by James Runcie
‘You don’t seem to care for the other women in Mr Staunton’s life?’ he asked.
‘Why should I care for them? They did not make him happy. In fact, they contributed to his misery . . .’
‘I am not sure Miss Morrison could be considered guilty of that . . .’
‘She is an irrelevance, Canon Chambers.’
‘Although she seems to know rather a lot about her employer. She knew where he went and she certainly made excuses for him when he was in places where, perhaps, he should not have been. Are you sure that your relationship with him was a secret?’
‘I don’t think little Miss Moribund knew a thing. There was only my friend Helen in London. The odd “seen-it-all-before” barman might have guessed but no one else.’
‘And you are convinced that your husband did not have his suspicions?’
‘I’m not stupid, Canon Chambers. I know how to keep secrets. Have you heard of Tupperware?’
Sidney was distracted by this sudden change of tack. Something Mrs Maguire had once said when she replenished the larder came back to him. ‘Don’t they have those American-style parties for housewives?’
‘It’s not the parties I’m interested in. They’re plastic boxes that keep food fresh and separate. No cross-contamination. Nothing gets in; nothing comes out.’
‘And so you “Tupperware” your life?’
‘That’s right, Canon Chambers. I keep things separate. It’s like making meringues . . .’
Sidney understood the allusion but was not sure that dividing the white of an egg from its yolk was on a par with adultery.
‘You have to keep things fresh, Sidney,’ Pamela continued with her egg-bound metaphor, ‘and discrete. Both discrete and discreet if you know what I mean. Sometimes people are not aware of the difference between the words so I think it’s safer to do both. That way no one is hurt.’
Sidney could not remember allowing Pamela Morton to call him by his Christian name but was too surprised by her way of looking at human behaviour to comment. He decided to challenge her. ‘There is a flaw . . . of course.’
‘Which is?’
‘Well, if there are two of you then you both have to be equally diligent about your Tupperware, or, indeed, your egg whites. The slightest bit of yolk . . .’
‘That’s true. But Stephen was very careful. Do you know about the private diary?’
‘His secretary mentioned it.’
‘Well, he certainly made sure she never saw it. He kept it in his jacket pocket. That was the one that could tell you what was really going on.’
‘But his secretary kept an office diary . . .’
‘That was for show. What he really thought and what he really got up to was in the private notebook. Miss Morrison did not know him as well as she thought she did.’
‘I am not so sure about that. But I am surprised that you do not appear to accept this note as being genuine.’
Pamela Morton hesitated. ‘Have you shown it to the police?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But you will.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then I hope you will be appropriately sceptical.’
‘I haven’t decided what I think,’ Sidney replied, but knew that he would have to see Stephen Staunton’s widow once more.
It was always a difficult matter for a vicar to decide when to call in on his parishioners. The traditional hours were between three and five, before Evensong and the preparation either of high tea or dinner; but clearly those hours were unsuitable for people in employment and Sidney knew that Hildegard Staunton sometimes taught piano to private pupils after school. He therefore decided to risk a visit at six-thirty, making the assumption that she would be at home and unlikely to be either dining or entertaining. This proved correct.
Josef Locke’s ‘I’ll take you home again, Kathleen’ was playing on the wireless when he arrived. Hildegard switched it off and offered him tea.
His hostess was wearing the same green housecoat and appeared nervous; embarrassed even. ‘I am sorry I was in a dream when you last came. It was unfortunate. I could speak to people after the funeral because it was soon and I knew that I had to. Then afterwards . . . it was the shock, I think.’
‘I did not think that you were in a dream.’
‘I am sure I was rude. And sometimes, when I am sad, my English disappears. Do you speak any German?’
‘Nur ein wenig . . . Können Sie mir den Weg zur nächsten Stadt zeigen?’
Hildegard laughed.
‘From the war, you understand. Sie sind eine sehr anziehende junge Dame. Spielen Sie Fußball?’
‘No, Canon Chambers I do not play football. Würden Sie gerne tanzen?’
‘Ach, ich bin kein Tänzer. I am afraid I am not a dancer.’
‘Was für eine Schande. Did you find out about the will?’ she asked.
‘I am afraid that there doesn’t seem to be one. But as his wife, you will no doubt be the beneficiary. This house, his savings . . .’
‘I am afraid there are more likely to be debts. No doubt Miss Morrison will tell me.’
‘I take it that you are not too fond of Miss Morrison.’
‘I didn’t see her enough to have an opinion. I think she thought that she was more responsible for my husband’s well-being than I was myself. I did not mind too much. I have never found jealousy helpful . . .’
‘Although she might have been jealous of you, of course?’ Sidney began.
‘I do not think it likely that she was in love with my husband if that is what you mean. But she did like to know everything that was going on.’
‘I can imagine,’ Sidney replied. ‘But I gather he had a separate diary. So she can’t have known everything . . .’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘She told me.’
‘There is nothing much in it. The police returned it to me with what they said were his “effects”. I didn’t understand what they meant.’
‘Have you put them somewhere safe?’
‘They are here,’ Hildegard replied. ‘Would you like me to show you?’
‘You don’t have to.’
Hildegard took up a box from the sideboard. ‘It seems very strange now. It is like something in a museum, the few possessions of a life: a wallet, a diary, cigarettes and a pencil with a rubber on the top. Sometimes I think my husband could still come back and the house would be as he had left it. I pretend that he has not died. One morning I poured two cups of tea before I realised that I only needed one.’
‘I’m sorry . . .’ said Sidney.
Hildegard stood up and opened the box. ‘The police also asked if I wanted to keep the gun. What would I want with a gun?’ She handed Sidney her husband’s diary.
‘What is this life,’ she asked, ‘but days that have passed? My husband wrote down the things he had to remember in pencil and then when each day was over he rubbed out what had happened.’
‘An unusual habit . . .’
‘When I saw him doing this for the first time he smiled and told me that another day was gone. He sounded relieved. He was rubbing out his life. Sometimes he would leave the house late at night and go for a walk. He could be away for hours. I never knew where he went. He could disappear, morning or night, and when I asked he told me that he just wanted to keep the black dog away. I think he preferred the night, when there was no one to trouble him. That’s why he slept in the day – another hour could be lost.’
‘He slept in the day?’
‘After lunch; a sleep for one hour exactly, even in office hours. He stayed on into the evenings to make up for it and was always last to leave and lock up. Often he was late for dinner, or distracted, and sometimes I didn’t know what I could do or say to help him. I asked him if perhaps it made life worse, to wake up twice in a day . . .’
Sidney opened the diary. It was small and leather-bound; the leaves were of lightweight paper and it came with a rubber-topped pencil in its spine. The pages were so f
ragile that some had been torn through excessive rubbing out. Inside the front cover, written in an italic hand was the owner’s name, S. Staunton. On one page he read the word ‘Anniversary’ and on the first of August ‘H’s birthday’. The only other markings were the traces of a pencilled division between morning and afternoon – A.M. and P.M. Perhaps, Sidney thought, they were the remnants of appointments either side of his afternoon nap.
‘And he would sleep anywhere?’ Sidney asked.
‘It was a routine. At two o’clock every day. His last appointment ended every morning at 12.30. Lunch. Sleep. And then his next appointment would be at 3.15. He was like a machine. He could sleep through anything. A bomb could go off and he would not notice. I sometimes worried that if he was ever driving the car at two o’clock he would fall asleep, crash the car and kill himself. In the end he did not need a car to do that for him . . .’
Sidney leafed through the diary. There didn’t seem to be anything of note but perhaps, he wondered, he could examine it more closely at home, when he had more time. Then he might be able to work out what had been erased. ‘Do you mind if I borrow this?’ he asked.
‘There is nothing to see.’
‘I would like to think about it a little more. It might be the basis of a sermon, perhaps; the disappearance of the days . . .’
‘For they are as grass.’
Sidney had a sudden memory. ‘Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras. Brahms’s German Requiem.’
‘You know it?’
‘I heard it in Heidelberg, just after the war. I found it very moving: the singing in unison at the start of the second movement, the journey from pain to comfort.’
‘It was popular all over Germany. It was like a death march.’
Sidney was still holding the diary. ‘I know this must have a sentimental value.’
‘We were not sentimental people.’
‘I’m not sure that I agree with you. Your husband remembered your birthday and, it seems, your wedding anniversary.’
‘He was good about those things. It was easy for him to remember. Then he could feel confident. He was a kind man who wanted to please people. I could not help him as much as I wanted to. I should have been a better wife.’
‘You must not blame yourself.’
‘How can I not? My husband took his own life.’
‘But he must have had friends?’
‘You came to the funeral. They were there. But we did not socialise. My husband did not enjoy the politeness of dinner parties. He did not like being forced to behave well. He preferred to see people on their own . . .’
‘And out of office hours?’
‘I did not mind who my husband saw. I did not ask questions. He was kind to me. We had this house. We had food. I was warm. And I could play the piano as much as I liked without being disturbed. It was not complicated. All I wanted in my life was someone to be kind to me and I found him. We were not happy all the time but I do not think we were ever sad. Now, of course, this has gone . . .’
Sidney wondered if Hildegard was about to cry and then realised that it was he who was on the verge of tears. He felt immense pity and yet he could not think how to express it or give her comfort. ‘You have your memories,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, of course.’ Hildegard Staunton tried to accept Sidney’s cliché. ‘I have my memories. Not that all of them are good. And now I have to start again.’
‘If there’s anything I can do?’
Sidney knew that his offer was weak but he was surprised by the alacrity of Hildegard Staunton’s response. ‘You can pray for me, Canon Chambers. That would be helpful. And you can pray for my husband too. I would like to know that you are doing that; that someone will care for us. You know that some believe that people who take their own life will never go to heaven?’
‘I am not one of those people,’ said Sidney. ‘And it is not for me to judge. We live as we can. If we cannot meet our hopes and expectations, then we fall short. It is, if you will forgive me, part of being a Christian. We are not as we might be . . .’
Hildegard gave Sidney the faintest of smiles. ‘Is that not a very long way of saying that nobody is perfect?’
‘It is,’ said Sidney. ‘Perhaps you should be a priest yourself . . .’
‘Oh, I don’t think that would be allowed.’
‘You could be a deaconess . . .’
‘Now you are teasing me . . .’
‘I like to see you smile,’ said Sidney, boldly.
‘And I like it that you make me smile,’ Hildegard replied.
One of the advantages of being a clergyman, Sidney decided, was that you could disappear. Between services no one quite knew where you were, who you might be visiting, or what you might be doing: and so, on most Mondays, his designated day off, he would bicycle a few miles out of town, ride out through the village lanes of Trumpington and Shelford, and then take the Roman Road for Wandlebury Ring and the Iron-Age forts of the Gog Magog Hills. In such a flat Cambridgeshire landscape Sidney liked the gently sloping elevation of the hills, the prehistoric route ways around him, the sense that he was part of a longer, more distant history, of barrows, vortexes and ley lines. This was a pre-Christian landscape that connected with an ancient folk tradition, with its reports of haunting apparitions, ghostly packs of dogs and giant chalk figures carved into the ground.
Here Sidney sat, with the ham sandwich and flask of tea that Mrs Maguire had prepared, and let thoughts come to him. It was a form of prayer, he decided. It was not asking or talking but waiting and listening.
The view was not as spectacular as that of the hills of Antrim that Stephen Staunton must have known as a child, but Sidney was content that it had a smaller English beauty; a contained, unfolding series of vistas that were never still as the sun moved through the clouds. He took sustenance and consolation from what he had come to refer to as ‘healing views’. There was no one to disturb him; no telephone calls, no unwelcome letters, no knock at the door.
Autumn was his favourite time of year, not simply for its changing colours but for the crispness in the air and the sharpness of the light. As the leaves fell the landscape revealed itself, like a painting being cleaned or a building being renewed. He could see the underlying shape of things. This was what he wanted, he decided: moments of clarity and silence.
The grass and the fields were damp after the morning rain and Sidney could not sit down. Instead, he leaned on a five-bar gate, ate his sandwich and drank his tea, letting his thoughts roam. When he had finished, he decided to climb on to the gate itself, perching on its top rung, as if he were still a boy with a whole day stretching before him and nothing to do but waste it. He looked out over the surrounding countryside and wondered how many other people had been confronted with this same view over time, and thought that this was home; this was England.
He began to consider the case in which he had become involved. He was sure that Pamela Morton was right to be suspicious about Stephen Staunton’s death, and all was not as it appeared, but how could he give her misgivings weight and substance? Why would a man whom so many people had been at pains to point out was clearly a potential suicide not have taken his own life? And if he had been murdered then who could have done it? Clive Morton could have had a financial motive and Hildegard Staunton certainly had cause for resentment.
Sidney was unsettled by his feelings. On approaching the Staunton residence he had felt depressed and ill at ease, but as soon as he had sat down with Hildegard he had not wanted to leave. Had her tragedy made him pity her, or were his feelings more than sympathy for her fate? Had he even, he wondered, become so fond of her that he could not believe that she could ever make a man so miserable that he would want to kill himself?
Sidney watched the low sharp light of the day start to disappear behind the trees and remembered that he had no lights on his bicycle.
He would have to get back.
He returned home, poured himself the smallest of Johnnie Walker’s ag
ainst the chill of the night, and looked at Stephen Staunton’s suicide note once more. Then, as the whisky took care of his anxieties, the beginnings of an idea started to emerge.
He picked up the pocket diary and looked at the seemingly random arrangements of mornings and afternoons that had been added in pencil.
How could he have been so slow? It annoyed him beyond measure. To have taken the information at face value; to believe what people wanted him to believe! How had he allowed himself to be taken in?
He realised that he needed to see Pamela Morton once more, and urgently, but when he telephoned it was her husband who answered. Struck by a sudden moment of nerves, Sidney put down the receiver.
The next day, he sent her a note but it was late the following afternoon before she called on him in person. After he had poured them both cups of tea, Sidney leaned forward in his chair and said: ‘I think, after all this time, that I might be making progress.’
Pamela Morton was still, surprisingly, ungrateful. ‘Well, that would make a pleasant change.’
‘It has not been easy, Mrs Morton, and I do think it might have been simpler if you had gone straight to the police rather than a clergyman who is ill-equipped to deal with these matters . . .’
‘There is no need to be defensive, Canon Chambers. I know you would not have summoned me to your home if you did not have something to tell me. Is there the faintest chance that you might actually believe me?’
I have always believed you, Mrs Morton . . .’
‘I have told you before. Pamela . . .’
Sidney ignored her request. ‘Although I do need to ask you to account for your movements . . .’
‘On the day of the murder? You don’t think I’m a suspect? That would be rich.’
‘No, I am not saying that.’
‘But you might be suggesting it.’
‘Well, it would be a good way of throwing an investigator off the scent; to suggest a murder that no one has considered to be murder; to open a case that was never going to be opened. Perhaps one would only do that if one wanted to frame someone else?’