by James Runcie
‘We have let other people believe that to be so.’
‘It was so. Did he volunteer to be killed?’
‘It is probably best that you don’t ask too many questions, Canon Chambers.’
‘I know that Lyall was dying.’
‘He fell. It was an accident.’
‘I understand that is the official position.’
‘It is what happened,’ the Foreign Secretary insisted. ‘I must say that both you and Keating have been very diligent.’
‘That was our job.’
‘Not entirely. We asked you to report on Keating’s observations rather than develop any ideas of your own.’
‘I could hardly help that.’
‘No, I suppose you couldn’t. But there are sometimes levels of necessary ignorance; when ignorance can even be bliss.’
‘I don’t like to think that I have been kept in the dark.’
‘You have known as much as you have needed to know, Canon Chambers, as I think we explained from the start. Keating has agreed to accept that Lyall’s death was accidental and the case is closed. You are free to resume your clerical duties which, I am sure, are many.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes,’ the Master replied firmly. ‘That will definitely be all.’
Sidney gathered up his cloak and walked back across New Court. It was starting to snow again.
He was angry about being used as some kind of cover for activities he still could not unravel, and he was far from knowing a sure truth. It was like doubt without the faith. He took a seat in King’s College Chapel as an ordinary member of the congregation, and knelt down to pray. The candles guttered with the breeze that whispered through narrow gaps in stone.
The precentor began the service with a sentence of the Scriptures: ‘When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.’
Sidney prayed in the darkness. He thought of the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing trying to define God through what he was not: how the believer has to ‘unknow’ all human qualities in order to comprehend the divine, just as, he supposed, a spy had to ‘unknow’ all his allegiances. Through this negative theology, the via negativa, came the wisdom of ignorance.
He remembered the definition of God that the same author had written at the end of his mystical theology of St Denis: ‘He is neither darkness nor light, neither error nor truth; nor, all told, can he be affirmed or denied . . . his incomprehensible transcendence is incomprehensibly above all affirmation and denial.’
Perhaps, Sidney wondered, he had to divest himself of all his worldly concerns if he was to become a better priest. He should give up all pretence at being a detective. He should leave behind all perceptions of the senses, and reasonings of the intellect, and enter that cloud of unknowing, that darkness which would, eventually, be illuminated by flashes of light. This was the paradox of faith, the embracing of darkness in order to find light.
He joined in with the prayers of the congregation. ‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord,’ he continued. ‘And by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.’
Outside, the snow began to fall on the chapel once more, across its architraves and buttresses, its grand towers and its gracefully balanced roof, and then further, down on to the hats, coats, scarves and shawls of the saints and sinners of the town as they made their way back to their streets, villages and homes. Still it fell, as if there could be no stopping it, with all its unhurried quiet, covering everything with its fragile white flakes until it found its way, at last, on to the grave of Valentine Lyall, where it softly made its rest.
Love and Arson
It was a warm summer evening in the middle of August and Sidney was in an exceptionally good mood. There had been little to distract him of late, many of his parishioners were enjoying their holidays, and he had time to himself. This was what life would have been like for a Victorian clergyman, he thought, as he walked Dickens across the meadows, along the river and out towards the nearby woodland. He had a manageable list of duties, he could concentrate on one thing at a time and he was untroubled by crime. At that moment, all he had to do was appreciate the gifts that God had given him and the amiable companionship of his Labrador.
A group of schoolboys were playing an impromptu game of cricket on a stretch of newly mown grass. Sidney stayed to watch an over. He even felt like joining in. After all, his schooldays weren’t so very far away in the grand scheme of things, and there were times when he still felt that he hadn’t quite decided on the kind of man he wanted to become.
He remembered a traditional medieval round with its cuckooing chorus that he had learned at school and he sang quietly to himself:
Summer is icumen in,
Loudly sing cuckoo!
The seed grows and the meadow blooms
And the wood springs anew,
Sing, cuckoo!
He couldn’t remember the rest. Amanda would know, he was sure. She was in Scotland for the glorious twelfth and would doubtless return with stories about rich hosts with names like Angus, Hector and Hamish. Each would have a Highland hunting lodge filled with dancing and house parties. It was a world he could never imagine joining, and so it was just as well that he was getting on so well with Hildegard. She was, he had decided, so much more like him.
Hildegard had not been back to Grantchester since the death of her husband, Stephen Staunton, over four years ago. Despite their affection for each other, Sidney had not pressed the idea of a return visit, preferring to take short holidays in Germany. He had first been to see her in the New Year of 1955, and had made two further trips since then. Hildegard had taken him to Hamburg, to see St Michael’s Church and the Trostbrücke, and then, only last year, they had spent a few days in Koblenz where they had taken a boat to Boppard and cruised through the Rhine gorge to Rüdesheim.
Despite intrusive questioning by his friends and colleagues, Sidney had decided not to pin down the nature of their relationship. He had, however, begun to take lessons in German conversation from Marcus Gruner, an elderly parishioner, and on his last visit he had even surprised Hildegard with the deftness of his first tongue-twister in a foreign language: Fischers Fritze fischt frische Fische; Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritze.
The situation, however, was far from straightforward. Unlike Amanda, who seemed to tell him everything, Hildegard was more circumspect. He had no idea, for example, if she had other suitors in Germany, or if she had decided to renounce the possibility of love and a second marriage altogether. She kept an air of mystery about her even though, Sidney thought, at the age of thirty-one she was surely too young to resign herself to a single life. Could they drift on as they were, or would things have to develop one way or another? His relationship with Amanda was more feisty, he recognised, and he was perhaps more confident of his abilities within it. Perhaps she didn’t expect so much of him, or the stakes were lower, or he felt that his failings didn’t matter so much because she had made it perfectly clear that she couldn’t possibly marry a vicar. Amanda was mercurial, openly flawed, vulnerable and quickly forgiving, whereas Hildegard was quieter, more thoughtful and harder to read. She made him think more deeply about his actions and his responsibilities. In short, she expected more of him, and, as a result, Sidney had an uneasy fear of letting her down.
As he approached the woodland, Sidney was distracted from his thoughts by one of his non-churchgoing parishioners, Jerome Benson, standing under a canopy of chestnut trees. He wore a matching flat cap and tweed hacking jacket, cord breeches and a well-worn pair of shooting boots. He had an untrimmed beard that was more ginger than his hair, and features so roseate that he looked like a man on the verge of losing his temper. He held an uncocked twelve-gauge shotgun by the barrel in his right hand, resting the magazine against his shoulder with the stock behind his back. A couple of partridges were peeping out of the tweed cartridge ba
g on his opposite shoulder. Sidney bid him a good evening and noticed that Benson’s corduroy trousers were tied up with string.
A few yards further on, Sidney passed a parked car, a Triumph TR3 Roadster, in which a young couple were amorously involved. The briefest of glances assured him that the girl was Abigail Redmond, the comely seventeen-year-old daughter of his Labrador breeder, and he guessed that the stylish vehicle belonged to her boyfriend, Gary Bell, the son of the local garage owner.
Suddenly, he heard a shot ring out. Dickens ran off and rapidly returned with a tawny owl in his mouth. He dropped it at Sidney’s feet.
‘Good heavens!’ his master exclaimed. ‘I am sure that’s illegal.’
Dickens looked up, expecting gratitude and reward, but before Sidney could decide what to do, Jerome Benson stepped into the light, with his lurcher beside him. ‘What has your dog got?’
‘Did you shoot this owl?’ Sidney asked.
‘A woodcock. Your dog must be confused.’
‘I would be surprised.’
‘I can assure you that I shot a woodcock. Let me see the owl.’ Benson leant forward, picked up the creature, and began to examine it. ‘No sign of any shot. A natural death, I should say. I can look after it. I’d best go and look for my woodcock. Your dog seems very eager.’
‘He is an enthusiast,’ Sidney replied, uncertain quite how to respond. In the momentary silence he heard a car rev up, speed, and then slow down abruptly as it neared. Gary Bell leant out of the window and shouted, ‘Perverts,’ before screeching off.
Sidney wondered what they thought he had been doing. He would have to get over to the Eagle and see Keating. His mellow midsummer mood had melted away.
Cambridge was quieter in August. There were few students around town and people who lived there all year round were more relaxed. This was as close as the city ever came to being just another small market town in the east of England. Although the great university buildings gave Cambridge its historic permanence, as if it could return to its medieval roots at any moment, the town was in repose before the next generation of students arrived in the autumn. It was summer hibernation, Sidney thought: not so much a long vacation as a long siesta.
He had been looking forward to his regular backgammon session with Keating but his spirits descended further when he discovered that his friend was in a teasing mood. A few hours earlier Sidney would have relished it, but the disconcerting encounter with Benson, and the brief moment of abuse from Gary Bell, had made him lose his mirth.
The previous evening Keating had been to see a Doris Day film at the pictures, and he was keen not only to tell Sidney all about it but also to enquire about his friend’s interest in the subject of romance, noting, yet again, his twin loyalties to Hildegard and Amanda. ‘Cambridge is probably a damned sight quieter because we haven’t seen so much of Miss Kendall recently,’ Geordie joshed. ‘Have you given her the heave-ho?’
‘Not in the slightest. She’s on holiday in cooler climes: the Highlands.’
‘Aren’t there rather a lot of midges in Scotland?’
‘I don’t think she’ll trouble herself about them.’
‘I suppose they are more likely to be scared of her.’
‘She’s shooting with friends.’
‘I only hope they don’t shoot each other. At least it’s out of our jurisdiction.’
‘Talking of shooting . . .’ Sidney began.
Keating stopped. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, man . . .’
‘Don’t worry. I don’t think it’s of any significance, a minor misdemeanour, I am sure, but something happened earlier this evening that troubled me. I am not sure how much you know about the legal protection of wild animals.’
‘There was a law passed in 1947.’
‘I imagine the shooting of an owl is an illegal act?’
‘It certainly is.’
Sidney explained what had happened with Benson. The inspector promised to send a colleague round to have a word. He explained that although it was an offence to kill, injure or take any wild bird, including the tawny owl (Strix aluco: Sidney was impressed by Keating’s use of the Latin name), it was legal to pick up most animal and bird species that had died naturally.
‘That, I would have thought, was a moot point.’
‘I agree, Sidney, but unless you saw the incident or we can examine the owl and discover shot within it, then there is little we can do. We have to be sure. Just because a man behaves suspiciously, does not mean that he is up to no good. If we arrested every person who acted in an unusual way the cells would be full and you would be one of the first to be admitted.’
‘I would assume that, were such a situation to arise, you would help me out?’
‘But I might be in there too. My superiors have already had a word about our friendship. They don’t take too kindly to undue influence.’
‘But any conversation with a priest is surely above suspicion?’
‘Not these days. Priests can be as capable of corruption as any other man.’
Sidney stood up to order a second pint of bitter. ‘I am not so sure about that, Geordie. We do have our standards.’
‘What about the vicar of Stiffkey?’ the inspector called out, enjoying the fact that he had to raise his voice to make his point heard. ‘The Prostitute’s Padre? He had a very “hands on” way of dealing with fallen women.’
‘I think he was much misunderstood.’
‘Didn’t he end up applying to manage Blackpool football club and working as a lion tamer?’
‘None of that is illegal, Geordie.’
‘I heard that his daughter became a trapeze artist and went on a date with Joseph Goebbels.’
‘You are making this up.’
‘I am not.’ Inspector Keating was now in full flow. ‘I will swear on any Bible. It just goes to show how much the clergy think they can get away with. I’ve learned that you have to watch them as much as anyone else.’
Sidney returned with the beers. ‘I think, in my case, you can make a general presumption of innocence.’
‘You have always told me to be careful of presumption, Sidney. I am only following procedures that you yourself have influenced. One can’t be too careful.’
The hot dry weather continued. Away from the meadows, and in front of the Grantchester cottages, the small front gardens and proud English lawns became parched and brown, the blowzy roses shed their petals, and the airless afternoons left many of the villagers too languorous either to weed or water.
It was at the end of one such day, when the sun had beaten fiercely through all the south-facing windows of the village, that two Cambridge fire engines were called to an old summerhouse at the bottom of a field behind the garage. The building had been rented to Daniel Morden, a photographer who was away taking pictures at a wedding in London, and the alarm was raised at such a late stage that the fire had already taken hold by the time anything could be done. Flames leapt up the side of the building and into the roof space exposing its beams and rafters; windows cracked open, glass shattered and the front door fell forwards on to the ground.
By the time the fire brigade arrived, the first floor was on the point of collapse. The heat travelled so far in advance of the flames that it was impossible to get close to the centre of the blaze. A changeable breeze meant that the conflagration was spreading in three different directions at the same time. A small group of people filled buckets from an outdoor tap and both Gary Bell and his parents were terrified that the flames would jump to the garage with its plentiful supply of petrol. Thomas Bell was swearing that they should never have rented out the building in the first place, that he had always thought the photographer was a liability. It was typical of Daniel Morden to have evaded any responsibility by being in London. ‘I bet it was one of his bloody cigarillos,’ he shouted to his son, who answered that it was too late to worry about that now.
Suddenly there was flashover. The summerhouse sucked in the surrounding air and burst out of i
tself in a mighty eruption that filled the entire structure, the violent flames circling in an uncontainable whirl of fire that swept across each surface. This was the full venom of a blaze at its highest temperature. The timber-framed building could offer no resistance. The roof collapsed under its force. The air was filled with the crack of wood, the fall of brick, and the force of a wind that contained pure heat.
Within half an hour the dwelling had been reduced to its skeletal structure. A few supporting vertical poles smoked and steamed against the midnight-blue sky. Sparks, ash flakes and fire-drops crackled and drifted through a smoke that carried with it the stench of charred wood, burnt fabric and photographic chemicals.
It took over two hours to bring the flames under control and by dawn there were piles of brick, rubble and timber all over the ground, glowing hard, occasionally flaring up with the residue. Only a few items were recognisable amidst the remains: the tangled metal of a photographic enlarger, a melted metronome, a cracked glass ashtray, part of an antler from what had once been a stag’s head.
Sidney visited the site before morning communion and found one of his parishioners, Mark Bowen, already at work, wearing heavy boots and thick rubber gloves. He was a fire investigator.
‘Is it still going?’ Sidney asked.
‘In some places it’s hot enough to bake a potato. I think the point of origin is near the main windows, but I can’t tell yet.’
Sidney could see no sign of main windows and any casual passer-by would have had considerable difficulty working out either the structure or the orientation of the building.
‘The destruction is much greater than you would expect from a straightforward house fire and there may have been multiple points of origin. I suppose it must have been the photographic chemicals: toner, developer, acetic acid. There are all kinds of nastiness in there. I also found a petrol can near the scene. I suppose that’s normal . . .’
‘The Bells having a garage?’
‘But you wouldn’t expect them to be so careless with it. I can’t imagine any of the family leaving petrol lying around.’