Murder in Advent

by David Williams

  ‘I get it because I have a formal connection with the cathedral.’ This didn’t seem an exaggeration coming from the vicar’s warden of Great St Agnes. ‘Normally, I understand, one needs a recommendation from a place of learning. You’re researching something?’ The middle-aged enquirer looked an unlikely academic but appearances often deceived.

  ‘You might say that, yes. Researching. I’m actively engaged on important research.’ He weighed the words, giving the impression Treasure’s speculation while new to him had proved wholly apposite. Next he glanced questioningly to both sides as if to gauge the effect of what he’d said upon others – except there was no one close enough to have heard him.

  ‘Then I suggest you ring the bell and speak with the librarian.’

  ‘You do? How kind.’ But instead of moving off to the library the man fell into step with Treasure, who was going in the opposite direction. ‘Terrible thing, the fire last night. I’d been hoping to visit the chained library.’

  Which was not, of itself, confirmation of higher intellectual endeavour, the banker thought. ‘Only second-rate copies of manuscript books there, of course,’ he said. ‘Unless . . .’

  ‘The Magna Carta.’ The man winked again. ‘That’s different. A serious loss.’

  ‘To the nation.’ The other closed both eyes and blew his nose very loudly in a red check handkerchief. ‘You know they were going to sell it?’

  ‘It wasn’t certain.’ And he should know, though he questioned why he should be debating the point with a total stranger.

  ‘It was in the paper. That they were selling. Didn’t state how much. They’re saying now there was murder as well as the fire.’ The man gave a low whistle. ‘Well, there’s a bobby-dazzler if you like,’ he said, entirely changing the subject. His last comment had been about the red-haired young woman in the short skirt who had just overtaken them – and loud enough for her to hear. Cindy Larks glanced over her shoulder and smiled enquiringly – at Treasure. The other man had stopped, but not to get a better view of the girl. His interest in her seemed to have waned as promptly as it had surfaced: he was searching for something in several pockets.

  The banker could now hardly follow his inclination to hurry on alone and rid himself of an embarrassing hanger-on – not without appearing to be chasing after the girl. Compromising, he turned off the path and strode out across the grass – past a notice that requested people not to.

  ‘Sorry about that. Weakness of mine. The bird, I mean. The name’s Hawker. Mine, not hers.’ He was moving again at Treasure’s side, half-running to keep up, and still digging into his pockets. ‘Len Hawker. Of Hawker & Bowles. Bowles is dead now. Very painful. And inconvenient, as it happened. Still.’ He was wheezing loudly. ‘Sure I’ve got a card here somewhere.’

  ‘Well, goodbye, Mr Hawker.’

  ‘Just one other point, Mr Treasure.’

  Now it was Treasure who stopped, staring down testily, though not because he was incensed or even interested in why this fellow had troubled to find out his name – presumably at the hotel. ‘Look, I’m due at the Chapter House. For a meeting. If . . .’

  ‘The Chapter House is over there. You’re going in the wrong . . .’

  ‘Direction. I know that. Will you kindly . . .’

  ‘I’ve heard the price was £1.1 million. For the Magna Carta. Will you confirm that, Mr Treasure?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘But you don’t deny it?’

  ‘I shall certainly deny answering your question. What is it you do, anyway? What do Hawker & Bowles do?’

  ‘Corporate enquiries, Mr Treasure. Personal ones, too, should you ever feel the need. Short-handed at the moment. Owing to bereavement.’

  ‘And which corporation are you enquiring for?’

  Hawker looked genuinely surprised. ‘That would have to be confidential, sir.’ He paused and gave a long wink. ‘Tell you this, though. For nothing.’ He winked again, moving closer to the banker, who yielded slightly before a leeward whiff of tobacco-laden breath. ‘We’ve got an interest in common. Oh, yes. Can’t say more, you understand?’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Nobody can say Ewart Jones shirked telling the truth.’

  Canon Algy Merit was wresting virtue out of doleful and dire necessity.

  There was a murmur of agreement from most of those sitting at the oblong oak table in the panelled Chapter meeting room.

  ‘Plenty will say Ewart Jones is a bloody fool, of course. They’re probably saying it already. Fact is, my friends, I’d made my . . . my disclosure before we knew there’d been a murder.’ The New Zealander looked round at the others, his mouth pursed, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘No doubt you’d have done the same afterwards, Ewart,’ said the Dean without making it totally clear whether the remark was meant as a compliment.

  ‘I hope so, Dean. Difficult to say.’

  Treasure found Canon Jones’s capacity for honesty and self-doubt commendable. It was difficult to be sure, though, that the sentiment was being reflected in the reactions of all those present.

  The special Chapter meeting had taken only a few minutes. Speaking as chairman, and seated at the head of the table, the Dean had deplored the circumstance that had negated the purpose of the gathering, thanked Treasure for coming, asked for any other relevant business and, since there had been none, closed the formal proceedings with a prayer. He had then sat down again and enjoined a general, informal appraisal of events the night before and their likely consequences. Treasure had made to leave, but the Dean had specifically pressed him to stay.

  ‘It would be sensible if we kept the doubt the Precentor’s just expressed entirely to ourselves,’ said Canon Brastow throatily, and staring fixed-necked at Canon Jones, who was on the opposite side of the table.

  ‘In the Precentor’s own interest,’ Nutkin volunteered.

  ‘In the interest of prudence. And to avoid further reflection on the way the Chapter handles its responsibilities.’ With this, Brastow had firmly declined the proffered softener.

  ‘You believe there’s been a reflection on us as a responsible body, Clive?’ the Dean turned his head in Brastow’s direction. ‘Good or bad?’ he finished with a mischievous grimace.

  ‘I should have thought that was obvious, Dean.’ Brastow did his best to clear his throat. ‘As if a murder hanging over our community wasn’t enough, for the Precentor to have volunteered he intended stealing the Magna Carta last evening was, to say the least, ill-advised. But it would still be better to live with the consequences rather than equivocate.’

  ‘Not steal? Temporarily remove into safe-keeping, I understood. Ewart?’ questioned the Dean lightly but firmly.

  ‘That was my intention, Dean.’

  ‘And a great pity it wasn’t fulfilled,’ Treasure offered breezily, not sure if it was appropriate for him to speak at all, but remembering his promise to Glynis Jones. ‘If Canon Jones had succeeded in removing the Magna Carta, I’m sure we’d all have been grateful.’

  ‘That must be conjecture,’ Brastow observed flatly, and causing a stir around the table. ‘We don’t know what circumstances might have applied.’

  ‘We know Ewart raised the alarm and saved the cathedral.’ This was Merit making virtues again.

  ‘A fact that will be overshadowed – indeed, has already been overshadowed – by another one. Wholly uncommendable and quite lurid.’

  ‘Clive, I think that’s going too far. A lot too far,’ the Dean put in quietly.

  ‘No, it’s fair comment,’ said Canon Jones. ‘The Treasurer wouldn’t have approved of my plan even if it’d gone without a hitch. Would you, Clive?’

  ‘Far from just disapproving of it, I’d have said you’d taken leave of your senses,’ Brastow obliged with feeling. ‘Ignoring the tragic outcome, Ewart, how can you begin to justify what you had in mind? It was . . .’ He hesitated, then swallowed with difficulty before going on. ‘Forgive me, but it was juvenile and irresponsible. In the extreme. W
hat can you possibly have expected it to achieve?’

  ‘That’s easy. A million pounds minimum. Hopefully three. An acceptance of its inherited obligations by this august body.’

  ‘You mean this Chapter?’

  ‘Too right I do. And finally a short sharp shaking to the core of the ecclesiastical establishment in this cathedral, this city, this diocese, and maybe even this country. But mostly this cathedral city. This quiet complacent backwater that’s so drawn in on itself, so determined to protect itself from vulgar intrusions, it’s forgotten why God put it here. Forgotten why generations of good Christian folk devoted their work, their fortunes and their lives so we could carry on promoting the Christian message in our turn with the same sacrifice and dedication. And that doesn’t mean selling the flaming assets, because that’s stealing for certain.’

  ‘Thank you, Ewart, I’m sure that was good for all our souls,’ the Dean broke the awkward silence that had followed the New Zealander’s impassioned but still measured outburst. ‘Also our sense of responsibility.’

  ‘Personally I find Canon Jones’s point of view very persuasive,’ offered Treasure.

  ‘Does that tell us how you’d have finally voted, Mr Treasure?’ Algy Merit, seated beside Jones, lifted his gaze slowly from the centre of the table to study the banker opposite. ‘I’d gathered you’d changed your mind. That you were in favour of selling. Might you have changed it again?’

  ‘Since I came all the way to attend the meeting you can certainly assume I’d have listened to the arguments.’ Treasure shrugged. ‘I’m only sorry they’ve become academic.’

  ‘Our sense of responsibility as perceived by the public is anything but academic,’ complained Brastow. ‘And might I remind everyone that my house is far from being protected from vulgar intrusion? It’s a refuge for those in need – hungry and unwashed.’

  ‘Don’t know how you do it,’ said Algy Merit, shaking his head. ‘Our boiler scarcely manages hot baths for the two of us.’

  ‘Where there’s a will,’ rejoined the other icily. ‘My point is, Ewart’s confessed intention has made our sense of responsibility a subject for public derision.’

  ‘Not our collective sense. Only Ewart’s,’ was Merit’s serious rejoinder.

  ‘And with any luck, Algy, they could write me off as a clerical error,’ joked Ewart Jones.

  ‘Where, for instance, do we stand in the matter of the paraffin heater?’ asked Clive Brastow, unimpressed by the Precentor’s levity.

  ‘Pounder had no official authorisation for his heater,’ Bliter came in quickly.

  ‘Which is rather different from saying he used it without anyone’s knowledge,’ said Merit carefully, smoothing the purple edging of his cape. He and the Dean were the only ones present wearing cassocks.

  ‘I suspected he was using it. Thought I smelled it last week. I’ve told the police as much.’ The Dean’s words produced no surprised looks – only some glum expressions. He smiled before continuing. ‘Hope that solves a problem for anyone else who knew what the old boy was doing. Or guessed it. Better if I carry the can on that one.’

  Bliter reddened and tugged at his shirt collar. ‘Um . . . ,’ he began uncertainly.

  Nutkin shut him up with: ‘That’s very unselfish, Dean.’

  ‘He was my verger after all.’

  ‘Will it alter the attitude of the insurance company?’ asked Merit. ‘Will it stop them paying up?’ He was heading off any burgeoning comment from Brastow that the Dean’s admission would further confirm the public’s alleged view of the Chapter’s cupidity.

  ‘The Dean asked me that. I don’t think so,’ Treasure volunteered with marginally more conviction than he felt was strictly justified.

  His faith in the probity of godly men had taken several turns for the better since the start of his visit to Litchester. Where he stood on their sense of prudence was another matter. Indeed, if anyone present now confessed to somehow justified homicide he wouldn’t have been one bit surprised. Meantime he was glad to throw in something positive as witness to the integrity of Mammon.

  ‘The Administrator let me have the policy to look at before the meeting. I have it here,’ the banker continued with a glance at Bliter. He opened the document in front of him. ‘Whether any of Pounder’s superiors knew he was using the heater I don’t think is relevant. I understand at the time of his death he was working as a volunteer for no reward or other consideration.’

  ‘Except his place in heaven,’ Ewart Jones put in with conviction.

  ‘What you mean is he wasn’t acting as an employee under discipline? That he was a free agent?’ questioned the Dean.

  ‘That’s roughly it. As I see it, he was entitled, as it were, to cause an accident. Just like any other visitor to the cathedral.’

  ‘And the cathedral authorities will be entitled to claim compensation for the damage?’ This was Clive Brastow, mindful of his office as Treasurer, and with relief sounding in every syllable.

  Treasure nodded. ‘That’s whether Pounder started the fire by accident, or whether it was started by his murderer, obviously with criminal intent. Of course, that’ll be up to the police or a jury to decide. But in either event I believe you’ll be compensated.’

  ‘Mr Treasure is chairman of the Regal Sun Assurance Company,’ offered Bliter with due deference.

  ‘So I’m relieved this policy is not with that company,’ Treasure added glibly. He omitted to say that if it had been he wouldn’t have been offering glad-handed opinions with nearly so much enthusiasm – if at all. There were limits.

  ‘That being the only reassuring thing we’ve heard this morning, I suggest it earns a reward,’ said the Dean. ‘Something in any case that may appropriately be passed over to the vicar’s warden of the Church of Great St Agnes.’ He withdrew something wrapped in tissue from the pocket of his cassock. ‘Compensation for troubling to come here. Can you all see?’ He opened out the wrapping.

  ‘Small piece of flat black stone, is it?’ asked Algy Merit, leaning forward and stretching his short but ample neck.

  ‘Much better than that,’ said the Dean. ‘It’s believed to be all that’s left of the Litchester Magna Carta. Not the parchment, I’m afraid. That was quite consumed. It’s wax. Assumed to be from the seal. It melted, of course, but later reconstituted itself in a small hollow in one of the flagstones. Mr Olley, the head fireman, brought it to me this morning. The officials have no further use for it.’ He pushed the fragment towards Treasure, who was seated on his right.

  ‘I’m very grateful,’ said the banker out of good manners but not immediately sure what he would do with the thing. He coughed. ‘Perhaps I can have it mounted in some way.’

  The middle-aged woman who had just come in had waited for Treasure to finish before she touched the Dean’s sleeve, then whispered something to him.

  The Dean frowned. ‘It seems Detective Chief Inspector Pride is outside. Wants a word with some of us. Suppose we’d better break up.’

  ‘Why not ask him in here, Dean?’ suggested Canon Jones, adding with an expansive grin, ‘I think I’d rather have him grill me again with all my legal and moral advisers present.’

  It would hardly have been appropriate for this overt disclosing tactic by the Precentor to be resisted by anyone else, which is why the Detective Chief Inspector shortly found himself effectively co-opted to the Chapter table – feeling especially alone and conspicuous in a chair at the unoccupied end.

  ‘. . . have to follow up on individuals known to have been in the cathedral or the vicinity at the critical time. You understand, sir?’ Pride ended his opening words, delivered in a tone he had meant to exhibit relaxed confidence but which he felt had come out sounding more like a plea.

  ‘Naturally,’ answered the Dean. ‘Meantime, any important developments?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Post-mortem showed the victim died of asphyxia, not the head wound as we first believed. Also we’ve found his tea was laced. With sodium phenobarbitone.’ He
looked around the table slowly. ‘The tea in his Thermos flask. He had it with him. Wasn’t damaged by the fire.’

  ‘Had he drunk any, Mr Pride?’ This was Treasure.

  Pride frowned. ‘As a matter of fact he hadn’t touched the tea, sir. The flask was full. There were no traces of drugs in the stomach.’

  ‘Did he normally take sleeping pills in his tea, do you know?’

  ‘Not according to his daughter,’ Pride answered the banker again. ‘And he never took pills of any kind. Didn’t have any. Not that she knew of.’

  ‘Was it . . . was it a dangerous quantity of phenobarb?’ Treasure pressed while doing his best to make the question sound undramatic.

  ‘No, sir. Enough to put him to sleep for a few hours, probably. Depends on whether he’d drunk one cup or two.’

  ‘And you’re saying somebody else put the drug in the tea?’ questioned the Dean.

  ‘Seems so, on the face of it, sir. They say he always had the flask with him when he arrived at four-thirty. Left it in the vergers’ robing room during the service.’

  ‘Where anyone would have access to it?’ Treasure asked.

  ‘Not anyone,’ put in Ewart Jones carefully. ‘Not anyone officiating at evensong, for instance. Or attending it. Not necessarily.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Algy merit. ‘Suppose he’d leave it behind when he came to the clergy vestry before the service. To help the Dean robe.’

  ‘But anyone not involved in the service could then get at the flask?’ Treasure insisted. ‘The vergers’ room isn’t locked when not in use?’

  ‘Often not the room itself, which is next to the clergy vestry in the south choir aisle,’ Bliter explained for the banker’s benefit. ‘Too many vergers going in and out all the time. They each have a locker there, though.’

  ‘Mr Pounder used to leave his Thermos on the table. According to the head verger, sir,’ said Pride. ‘Didn’t put it in his locker in case he didn’t notice it after the service – and forgot to take it up to the library with him.’

  ‘Except he forgot to drink the tea when he did get it there,’ said Treasure.