The rain had stopped at last and a pale sun was trying to force its way through the clouds. I decided to have a walk before I went back to work. I needed to clear my head. I put on my hat and raincoat and went into the Close. There was a farm on the other side of the Theological College. If the ground wasn’t too muddy I’d get out of the city for half an hour and walk among fields, dykes and hedgerows that sloped down to the Fens.
But I never even left the Close. Just as I reached the Porta, I heard the tinkle of a handbell, uncannily similar to the one we used in the Dark Hostelry to let people know a meal was ready. Then came a jangling crash. I looked towards the Gotobeds’ cottage. One of the first-floor windows was open. A hand fluttered in the room behind the window.
I walked over to the cottage and looked up. ‘Hello, Mrs Gotobed. How are you?’
The hand appeared again, beckoning me. I couldn’t see her face, but the sound of her voice floated down to me.
‘The door’s unlocked. Come upstairs.’
I picked up the bell from the flagstone path, went inside and up the stairs to the little sitting room. There were several changes since I had seen it last. For a start, Mrs Gotobed was sitting at the window overlooking the Close with Pursy on the ledge between her chair and the glass. Secondly, the room had not been smartened up for a visitor. The remains of her lunch were on a tray beside her, the commode was uncovered, and she looked as if she hadn’t bothered to brush her hair since yesterday.
‘Is there something I can do?’ I asked.
‘Have you seen him?’ she hissed at me.
‘Mr Gotobed? Not recently, not since this –’
‘Not him. That man who was trying to get in.’
‘What man?’
‘There was a fellow in a black overcoat trying to get in.’ Her voice was shaking, and she looked older than she had yesterday. ‘I’ve never seen him before. Though I didn’t get a good look at him, me being above and him wearing a hat.’
‘What happened?’
‘He knocked on the door. I was asleep, nodded off after my dinner, didn’t hear him at first. Then I looked out to see who it was and there he was. He tried the door handle. He was about to come in, murder me in my sleep, I shouldn’t wonder. I called down, “What do you think you’re doing?” and he glanced up at me and scarpered. Out through the Porta, and the Lord knows where he went then. If I’d been a couple of years younger, I could have got to the other window to see where he went.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said, drawing up a chair and sitting beside her. I took one of her hands in mine. Her skin was as cold as a dead person’s. ‘Would you like me to fetch Mr Gotobed, or the police?’
She shook her head violently. ‘Don’t go.’
‘I won’t. Can you remember anything else about this man?’
Her fingers gripped mine. ‘Black hat, black coat. I think he was a little fellow, though I can’t be sure as I was above him, you see.’ She breathed deeply. ‘Bold as brass,’ she muttered. ‘In broad daylight, too, and in the middle of the Close. Wouldn’t have happened when I was a girl, I’ll tell you that. It’s been one of those days, Mrs Appleyard, I don’t mind telling you. I was all shook up to start with, but I didn’t expect something like this.’
‘Shall I make you a cup of tea?’
‘Later.’
‘I’m sure he won’t come back. Not now you’ve frightened him off.’
‘How can I be sure of that?’
There wasn’t any way you could be sure. Once you’re frightened, you’re frightened and common sense doesn’t come into it.
‘Could the man have been a tramp?’
‘He could have been a parson for all I know. All I saw was the black hat and black coat, I told you.’ Suddenly she paused and stared at me. ‘Tell you one thing, though, his shoes were clean. If he was a tramp, he was a very particular one.’
Another possibility was that Mrs Gotobed had misinterpreted the situation altogether. Perhaps it had been a door-to-door salesman paying a perfectly innocent call. He might have been as frightened of her as she was of him.
‘What a day, eh?’ said Mrs Gotobed. ‘First poor Pursy, and now this.’
We both looked at the cat who was still sprawled at his ease on the window ledge. He had taken no notice of either of us since I had come in.
‘He came in this morning like a bat out of hell,’ Mrs Gotobed said. ‘Through the kitchen window, we keep it open a crack for him, and Wilfred said he broke a vase he was in such a hurry. Came streaking up here and jumped on my lap. He doesn’t do that very often unless he wants something. Cats aren’t stupid.’
She rested her hand on Pursy’s fur. He turned his head and stared out of the window, ignoring her. It was only then that I saw that his left ear was caked with blood.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Must have got into a fight. The other fellow nearly had his ear off.’
I scratched the cat gently under its chin with one hand and with the other smoothed aside the matted fur round the base of the ear. It looked as if a single claw had sliced through the skin near where the ear joined the scalp. A claw or a knife? At least the blood had dried and if the wound wasn’t infected it should heal easily. Pursy pulled his head away from me and examined me with amber eyes.
‘Poor little fellow,’ Mrs Gotobed mumbled. ‘When he was a kitten, he was such a scrap of a thing. Just like a little baby.’ Her hands turned and twisted in her lap. ‘You’ve not had children then, you and Mr Appleyard?’
‘No.’
‘Not yet,’ she amended. ‘Don’t leave it too long. I didn’t have Wilfred till I was forty, and then it was too late to have more.’ Her jaw moved up and down, up and down as if she were chewing her tongue. ‘I never had much time for children. But it’s not the same when it’s your own. You feel differently somehow. And it never goes away, neither. Sometimes I look at Wilfred and I feel like he’s a baby all over again.’
‘I’m sure he’s a good son.’
‘Yes. But that’s not to say he isn’t a silly boy sometimes. I don’t know what he’ll do without me to look after him, and that’s the truth. Lets his heart rule his head, that’s his problem. If he could find himself a nice wife, I’d die happy.’
I wondered if she suspected I was dallying with her son’s affections and was therefore warning me off. For a moment we sat in silence. I stroked Pursy, who rewarded me with a purr.
‘This cut,’ I said. ‘I think this might have been done with a knife.’
Mrs Gotobed wrinkled her nose. ‘Shouldn’t be surprised. They’re everywhere, you know.’
‘Who are?’
‘Mad people. Ought to be locked up.’
‘Does this remind you of what happened before?’
‘That pigeon Wilfred found?’
I nodded.
‘What I’d like to know is where the wings went.’
‘And it’s not just the pigeon, is it? What about fifty years ago and all the things that happened then?’
Her shoulders twitched. ‘Same thing, another person.’
‘You said in those days a boy was doing it. A boy called Simon.’
‘Did I?’
‘It couldn’t be him, could it?’
She shook her head. ‘He went away. Years ago.’
‘But he might have come back.’
‘Why would he do that? Nothing to come back for.’
‘I don’t know. Was his surname Martlesham, by the way?’
‘Might have been. I can’t remember. Why?’
‘I found something in the Cathedral Library which mentioned him meeting Canon Youlgreave. Was there a boy called Martlesham?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He used to clean the boots and things at the Palace.’
‘Where were you living then?’
‘Down by the river.’
‘In Swan Alley?’
She sighed, a long broken sound like rustling newspaper.
‘No – Bridge Street. Over a shop.’
‘Not far away. Did you know the Martlesham family?’
‘Everyone knew the Martleshams.’ She licked her lips. ‘The mother was no better than she should be. Called herself missus but she was no more married than I was in those days.’
‘Let’s see if I’ve got this right. Simon was the eldest, and he worked at the Palace. And then there was a sister?’
‘Simon was always going to make something of himself. Ideas above his station. Nancy must have been five or six years younger. Funny little thing, black, straight hair, always watching people, never said very much. Never heard her laughing, either, not that there was anything to laugh about in Swan Alley.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘The mother died in childbirth. Don’t know who the father was. It was around that time Simon went a bit queer in the head. But Canon Youlgreave helped him.’
I waited. Pursy’s paw dabbed at a fly on the windowpane. The sun had broken through the clouds. There was a big puddle near the chestnuts and two schoolboys in short trousers were trying to splash each other.
‘He heard their mother had died, and he helped Simon emigrate. Paid for him to learn a trade, as well. And he found someone to adopt Nancy.’
‘So Nancy emigrated as well?’
‘Might have.’ Blue-veined lids drooped over the eyes. ‘I can’t remember.’
The front door opened. I turned in my chair, half fearing and half hoping that the little man in black had come back. But Mrs Gotobed didn’t stir. There were footsteps on the stairs, heavy and confident. Then Mr Gotobed came into the room. He saw me, and the air rushed out of his mouth in a squeak of surprise.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Your mother’s had a bit of a shock, but she’s all right now.’
‘It’s all wrong,’ Mrs Gotobed said, ‘frightening people like that.’
33
As the evening went on, I felt increasingly annoyed with Henry. It was true that we hadn’t arranged a time for him to ring, but I naturally assumed he’d phone while Janet was out with the Touchies, as he had last week. He didn’t.
I made beans on toast for Rosie and Mr Treevor. I banged the plates down on the table, not that they noticed, and had a minor tantrum when I couldn’t find the vegetable knife. They didn’t notice that either. It was stupid, but I wanted to talk to him. He might be able to make more sense out of The Voice of Angels and what Mrs Gotobed had said than I could.
After I’d washed up and done the vegetables for the grown-ups’ supper, I fetched the book and went through ‘The Office of the Dead’ again. There were some grisly bits which reminded me of ‘The Children of Heracles’ and ‘Breakheart Hill’. Blades sliced through flesh, bones cracked asunder. There was a particularly disgusting passage about a bleeding heart. I was trying to work out what the angel wanted the poet to do with this when Mr Treevor tottered into the kitchen.
‘Am I Francis Youlgreave?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re John Treevor.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘It’s only that I thought someone said I was Francis Youlgreave. But if you’re sure I’m not I must be John after all.’
‘Who said you were Francis Youlgreave?’ I asked.
‘Someone I saw this morning. When I was out.’
‘In the Chapter House, do you mean?’
‘Yes. He was the little man near the winkle thing.’
‘The what?’
‘You know, that thing that’s a bit like a willie when it’s big.’ He stared at me, his face suddenly aghast. ‘Oh dear. Shouldn’t I have said that?’
‘It’s all right. Don’t worry. The thing to remember is, you’re John Treevor.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Treevor. ‘I know.’
He went upstairs again, leaving me to remember the scene in the Chapter House with the model of the Octagon, which was like no willie I’d ever seen. Besides Mr Treevor, the other men in there had been Mr Gotobed, Canon Hudson and two of the Cathedral workmen. Mr Gotobed and the workmen were all big and burly. Canon Hudson was small but not particularly dark. I gave up the puzzle just as the garden door opened and Janet called downstairs that she was back.
‘That was extraordinary,’ she said when she came down to the kitchen. ‘You’ll never guess who the Touchies talked about.’
‘Henry?’
‘Francis Youlgreave.’ She filled the kettle at the sink, raising her voice to be heard over the rushing water. ‘According to Mrs Forbury, they used to call him the Red Canon.’
‘How does she know?’
‘Because she grew up in Rosington. Her father was the vicar of St Mary’s.’
‘She can’t have known him personally, can she? She doesn’t look much more than fifty.’
Janet shook her head. ‘She remembers people talking about him when she was growing up. Did you know he used to smoke opium?’
‘She’s pulling your leg.’
‘She wasn’t. She believes it, and so do all the other Touchies.’
‘The Red Canon – so he was a Socialist?’
Janet shrugged. ‘Or he had one or two vaguely Socialist ideas. I doubt if they’d seem very radical now. There was that business about the slums near the river. Youlgreave made himself unpopular by going on about it ad nauseam at chapter meetings. And what was worse, much worse, he was far too free and easy with the servants. Mrs Forbury said he invited working-class children into his house and gave them unsuitable ideas.’
‘What does that mean exactly?’
‘She was far too coy to say. But she mentioned his experiments with animals. Someone claimed he’d cut up a cat, so people started talking about witchcraft. There were complaints to the dean, who was in a very awkward position because Youlgreave was some sort of cousin. But he had to do something about it because the police were involved. Not officially, I think, but someone had a word in the ear of the chief constable.’
‘They certainly laid it on with a trowel,’ I said. ‘So he’s a drug addict and a revolutionary, and practises black magic on the side.’
‘He was also a heretic as well, or the next best thing. When he preached that sermon about women priests, he played into everyone’s hands. Mrs Forbury said it was so obviously loopy, it made his position untenable.’
‘That’s Rosington logic,’ I said. ‘They could cope with drug-taking and witchcraft, but they couldn’t let him get away with heresy.’
‘One of those people who live in the wrong time.’
‘And the wrong place. Don’t forget the place.’
All at once I felt depressed. It seemed to me that whatever Francis had been guilty of, he wasn’t alone with his guilt. I thought of the Touchies smacking their lips around a tea table in the Deanery. How did you calibrate guilt? How did you measure one guilt against another?
‘I don’t suppose they mentioned the names of any children, did they? A boy called Simon Martlesham?’
‘I don’t think so. And was there a boy? I thought Mrs Forbury said something about a little girl.’
Then Rosie came downstairs and we started talking about other things. One of them was Mr Treevor. I didn’t tell Janet about his willie-winkle remark because that would have only added to her worries. But she was concerned that he’d gone out by himself again this morning. I suggested we start locking the doors, even when one of us was at home, so he couldn’t slip out without our knowing.
Underneath this was the other conversation that we weren’t having. Finding the wings this morning had brought matters to a head. Though I wasn’t going to say so to anyone, least of all Janet, for once I agreed with David. Mr Treevor ought to go into a home, for his sake and everyone else’s.
I knew he would be miserable, but if he stayed here he wouldn’t be particularly happy either, and he’d make at least two other people miserable as well. And, as the dementia took hold, there was always the risk that he’d do something far wo
rse than he’d already done. At the back of my mind was the possibility that he might already have done worse things than kill a pigeon and cut off its wings.
‘And it’s going to be difficult when the baby comes,’ Janet was saying. ‘I’ll have to go into hospital for a few days, I can’t see any way round that.’
‘I’ll come and hold the fort if you want.’
I saw alarm flicker in Janet’s face. She was looking over my shoulder. I turned. Rosie was in the room, sitting on the floor with Angel on her lap in her corner by the dresser. She met my eyes and I knew she had heard us talking about the baby, and understood what it meant as well. Whatever else Rosie was, she was never stupid. Janet and David had decided not to tell her about it until the pregnancy was past the first twelve weeks.
‘Oh,’ Janet said. ‘I didn’t see you down there, darling. I wish you wouldn’t sit on the floor. You’ll get your school dress dirty.’
‘All right.’
She got up and wandered round the table, a thumb in her mouth.
‘Where are you going?’ Janet said.
‘Up to my room.’
Rosie broke into a run as she reached the doorway. Her feet pattered up the stairs.
‘Oh, Lord,’ Janet said. ‘This would happen now.’
The evening continued to roll downhill. David came home but communicated mainly in grunts before going to ground in the study. Rosie had a tantrum, which ended in her lying rigid and bright red on the floor, screaming as loudly as possible. Mr Treevor climbed into his bed and pulled the covers over his head. David came out of the study and shouted upstairs, ‘Can’t you control her, Janet? I’m trying to work.’ Meanwhile, I made an egg-and-bacon flan with too few eggs and not enough bacon.
I went upstairs for a bracing nip of gin. I hadn’t touched my bottle since the trip to London on Monday but these were special circumstances. On the first-floor landing I heard voices in Rosie’s room and paused to eavesdrop.
‘Are we really having a baby?’ Rosie was saying in a singsong, babyish voice.
The Office of the Dead Page 20