Murder in a Cathedral

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  ‘Barely,’ said Pooley. ‘She’s been in bed most of the day. Only emerged to visit her Norm and pray for him.’

  ‘He will be all right, won’t he?’ enquired the bishop anxiously. ‘I should hate to think that any permanent damage has been done to the poor fellow.’

  ‘Don’t worry, David. He has almost recovered. He must have a remarkable constitution: lying in the open air on a chilly night for four or five hours, dead drunk, with concussion and an open wound might have killed a lesser man.’

  ‘Pity it didn’t, said Amiss.’

  ‘You don’t really mean that, Robert.’

  ‘I suppose I don’t. He’s not such a bad old thing really, just in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong century. What’s the prognosis?’

  ‘They’re keeping him in overnight as a precaution, but they’ll send him home tomorrow and say he’ll be absolutely fine.’

  ‘Now for poor Cecil,’ said the bishop.

  Pooley grinned. ‘I know I shouldn’t find this funny, but I fear what happened to Canon Davage cannot be viewed except as black comedy.

  ‘It seems he decided to hang himself from a chandelier.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he felt responsible for the burglary, he said. We didn’t press him. That can wait. The priority was to find out if anyone else was involved and no one was.

  ‘Apparently Davage intended to make a grand gesture by lighting all three hundred and sixty-five candles on his chosen chandelier, but he got stuck on the practicalities. Each chandelier, you see, hangs from a beam on a rope-and-pulley arrangement. Davage planned to lower one, attach himself to it by a noose, light the candles, stand on top of an adjacent pew, raise the chandelier again, fasten it and then jump off the pew.’

  The baroness had been following him closely. ‘Sweet Jesus, that sounds like a tall order for someone stone-cold sober, let alone sauced up. How far did he get?’

  ‘Not much further than first base. It seems his first move was to unwind the surplus rope from its cleat.’

  ‘What’s a cleat?’ asked Amiss and the bishop together.

  ‘A cleat is one of those pieces of iron that stick out from the wall and have ropes fastened to them. Haven’t you noticed them?’

  ‘Now that you mention it,’ said the bishop, ‘I think there are several.’

  ‘There are indeed. Two per chandelier, in fact. One for the holding rope and the other to store the surplus. So Davage unwound the surplus rope, made a noose and put it round his neck. This is where he made his first mistake. He tied the wrong knot, so at no stage in the proceedings did this noose actually tighten round his neck.’

  ‘Aha,’ said the baroness. ‘Little Davage was never a boy scout, obviously. Didn’t do a slipknot, I presume.’

  ‘Very good, Jack. No, unlike us, he was obviously never in the boy scouts. He did a bowline.’

  She tut-tutted. ‘Dear, dear. What a silly-billy.’

  ‘So there he was with a noose round his neck that wouldn’t tighten and therefore was irrelevant to what happened next.’

  ‘Purely decorative,’ proffered the baroness.

  ‘As one might expect of Davage,’ added Amiss.

  ‘Next he released the rope from the holding cleat and this is where he made his second mistake. For one person to raise or lower a three-hundred-weight chandelier slowly requires them to do some clever things with leverage, but he didn’t think of that. He unwound the rope rapidly, not realizing that his weight was insufficient to stop the chandelier just crashing to the ground.

  ‘His third mistake was to fail to let go. He must have been about ten feet in the air when the chandelier hit the ground and shattered into pieces, causing Davage to descend rapidly onto the debris, break his left arm and concuss himself into the bargain.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ said the bishop. ‘He must feel very humiliated.’

  ‘He does. And he’s distraught about the chandelier. When Godson told him about it—rather brutally—he fell silent for a moment and then looked up with wet eyes and said, “Each man kills the thing he loves.” I felt really sorry for him. Unlike Godson, who was furious at losing his Sunday.’

  ‘Poor little wretch,’ said Amiss. ‘What an overreaction to a burglary.’

  The baroness looked at him disbelievingly. ‘What’s happened to your wits? It was far more to do with the fact that he’s being blackmailed by the dean.’

  ‘What do you mean, “blackmailed”?’

  ‘It was perfectly obvious from the conversation last night that the only explanation for Davage having ratted is that the dean has a hold on him. On Trustrum, too.’

  Amiss smote his brow. ‘You’re quite right, of course. I just haven’t been thinking properly. There’s no other explanation. No wonder Trustrum is avoiding talking about it.’

  The bishop came in hesitantly. ‘I understand why you might think that, but I cannot think the dean would be so depraved as to blackmail anyone.’

  ‘Ends and means, David. Ends and means. If you want to save souls, what’s a little blackmail between clergymen? Well, now, Ellis. What’s his guilty secret? Has your gardening superintendent had any work done on the backgrounds of the canons just in case any of them have been up to something shady?’

  Pooley smirked. ‘He hasn’t, of course. But I ordered checks on everyone yesterday morning. There won’t be any joy until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I just didn’t have the authority to get to the head of the queue.’

  ‘Good lad.’ She smacked her right fist into her left hand. ‘I’ll give any of you two to one that Davage and Trustrum have form.’

  ‘I’m not taking the bet,’ said Amiss. ‘I’ll go further and predict that cottaging comes into it somewhere.’

  The bishop wailed: ‘This is all very distressing.’

  The baroness leaned over and patted him on the back. ‘So it is, David. We’ll stop talking about it now. Robert, summon that nice child and let’s have dinner.’

  ***

  ‘I’m worried about that girl. I want you to look after her.’

  Amiss whimpered, picked up his watch, saw it was just before 7:00 and whimpered again.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Never mind. I can certainly hear you.’

  ‘I thought she was looking peaky.’

  ‘I’m doing my best for her. I’ve decided to marry her to Ellis.’

  ‘That would certainly be good for her health. How does he feel about it?’

  ‘I haven’t told him and I don’t really know how he feels. You know what he’s like. It’s not easy to know what goes on under that controlled surface. He hasn’t mentioned women to me since that Asian policewoman broke his heart.’

  ‘He’s more repressed than controlled, if you ask me. Right, it’s up to you then. Keep asking Alice to the palace.’ She paused. ‘Alice and the palace. What was that about?’

  ‘You’re thinking of A. A. Milne. ‘“They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace…”’

  ‘“Christopher Robin went down with Alice…”’

  ‘“Alice is marrying one of the guard…”’

  ‘“A soldier’s life is terrible hard…”’

  ‘“Says Alice,”’ they cried in unison.

  ‘Where were we?’ asked Amiss.

  ‘I was telling you to keep asking Alice to the palace for mating-with-Ellis purposes.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop telling me to do things I’m already doing.’

  ‘Got to make sure you’re doing them.’

  ‘In any event, I think David may be our unwitting accomplice. Last night he was trying to find some way of following my instructions about being kind to her—’

  ‘You see, I’m not the only bossy one.’

  ‘—when he remembered she played tennis and shyly asked her if she would do him the honour of having a game with him. It’s been fixed up for five o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent. That’ll be a goo
d excuse for you to ask her to call in afterwards for a drink. Don’t tell David you’re trying to fix her up with Ellis, though. I know him. It would only make him muck everything up through self-consciousness.’

  ‘May I go back to sleep now, please?’

  ‘No. Wait.’ There was a sound of a revving engine and a muttered oath. ‘Sorry about that. I was overtaking some Frog lorry. Who do they think they are colonizing our roads? I shouted, “Waterloo” at him as I cruised by, but I fear he didn’t hear.’

  ‘Can’t think why you didn’t go into the Foreign Office instead of the Home Civil Service, Jack. You would have been a natch. What are my other duties?’

  ‘Just remember that you’ll get more out of little Davage than the fuzz ever would. Don’t forget to visit him and seduce him into blabbing.’

  ‘And the dean?’

  ‘I have a feeling the dean will have enough on his hands with Tilly the Temptress. Stick to Davage. And tell Ellis that he should have a couple of cops patrolling the cathedral over the next few days. I have a feeling in my bones that things are going to get worse.’

  ‘Don’t quite see how they can. Neither the dean nor Davage is likely to get plastered a second time, so I don’t foresee another round of accidents and suicides.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something evil this way comes,” is what I feel. But I admit I may just be being melodramatic. Troutbecks have always had a bit of a taste for drama. But try to persuade him. Tell him he ignores my intuition at his peril.’

  ‘He hasn’t any power, Jack. And besides…’

  He realized the phone was dead.

  Chapter 19

  Amiss spent most of his day trying to keep his mind off pointless speculation by attacking paperwork with ferocity. He had just waved the bishop off to pick up Alice, with an injunction to ask her back for a drink, when Pooley arrived with a face like thunder.

  ‘Finished for the day, are we?’

  ‘We’d be officially finished forever, if it wasn’t that Godson decided he can spend tomorrow on what he calls the paper-work—half-an-hour’s work he can spin out for a whole day. As far as he’s concerned, it’s all over.’

  ‘Conclusions?’

  ‘Flubert committed suicide, the dean hit himself accidentally on the head and Davage tried to kill himself because he was drunk and therefore disproportionately upset by the burglary. Oh, yes. And the burglars were probably the shamans come back to exact revenge. Apparently Boyd had heard some gossip about them and put them forward as likely suspects. Godson’s sent out a call to have them pulled in and sees no point in looking elsewhere.’

  Amiss threw his hands wide. ‘Well, maybe that’s all correct, Ellis.’

  ‘Come down to the kitchen. I want a cup of tea.’

  The phone rang. ‘What dirt has Ellis dug up?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. He’s just got back and hasn’t had a chance to tell me.’

  ‘Well, get on, get on. I’ll ring back in ten.’

  Pooley was assembling the necessary components for what he considered proper tea, which involved a teapot, loose tea leaves, a tea cosy, jugs for milk and for hot water, and cups, saucers and spoons. Amiss waited until he had finished, the teapot had been warmed, the tea leaves added and the hot water poured on.

  ‘That was Jack. She wants to know what the researchers turned up.’

  ‘Everyone’s clear except Davage and Flubert.’

  ‘Oh, God, no. What was there no Jeremy?’

  ‘One conviction twenty years ago for gross indecency with a male on Hampstead Heath. He was let off with a fine.’

  ‘Poor fastidious Jeremy. It must have been a frightful humiliation. And Davage?’

  ‘Also humiliating. Indecent exposure at the Albert Memorial. He also got off with a fine.’

  ‘He certainly chose his location well. You couldn’t get a more kitschy piece of Victoriana than that. What possessed him?’

  ‘He was drunk at the time, but anyway, it’s always hard to understand other people’s compulsions.’

  ‘True enough. I, for instance, find it hard to grasp why you don’t just sling a couple of tea bags into two mugs and put the carton of milk on the table. However, yours is a harmless compulsion. These presumably had huge blackmail potential.’

  ‘Precisely. And yes, we raised the matter with the dean. Decently enough, Godson didn’t mention anything about Davage: he just focused on Flubert. The dean swore blind he knew nothing about Flubert’s past and denied vociferously that he would ever consider blackmailing anyone for whatever ends. When Godson pressed him, he became quite lively and started shouting about having his loins girt about with truth and not being prepared to have it questioned by unbelievers.’

  ‘Oh, good. Sounds as if he’s quite back to his old self. Do you believe him?’

  ‘Yes. So does Godson.’

  Pooley removed the tea cosy, and began to pour the tea. ‘Strong enough?’

  Amiss didn’t look. ‘Yes, yes. Fine. What about Davage?’

  ‘He admitted the offence, declared it irrelevant and denied that the dean was blackmailing him. He said the reason he was falling in with his plans was that he no longer had the stomach for battle: he just wanted to get on with his broadcasting career. As far as he was concerned, he said, Westonbury could rot.’

  Amiss stirred some milk into his tea and took a sip. ‘It’s too strong.’

  Pooley patiently passed him the hot water.

  ‘What about Trustrum?’

  ‘He said he was no politician, that all he wanted was a quiet life and that he wouldn’t fight Davage and the dean.’

  ‘Ellis, frankly I find it hard to see how Godson can do anything but close the case.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ The phone rang. Amiss passed it over. ‘You talk to her.’

  Pooley paced up and down the kitchen and told his story crisply. ‘Yes, I thought of that…I was going to suggest it…Yes, I will…No, Godson wouldn’t wear it…Said the budget didn’t allow for night-time patrols just because a junior officer from another force had a hunch…I hope you’re wrong…’ He took the phone from his ear and looked at it. ‘You remember all those detective stories in which the phone suddenly goes dead and you realize the person at the other end has been kidnapped or murdered. If that ever happens to Jack, we won’t know the difference. And serve her right.’

  He sat down. ‘She thinks Tilly’s the blackmailer. So do I.’

  Amiss smote his brow. ‘Of course, of course. That explains everything. Well, nearly everything. She’s been blackmailing for Jesus. God, I must be slowing up.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I had a while to come to that conclusion. You’ve had only half a minute.’

  ‘And Jack had only ten seconds.’

  ‘Look, we know she’s faster than either of us, but don’t start developing an inferiority complex. Think about all the things you can do that she can’t. Like what we want you to do now.’

  ‘If you mean trying to worm secrets out of Davage, I’m already under orders, but I expect little to emerge. I can’t tell him I know about his past. It would hardly be good news for your career if it emerged that you tell me your professional secrets.’

  ‘I have every confidence in you, Robert. I’m sure you’ll find a way.’

  ***

  ‘I’ve brought you some flowers. Shall I find a vase?’

  ‘How kind. How pretty. I love freesias. Now let me think. Oh, yes. Put them in the small funnel-shaped cut-glass vase you’ll find beside the kitchen sink: it’s just the perfect shape to show them off.’

  ‘And I’ve brought you a bottle of champagne too.’

  ‘My dear boy, is that wise? Look what it made me do last night.’

  ‘Just one little glass for medicinal purposes. Then I’ll stop it up and put it in the fridge.’

  When the flowers had been arranged to Davage’s satisfaction and placed exactly in the right position, just under the pope, Amiss saluted Davage wi
th his glass. ‘Let’s drink to survival, Cecil.’

  Davage smiled ruefully. ‘To survival, though I have to say I can’t say I’m much enjoying it at the moment.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘Not physically. Not much, anyway. But mentally, yes. It’s all very humiliating and the future looks pretty bleak.’

  ‘Forgive me, I don’t want to be nosy, but…’

  ‘Why did I do it? A mixture of drink and shame. What am I if not the treasure of Westonbury? When I found that because of my carelessness, those possessions for which I would happily have given my life had been stolen, why, then it seemed a good idea to give my life anyway, in what I fondly imagined to be a stylish manner.’

  He moved in his armchair and winced slightly as his plaster cast knocked against the revolving bookcase next to it. ‘And what happened? I succeeded in making myself an object of ridicule and wrecking another work of art for which I cared deeply.’

  ‘We all make fools of ourselves at times, Cecil. And remember what we’re talking about are only objects. You are a human being.’

  ‘I see. You then would be of the school of thought that thinks you save the baby from the burning house rather than the Mona Lisa?’

  ‘Every time.’

  ‘I understand your point of view. Perhaps if it were my baby I might even hesitate a little. But I feel sure the Mona Lisa would win every time. There’s only one of it and there are a lot of babies.’ He gave a little titter. ‘At least I’m consistent. I truly believe the Great St Dumbert’s Staff is more important than me. I can hardly bear to contemplate its loss.’

  ‘I ran into Ellis Pooley on my way here and he told me the police are pretty confident that the staff will be recovered. I can’t think that any sensible fence is likely to welcome a seven-foot-long staff of unique design which is featured in countless books on medieval art.’

  ‘That’s not what I worry about. I could bear it going to some horrid foreign collector who gloated over it in private. What terrifies me is the fear that they’ll take out the precious stones and melt down the staff.’