the bishop’s face. Surely his seventeen minutes must be up by now. ‘He was joking, of course. He’s a bit of a joker is Albert.’
‘Not too much of a comedian, I hope,’ said the bishop uncertainly. ‘He sounds a likely candidate but, if you’ll forgive me, Commander, I will seek a second opinion just to reassure myself. You said there was another person, apart from his wife, who knew Campion even better than you …’
‘Yes, there is, and you really should talk to him,’ said Luke with a smile that was positively wolfish.
Michael Dillon, the custody sergeant at Love Lane police station, had earned the nickname ‘Sweetheart’ for his willingness to supply restorative beverages to those unfortunates who found themselves in his charge, often in distressed circumstances. His ability to provide, at exactly the most felicitous moment, a refreshing mug of sweet tea, instant coffee, Bovril or even, on the night shift, cocoa, had elicited the standard expression of the incarcerated Londoner grateful for small mercies, ‘Thanks, sweetheart’, on occasions without number.
But Sergeant Mike ‘Sweetheart’ Dillon could not recall ever having to put the kettle on for a bishop, or certainly not a real one.
Yet there, standing before his desk as if waiting, as so many had before, to be charged, or for at least the prospect of a warm cell and a bed on a winter’s night, was a bishop. The Bishop of St Edmondsbury, no less; and though Dillon was not terribly sure where St Edmondsbury was, other than beyond Epping, this was not a con-man, a passing cheapjack or even a resting actor, but the genuine article. Of that he had been assured by Commander Charles Luke, whose reputation had spread across all layers and divisions of policing in London, and whose word, especially on the subject of bishops, was gospel.
‘Good morning, my lord, we’ve been expecting you.’
‘Good morning, Sergeant. I hope I’m not putting you to too much trouble.’
‘Not at all, sir. I’ll just grab my helmet and take you round the corner. It’s only a step and a half.’
‘This whole area is unrecognizable since the last time I was here, though that was before the war.’
Sergeant Dillon adjusted the chinstrap on his helmet and lifted the counter flap to allow him to step from behind the desk. The bishop stifled a gasp of surprise as he realized how tall the sergeant was. With his policeman’s helmet taken into account, he measured almost seven feet in height.
‘It was the Blitz what did it,’ said Dillon, holding the station door for the bishop. ‘December 1940 when this area copped it. Took out St Mary Aldermanbury completely. Just a few bits left to mark the spot where it was.’
‘It has been resurrected – in a sense – across the Atlantic,’ said the bishop, adopting a favourite role as a lecturer. ‘It was a Wren church and the stones were taken by our colonial cousins and reassembled in somewhere called Missouri five or six years ago.’
‘The Brewers’ Hall got flattened at the same time, but at least they rebuilt that instead of selling off the remains as souvenirs to rich Americans.’ Sergeant Dillon turned his head and looked down at his portly companion. ‘You sure you’ve got the right place, sir?’
‘That’s what Commander Luke said. The person I need to talk to has an important position at Brewers’ Hall, and you were volunteered as just the man to effect an introduction.’ He paused as if suddenly remembering something. ‘In fact, he was most insistent that I took someone in uniform with me.’
Somewhere above the bishop, the sergeant nodded wisely. ‘I can see the sense in that,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You sure you’ve got the right chap though? He’s never struck me as one who has much truck with gentlemen of the cloth.’
‘He doesn’t have to be. I am merely asking for his opinion on a third party, someone he knows quite well, I’m told. I’m hoping he will give me a good character reference on this third party. You know the sort of thing, speaking up for his morals and probity.’
Sergeant Dillon broke stride, almost stumbled, in surprise. ‘You’re asking Lugg to vouch for somebody’s morals? Who’s vouching for his?’
In anticipation of the bishop coming to call, Mr Magersfontein Lugg had dressed, as he thought, appropriately, in black jacket, pinstripe trousers, wing-collar shirt and black tie, with his stomach constrained by a favourite grey moleskin waistcoat, in whose back an understanding tailor had inserted a ‘v’ of material to allow a more comfortable fit.
The bishop certainly approved of his host’s formalwear, along with the setting for their meeting, the magnificent Livery Hall, where chairs had been placed at either end of a table polished to mirrored perfection on which was displayed a small selection of the hall’s silverware, mostly large, gleaming tureen-like objects of impressive silver content but little practical value.
It occurred to neither of the participants in that duologue that as they faced each other over the length of that silver-strewn table, they would have reminded an outside observer of a pair of Toby Jugs in a pawnbroker’s window.
‘I am told you are an office holder here,’ was the bishop’s opening gambit, indicating that he approved of their surroundings.
‘You could say that,’ Lugg replied warily.
‘Commander Luke tells me you are a man of probity and ideally placed to help me in a rather delicate matter.’
‘Charlie – Mr Luke – always was free and easy, bright and breezy, when it came to selecting volunteers. Still, a good character reference from him must be worth something in court.’
‘You’ve hit upon it, Mr Lugg, gone straight to the nub and crux of the matter.’
‘I ’as?’ Lugg’s slip might not have been showing, but his accent was certainly slipping.
‘It’s a character reference I’m after, purely verbal, nothing will be put in writing and the whole matter, naturally, treated as completely confidential.’
‘And ’oo exactly would I be sticking up for?’
‘I’m not expecting you to defend him against anything,’ the bishop tried to be reassuring, ‘merely give me your considered opinion of his character. I’m referring to Albert Campion. I believe you know him.’
Lugg relaxed back in his chair, which creaked ominously in protest.
‘I’ve known Albert through the reigns of two kings and our present Queen. Two-and-a-half kings if you count the Abdication. I think you can safely say that if I was his strong right arm, he was my left-hand man. We’ve been through it, thick and thin – mostly thick, come to think of it. Anyhow, what can I tell you about Albert Campion? I’ve got forty years’ chapter and verse on him and I’ve never thrown away the negatives. Is it for a job or something? He was supposed to be retired, but he likes to keep his hand in.’
‘I am considering him for an honorary position; he would be a figurehead, nothing more. It’s not a job as such and will only take up perhaps two days out of a year; there’s hardly anything to it.’
‘Pah!’ Lugg snorted. ‘That’s a red rag to a cross-eyed bull for a start. If he takes your ’onorary posting, he’ll find something to do to stir things up. If life gets too easy for him, ’e gets suspicious and quite often agitated.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the bishop, ‘perhaps I’ve miscalculated …’
‘Don’t let me put you off,’ said the fat man. ‘My manners may leave a lot to be desired, but ’is are h’impeccable, and you can trust him with your life. Come to think of it, he’d probably be very happy to do a favour for a bishop. He ’ad an uncle who was one once.’
‘Yes, the late bishop of Devizes, I believe. That’s certainly a point in Campion’s favour. Would you know how he feels about young people?’
‘’E can take ’em boiled or fried, even scrambled, but not coddled if you follow me.’ The bishop was not sure he did. ‘He doesn’t approve of the ton-up boys on loud motorb
ikes and thinks the Carnaby Street fashions are just a joke gone wrong, but on the whole, he’s probably got more in common with the younger generation than he has agin them. There’s them that would say Albert never really grew up himself. He once persuaded a bank manager that he’d won a gold medal at the Olympics for tiddlywinks and there was his time at Cambridge when he told his tutors that he was a werewolf and that’s why he had to roam the streets after dark.’
‘Now that’s interesting,’ said the bishop, seizing an opening. ‘Would you say Campion got on well with students?’
Mr Lugg’s face folded into an expression of puzzlement which left it resembling a crater on the lighter side of the moon.
‘If they’re marching down Whitehall chucking bricks at policemen, certainly not. If they’re sitting in a tin bath of custard for rag week, he’d give ’em a fiver or, most likely, take his boots off and jump in as well. This ’onorary position of yours, it involves students does it?’
‘Yes it does, at USC.’
‘In California? I don’t know if Albert would fancy that. He’s no spring chicken.’
The bishop contained both his annoyance and surprise at Mr Lugg’s knowledge of geography. ‘No, not that one. The new University of Suffolk Coastal based on Black Dudley.’
‘Black Dudley, eh? That’ll ring a few bells with him. What’s the job?’
‘The position is that of university Visitor. It would be mainly ceremonial, but he could be called upon to arbitrate minor disputes between students and the university. I see the role partly as setting a good example and partly being what the Scandinavians call an ombudsman.’
Lugg’s eyes narrowed to shadowy slits. ‘The current incumbent didn’t exactly set a good example from what I read in the papers, did he? I take it ’is is the position wot needs filling?’