by P. D. James
“Oh no, Archdeacon. Nobody pays.”
“And what do you get paid for these not very arduous duties?”
“I get the minimum wage based on five hours’ work a day.”
He didn’t say that neither he nor the college had worried too much about hours. Sometimes the work was done in less than five hours, sometimes it took longer.
“And in addition you get this cottage rent-free. You pay, no doubt, for your own heating, lighting and, of course, your own Council Tax.”
“I pay my Council Tax.”
“And what about Sundays ?”
“Sunday is my day off.”
“I was thinking of church. You attend the church here?”
He did occasionally attend church, but only for Evensong when he would sit at the back and listen to the music and Father Sebastian’s and Father Martin’s measured voices, speaking words which were unfamiliar but beautiful to hear. But that couldn’t be what the Archdeacon meant.
He said, “I don’t usually go to church on Sunday.”
“But didn’t Father Sebastian ask you about that when he appointed you?”
“No, Archdeacon. He asked me whether I could do the job.”
“He didn’t ask you whether you were a Christian?”
And here at least he had an answer. He said, “I am Christian, Archdeacon. I was christened when I was a baby. I’ve got a card somewhere.” He looked vaguely around as if the remembered card with its record of the christening, its sentimental picture of Christ blessing the little children might suddenly materialize.
There was a silence. He realized that the answer had been unsatisfactory. He wondered whether he ought to offer coffee, but surely nine-thirty was too early. The silence lengthened and then the Archdeacon got up.
He said, “I see that you live very comfortably here and Father Sebastian seems pleased with you, but nothing lasts for ever, however comfortable. St. Anselm’s has existed for a hundred and forty years, but the Church indeed the world has changed a great deal in that time. I would suggest that if you do hear of another job that might suit you, you should seriously consider applying for it.”
Eric said, “You mean that St. Anselm’s might close?”
He sensed that the Archdeacon had gone further than he had intended.
“I’m not saying that. These matters needn’t concern you. I’m just suggesting for your own good that you shouldn’t think that you have a job here for life, that’s all.”
And then he left. Standing at the door Eric watched him striding across the headland towards the college. He was seized with an extraordinary emotion. His stomach churned and there was a taste bitter as bile in his mouth. In a life in which he had carefully avoided strong emotion he was feeling an overpowering physical response for the second time in his life. The first had been the realization of his love for Karen. But this was different. This was as powerful, but more disturbing. He knew that what he was feeling for the first time in his life was hatred for another human being.
Dalgliesh waited in the hall while Father Martin went to his room to collect his black cloak. When he reappeared, Dalgliesh said, “Shall we take the car as far as we can?” He himself would have preferred to walk but he knew that, for his companion, the trudge along the beach would be tiring, and not only physically.
Father Martin accepted the suggestion with obvious relief. Neither of them spoke until they reached the point where the coastal track curved westward to join the Lowestoft road. Dalgliesh gently bumped his Jaguar on to the verge, then leaned over to help Father Martin with his seat belt. He opened the door for him and they set out for the beach.
Now that the track had ended, they were walking a narrow path of sand and well-trodden grass between the waist-high banks of bracken and a tangle of bushes. In places the bushes arched over the path and they walked in tunnelled dimness in which the surge of the sea had become no more than a distant rhythmic moan. Already the bracken was showing its first brittle gold and it seemed that every step they took on the spongy turf released the pungent nostalgic smells of autumn. They came out of the semi-darkness and saw the mere stretching before them, its dark sinister smoothness separated only by some fifty yards of shingle from the tumbling brightness of the sea. It seemed to Dalgliesh that there were fewer black tree stumps standing like prehistoric monuments guarding the mere. He looked for any trace of the wrecked ship but could see only a single black spar shaped like a shark’s fin breaking the smooth stretch of the sand.
Here the access to the beach was so easy that the six wooden steps half-covered with sand and the single handrail were hardly necessary. At the top of the steps and built in a small hollow was an unpainted oak hut, rectangular and larger than an ordinary beach hut. Beside it was a heap of wood covered by a tarpaulin. Dalgliesh lifted an edge and saw a neatly-piled heap of planks and fractured timber, half painted blue.
Father Martin said, “It’s the remains of our old bathing hut. It was rather like the painted ones on Southwold beach but Father Sebastian thought it looked incongruous here on its own. It had become dilapidated and something of an eyesore so we took the opportunity to demolish it. Father Sebastian thought that a plain wooden shack, unpainted, would look better. This coast is so lonely that it’s hardly needed when we come to bathe, but I suppose one should have somewhere to undress. We don’t want to encourage our reputation for eccentricity. The hut also houses our small rescue boat. Swimming can be hazardous on this coast.”
Dalgliesh hadn’t brought with him the spar of wood, nor had it been necessary. He had no doubt that it had come from the hut. Had Ronald Treeves picked it up casually as one sometimes did a spar of wood found on the beach with no particular purpose except perhaps to hurl it into the sea? Had he found it here or further along the shingle? Had he taken it with the intention of using it to prod down the overhanging ledge of sand over his head? Or had there been a second person carrying that spar of broken timber? But Ronald Treeves had been young and presumably fit and strong. How could he have been forced into that suffocating sand without some mark on his body?
The tide was retreating and they walked down to the strip of smooth damp sand at the edge of the curling waves, climbing over two groynes. They were obviously new and the ones he remembered from his boyhood visits lay between them, no more now than a few square-topped posts sunk deeply in the sand, linked with rotting planks.
Hitching up his cloak to climb over the green and slimy end of a groyne, Father Martin said, “The European Community provided these new groynes. They’re part of the de fences against the sea. They’ve altered the appearance of the shore in some places. I expect there’s more sand now than you remember.”
They had walked about two hundred yards when Father Martin said quietly, “This is the place,” and began walking towards the cliff. Dalgliesh saw that there was a cross sticking into the sand made from two pieces of driftwood tightly bound.
Father Martin said, “We placed the cross here the day after we found Ronald. So far it has stayed in place. Perhaps passers-by haven’t liked to disturb it. I don’t suppose it will last for long. Once we get the winter storms the sea will reach this far.”
Above the cross the sandy cliff was a rich terra cotta and looked in places as it if had been sliced with a spade. At the cliff edge a fringe of grasses trembled in the gently moving air. To left and right there were several places where the cliff face had shifted, leaving deep cracks and crevices beneath overhanging ledges. It would, he thought, have been perfectly possible to lie with one’s head under such a ledge and prod upwards with a stick, bringing down a half-ton of heavy sand. But it would take an extraordinary act of will or of desperation. He could think of few more dreadful ways to die. And if Ronald Treeves had wanted to kill himself, surely to swim out to sea until cold and exhaustion overcame him was a more merciful option? So far the word suicide had not been mentioned between him and Father Martin, but now he felt that it had to be said.
“This is a death, F
ather, which looks more like suicide than accident. But if Ronald Treeves wanted to kill himself, why not swim out to sea?”
“Ronald would never have done that. He was frightened of the sea. He couldn’t even swim. He never bathed when the others came to swim and I don’t think I have ever seen him walking on the beach. That’s one of the reasons why I find it surprising that he chose to come to St. Anselm’s instead of applying to one of the other theological colleges.” He paused and said, “I was afraid that you might think that suicide was more likely than accident. The possibility is deeply distressing to us all. If Ronald killed himself without us even knowing that he was so unhappy, then we failed him unforgivably. I can’t really believe that he came here with the intention of committing what for him would have been a grave sin.”
Dalgliesh said, “He took off his cloak and cassock and folded them neatly. Would he do that if he were just intending to scramble up the cliff?”
“He might do. It would be difficult to scramble up anywhere wearing either. There was something particularly poignant about those clothes. He had placed them so precisely, the sleeves folded inwards. It was as if he had packed them for a journey. But then, he was a careful boy.”
Dalgliesh thought, but why climb the cliff? If he was searching for something, what could it possibly be? These friable ever-changing banks of compacted sand with a thin strata of pebbles and stones were hardly a reasonable hiding-place. There were, he knew, occasional interesting finds to be made, including pieces of amber or human bones washed up from graveyards now long under the sea. But if Treeves had glimpsed such an object, where was it now? Nothing of interest had been found by his body except that single spar of wood.
They walked back along the beach in silence, Dalgliesh accommodating his long stride to Father Martin’s less certain steps. The elderly priest had bent his head to the wind and drawn his black cloak tightly around him. For Dalgliesh it was like walking with the personification of death.
When they were back in the car, Dalgliesh said, “I’d like to have a word with the member of staff who found Mrs. Munroe’s body a Mrs. Pilbeam, wasn’t it? And it would be helpful if I could speak to the doctor but it’s difficult to think of the justification for that. I don’t want to arouse suspicion where none exists. This death has been distressing enough without that.”
Father Martin said, “Dr. Metcalf is due to look in at the college this afternoon. One of the students, Peter Buckhurst, is recovering from glandular fever. It started at the end of last term. His parents are serving overseas so we kept him for the holidays to ensure that he got some care and nursing. When he calls, George Metcalf usually takes the opportunity to exercise his two dogs if he has half an hour or so to spare before his next appointment. We may catch him.”
They were fortunate. As they drove between the towers and into the courtyard, they saw a Range Rover parked at the front of the house. Dalgliesh and Father Martin got out of the car as Dr. Metcalf came down the steps, carrying his case and turning to wave goodbye to someone unseen within the house. The doctor was revealed as a tall, weather-beaten man who must, thought Dalgliesh, be nearing retirement. He made his way to the Range Rover and opened the door to be greeted with loud barking; two Dalmatians sprang out and hurled themselves against him. Shouting imprecations, the doctor took out two large bowls and a plastic bottle which he unscrewed, pouring water into the bowls. There was an immediate sound of slurping and much wagging of strong white tails.
As Dalgliesh and Father Martin approached, he called out, “Good afternoon, Father. Peter is recovering well, no need to worry. He ought to get out a bit more now. Less theology and more fresh air. I’ll just take Ajax and Jasper as far as the mere. All well with you I hope?”
“Very well thank you, George. This is Adam Dalgliesh from London. He’ll be with us for a day or two.”
The doctor turned to look at Dalgliesh and, while shaking hands, gave an approving nod as if physically he had passed muster.
Dalgliesh said, “I’d been hoping to see Mrs. Munroe while I was here, but I’m too late. I’d no idea she was so ill, but I understand from Father Martin that the death wasn’t unexpected.”
The doctor took off his jacket, dragged a voluminous sweater from the car and substituted walking boots for his shoes. He said, “Death still has the power to surprise me. You think a patient won’t last a week and they’re sitting up and making a nuisance of themselves a year later. Then you expect they’re good for at least another six months and arrive to find they’ve slipped away in the night. That’s why I never give patients an estimate of how long they’ve got. But Mrs. Munroe knew her heart was in a bad state she was a nurse after all and her death certainly didn’t surprise me. She could have gone any time. We both knew that.”
Dalgliesh said, “Which meant that the college was spared the distress of a second post-mortem so soon after the first.”
“Good Lord yes! None was necessary. I’d been seeing her regularly; indeed, I called in the day before she died. I’m sorry you missed her. Was she an old friend ? Did she know you were coming to visit?”
“No,” said Dalgliesh, ‘she didn’t know.”
“A pity. If she’d had that to look forward to she might have hung on. You never know with heart patients. You never know with any patients, come to that.”
He gave a valedictory nod and strode off, the dogs leaping and trotting at his side.
Father Martin said, “We could see if Mrs. Pilbeam’s in her cottage now, if you like. I’ll just take you to the door and introduce you, and then leave you together.”
At St. Mark’s Cottage the door to the porch was wide open and light spilled across the red tiled floor and touched with brightness the leaves of the plants in terra cotta pots which were ranged on low shelves on either side. Father Martin had hardly raised his hand to the knocker when the inner door opened and Mrs. Pilbeam, smiling, stood aside to welcome them in. Father Martin made a brief introduction and left, after hesitating at the door as if uncertain whether he was expected to pronounce a benediction.
Dalgliesh entered the small over-furnished sitting-room with a reassuring and nostalgic sense of stepping back into childhood. In just such a room had he sat as a boy while his mother made her parish visits, sitting, legs dangling, at the table earing fruitcake or, at Christmas, mince pies, hearing his mother’s low, rather hesitant voice. Everything about the room was familiar: the small iron fireplace with the decorated hood; the square central table covered with a red chenille cloth and with a large aspidistra in a green container at the centre; the two easy chairs, one a rocker, placed at each side of the fireplace; the ornaments on the mantel shelf two Staffordshire dogs with pouting eyes, an over-decorated vase with the words “Present from Southend’ and an assortment of photographs in silver frames. The walls were hung with Victorian prints in their original walnut frames: The Sailor’s Return, Grandpapa’s Pet, a group of unconvincingly clean children and parents processing to church across a meadow. The south window was wide open giving a view of the headland, and the narrow sill was covered with a variety of small containers holding cacti and African violets. The only discordant note was the large television set and video recorder dominant in the corner.
Mrs. Pilbeam was a short, plumply compact woman with an open wind-tanned face under fair hair which had been carefully combed into waves. She had been wearing a flowered apron over her skirt but now took it off and hung it on a peg behind the door. She motioned Dalgliesh to the rocking chair and they sat facing each other, Dalgliesh resisting the temptation to lie back and set it comfortably rocking.
Watching him glancing at the pictures, she said, “They were left to me by my gran. I grew up with those pictures. Reg thinks they’re a bit sentimental but I like them. They don’t paint like that nowadays.”
“No,” said Dalgliesh, ‘they don’t.”
The eyes looking into his were gentle but they were also intelligent. Sir Aired Treeves had been adamant that the investigation shou
ld be discreet but that didn’t mean secrecy. Mrs. Pilbeam was as entitled as Father Sebastian to the truth, or at least as much of it as was necessary.
He said, “It’s about the death of Ronald Treeves. His father, Sir Aired, couldn’t be in England for the inquest and he has asked me to make some enquiries about what exactly happened so that he can be satisfied that the verdict was right.”
Mrs. Pilbeam said, “Father Sebastian told us you’d be coming over asking questions. Bit of a funny idea of Sir Alred’s, isn’t it? You’d think he’d be happy to leave things be.”
Dalgliesh looked at her.
“Were you happy with the verdict, Mrs. Pilbeam?”
“Well, I didn’t find the body and I didn’t go to the inquest. It wasn’t really anything to do with me. But it seemed a bid odd. Everyone knows those cliffs are dangerous. Still, the poor lad’s dead now. I don’t see what good his dad hopes to do by raking it all up.”
Dalgliesh said, “I can’t, of course, speak to Mrs. Munroe but I wondered whether she talked to you about finding the body. Father Martin says that you were friends.”
“Poor woman. Yes, I suppose we were friends, although Margaret was never one for calling in unexpectedly. Even when her Charlie was killed I never felt we were really close. He was a captain in the Army and she was so proud of him. She said that that was all he’d ever wanted to be, a soldier. He got captured by the IRA. I think he was doing something secret and they tortured him to find out what it was. When the news came I moved in with her just for a week. Father Sebastian asked me to, but I would have done it anyway. She didn’t stop me. I don’t think she noticed. But if I put food in front of her she took a mouthful or so. I was glad when she suddenly asked me to go. She said, “I’m sorry, Ruby, I’ve been such bad company. You’ve been very kind, but please go now.” So I went.
“Watching her, all those months afterwards, it was like someone being tortured in Hell and not being able to make a sound. Her eyes got immense but the rest of her seemed to shrivel up. I thought she was, well, not getting over it you don’t, do you not if it’s your child? but that she was beginning to take an interest in life again. I thought so, we all did. But then they let those murderers out of prison under the Good Friday agreement and she couldn’t take that. And I think she was lonely. It was the boys that she loved they were always boys to her looking after them when they were sick. But I think they were a bit shy with her after Charlie died. The young don’t like to watch unhappiness, and who can blame them?”
