Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins

by James Runcie

  ‘She thinks we are in cahoots.’

  ‘And aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes we are, Helena, but it is not what you might call a popular move. You have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way.’

  ‘Unlike you, Mr Perfect.’

  ‘I know very well that I am not.’

  ‘You need a bit of friction if you want to generate electricity, Sidney. You can’t go round being nice to people all the time.’

  ‘I think that’s what you’re supposed to do if you are a clergyman.’

  ‘But not if you are a journalist.’

  ‘I think we should go,’ said Malcolm, excited by the challenges ahead.

  Sidney picked up his briefcase. ‘I’m sure you’ve got plenty of volts left in you, Helena. Only I wouldn’t like to see you short-circuit.’

  ‘I’m like a battery, Sidney. Ever ready.’

  Malcolm was at the door. ‘Shall we get on with it, Helena, or are we just going to stand swapping electric metaphors?’

  ‘Lead on, my friend,’ Helena smiled. ‘It will be good to have an excuse to see more of each other.’

  Sidney was on the point of making some kind of joke about the electric charge between them but by the time he had thought of it the couple had left.

  His eventual meeting with Cecilia Richards was more difficult than he had anticipated. The association with Helena Randall appeared to have eradicated all that they had shared in the past and disqualified him from future friendship. It was a mistake, he realised within five minutes of coming to the house, not to have brought Hildegard with him. She always made everything calmer. It was even getting to the stage when he had to start acknowledging that some people really did prefer to spend time with his wife.

  ‘That journalist . . .’ Cecilia began.

  ‘You read it?’

  ‘Such filth. I know she is a friend of yours.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d put it like that. We bump into each other now and then.’

  ‘I didn’t know priests spent time with people who are so insensitive.’

  ‘It is a complicated situation.’

  ‘I don’t think honesty or integrity are complicated, Sidney. Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then do you think you could see your way to never working with her again?’

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘Because it’s very simple, Sidney: you can’t be both my friend and hers. You’re going to have to choose: between a widow who has always loved and supported you and whose recently deceased husband was the first person to welcome your wife into Cambridge, and a guttersnipe journalist. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?’

  Sidney decided to revisit Dennis Gaunt in his mother’s empty house. ‘The last time I was here,’ he began, ‘you were struggling with a Latin phrase about intention. You mentioned actus reus but what I think you meant was aberratio ictus . . .’

  ‘It’s all an aberration, Canon Chambers.’

  ‘It refers to the accidental harm to a person; when the perpetrator aims at X, but by chance or lack of skills hits Y instead. Sometimes it is considered an immaterial mistake; it doesn’t matter who is killed, the killing has still taken place . . .’

  ‘Death, not killing. Accident.’

  ‘In some cases this can lead to a double charge – murder (of the unintended victim) and attempted murder (of the intended victim) – and so it is doubly serious. Do you see what I am saying?’

  ‘An act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty. No one meant to kill the music man.’

  ‘No. You meant to kill the bursar.’

  ‘Why would that be? My nephew’s a good boy. He broke his leg. He’s not likely to do that on purpose. He’s already broken it once before.’

  ‘Perhaps that was the accident you mean then? Lennie would know all about your debts. And your financial situation.’

  ‘He knows everything about everything. We have no secrets from each other; only from the world. None with the family.’

  ‘And was your nephew good at his job?’

  ‘Always on time.’

  ‘He knew how to use a crane?’

  ‘He was excellent.’

  ‘And he was unlikely to make a mistake?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘But according to everyone, he did?’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain.’

  ‘I think I can, Mr Gaunt. Your nephew did it deliberately. When did you last see the bursar? It was that morning, wasn’t it? Did you tell Lennie about the situation?’

  ‘The boy knows everything. He’s going to run the company one day.’

  ‘And what company would that be, Mr Gaunt? Would it be the removal firm or something different? Even in another country? Using the money from the sale of this house? Before you have to pay your debts?’

  A week later, on 20th August, Helena Randall and Malcolm Mitchell presented Sidney with their findings. Helena had investigated the finances of Gaunts’ Removals and looked into their annual reports. It was true that the firm was about to go under and that the Corpus bursar had served them with an eviction notice after persistent non-payment of arrears.

  In the meantime, Malcolm had been to see Maureen Gaunt. She told him that her husband’s mental condition had deteriorated through the stress of the situation and that their sister-in-law Susan had indeed met the bursar but that any compensatory payment in kind had been at his suggestion rather than hers.

  ‘She told you all that?’

  ‘It took a while to dig it out.’

  Helena put her hand on the curate’s knee. ‘Malcolm’s got all the gory details. People tell him anything.’

  ‘I’m sure they do.’

  ‘Do you want to know more, Sidney?’ Helena continued. ‘Lennie Gaunt has a criminal record. I got Geordie to check: armed robbery, assault and battery. He’s had a fair few warnings, getting lenient sentences when he was a juvenile, but now they would have to be more serious. Also, he broke his leg in a street fight; hooliganism, to be precise. It may have been football-related but he wasn’t playing at the time. It was after a West Ham v Millwall game.’

  ‘And they moved out of London . . .’

  ‘Ten years ago. It’s not clear whether they still have dealings in the capital but it looks like they’ve been laundering money all over the place. There are plenty of reasons why Lennie Gaunt, at least, might want the bursar dead: debt, the ruin of the family business, his mother’s reputation and the fear of never working again. That’s four motives, before we start thinking about the threat of an investigation by the tax man. Remove one man and most of their troubles disappear; at least temporarily.’

  ‘And so the idea,’ Malcolm summed up, ‘was to stage an accident during which Lennie Gaunt breaks his own leg as a kind of alibi; like those murderers who poison themselves before killing in order to show that they too are victims.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Only this time they got the wrong victim.’

  ‘So do you think the bursar is safe?’ Helena asked. ‘Shouldn’t we warn him? They might try something again.’

  ‘I don’t think so. They must have guessed we’re on to them.’

  ‘If so then you need to watch it, Sidney.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m due to meet Geordie in the next half hour.’

  Inspector Keating made an arrest that very day. At first, Lennie Gaunt denied everything and was so resistant to questioning that the inspector resorted to all-out attack. ‘You broke your leg to make it appear that you couldn’t be responsible, didn’t you, Lennie-boy? That was a clever move. A bit foolhardy, though, and it doesn’t cover up the fact that you’re guilty of murder.’

  ‘Manslaughter. That’s the best you can get me for. Accidental death. Two years in prison – if that.’

  ‘How much did your uncle pay you to do this?’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘Dennis Gaunt may have had debts but there’s plenty of
money floating about. His safe house, for a start. Don’t tell me he just keeps that for his nerves. What did he offer you? Five hundred pounds? A thousand? Or maybe even ten grand?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Who has got that kind of money?’

  ‘Your family. Stashed away. The removal business is just a front.’

  ‘I don’t think . . .’ Sidney interrupted.

  ‘Leave this to me, Chambers. I know what I’m doing.’

  Lennie Gaunt lit a cigarette. ‘This is stupid.’

  ‘You’re the one that’s been stupid, matey. Who is going to believe your story?’

  ‘It’s the truth. Why would I deliberately break my leg when I’ve wrecked it before?’

  ‘And not how you say you broke it.’

  ‘It’s not something you shout about. Street fighting.’

  ‘Perhaps you got the wrong leg this time?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to do anything.’

  ‘Let’s be clear about this, sonny boy. We are accusing you of deliberately creating your own distraction. You knew the debts the firm had and that your uncle would have to leave his house . . . and come and live with you . . . and that would be too much for your mum.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘If you could get rid of the bursar . . .’

  ‘Why would I do that? The debts would still be there.’

  ‘But a new man might look more kindly upon you. At the very least it would buy you a bit more time to sort things out. It could be six months before a replacement was found. By then you could have made other plans.’

  ‘I broke my leg!’

  ‘You meant to murder the bursar.’

  ‘I didn’t . . .’

  ‘Instead, because of the timings, or because you were distracted, or because you hadn’t worked out how long it would take that particular piano to drop, and because Orlando Richards walked underneath at exactly the wrong moment, he was killed, or rather murdered.’

  ‘No one will believe I made that kind of mistake. The musician was killed in an accident.’

  ‘Yours,’ Inspector Keating insisted. ‘You cocked it all up, didn’t you, Lennie-boy? Perhaps you didn’t plan it all. It may have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Everything built up inside you. I know you’ve got a history of anger and violence. You saw the bursar earlier that morning. You talked to your uncle. He told you that Walter Collins had issued an ultimatum: pay up or get out. Uncle Dennis may even have said something about your mum. And then, when you saw the bursar coming out of the Porters’ Lodge, you decided to act. It was an instinctive decision. You untied the piano too soon, gave it a push too late and lost your balance. You didn’t mean to fall with it and you didn’t mean to kill Orlando Richards. That’s why you can keep calling the whole thing an accident. Because it was. But it was also murder. The fact that you got the wrong man and broke your leg at the same time doesn’t make any difference.’

  ‘No one’s going to believe all that.’

  ‘It will be for a court to decide.’

  ‘It was an accident. I didn’t know what I was doing. I lost control . . .’

  ‘There’s no need to say anything now, Lennie. You got the wrong man. That’s all.’

  ‘I did the right thing.’

  The inquisition was at an end. Now Sidney spoke. ‘What you did would never have been the “right thing”, no matter how much you loved your uncle or wanted to protect him, or save his house and his business. No excuse justifies murder.’

  ‘Except in wartime.’

  ‘This was not a war.’

  ‘I was fighting for my family, Canon Chambers.’

  After the arrest had been made Sidney paid the bursar a visit and negotiated an extension on the Gaunt family’s credit. It would at least give Dennis the time to sell his mother’s house if he could be persuaded to do so. The case would come to court by the end of the year. In the meantime, Inspector Keating had launched an inquiry into whether the Gaunts were involved in any shadow companies, how much of their income was undeclared, and if they were guilty of money laundering. While the murder investigation might come to a swift conclusion, it was clear that the outstanding matters might not.

  Sidney knew that he would have to give evidence at the trial, Keating would force a fuller confession, and the sentence, if Lennie was found guilty, was likely to be long after a third and more serious offence. Twenty years, possibly.

  On 27th August Helena Randall joined Sidney and Geordie for their regular Thursday evening drink at the Eagle. The two men had been discussing how ironic it was that Lennie Gaunt had done more financial damage to his uncle’s company by staging the accident than if he had done nothing; an example, Sidney was suggesting, that you can never anticipate the consequences of your actions. It would have been better to talk to all those involved, to have come to a resolution with the bursar rather than act violently.

  ‘Although the end result has turned out well for me,’ said Helena.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve got a new job.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the Daily Mirror. I’m going to be their crime correspondent.’

  ‘Blimey . . .’ said Keating.

  ‘And nearly all on the strength of this investigation and my attitude to class and privilege. They said I was “spiky”.’

  ‘We could have told them that,’ Keating answered. ‘So now you are profiting from this too. Making money out of it.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Sidney asked how she had got the job.

  ‘Two weeks ago. I went to London. Malcolm knows. Hasn’t he told you?’

  Keating leant back in his chair. ‘And will “Malcolm” be going to the capital too?’

  ‘Not yet. But do you think you can arrange it, Sidney? After all, you’re going to be an archdeacon. Doesn’t that mean you’re in charge of recruitment?’

  ‘Only in the Ely diocese. Malcolm will have to stay in Grantchester to show my successor the ropes.’

  ‘As long as he doesn’t hang himself with them,’ said Keating. ‘I didn’t realise you were seeing so much of the man.’

  ‘Malcolm and I are extremely close.’

  ‘Are you indeed?’

  ‘It’s not long on the train. And I’ll come back at weekends if I’m not too busy. I know it will be difficult for Malcolm to come on a Sunday.’

  ‘It certainly will,’ said Sidney.

  ‘So this isn’t goodbye then?’ Keating asked.

  ‘I hope not. I’m relying on you two. I’m sure I got the job after I told them all about our escapades. I’ll need you for tips.’

  ‘Sources,’ said Keating. ‘Inside knowledge.’

  ‘We have all helped each other, don’t you see? And I am going to be a better journalist as a result.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘Just as you, Sidney, are going to be a better detective because of me.’

  ‘I am glad you think so. Although not a better priest.’

  ‘I work in this world, Sidney. There is enough trouble in it without wondering what is going to happen in the next.’

  ‘I have always thought that we should be prepared for any eventuality.’

  ‘One world at a time, that’s my motto.’

  Keating looked down into his empty glass and was glum. ‘So you’re both leaving me. One’s off to Ely; the other to London. What am I supposed to do? Who can I complain about when I get home?’

  ‘You’re going to have an easier life,’ said Sidney.

  ‘I suppose you want me to buy the next round?’

  Helena patted his hand. ‘Don’t worry. Here’s Malcolm. He’ll pay.’

  ‘Hello everyone.’ The curate appeared slightly nervous.

  ‘What could be nicer than all of us together?’ Helena continued, breezily. ‘Thank you so much, darling. The men always have pints. As I do when I’m with them.’

  ‘I’ll get them, sweetie.’

&
nbsp; Helena smiled. ‘You see how easy we make things for you, Geordie . . .’

  The inspector could only manage one word in response. ‘Sweetie?’

  In his head, Sidney tried to rationalise his investigations, and therefore his absence from home, as an opportunity for Hildegard to prepare for her concert. This attempt at justification was flawed, not least because Anna was not yet two and an au pair girl had so far failed to materialise.

  ‘Where have you been?’ his wife asked as soon as his first foot was in the doorway.

  ‘Completing our inquiry.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘I was with Geordie, and Helena and Malcolm.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question. Where did this conversation take place?’

  ‘In the Eagle.’

  ‘The pub.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘So it wasn’t really work at all, was it?’

  ‘Well it was, in a manner of speaking, Hildegard.’

  ‘Would you have been able to look after a child while you were in the pub?’

  ‘Children aren’t allowed in pubs.’

  ‘Do you think you would be able to look after a child while you were practising for a concert?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘And if you had to decide between looking after a child and going to the pub, which would it be?’

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as that.’

  ‘I think it is, Sidney. Do you think your career is more important than mine?’

  ‘No, of course not. That’s not the issue.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘My hours are unpredictable . . .’

  ‘But you prefer to be out investigating rather than at home with Anna and me.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Why do you go out then?’

  ‘Because things happen, Hildegard.’

  ‘Things that are more important than us?’

  ‘Not “more important”. No. Things that shout louder.’

  ‘So if I shouted more loudly would you stay at home? Do you want a wife like that? Am I supposed to become one of those women who nag their husbands all the time? I don’t want to have to do that. I don’t want to become that kind of woman. Instead, I’d like you to want to come home. Is that too much to ask?’