The Blasphemer

by Nigel Farndale

‘Quite a distinguished one. There’s a reference to him in a diary that a friend of mine bought at auction a couple of years ago, part of a job lot. He’s sending it to me …’

  The headstone was worked free and carried with awkward solemnity by two officials from the Nord département towards a waiting van. When they returned, they marked with their spades the outline of where the grave should be.The first nestled his boot on the lug and his hand drew leverage against the inside of his knee. The spade bit into the soil easily and a square of turf was cut out, then another. As the hole widened, the second official joined in with his spade. After a few minutes they stopped to pull from the ground what looked like a rat’s nest made from threads of soilmatted fibre. A rotting plank of wood was attached to the end of it. They dug a hole four feet deep before they found something similar. A sandbag. It took both of them to pull it out.

  ‘How does that poem go?’ Clive said taking a step closer. ‘ “There shall be / In that rich earth …” ’

  Philip finished the line: ‘ “A richer dust concealed.” ’

  The first official pulled out another rotten plank of wood, longer this time.The shape of the other piece of wood was consistent with it. A third plank was visible. It was nailed to another one, a lid of some sort.The coffin proper.They lifted it out, trailing soil with it, and scraped back a layer with their spades. They could see more rotting sandbags. A row of them. Five in all. They opened one. It was heavy and solid, the sand hard and imprinted with the hessian’s weft. They laid all the bags on the ground side by side and stood panting as they looked in the hole. There were no bones.

  Philip walked back to the house, supporting himself on his cane. Clive watched him disappear from view before following.When he turned the corner he found his friend with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth. He was clenching his fists.

  ‘You OK?’

  Philip removed the handkerchief and recoiled as a spasm of pain carried through his age-silted body. His mind emptied. The air left his lungs. The past was rushing in on him.

  ‘Philip?’

  ‘Can you fetch the underground monitor,’ Philip said, once he caught his breath. ‘A radius of twenty feet from the grave.’

  A yellow and white device resembling a lawn mower was brought over from the van. As Clive pushed it at walking pace back and forth within the radius Philip had specified, a transmitter mounted on its right side emitted a ground-penetrating radar pulse that was picked up by a receiver mounted on its left. The results were displayed on a liquid-crystal screen. ‘I think we’ve found something,’ Clive said a few minutes later. He was on an area of lawn twelve yards from the grave. ‘According to this, whatever it is should be about three feet below the surface.’ He looked across to the owners of the house and, when they shrugged and nodded, he signalled for the officials with the spades.

  Once they were three feet down, they stopped digging. One of them slipped on a pair of latex gloves and pulled from the ground an object the size of a shoe. He laid it on a sheet of plastic. It was alive with worms. While Clive shone a torch on it, the official brushed away the soil to reveal that it was a bone fragment, its surface greasy with dark yellow-brownish discoloration. The bone was human. A femur.

  A fleeting coolness roused Philip from sleep. He was in his highwinged armchair in front of the inglenook fireplace in his study and there was a package beside him on a small table. Amanda must have put it there and her walking in front of the fire must have caused the coolness, like a passing ghost. His arthritic fingers struggled to pull apart the layers of Sellotape in which the package was bound. His fumbling was compounded by his eagerness. It was the parcel he had been expecting: a diary. There was an accompanying letter, handwritten.

  Dear Philip,

  This is the diary I mentioned, written by an army chaplain called the Rev. Horncastle. He died in 1927 and has no surviving relatives as far as we can determine. It came with a job lot of medals and memorabilia my friend picked up at a First World War auction at Sotheby’s a couple of years ago. Not worth much, fifty quid at most. He says it’s yours if you want it. He was going to donate it to the Imperial War Museum, so if you don’t want it, perhaps you could donate it for him.The entry I thought you should read is for 15 September 1918. I think you will find it interesting. It concerns the death of Major Morris.

  Yours ever,

  Clive

  The diary was written in pencil on yellowing paper. A Post-it note marked 15 September 1918.

  Major Peter Morris VC killed himself yesterday. He was one of the judges at the court martial. Let God be his judge. Apparently he was a conductor. Friend of Gustav Mahler’s.We have no record of a next of kin and we weren’t sure what to do with his body, as we could not bury a suicide in consecrated ground. Came to an arrangement with the MO and the APM. Buried him in the grounds of the police station and marked his grave. A proper headstone is being organised.The same will not apply to the soldier shot at dawn yesterday.

  Philip turned to the previous day’s entry, 14 September 1918. There was a heaviness to the page, even though it was tissue-thin.

  Soldier court-martialled for desertion today. He had gone missing for more than a year. Settled down in a French town. Met a French widow. I acted as the court’s legal advisor.The fellow didn’t say much during his trial, but afterwards I went to visit him in his cell and asked him to tell me exactly what had happened. Got the impression he said what he said for my benefit. Must have heard the Angel of Mons rumours. Nevertheless I wrote it down and got the poor blighter to sign it.

  Philip’s jaw went into spasm for a second. He took a sip of morphine. The reverend hadn’t even bothered to mention the private’s name. He examined the diary; it had a leather skin, the back cover of which had been badly stitched. A thread was hanging and he tugged at it. A leather flap hung loose from the lining, like a disembowelled stomach. There was a piece of paper inside, folded into four. It was a statement signed ‘Private Andrew Kennedy, Shropshire Fusiliers’ and dated 14 September 1918. Philip closed it again. He would read it with Daniel, once he recovered. Whatever it said, they should find out together.

  He read the entry for 15 September once more, tapped the page twice with his finger, opened his drawer and took out the rusting shortbread tin.The lid came off easily and he reached inside for the copy of Punch. This opened, he removed the sheet of music, held it up to the light under a magnifying glass and examined its dark stains, looking for the name ‘Gustav’. He stared at it for a moment, lost in thought, before struggling across the room to his desk and turning on his computer. After googling ‘Mahler signature’, he held the score up to the screen to compare the writing, nodded to himself and reached for the phone.

  ‘Professor Wetherby please, department of music …’

  ‘Wetherby speaking.’

  ‘Hello, professor, we haven’t met. I’m Daniel Kennedy’s father.’

  Wetherby was silent.

  ‘I have something,’ Philip continued, ‘which I believe you have been looking for.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rather not discuss it over the phone.When might be a convenient time for me to come and see you?’

  ‘My secretary keeps my diary.’

  ‘How about now?’

  ‘I have a college formal tonight, but that is not until eight.’

  Philip’s next call was to Geoff Turner. ‘It’s me, Philip. I have another favour to ask.’

  *

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Fifty-fifty. Better than when he was first brought in.The REMs are promising.’

  ‘Think he can hear us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Probably as well.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  There were two people. A man and a woman. They were speaking in a whisper.

  Daniel tried to open his eyes. They were glued. He felt a sleeve brush across his face. Hands were plumping up his pillow. His position was being shifted but he could not feel his body, only a heaviness w
here his limbs should be. What he did feel was a spiralling drift into sleep.

  When he next awoke he tried to open his eyes and managed a slit, but they stung under the harsh strip lighting. He thought he could make out the blurred fronds of a spider plant in the corner of the room. There was a cage around him, a chrome contraption with pulleys. He could see a face reflected in it but not one he recognized. The eyes were puffy and bruised, the lips blistered. The nostrils had splints in them and the bridge of the nose was taped. There was gauze on the chin that was black with congealed blood and across the cheek there was a line of stitching. His tongue felt heavy. An involuntary heave of his stomach. A taste of bile in his throat. He closed his eyes again and retreated back into unconsciousness.

  As he moved unsteadily with his stick across the flagstones leading to the portico, Philip could see college servants, dressed formally in black waistcoats, lighting the candles in the dining hall. Antique college silver had been brought out and was gleaming gratefully in their light, like nursing home residents allowed out in the sunshine after a winter indoors. To his right, at a bow window with armorial bearings carved in the mullions, he could see a tall, lean, balding man adjusting his bowtie in the reflection. Wetherby, he presumed. He would need all his strength for this. Could not allow pain to distract him. A gulp of morphine from the small, white bottle in his pocket helped.When he knocked on the door marked VICE PROVOST, he heard a voice say, ‘Enter.’

  Wetherby was lying out at full length on a Regency chaise longue. He was wearing a black velvet jacket that added to, rather than subtracted from, the impression he gave of suppressed violence. In one hand he held an antique magnifying glass, in the other a slim volume of poetry, its mildewed pages open in the middle. His face was half in shadow, an effect created by a floriate lampshade, the only lamp that was on in the room. He snapped the volume shut and placed it on the side table next to him, on top of an arrangement of dainty silver spoons. Only now, with graceful movements, did he rise, cross the room and hold out his hand.

  As they shook with a testing firmness, the two men eyed one another. Physically, Wetherby was the taller man, but they were not dissimilar.

  ‘Come in, come in.Take a seat,’Wetherby said, his voice a croaky thread. ‘My dinner is in half an hour. Going to say grace in Latin, I think. Give the college benefactors their money’s worth.’

  ‘Thank you, but I prefer to stand.’ Philip became distracted by a small watercolour on the wall, a preparatory study by William Blake. It showed a naked and bound young man on his knees, his muscular torso exposed as he leaned back in agony. Two bearded men in robes were stoning him.

  ‘They knew how to deal with blasphemers in those days,’ Wetherby said. ‘It was left to the college and I suppose it should be locked away somewhere, but I cannot quite bring myself to do it.’ He clapped. ‘So … Can I offer you a port or a brandy? I think I have some gin and tonic somewhere if you prefer. A sherry. I have some dry sherry left.’

  ‘Not for me, thank you. I’ll come to the point. When Daniel recovers, I want you to reinstate him and give him the zoology chair that should have been his.’

  ‘Yes, I was sorry to hear about his accident. I trust he is on the mend.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident. He jumped to save my granddaughter’s life.’

  ‘Of course, of course. I will see what I can do, but, as you must know, it is the provost’s decision.’

  ‘You have the provost’s ear.’

  ‘Your son was encouraging Islamist radicalization on campus.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘I would help him if I could. I regard him as a friend.’

  ‘You know that’s not true either.’

  Wetherby stiffened. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I mean you have been no friend to him. You reported him to the counter-terrorism squad. You pushed for his suspension. You blocked his promotion.’

  ‘He told you this?’

  ‘I have my sources. I don’t know how he wronged you or why you have been waging this vendetta against him but I want you to know he is a good man.You don’t know him as I do.’

  ‘I see, I see. So why would I want to stick my neck out to help him?’

  ‘In return for this.’ Philip reached in his pocket and produced the music score.

  Wetherby took it and immediately saw what it was. He tried to disguise his excitement as he read it, his eyes flicking greedily over the notes, his finger following them and twitching as it conducted in his head. Perhaps realizing he was breathing too quickly, he affected nonchalance. ‘Sheet music. Early-twentieth-century German. Part of a larger orchestral score. Bad condition. May be of marginal interest to a collector but … I suppose you want to know if it is worth anything?’ His eyes studied the old man’s face for a reaction.

  ‘No. I know what it’s worth … to you.’

  Wetherby looked up and gave a sickly smile. ‘You know what it is?’

  ‘Mahler’s alternative opening to the Ninth.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I believe you’ve been looking for it.’

  Wetherby held his arms up in mock surrender. ‘I have. I have. It is an incredible find, if authentic.’ He laid it out carefully on the table before reaching for a clear folder. ‘May I?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Wetherby used a pair of tweezers to pick the score up by its corner and slot it into the folder. ‘I have been looking for this all my life. I almost stopped believing it existed. How did you come across it?’

  ‘It was tucked inside a copy of Punch from nineteen eighteen.’

  ‘You bought it at auction?’

  ‘It was among some personal effects left by my grandfather.’

  ‘Did you photocopy it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you mentioned it to anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Extraordinary. Extraordinary. Do you know how it came to be in your grandfather’s possession?’

  ‘The copy of Punch had belonged to a Major Morris. It had his name on it. He was a conductor. Killed himself.’

  ‘Peter Morris? My God … I never thought … Ralph Vaughan Williams refers to him once or twice in his letters from the Front. They served together and he mentions that they discussed Mahler, but I had no idea the connection between Mahler and Morris was anything more than—’

  ‘It is genuine, isn’t it?’

  Wetherby looked away. ‘I could not say.’

  ‘It would be easy enough for me to get it authenticated, carbon dating, signature analysis.’

  Wetherby sighed. ‘There is no need. It is genuine. May I play it?’

  ‘If you like.’

  Wetherby stood up, silently crossed the room and laid his elongated fingers on yellowing piano keys warped by the sun. By the time he had finished playing, his cheeks were damp with tears. ‘Beautiful. Just beautiful. So contemplative. It has none of the darkness of the authorized version. Pure light and delicacy … Are you prepared to sell it?’

  ‘You can have it, in return for reinstating Daniel and giving him the zoology chair.’

  Wetherby thought about this for a moment. ‘And no one else knows about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have proof of ownership?’

  ‘I’m sorry, you speak very quietly. I’m a little deaf.’

  ‘I asked if you have proof of ownership?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I am not going to have your son reinstated.’

  Philip held out his hand. ‘In that case I will have the music back please.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I shall be keeping this and there is nothing you can do about it. As it is out of copyright, even Mahler’s estate does not have a claim on it.’

  Philip walked around the side of the desk to reach for the music. ‘Give it back.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I shall report you to the provost.’

 
‘He is hardly likely to accept your word against mine. He does everything I tell him and, anyway, I have a feeling his days as provost here are numbered. As for Daniel, dear Daniel, yes, you are right, I knew he had nothing to do with the Islamists, but I could not allow that to get in the way of his suspension.’

  Philip moved his lips. They looked wrinkled and purple. No sound emerged.

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  Philip found his voice. ‘It’s supposed to be cursed, you know. The Ninth.’

  ‘I will take my chances.’

  Philip hesitated in the doorway, in case Wetherby wanted to call him back. He didn’t. Instead he felt the professor’s eyes on his back as he crossed the quadrangle and made his way slowly past the Porter’s Lodge to where a car was waiting for him. Once seated, he took a small digital recording device from his pocket and handed it to the driver, a lean man with a heavily lined face.

  ‘As expected?’ Turner asked.

  ‘As expected.’

  ‘Didn’t notice the mic?’

  Philip shook his head.

  Turner opened a thin laptop, leaned it against the steering wheel and plugged in the digital recorder. He connected to the internet and, with supple fingers moving over the keyboard, sent the sound file as an attachment in an email to the provost. ‘This should be interesting then,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  DANIEL’S NEXT CONTACT WITH THE WORLD WAS MORE A SENSED presence. It was Nancy, he knew that much. Nancy was his dentist, the mother of his child, the woman he loved. She was edging her chair closer to his bed with fluid shunts of its legs. And now she was using a cold and damp compress to dab his forehead. He could hear a familiar voice talking in a whisper, too. Not Nancy. Someone he knew well though.

  ‘He’s not responding. Watch what happens when I do this to his foot … Nothing.’

  ‘But when he comes out of the coma?’

  ‘You never know. Don’t get your hopes up.The skin should react to a pinprick.’

  Daniel was outside his body now, in a room with a bed. There was someone lying on it. A man. He had a large white brace around his neck, a tube taped to his mouth and a yellow contusion across his brow. There were wires, monitors and drips. This was clearly a hospital but there was something not right about it.The walls were too soft, as if they were melting. He tried to concentrate on the two seated figures by the bed. Though he could not see their faces he knew it was Nancy and the Bear. They were small, as if at the wrong end of a long telescope.