Siding Star

by Christopher Bryan

  At the close of Friday’s staff meeting Charlie asked if there was a church anywhere near the observatory. Anglican, he observed, was his usual tipple, but he’d be quite happy with anything reasonable. To Thaddaeus’s amusement and Zaziwe’s outrage, one or two of the more orthodox atheists among their colleagues made it plain they were scandalized by this lapse from scientific rigor. Still, it turned out that there was an Anglican church within reasonable driving distance, and it had a 9:00 a.m. Sunday Eucharist. Thaddaeus managed somehow or other to charm his way into borrowing an Australian National University minibus, and so, at half-past-eight on Sunday morning the three of them gathered and set off, with Thaddaeus driving.

  West Indians, Charlie decided, know how to dress for church. For his part, he felt rather drab and now wished he had made more effort. With his open neck shirt and trainers he was defi- nitely “casual.” By contrast, instead of their usual jeans and teeshirts, Thaddaeus was immaculate in well-cut gray suit, crisp white shirt, and university tie, while Zaziwe was brilliant in black and yellow silk.

  It cheered him up just to look at her.

  And he needed cheering up.

  Part of the reason he’d made so little effort this morning was

  that last night he’d had the Dream, which now seemed so clearly mixed up with the Observatory. The work at the Observatory was going well, in fact, better than he could have hoped. He liked his new colleagues—even the militant atheists who so annoyed Zaziwe!—and of course Thaddaeus and Zaziwe were a joy. So there was nothing there he could put his finger on to make him uneasy.

  Yet he was uneasy, more so than ever, and his unease was at its worst after he had the Dream. Because the Dream was now linked to his work, that meant—

  “A penny for them,” Thaddaeus said. “They aren’t worth it, I assure you.” He peered through the window. “I think it’s going to be a nice day.”

  Thaddaeus glanced sideways at him. “Yes, I think it is.”

  Evidently Thaddaeus had been in the United Kingdom quite long enough to tell when an Englishman wishes to keep his thoughts to himself.

  The church was small but pretty. The wardens greeted them with a friendly way, made sure they had prayer books and knew how to follow the Anglican rite, then left them alone. Charlie found himself thinking back to his response last night to the atheist—one of the nicest, he thought—who’d taken him aside and gently raised the question as to how a scientist of his stature found religious faith and science compatible. Of course it wasn’t the first time he’d been asked such a question, and it wasn’t the first time he’d given the same answer: “When I look at the universe that science shows me, at the staggering complexity of the processes that were necessary for human beings to exist—processes that could perfectly well have gone in millions of other ways, but didn’t—why then, even as a scientist I think I can allow myself to be in awe. Of course I can also refuse

  siding stAr 107 to be in awe. I can say, the universe has to be the way it is, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. And that’s certainly true. But still, to be in awe or not to be in awe, that’s a choice—an emotional choice—and I don’t see opting for one as being any more or less ‘scientific’ than opting for the other. But if I can allow myself to be in awe at what I see, then why can’t I allow myself to hope? And even to trust? And I don’t find those attitudes impairing my commitment to scientific rigor—in fact, they spur me on. For if I hope and trust, then why should I fear the truth, whatever it is?”

  And his good atheist colleague, bless him, had smiled and nodded, and said he would have to think about that.

  Briefly, Charlie prayed for him.

  For the anthem, several of the congregation went up into the little sanctuary and sang the Hallelujah Chorus. Badly. Actually, very badly. At which point, it struck Charlie how much God must be enjoying this. And Handel too, he suspected. For an instant he felt the divine amusement and delight, the communion of the saints. Joy, sheer, gracious, and compassionate, seemed to surround him.

  When it was time, he went up with the others to receive communion. “The body of Christ… the blood of Christ.”

  If that were true, then Love was true, and nothing else mattered. Not his dreams, not his depression. Not even death would have the last word. As Zaziwe had pointed out to him in London.

  It was all so much simpler than one often imagined.

  twenty-Five

  Tuesday, October 28.

  Cecilia left early and drove to London. She was required to present herself as witness in a trial at the Central Criminal Court. The trial did not begin until Wednesday, but Papa had made an appointment for her for that afternoon with Michael Aarons, the Anglican priest. So, having arrived, booked into her hotel, and eaten lunch at a decent little French bistro nearby, she walked the short distance along the broad, busy street to Saint Andrew’s Church—a handsome building from the late eighteenth century. She turned in through green double gates toward the vicarage.

  The front door opened as she was approaching it, and a figure in a leather-belted cassock emerged and came down the steps to meet her. Wiry and compact, Michael Aarons, Vicar of Saint Andrew’s, Holborn Circus and Archdeacon of Hackney, moved with spring in his step and controlled energy. She found herself at once liking him. His eyes were dark, intelligent, and kind. To be sure, at first glance his clean-shaven features seemed some- what severe: slightly saturnine, marked with pain. But then he smiled. Instinctively, she smiled back.

  He greeted her formally in an Italian that was perfectly correct.

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  ChristoPher BryAn “Good day, Inspector Cavaliere. I’m honored to meet you. I am Michael Aarons, a friend of your father.”

  She replied in Italian.

  “I’m delighted to meet you, Father. It’s kind of you to see me at such short notice.”

  “Please come in. My study is through here. Will you take a coffee?”

  She accepted politely, wondering, as she always did with non-Italians, whether he meant the same thing by un caffé as she did. But when the coffee arrived it was in tazzine, and it was good. She smiled at him.

  Michael switched to English.

  “You are, I take it, perfectly bilingual in English and Italian?” “I am.”

  Taken out of context, he reflected, the words might have

  seemed like a boast. But as she said them they were simply a statement of fact, as if she’d said, “I have dark eyes.” “Mama and Papa came to England when I was very little,” she said, “so Papa could be professor of classics at the university. So I grew up here. School was in English, of course, but even when I was at home they always spoke English with me during the day. But then in the evening, unless we had guests or something like that, we were Italians.”

  Michael smiled at her little recital of family life. If only he could respond with quite such a recital of his own. He sighed.

  “So,” he said, “for you English became the language of work and enterprise, and Italian the language of food and family and love.”

  She looked at him quizzically. Perhaps she had noticed his momentary withdrawal? If so, she contented herself with replying to what he had said.

  “You might be right—at any rate, when I was about fourteen, I must have said something like that to Papa. Because I

  siding stAr 111 remember him saying it wasn’t true. ‘In their way, the English are as romantic as we are,’ he said. ‘Never forget they produced Shakespeare and Jane Austen.’”

  “I think your father’s right,” he said. “We English are romantics, in our way.” He paused, smiling to himself. “Anyway, even though I speak a little Italian, I, unfortunately, am not bilingual. So perhaps we’d better stay with English for our serious business. Andrea tells me you have a document you want me to see?”

  Cecilia opened her briefcase and produced her photocopies of the black book’s contents. Michael took them over to his desk, sat down, and began to go through the pages.

  “Mostly Aramaic
,” he said after a few minutes, “a few passages of Hebrew. All very mystical and medieval!” He looked up at her. “So far as I can see, they’re extracts from the Zohar. Do you know what that is?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, Zohar means ‘splendor,’ and the Zohar is a text that talks about how the eternal and infinite God may be manifested in the creation. Most of it was written by a man called Moses de Leon, who died in 1305. What he produced was a mixture of things—spiritual theology, mystical psychology, myth, anthropology, poetry.” He turned back to the papers and turned more pages. “Yes, that’s what it seems to be. Parts of the Zohar. Just copied out! No comments or notes, just the text. Rather odd, really. Did it come up in a case?”

  “Yes Father, it did.”

  “Please—call me Michael.”

  “Of course I will. And I’m Cecilia!”

  “Thank you, Cecilia!” He smiled and returned to the papers. “Well, yes, evidently you have mystical criminals in your part of the world.”

  “Would you believe it, Michael, if a man told you he’d lent those notes to someone at a conference on philosophy and science?”

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  Christopher Bryan Michael thought for a minute and shook his head. “I can’t imagine what it would be for. If somebody wanted the texts, there are editions. Why work with something written out by hand? I find that very hard to explain. Unless there’s some significance in the arrangement or the selection. At a quick glance, I can’t see any.”

  She didn’t seem surprised, merely nodded.

  “Actually, I have an English translation,” he said. “If you like, I could work through your notebook this evening and give you references to it. Then you could check the passages yourself in English. You might see something I’m missing. A common thread, something that links to what you’re investigating.”

  Again Cecilia nodded. “That would be very kind. Thank you. I’d like that. But for now I gather there’s nothing at first glance that seems to you at all sinister?”

  Michael went back to the text. There were several minutes of silence while he read a page here, a page there. Finally he sighed and shook his head.

  “As I say, just quotations from the Zohar. But obviously I haven’t read every word. I’ll read the whole thing through carefully later today—just in case I’ve missed something.”

  Cecilia thanked him again.

  So Kakoyannis’s notebook once again seemed to have turned up a blank.

  If it was Kakoyannis’s notebook. Her doubts remained, now intensified by what Michael had said. If only they had looked at it more closely before letting it out of their hands in the first place.

  Still, there was no helping that now.

  She looked up at Michael.

  “It doesn’t get me much further, but I’m grateful, all the same. And if you could let me look at those references—.”

  “I’ll be happy to. Where are you staying?”

  She gave him the name of a nearby hotel.

  “All right. I have to see someone now, but I think I can work

  Siding Star 113 through your text later this afternoon. I’ll give you page references to the translation, and I’ll get someone to bring it all round to your hotel this evening. How will that be?”

  “Marvelous!” There was a pause. Her attention was caught by a silver-framed black and white photograph on his desk—a man and a woman. “Forgive me,” she said, “I hope you don’t mind me asking—is that a photograph of your parents?”

  He smiled. “Yes,” he said. “David and Rachel Aarons.” She peered at it. “They look lovely,” she said.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said quietly, “they were. They died

  some years ago. In a car crash.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  He shook his head, but said nothing.

  Then he smiled. “One other thing—are you expecting to be

  still in London on Friday evening?”

  “I am.”

  “Then would you like to come to some supper here at the vicarage? I’ve some friends from the university coming. They’re also friends of your father and mother, and I think you’ll enjoy them.”

  “I’d love to come. I hope you won’t mind—I’ll just be in my working clothes for my court appearance. I didn’t bring anything very exciting with me to wear.”

  “It really will be just supper—not dinner! Please come just as you are! We’ll be delighted to see you.”

  twenty-six

  Later the same day.

  C

  ecilia walked back across Holborn Viaduct to her hotel and telephoned the station at Exeter. Scientific and Technical had finally come up with their report on the book. No, they had found no evidence that it had ever been in Kakoyannis’s possession—which might prove nothing but at least gave no support to Wheatley’s story.

  A different approach had proved more interesting. On her own initiative, Verity Jones had continued to make inquiries about others who’d been involved in the inquest. One was Loveland’s daughter, who might, she thought, have some explanation to offer about the lawyer’s hostility to Wheatley. Another was the doctor who’d originally been called to the scene of Loveland’s death.

  The daughter, it transpired, was now working for BP in Alaska. After some effort, DS Jones had actually managed to speak to her by telephone at her home in Anchorage. As regards the inquest, she was unable to help. She remembered the lawyer’s harping on at Wheatley but had no idea what might have been behind it. She had, she reminded DS Jones, been very young at the time. Then, without realizing it, she revealed a fact that was far more significant to her questioner than it was

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  ChristoPher BryAn

  to her. The detective sergeant, who had transcribed it into her notes word for word, read it out: “Of course Daddy had already visited London earlier that week. He’d been up to deliver a lecture. I remember that because he was supposed to buy Mummy some special kinds of plates that you could only get at a shop in Regent’s Street, and he forgot! So she was a bit annoyed.”

  “Oh, really? That’s interesting. I don’t suppose, ma’am, you happen to recall where the lecture was, do you?” “Where? Um… wait a minute, he mentioned it a couple of times, I’ve got it on the tip of my tongue… The Philosophical Academy… no, the Academy for Philosophical Studies. That was it.”

  Cecilia whistled. “Yes, ma’am,” DS Jones said, “I thought that was interesting too.”

  The doctor was a respected family practitioner who’d retired from practice three years after Loveland’s death and lived well into his eighties. There really didn’t seem to be anything to pursue there.

  Cecilia agreed.

  Nevertheless, true to form, Verity Jones had saved the best until last.

  She’d initiated an inquiry with her opposite number at Paddington Police Station regarding the careers and present whereabouts of two police officers, a sergeant and a constable, who’d been called to the Loveland house by the doctor and had given evidence at the inquest. The results of the inquiry were now available. She read them:

  “‘According to our records, Sergeant Roger Lovell, the senior of the two officers you inquired about, was

  siding stAr 117 admitted to hospital and diagnosed with brain cancer one week after the inquest in question. He died five days later. Police Constable William Crane, the junior officer, resigned from the force three days after that, and at present our records give no evidence of his whereabouts.’”

  “Good grief,” Cecilia said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “That’s what I thought. Of course I’m still checking on Crane, but so far no joy. Somerset House doesn’t have any record of his death, so he ought to be still around. On the other hand, I ran his social security number and there’s nothing showing since he left the force. Maybe he went abroad. But if so, he did it without documents—or, at least, there’s no record of a passport’s being issued to him. Part of the problem
is, the records I’ve got don’t show any living relatives—he’s a bachelor, or was, and an only child with both parents dead, so it’s hard to know where to go next.”

  Cecilia sighed. “Has Joseph come up with anything yet on that missing file?”

  “I asked him this afternoon. He says he’s ‘plodding away,’ but I think he’s actually getting a little frustrated. The trouble is, there’s really no one around here smart enough to help him. He’s been teaching me a bit about what he’s doing, and I now have just about enough knowledge to see the problem but nowhere near enough to be any help.”

  “He’ll get there. I’ve never known him to fail.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll get there. I think it’s just irritating him that it’s taking so long.”

  Cecilia sighed. Well, they would all just have to be patient. That went with the territory for good police work.

  Still, they now knew of five people involved in Wheatley’s life at the time of Loveland’s death who might have been a threat to him, and of these five, four had died and one had vanished, all within weeks—indeed, virtually days—of each other and all while Henry Wheatley was conveniently out of the country. It was incredible. Yes—that was it. Despite the lack of tangible evidence against Wheatley, the facts regarding that part of his life, arranged as they could now arrange them, were simply incredible unless there were malicious design in them. And whose design but Wheatley’s?

  And what of the Academy for Philosophical Studies? Surely this new appearance on the edge of the affair stretched coincidence just a shade too far. Were they involved as a group? Or, was Wheatley using them? At any rate, there was much here that must be followed up.

  The telephone call completed, Cecilia drummed her fingers on the table.

  And thought.

  twenty-seven

  The same day.

  Mid-afternoon, Wheatley received a telephone call from the academy. The chairman required that he come at once back to London. No reasons were given nor apologies offered for the suddenness of the request. And indeed neither the journey nor the hour was convenient. So Wheatley was tired and irritable by the time he entered the academy late in the evening and nodded curtly to the pale, bespectacled young man who sat at the inquiry desk.