Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins

by James Runcie

  A crowd had gathered in Trumpington Street to watch, perhaps remembering Laurel and Hardy’s shenanigans in The Music Box, as a foreman shouted out instructions.

  ‘This new acquisition is very exciting,’ Orlando confided quickly. ‘I’ve never had such a powerful piano. It’s got such a big, bright sound. My touch is going to have to change. I am going to play more orchestrally: Beethoven. Liszt. I can’t wait.’

  There was even a photographer present, Colin Larkin, who told Sidney that he was working on a series of images of the British at work and at play. The previous year he had embedded himself in a Bank Holiday fight between mods and rockers at the ‘second battle of Hastings’. He was now planning a suite of photographs that chronicled the construction of a piano from the seasoning of the wood right up to a first performance. He hoped it might find its way into the pages of Life magazine.

  Six men were involved in the actual removal: a crane operator and handler outside, three at a second-floor window where the glass had been taken out, and Dennis Gaunt, the foreman. The Bösendorfer upright was wrapped in blankets beside the removal lorry, and the boudoir grand was carried to the crane and slid on to a platform.

  Three of the men returned to the college and went back upstairs to receive the piano. The head porter came out to check that all was well. Gaunt explained that it was a simple lift on a crane that needed to be as close to the window as possible.

  The legs and pedals had been removed and the piano was wrapped and on its side. The crane operator began the lift and one man, Lennie Gaunt, the foreman’s nephew, travelled with the instrument on the platform, holding it close, issuing instructions about the speed of the rise, checking that the three men inside the college were ready.

  Just before Lennie reached the second floor, he asked the crane operator to stop. At the same time, the bursar left the Porters’ Lodge and appeared to say something to the foreman before passing dangerously close underneath, muttering that it was ‘probably easier to raise the Titanic than move one of your keyboard instruments. Cheaper too.’

  Orlando Richards rushed under the piano to tell the bursar to get out of the way. As he did so, Byron trotted over to greet him and Sidney called him back. Dennis Gaunt shouted, ‘Level off and untie.’

  His nephew pulled at the ropes holding the piano to the crane.

  Then he slipped.

  He fell away to the left and down to the ground, scattering some of the crowd. The crane operator made a sudden movement in order to try and correct the balance but miscalculated. The platform tilted and the piano slid away and dropped, hideously, on to the head of Orlando Richards.

  There was a scream just before the final crash, a series of loud discordant sounds and then silence.

  ‘Mary, Mother and Joseph,’ said the head porter.

  After the shock of the moment there was a panic of shouting and a babel of instructions as members of the crowd tried to lift the piano away.

  Under ten minutes later, the ambulance and the fire brigade arrived. Lennie Gaunt was taken to hospital with a broken leg, the piano was lifted, and the body of Orlando Richards was revealed, as broken as a jointed doll.

  There was only one thought in Sidney’s mind. Someone was going to have to tell the victim’s wife.

  He had been a clergyman for over fifteen years but he had not become used to bringing news of a death. Perhaps if he had, he told himself, he would be a lesser priest. All that he had learned was to sit the person down and speak calmly, acknowledging that clarity and sympathy were the most important qualities he could offer.

  Sidney had been a friend of Cecilia Richards ever since he had arrived in Grantchester. She was a doctor, an unusually tall, poised woman, with ash-blonde hair, a shy smile and a scar that had been on her forehead since childhood. The couple had a six-year-old son, Charlie. He was playing cricket with two friends in the garden, running in and out of the house, asking if they could have more orange squash, and when was Daddy coming home?

  ‘He’s so like his father,’ Cecilia smiled. ‘Where is he, by the way?’

  They were about to go on holiday to the Norfolk Broads and then up to the coast at Cromer. They had friends there and Charlie was the right age for the sea. His mother was going to teach him to sail.

  Once Sidney had sat her down and told her what had happened, they did not speak. He prayed but did not suggest that his friend join him. He placed his hand on hers and let the silence take its course.

  After a while he offered to take her to the hospital.

  Cecilia Richards was reluctant to leave her home. ‘If I see him I know it will be true.’

  ‘You do not have to come.’

  ‘What about our boy? How will I tell him?’

  Cecilia stood up and moved a few objects around on a side table. There was a book about Melanie Klein and the psychoanalysis of children, a smoked-glass ashtray, a pair of reading glasses that were not in their case. She put Charlie’s catapult in a drawer. ‘Orlando was never very aware of his surroundings. He was always thinking of something else. I was frightened he might be run over in the street. No one could have imagined this.’

  ‘It was a freak accident.’

  ‘It’s weird, isn’t it? You telling me this; and me still not quite believing it all. I think if Orlando heard it told he might even enjoy the story of a man killed by his own piano. He would think it amusing, or even fitting, if it had happened to one of his rivals.’

  ‘Musical rather than poetic justice? I don’t think he had any rivals. Everyone loved Orlando.’

  ‘He liked to be loved but he never quite believed the affection people showed him. I don’t know what it was. He thought it didn’t count. I know he felt vulnerable when people regarded him as more of a harpsichord player than a pianist. He wanted to show everyone that he could play both. So he made quite a fuss about the Steinway. We couldn’t really afford it but the company said that we could pay by instalments. At least that’s what Orlando told me. And the college chipped in too. Do you suppose we’ll still have to pay?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘The removal men will claim on their insurance?’

  ‘I imagine so; not that any of this should concern you.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  Sidney hesitated. It was far too soon to be saying what he had to say but the subject had come up. ‘You could probably take some kind of legal action against them. They were negligent.’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘And I am sure I could find someone to help with that. Hildegard’s first husband was a solicitor. She still knows people if you don’t have anyone.’

  ‘I don’t think we have a lawyer. There’s no will or anything like that. We’re still young.’

  ‘It might help if you are short of money. Not that this is the time to discuss these things. There’s no need to rush into anything. The college . . .’

  ‘Oh. I hadn’t thought. They’ll want to throw us out of our home, won’t they?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to suggest any such thing. I was going to say that I am sure they will do anything possible . . .’

  ‘But this is their property.’

  ‘Your house is a Corpus living, I believe . . .’

  ‘I haven’t been thinking. There will be a successor. They’ll make us leave. Where will I go? How will we live? What about Charlie?’

  Her son was running up and down the stairs, trying on different moustaches to go with his pirate costume. He wanted to go to his party.

  Sidney had missed lunch altogether and had not been able to get a message to Hildegard. He had specifically promised to come home early and yet he had returned later than ever. He could already imagine her thinking there was nothing she could do or say to make her husband keep his domestic promises and return home on time. Were wife and daughter of such little importance?

  ‘I’m not speaking to you,’ he heard as he walked through the door. ‘I don’t know what you think I’m like or how you expect m
e to . . . oh . . . what’s wrong?’

  The grief burst over him. ‘Too terrible,’ he said, collapsing.

  They sat in the garden. Hildegard remembered Orlando; how, when she had first visited Sidney on her return from Germany, he had let her use his rooms and his piano; how he had provided the music for their wedding by playing Pachelbel’s Canon on the organ. He had laid on a special choir, filled with choral scholars and third-year students, and they had prepared some of Hildegard’s favourite music: ‘Also heilig ist der Tag’, ‘Bist du bei Mir’, and Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate. He had been the musical accompaniment to their married life. ‘I cannot think of Cambridge without him.’

  ‘Such a lovely man.’

  ‘You remember his favourite anecdote . . .’

  They shared the story of the hopeless visiting conductor who had come for a concert of Beethoven’s Ninth and blamed a disappointing performance on the size of his baton. If it had only been smaller, he had said. And so, on his next visit, just before the first rehearsal . . .

  ‘Orlando left a matchstick on his music stand . . .’ Hildegard laughed.

  ‘No one else would have dared.’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s gone.’

  ‘A terrible accident.’

  Hildegard was hesitant, and then suggested that piano movers didn’t normally make that kind of mistake. It was hard to believe that everything had come together in a single moment: for the piano to be so loosely tied, for it to fall when someone was underneath; for a man to slip and the removers not to have cordoned off the area. It was crazy that they had not taken every precaution because such a disaster meant that they would never work again. ‘Why would they do such a thing?’

  ‘I don’t think they meant to “do” it at all.’

  ‘Perhaps the man on the crane?’ Hildegard asked. ‘Are they different companies? It could be a form of sabotage.’

  ‘Now you are beginning to sound like me.’

  ‘Pianos don’t fall. You have to be so careful. If it was for Orlando then it would have been special and they would have taken extra care.’

  ‘It was a Steinway.’

  ‘He has a Bösendorfer and a harpsichord already.’

  ‘He wanted something with a bit more body.’

  ‘So they took away the upright?’ Hildegard checked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it was the Steinway that was destroyed? I wonder if there were other reasons.’

  ‘Are you thinking about the insurance? I am not sure how the removers would profit from such a scheme. Why would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s unlike a removal company to have such a catastrophe. You should go and see them. At least you have an excuse.’

  ‘Because of our moving to Ely?’

  ‘You could ask a few questions.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to give up on detection?’

  ‘Not in this case.’

  ‘I have your permission?’

  ‘Sidney, you would have gone to see them whether you had my permission or not.’

  The next morning, Sidney combined Byron’s exercise with taking the ever-energetic Anna to play with a group of like-minded toddlers. The accident was the talk of all the mothers; particularly when they discovered that Sidney had been present at the scene. After enquiring if Mrs Chambers was ill (no, she was practising her piano), they wanted all the news. One of them even asked if Sidney would be conducting an investigation. He assured the young mothers that it had been nothing more than a terrible piece of misfortune.

  He returned home and tried to take his mind off events as Hildegard worked through a particularly tricky four-part fugue. The music would have been relaxing if his wife had played each piece fluently, but she kept stopping, patiently separating and practising each voice to check that she was in full control, adjusting her fingering or her speed. Sidney wished he had her determined concentration.

  He looked over his post and flicked through his copy of The Times. After a while he told himself that sitting down reading the newspaper was hardly going to buy the baby a new bonnet (one of his mother’s phrases) and that he should get on, visit his former housekeeper (Mrs Maguire hadn’t been out for a few days), see to the arrangements for the village fête, and write his sermon for Sunday. At least it was a Thursday, and so there was his regular meeting with Geordie to look forward to in the Eagle that evening.

  ‘Who among those removal men would want Orlando Richards dead?’ Geordie asked as soon as the subject of the accident was raised. ‘These are ordinary working people.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And I don’t think your friend will have been killed to order, if that’s what you are thinking.’

  ‘But it was such a new and great grand piano. And Orlando stepped underneath it at exactly the wrong time. It is more than a coincidence, don’t you think?’

  ‘That’s what accidents are: unfortunate turns of events. Even if this was not, you still have to ask the question: who benefits? Richards is dead and the piano is ruined. What would be the point of murder?’

  ‘I don’t know. But surely we should try and find out?’

  ‘I don’t mind making a few simple enquiries, but really, Sidney, let’s talk about something else.’

  That something else turned out to be Keating’s troublesome daughters. His eldest was seeing a boyfriend who looked like one of Herman’s Hermits, the middle one spent so much time doing her hair that she never finished any homework, and his youngest was desperate for a pony and threw a tantrum every time her parents said they couldn’t afford one. All her friends had one, she said. (When pressed on the subject it turned out that only one of them did, but this was not, Katie Keating had insisted, the point.)

  ‘You’re lucky you’ve just got the one daughter, Sidney. How’s Malcolm?’

  ‘As popular as ever. In fact he’s such a good curate I sometimes think that my parishioners don’t have much need for me.’

  ‘That could be why you’re suspicious about the accident. Is it because you need something to get your teeth into?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that.’

  ‘Still, you’ll be all right with Malcolm. Is he still pursuing Helena Randall? I don’t know what she sees in him.’

  ‘Kindness probably,’ Sidney answered. ‘She’ll want the inside story on the piano. By the way, she told me that Dennis Gaunt, the owner of the removal firm, seems to have disappeared. Do you think that’s odd?’

  ‘He’s probably keeping a low profile. I don’t think he will have done a runner, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘It’s all very unusual, Geordie.’

  ‘Well, death can be like that.’

  ‘Hildegard was telling me about how some musicians have met their maker: Ernest Chausson lost control of his bicycle and crashed into a brick wall; Jean-Baptiste Lully stabbed himself in the foot with the pointed staff he used to keep time and Charles-Henri-Valentin Alkan . . .’

  ‘That’s quite a mouthful . . .’

  ‘. . . was thought to have died when reaching for a copy of the Talmud on a high shelf. The bookcase fell on top of him.’

  ‘Really? I suppose it’s not dissimilar to being crushed by a grand piano. It’s my round, Sidney. Are you having another?’

  Keating went to the bar. After he had put in his order he was momentarily distracted by the sight of a man taking out his false teeth and popping them into his pint of cider. He wanted to stop people drinking out of it while he went to the gents.

  ‘He does that all the time,’ said the barmaid. ‘Are you discussing the accident?’

  ‘There’s not much to talk about.’

  ‘I never know with you two.’

  ‘We’re a bit too far away for anyone to eavesdrop on our conversation. Don’t tell me you’ve got some thoughts.’

  ‘Not really, Geordie. I just hope the college looks after the widow. They’ve been upping the rents and not everyone can afford them.’

  ‘P
rices are going up everywhere.’

  ‘Especially the heating. Last year a couple I heard about got carried away with their insulation: they sealed themselves in so well that a gas leak poisoned them.’

  ‘There’s a cheery thought.’

  ‘Money makes people desperate.’

  ‘I don’t know whether that’s got anything to do with this case, Sally.’

  ‘The poor old choirmaster. At least the music will be better in heaven now that he’s there.’

  Keating returned with two pints of IPA to find that Sidney had been ruminating. ‘I think I might go and visit Lennie Gaunt in hospital.’

  ‘And who, pray, is he?’

  ‘The man from the removal firm who fell and broke his leg when Orlando was killed. The owner’s nephew.’

  ‘One of your pastoral visits?’

  ‘It can’t do any harm, can it?’

  Before he did so Sidney had to get through the small matter of the village fête. He had been hoping that Malcolm would be able to look after most of the proceedings, but his curate was in a curiously vulnerable mood. Always sensitive to criticism, he had reacted badly to Leonard Graham giving him a copy of Chekhov’s Short Stories. One of the tales, ‘Oysters’, featured a feverish boy who becomes so hungry that he imagines eating not just a pile of oysters, but their shells, his place setting, his napkin, his father’s galoshes, and everything in the restaurant. There was nothing that the boy didn’t want to eat.

  ‘I don’t think Leonard gave you that story deliberately, Malcolm . . .’

  ‘I’m a little touchy about these matters as you know, Sidney. Sometimes I don’t know if I eat too much because I am unhappy or I am unhappy because I eat too much.’

  ‘Other people have the same problem with alcohol, Malcolm. But this is not the day to worry about these things. Everyone loves you: especially Helena Randall, I’ve noticed.’

  ‘We’re just friends.’

  ‘You are a very popular man.’

  ‘I’m not sure that good Christianity is about popularity.’

  ‘It’s certainly a start. Unpopular vicars can kill a congregation.’ Sidney hesitated. ‘Not literally of course.’