Clerical Errors

by D M Greenwood

  The grass was short without being a lawn and the two yew trees on either side of the door were trimmed and supported. She stepped down through the great door knowing, from long experience of the signs, that she would find a well kept and tended church. And so it proved. A strong smell of polish of all kinds, furniture, brass and floor, mingling with the scent of sweetpeas greeted her. At the far end, in the tiny chancel, the sanctuary light glowed. Theodora made her way up the chancel, genuflected briefly and knelt in the silent pew, praying for ‘the soul of thy servant, Paul, his family and all who worship here’.

  When she had finished, she allowed her eyes to wander round the area of the altar. The peace of the place was extreme and healing. Suddenly she stopped relaxing and concentrated. She noticed something which at first seemed familiar and natural and then, as its significance dawned on her, sinister. There were two large candles on the altar and the one on the north side was of a slightly different colour to the one on the south. Moreover, at its base, clearly to be seen by the practised eye, were the shield, square cross and crossed swords of St Manicus’s Cathedral arms.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cathedral Offices

  The Cathedral clock struck two and Ian Caretaker shifted in his bunk beneath the for’ard deck. It was frightfully hot. He had a slight headache. The tiny movements of the wherry and the gentle, muted river sounds which came to him through the warm night air gave him no relief. But it was not the warmth of the night which kept him awake, nor the hectic business of the day in the office, where they had had to deal with all the additional pressures which the murder had brought to the diocese.

  As he went over the events of last Saturday night once more he recalled the complex thudding of the expertly played drum, and his rush into the derelict asylum out–building. He had told no one where he was going but on the following day, Sunday, in the strong light of noon, he had returned to the out–building and searched it thoroughly. He had found nothing more, except that on the beaten earth of the floor there had been a single dark stain, from what he could not tell. It was, however, the candle which puzzled him most. Half an inch from the bottom of the stem were the shield, square cross and crossed swords of the arms of St Manicus Cathedral.

  He was at a loss to understand the significance of this. The Cathedral had its candles made, as many cathedrals did, by Farris of London. The Cathedral arms were placed on the largest candles – not the tapers which the pious burnt in the side chapels but the candles which were placed on the high altar. Somehow one of the St Manicus’s altar candles had found its way to an out–building of the asylum and had witnessed there … what? Caretaker turned his imagination away. An altar candle would not be an easy thing to steal. Moreover, no theft of that sort had been reported to him, which it certainly would have been; or rather, it would have been reported to Canon Wheeler. Wheeler, however, did not always pass on the relevant information to his assistant. Knowledge is power and withholding it meant that Wheeler could then play a blame game with Ian for his not knowing something which he ought to have known. Had this happened in this case? Had candles from the Cathedral gone missing? Had Canon Wheeler not known, or had he known and not passed on the information? And if the latter, was it a blame game that he was playing or some other sort of game?

  How, Ian wondered, would he discover which was true? If it meant interrogating Wheeler, he knew he could not do it. Wheeler’s manner to him was studiedly insulting. After one or two early passages of arms, when Wheeler had first come into the post, in which it became apparent that Wheeler was prepared to be a good deal nastier to Ian than Ian was to him, Ian had settled for a civil service manner in which he made no attempt to contribute to the department’s thinking. In time it had become apparent that, although Wheeler enjoyed giving orders and making speeches, there was not much else he could do. There was nothing between rhetoric and imperative. He had no policies. He lived from hand to mouth making instant resolves every time he opened his mail. The amassing of information, reflection, discussion and analysis which form the necessary seedbed of policy, were outside Wheeler’s purview. He lived entirely by impulse. Ian pulled himself up short. His contempt for Wheeler, he feared, was becoming obsessive. Yet he hated to think of Wheeler, who represented everything bogus and hollow, desecrating his beloved church.

  Ian shook himself free from his bunk, pulled on his flannels and swung himself up the companionway and on to the deck. It was pitch–black and still oppressively hot. He noticed that the modern Dutch yacht, their constant neighbour over the past six months was back in her berth next to the wherry. He looked toward the Cathedral across the water. Suddenly he found himself awake and alert. Had he imagined it or had he seen a light flickering in the window of the St Manicus chapel? He looked away and then looked back. Yes, there it was again, undoubtedly a dim glow of light in the two small windows of the oldest part of the Cathedral at two fifteen in the morning. Caretaker reflected: if he got the Amy Roy’s tender out and rowed across, it would take about fifteen minutes. If he went round by either the footbridge or the traffic bridge it would take him longer since the wherry lay about halfway between the two. He looked again. The light was gone. A shadow appeared at his side; Dhani’s neat figure was at his elbow.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think there’s someone in the Cathedral.’

  ‘Do you want to go and see?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘If you want yes,’ said Dhani carefully, ‘I will accompany you.’

  Ian was moved. Dhani really was his strength and stay now, as in time past. Ian watched his breath in the Buddhist manner for a moment or two and then laughed. ‘It’s all getting too fraught,’ he said. ‘Let’s treat it as a pleasure jaunt.’ Dhani smiled.

  Ian sculled, Dhani worked the rudder. They worked well together and soon they tied up at the town quay. The town was very quiet and once on land, they broke into a trot. Skirting the end of the market they ran round the lawn between the St Manicus chapel and Canons’ Court. Here Ian slowed up. He glanced up at the windows of the three handsome houses. No lights were to be seen in any of them. He cursed himself for not having brought his keys. Dhani pointed to the wooden door in the wall of the St Manicus chapel. It was ajar. Ian moved cautiously into the shadow of the Cathedral and pushed open the small door. It led directly into the chapel. From there it was possible to get into the Cathedral only through a large, very heavy door directly opposite the one they had just come through.

  Dhani sniffed the chapel. ‘There is no one here,’ he whispered. They made their way across to the heavy door and it swung open at their touch. Ian was not sure whether it ought to have been locked or not. On the other side they paused. They were in the south aisle of the Cathedral nave, not too far from the great west door. To their right was the nave altar and behind that was the organ loft separating off the choir, presbytery and apse chapel. The latter was a memorial chapel dedicated to the local territorial unit of the Medewich Light Infantry.

  Dhani sniffed again. ‘Someone here,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll take the north aisle and you take the south. We’ll meet by the high altar.’ He had spent five years at a English public school, so the lay–out of Anglican cathedrals was not unknown to him.

  Ian nodded. In spite of his apprehensions, the atmosphere of the Cathedral was so familiar to him, its contents so well loved, that he could not feel frightened in it. The darkness was palpable. He turned to his right and padded softly over the familiar, uneven stone floor. Every few yards he stopped, listened and touched the wall with his right hand just above his head. In this way he knew where he was. For, placed at shoulder height at intervals on the walls of the aisle, were memorial tablets from the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries. Ian knew each one intimately. He moved confidently from the two charming putti who supported the tablet to Major the Honourable Clement Braithwaite, fallen at Peshawar in 1840, to that of the religious and virtuous Clarissa, relict of Bertrand Hardy of this county. By the time h
e reached the distinctive Carolingian script of the seventeenth–century monument to Sir Edward Turner, Bart, with its pleasant tag, Vivit post funera virtus, he knew he was in the transept crossing.

  Here there was more light. The huge nineteenth–century organ case which divided the nave from the choir reared itself up above him. He could not see Dhani but calculated that he might by now be opposite him in the north transept. He made for the central entrance to the choir under the organ and almost collided with Dhani, who giggled. The red sanctuary lamp glowed ahead of them, to the left of the high altar.

  Suddenly there was a loud crash. Dhani and Ian broke into a run, taking the high altar steps three at a time. They circled the altar itself, covered the five yards behind it and skidded to a halt in the entrance to the Medewich Light Infantry memorial chapel in the apse. Nothing was to be seen. There was no sound. Ian was breathing heavily, Dhani less so. There was a patch of light from the lancet window making a pattern on the floor of the chapel. Round the walls were the dim forms of the banners and arms hung up, monuments of the Infantry’s past campaigns. Suddenly Dhani darted forward. On the altar there lay a long dark shadow. Caretaker watched, breathless. There was a hissing sound and Dhani drew a long silver shadow out of the black one. He held both of them for a moment before turning to Ian and presenting him with a sword drawn from its scabbard. Ian felt the sword edge. It was extremely sharp. Far sharper than any memorial or dress sword should be.

  ‘The weapon,’ he whispered. Dhani nodded.

  Then in the distance they heard the sound of a door shutting very quietly. Caretaker replaced the sword on the altar and started out of the chapel. He knew exactly which door that one was. He turned to the right and made for the north choir aisle. The door was closed when he reached it but it was not locked. Dhani and Caretaker came out of the Cathedral, emerging on to gravel and looked right. The stately stone gate piers of the Bishop’s Palace confronted them. In the first storey a light showed in what was probably one of the Palace’s drawing–rooms or studies.

  Caretaker’s heart sank. Dhani gestured to the door through which they had just come and said, ‘That door then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian. ‘It’s known as the Bishop’s door. Only he is supposed to have a key to it.’

  ‘Let’s get this straight,’ said Inspector Tallboy without any great hopefulness in his tone. ‘You and Mr Tambiah were in the Cathedral at two thirty this morning having’ – he glanced at his notes in disbelief – ‘rowed across from the wherry, Amy Roy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian. ‘I was …’

  ‘One thing at a time, if you please,’ said the Inspector. He had the light behind him and a WPC took shorthand just out of range of Ian’s sight. ‘You have lodgings with Mr Tambiah on that wherry and have had since this time last year?’

  ‘Yes,’said Ian, ‘I had to …’

  ‘Just a moment, please sir,’ said the Inspector. How he hated all this, he thought. Give him a nice straightforward GBH case in the back streets of the Cumbermound development any day rather than these smartarse church intellectuals with their fancy words and their finicky manners and their too high opinions of themselves. Getting one of their own lot decapitated and then losing the body. Ceremonial swords all over the place. The theatricality of the thing offended him. It was all very well for the Super to smile his superior smile and say things like ‘Culturally, Tallboy, it lifts it out of the common rut of murders, wouldn’t you agree?’ As far as he, Tallboy, was concerned he could have it.

  It felt as though the whole local aristocracy was towering over him. The Chief Constable fussed around the Bishop, the press had been shut up, or anyway given a damn sight less than they would have been if it hadn’t been a priest’s body, or rather, head. Then this morning, there had been a note from the Super saying the Dean had requested that the police officers who were investigating the crime should please remember where they were when going in and out of the Cathedral. The Chapter – whatever that was – were anxious that services should be disrupted as little as possible. What did he expect them to do, for God’s sake? Say a prayer every time they searched the Infantry chapel?

  ‘And the reason you made that trip,’ continued Inspector Tallboy wearily, ‘was because you saw a light in the St Manicus chapel window?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian. This time he did not try to add anything.

  ‘And was it a bright light, sir?’ The Inspector stressed the word ‘bright’ as though talking to a ten–year–old with limited vocabulary.

  Ian thought how he hated all this. Why hadn’t Dhani and he just kept quiet. But of course they couldn’t have just left a possible murder weapon on the altar with their fingerprints all over it. ‘It occurred to me at the time,’ said Ian carefully, thinking that two could play at infant teaching, ‘that it was candlelight, not, that is to say’ – he managed contempt in his tone with no effort at all – ‘electric light.’

  ‘I see, sir,’ said the Inspector stiffly.

  Tallboy had a large lugubrious face, arms too long for the shirtmaker to cope with, and an air of fighting his clothes rather than wearing them. At the moment he seemed to find all of them constricting. The two men were in a diocesan office room, directly under Canon Wheeler’s, which was used as a conference room. It had the slightly stale smell of such untended places. A polished mahogany table, big enough to seat twenty people, ran down the middle of it. Painstakingly the Inspector took Ian through his movements of the previous night whilst Ian set his teeth and said ‘yes’ at intervals. Finally, the Inspector said, ‘And what made you feel that you had the Reverend Gray’s murder weapon in your hand when you held the sword?’

  That’s the only sensible question the fellow has asked and I can’t damn well answer it, Ian thought. ‘It was much too sharp,’ he said after a pause.

  ‘I see, sir,’ said the Inspector heavily. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No,’ said Ian. It made a change from saying ‘yes’.

  After Caretaker had gone the Inspector leaned back in his chair and stretched. The WPC flipped through her shorthand note book and looked up. ‘Think he did it?’ she asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ said the Inspector vindictively. ‘Getting me out of bed at three thirty in the morning.’

  Theodora leant back in her chair and stretched, the confines of her office dictating that she extended up and not backwards. Julia sat on the desk and swung her legs. It was quarter past eleven in the morning. They were drinking horrible coffee from paper cups in Ian’s and Theodora’s attic office.

  ‘Ian’s been with the Inspector since quarter past ten,’ said Julia.

  Theodora looked worried. ‘I shouldn’t really be here. I ought to have gone to Markham cum Cumbermound to see the PCC vicechairman. But I thought Ian might need a bit of support when he gets out.’

  Theodora really does make attempts on the Christian life, Julia thought. ‘What do they want to find out?’ she asked.

  ‘What we all want to find out I suppose: who killed Paul Gray and was it done with the regimental sword from the Infantry chapel?’

  ‘They had Canon Wheeler for an hour first, I gather,’ Julia said with relish. The idea of Wheeler being grilled by the police cheered her enormously. ‘Something to do with keys for the Cathedral.’

  There was a step outside the door and Ian came in. He looked white and haggard. When he saw Theodora he looked surprised.

  ‘I thought you were going to Markham cum Cumbermound?’

  ‘Yes, I was. I am. One or two things cropped up. Would you care for some coffee?’

  ‘They’ve got the Dean at the moment and the Archdeacon’s next. Then they’re going over to the Palace to see the Bishop,’ said Julia chattily. ‘According to Miss Coldharbour, that is. She, of course has the timetable. Is there anything that woman doesn’t know?’

  ‘About Wheeler, not much, I should think,’ said Ian. ‘She’s been with him longer than anyone else on his staff. I can’t think why she stays because he’s no easier on
her than on the rest of us.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s his paramour,’ said Julia, delighted to have found a use for the word.

  ‘Much joy may she have of him. I’d have thought he might be impotent,’ said Ian judiciously.

  Theodora clearly thought that discussion of Canon Wheeler’s sexual preferences had gone far enough. ‘I thought Rosamund seemed rather flustered this morning when I saw her.’

  Ian grinned. ‘I gather Charles made life uncomfortable for everyone after the police had seen him. They’re looking into the matter of keys. I rather think heads will roll. Oh, Heavens, I’m sorry.’ He stopped in confusion.

  Julia said soothingly, ‘Why should Canon Wheeler be expected by the police to know about keys?’

  ‘Well,’ Ian said, ‘he’s supposed to be responsible to the Dean and Chapter for Cathedral security. In reality, of course, the vergers keep the keys and do the locking up. But each member of the Chapter has a set and Wheeler is supposed to check them every now and again. If people are leaving severed heads in fonts and monkeying about with regimental relics after hours they’d need keys and naturally it’s awkward for Charles if …’

  Ian did not complete the sentence. The door of the office was opened abruptly and Canon Wheeler’s tall figure stood framed in it. There was an uneasy silence. Theodora rose. Julia slid off the desk. After a moment’s hesitation, Ian got up. Having obtained his effect, Wheeler said abruptly, ‘Caretaker, I want you downstairs.’

  He turned on his heel and Ian followed him out, closing the door. Theodora remained standing, polishing her reading glasses vigorously. Julia dropped into Ian’s vacated chair.