Idol Bones

by D M Greenwood

  ‘So,’ said Theodora, ‘if someone planned ahead to kill the dean, it would have been easier to come in early through the Archgate than to come in through the street doors of the Precentory or Canon Millhaven’s Archgate flat.’

  ‘That would be my feeling.’

  ‘There’d have to be two lots of concealing, one before the party and one after the murder until the gates were open at seven. Could hat be done?’

  ‘It’d be a long cold wait from one o’clock to eight and there are no signs of that having happened. I mean we didn’t find a sleeping bag and a cache of sandwiches.’ Spruce was ironic.

  ‘I see you’re set on it being someone at the party or anyway someone known to the dean.’

  ‘It’s the ritual aspect.’ Spruce was intent and concentrated. ‘The various signs round the body suggest he was killed near the cathedral and then dragged across the wet grass and placed,’ he repeated with emphasis, ‘placed, not just let go, but laid out with care, in front of the Janus.’

  Theodora nodded in comprehension. She too had to acknowledge that, sickening though she felt it to be, it looked as though the murderer had to be someone who knew the dean, who was in fact within the church in the diocese of Bow St Aelfric.

  There was a pause. She glanced across at Spruce’s face. Its planes of bone were illuminated by the subdued lighting from the single lamp. His dark eyes and brows contrasted with the premature whiteness of his hair. He looked alert, sympathetic and intelligent. The fire roared in the grate, the heavy velvet curtains were drawn across the single window. A glass of sherry stood at their elbows. Theodora shuffled her notes on the mahogany surface. Spruce looked up. ‘To me,’ he said, ‘it’s an intellectual puzzle. To you it’s the church in danger. I’m sorry. I do recognise that.’

  ‘We must get it cleared up. No point in concealment or evasion. The church does too much of it.’

  They smiled. Respect was mutual. Spruce looked at his watch. ‘I’ve asked Sergeant Mules to look in in about half an hour with an Indian take-away. I hope that’s OK? I did a couple of years in Hong Kong and I find English versions of Chinese not so much subtle as insipid.’

  ‘Let’s push on to the times,’ Theodora suggested.

  ‘The dean’s watch had its face smashed as he fell and the hands stopped at ten past one. So that fixes the time of death. Of the clergy at the party, the suffragan and his wife got back to Quecourt at twelve-thirty according to his housekeeper. Archdeacon Gold went on for a final drink with a couple of his local politician cronies, Messrs Ferret and Brace, and spent the night at the flat of one of them. Canon Riddable …’

  Theodora leaned forward. ‘Canon Riddable,’ she prompted. ‘According to Mrs Riddable they both returned together at about twelvethirty. Of course they walked home across the close.’

  ‘His children,’ Theodora said flatly, ‘or at least one of them thinks he returned much later than that.’ She told him what Ben had said that morning on the stairs. ‘And,’ she went on, ‘the eldest girl says she saw the dean near the Janus heading towards the cathedral at a quarter to one.’

  ‘So,’ said Spruce, ‘if Ben is right, Canon Riddable was returning at half past one. Of course the child could be wrong or Riddable could be returning after some perfectly innocent activity.’ Spruce raised his head and looked at Theodora’s doubtful face.’ ‘Hang on a minute. How does the clock strike?’

  Theodora nodded. ‘There are three ones,’ she said. ‘The cathedral clock strikes one stroke for twelve-thirty, one and one-thirty.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Spruce groaned. ‘Which did little Riddable think he was hearing when he says his dad returned later than twelve-thirty?’

  ‘One o’clock, I think,’ Theodora responded. ‘But equally he could have meant one-thirty.’

  ‘I’ll have to get a WPC and one of the parents to question young Riddable obviously. But let’s see if we can get at it any other way first. Motive?’ he said as though passing her a dish.

  Theodora told him what Nick had said about Riddable. ‘Though, of course,’ she concluded, ‘it doesn’t provide motive, only possible temperament.’

  ‘What else do you know of Riddable?’

  ‘He started off as a church historian.’

  ‘Not a crowded market,’ Spruce hazarded.

  ‘More popular than it once was. In fact I’d say the standard is rather higher there than in theology proper. However,’ Theodora caught the look in Spruce’s eye and swung back to the matter in hand, ‘he published a couple of things in Church History Review. As it happens I have read him both times. The first was rather poor, on the economic basis of the sects in Cromwell’s army. Lots of sweeping generalisation without much evidence. The second one was markedly better, on nonconformity in the nineteenth century. It looked like the sketch for a longer work but it had a lot of good detailed stuff in it.’

  Spruce’s eyes were glazing. ‘Murder,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes.’Theodora felt he should trust her.‘I’m coming to that. After the last article, must be six years ago now, he’s published nothing. And his wife said’ – Theodora remembered Mrs Riddable’s words – ‘he’s given up historical scholarship.’

  ‘Well?’

  Theodora was hesitant. ‘I did hear a bit of gossip. You know how the clergy are and of course scholars do tend …’

  ‘The point being,’ Spruce was almost tart.

  ‘You see,’ Theodora ventured, ‘it was noticed by several people at the time. The difference in calibre between the two articles was so marked.’

  ‘I don’t see what you’re driving at,’ Spruce said with exasperation.

  ‘The point is that Riddable’s father was a church historian, rather a respectable one, specialising in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘Do you mean he’d used Papa’s stuff and didn’t bother to mention it to the editor?’ Spruce took her point instantly. He was back on home ground now. Theft he knew about. ‘Could the dean have known?’

  ‘I think I could probably find out,’ Theodora volunteered. She thought of Ivan Markewicz who edited the Review. She thought too of her great uncle, Canon Hugh who had known the original gossip. ‘Leave it with me.’

  ‘Right. I’ll have another go at Riddable about times. He’s clearly got some accounting to do. My only reservation is, if I do question the lad, is he going to stick to his tale if his pa or ma’s there?’

  Theodora thought of the tough little crew of Riddable children. Were they, she wondered, exhibiting symptoms of victim behaviour, or had they got their parents worked out and the strategies in place for dealing with them and surviving. Those children, though different, were very close to each other, Theodora felt. ‘I’ll have a go there too, if the opportunity arises. I rather took to the middle boy, the one who found the Janus.’

  ‘From the clergy list that leaves the diocesan bishop. I faxed Nebraska. He’s staying at the university there with his son. He states he and Mrs Holdall motored straight home to Little Manor at Fenny Drain because they had to catch a flight at six the following morning. As it happens, a panda car saw him arrive about one o’clock.’

  ‘Why did it take him so long to get home? Little Manor’s just outside the town.’

  ‘He dropped Sir Lionel Dunch off at Quecourt first.’

  ‘Pity. I rather hoped Dunch …’ Theodora caught herself up. That was a terrible thing to say. ‘So Dunch is out of the list too.’

  ‘The last of the clerical list is Canon Millhaven. I gather she was asked to the party but it was a late invitation.’

  Like Carrabosse, Theodora thought. ‘I didn’t see her there.’

  ‘She told me that she felt too tired and in the end decided not to go. She affirms,’ Spruce turned up the computer swathe again, ‘that she did not see any reason to inform the dean she was not coming since he had already cancelled an engagement with her earlier in the week.’

  Yes, thought Theodora. Tit for tat. ‘Anyone to corroborate that?’

  ‘No. But if
she had been about, wouldn’t she have been seen? She’s rather a noticeable figure.’

  ‘Well, someone was about in the close and wasn’t seen. Apart from the God.’ Theodora realised she was becoming light-headed. ‘Which god was about in the quad?’ she murmured.

  ‘Would she have a motive?’ Spruce inquired.

  ‘There was no love lost clearly. But I don’t know of anything very specific.’

  ‘What is she exactly? I mean apart from being a female residentiary canon?’ Spruce’s tone was ironic.

  ‘She’s immensely senior,’ Theodora replied, ‘in both clergy terms, which means having been in orders a long time, and also in terms of the work she’s actually accomplished. She’s served long and hard.’ Theodora was positive. ‘She cares about the laity and single-handed, with no help at all from the hierarchy except in the last couple of years, she put in place a lay education programme well before that sort of thing was fashionable. But, of course she is still in deacon’s orders.’

  ‘Which means?’ Spruce inquired.

  ‘She can’t celebrate at the Eucharist or bless or absolve in the course of the liturgy.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be difficult for a residentiary canon?’

  ‘Yes,’ Theodora admitted. ‘It would. It is. Canons usually take a month at a time when they’re “in residence”, that is, when they’re responsible for the whole of the cathedral’s worship including celebrations of the Eucharist. You can get round it by using bread and wine which has previously been consecrated by someone in priest’s orders and reserved. And that, I gather, is what Canon Millhaven did. But it wouldn’t be popular as a solution.’

  ‘Who would object?’ Spruce was curious.

  ‘The dean certainly, I’d have thought, wouldn’t care for a woman celebrating with reserved sacrament.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t be a motive for murder would it?’

  Theodora thought of the blood spilt down the ages on theological points a good deal less central than this one. ‘I suppose not. At least amongst the sane.’

  ‘So deacon’s orders are second best?’ Spruce said.

  ‘Not to me,’ Theodora said firmly.

  ‘Will you ever be priested?’ He turned the unfamiliar word over in his mouth. He liked other people’s language.

  Theodora turned her head towards the fire light. ‘I don’t honestly care too much,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly content in deacon’s orders. There’s very little that I want to do and think needs doing which I can’t do as a deacon. If we aren’t offered the priesthood freely, generously by the whole church, then it would be vulgar to start shouting for it.’ She wondered whether she trusted Spruce enough to tell him about Millhaven’s speaking to the cathedral dead.

  ‘She talks to the dead,’ she said after a pause.

  Spruce took it in his stride. ‘When and where?’

  ‘I gather in the cathedral. I inferred, though she did not say so explicitly, at night.’

  ‘Would the dean know?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Would you say she was unbalanced?’

  Theodora considered in her scrupulous way. ‘Half of her is sane and eminently competent. She has sudden lapses, like the talking to the dead. Also she has bees in bonnets. For example she’s keen on the Hollow community.’

  There was a peal on the ancient door-bell far below. ‘Supper’, said Spruce hungrily.

  Laying out their meal, Sergeant Mules showed himself thoroughly domesticated. Spruce, who had been at work since eight-thirty that morning unremittingly questioning, planning, checking, noting, calculating, gave no sign of tiredness. Mules, who had been working equally hard, was the same. He had something of the air of a machine, a small efficient tractor perhaps.Theodora reflected on the different attitudes to work of senior clergy compared with laity. Best not pursued she felt.

  ‘The Hollowmen,’ Spruce resumed a third of a way through a chicken tikka. He looked questioningly at Mules.

  ‘Not liked locally. Do good work with community service referrals from the courts. It’s grown a lot over the last four years. Seems to fill a need.’ Mules was laconic. It was his forte. Never waste a word. He crumpled his poppadom and stared into his Kingfisher.

  ‘Fill us in,’ Spruce invited.

  ‘They’ve been there about seven years. Started with nothing. Creation out of nothing as it were. Good vegetables. Some of the best I’ve seen in onions and onions aren’t that easy. Chickens are all right. Animals I don’t know about.’ Mules was thorough, Theodora thought. Would he go for buildings next or people?

  ‘The buildings were a couple of Nissen huts and a caravan. They’ve put them in order beautifully. That chap Fresh is a good carpenter. I’ll give him that. The difficulty as far as the locals are concerned is that they don’t fit into any category. They aren’t gypos. Fresh’s woman is high class. The Beans aren’t but they do a good job. They aren’t exactly a religious community either, so they get called new agers or hippies. But they aren’t. The quantity of washing proves that.’ Mules was triumphant.

  ‘I didn’t realise the archaeologist Fresh was one of them.’ Theodora was genuinely interested. ‘Now the dean certainly didn’t like him.’ She filled them in on her overheard conversation between the dean and Fresh and mentioned what she had learned at the party and from Mrs Riddable about the chapter’s attitude to the Janus.

  ‘Is the Janus connected to the murder?’ Mules was clearly fulfilling his role of asking the blunt question.

  ‘If Fresh is a suspect there might be a motive there. If Millhaven is unbalanced there might be a motive there too. I really can’t see any space for Mrs Riddable’s notion that the powers of the Janus are in themselves without human agency responsible for murder.’ Spruce changed his tikka for a grilled bone.

  ‘Was Fresh at the party?’ Theodora inquired.

  ‘Not officially,’ Spruce answered. ‘But …’ He turned to Mules who in his turn took out a swathe of computer continuous.

  ‘One of the vergers, Noble, says he thought he saw him before he went home at eight-thirty as he was locking the gates.’

  ‘How sure was he?’

  ‘Not very. He saw someone near the Janus and I suppose having seen Fresh there all day he may have made the inference that that was who it was.’

  ‘Why didn’t he turn him out of the close?’ Theodora asked.

  ‘He walked across towards the statue but when he got there he’d gone. So he assumed that he’d been asked to the dean’s party.’

  ‘The vergers. How far have we got in questioning the vergers?’ Spruce turned to Mules.

  ‘I’ve had a preliminary go with all three. The old man, Noble, as we know left at eight-thirty last night and returned at seven-thirty this morning to find the body. He lodges at the pub flat in the Aelfric Arms on the corner of Archgate and Watergate. He drank there till closing time. The boy, Nicholas Squires, helped at the dean’s party and left with the head verger Tristram Knight. Knight as head verger had the verger’s key to Archgate. Knight got back to his lodgings about one, he says. Squires lives with his dad off the bypass and he confirms he was home by one.’

  Spruce looked across at Theodora. ‘You were going to see Nick.’

  Theodora nodded. ‘He didn’t say anything which would contradict that.’ She was aware that this was disingenuous. When she’d tried to question Nick about the dean’s murder, he’d simply left. On the other hand she had learned at least something about the chapter and its relationships from him.

  ‘How do we stand with Fresh?’

  ‘Since he wasn’t at the party I haven’t got round to him yet,’ Mules answered. ‘I’ve got him on tomorrow’s list.’

  Spruce seemed to make a decision. ‘Let’s call it a day. For tomorrow on the front row of suspects we have Riddable, Millhaven, Fresh. I’ll, have a go at Riddable and Millhaven. You,’ he looked questioningly at Theodora, ‘I think you kindly said were going to try for the Riddable children again. We’d better see Fr
esh. Mules, you have first go and I’ll come in later. Finally, of course, we need to know much more about the dean’s background. I’ve got the Met checking the London bit but I rather think he may not have a criminal record. So,’ he looked again at Theodora, ‘we shall be very glad indeed of anything which you could produce through your network.’

  ‘I have the odd feeler out,’ Theodora admitted. ‘The other thing is, ought we to go through the dean’s things?’ She hated saying this but the ideas which were forming in her mind impelled her.

  Spruce was quite sensitive enough to know what she felt. ‘Yes, I’ve got the keys from the suffragan. Like you he wasn’t keen. It’s amazing what the clergy think they have the power to stop the police doing. I thought I’d have a go in the morning before I do Riddable and Fresh. I’d be awfully grateful if you felt able to give me a hand.’

  Theodora nodded. He rose and Mules followed him. ‘Let’s see if the key they’ve given us to the Archgate works.’

  Together they clumped down the carpetless stairs and came out into the moonlit close. The Janus seemed to have grown taller. It had been chocked up more securely on its scaffold of planks. The cloak or black polythene had been removed and the splendid head and torso rose up to dominate the space. By instinct they moved together across the turf towards it. The long black shadow stretched out across the ground to meet them. There was a glint of light on the grass in front of the face turned towards the city. Theodora bent down. On two bits of stone had been placed a shallow metal dish. Experimentally she ran her finger round the rim and put it to her lip. ‘Milk and honey,’ she said. ‘Goat’s milk, to be precise.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cathedral Close

  The smell was of good quality incense mixed with bacon. Theodora knew and appreciated both. She tapped on the vestry door. Tristram Knight was folding clerical vestments. Stoles in the colours of the Church’s year, green, red, white, purple ran through his hands. Theodora noticed he had a needle and cotton in the lapel of his tweed jacket. The vestry was small and intimate, almost den-like. The door of one of the cupboards was partly open. In the bottom of it were what looked like sleeping bags. On the back of its door had been fixed a small mirror and a shelf of brushes, combs and razors. There was an open fire in a Victorian grate. Presses reached to the ceiling on two sides. On the table was an ancient Remington typewriter the like of which Theodora had not seen since her vicarage childhood. Over the fire was a wooden crucifix. It felt like a wholly different and self-sufficient world from the cathedral proper above it. It crossed Theodora’s mind to wonder whether it was supporting or subverting that edifice.