– and there is no other, she felt – are power, politics, money, influence or, failing that, at the very least, fame.
‘It is so very good to have your distinguished husband with us, Mrs Stephanopoulos,’ she said, turning to her guest. ‘I see from The Times he’s very much involved in the Cyprus reunification talks. Let’s hope something will come of it this time.’
‘Nothing will,’ said Stella. There was a harshness in her voice which made Dame Alicia’s drawing-room clichés seem suddenly more than usually fatuous.
Stella swung round abruptly to face Theodora, ‘I haven’t thanked you properly yet for your help.’
Theodora sort to change the tone of things, ‘I thought Jessica managed her double bass beautifully this evening in the Stabat Mater,’ she said.
‘Artistically she seems to be rather gifted, your young lady.’ Her pastoral sense aroused, Geoffrey lent his hand.
Stella fixed him with a cold eye.‘I must join my husband and, I suppose, support him.’ She turned from the group and started towards the tall military figure in Greek army uniform on the other side of the room. Dame Alicia felt she had graced their company sufficiently and waved to Admiral Topglass.
‘Oh dear,’ said Barbara. ‘A rift. Have you met George Stephanopoulos?’ she inquired of Theodora.
‘No. Nor am I keen to in the light of his behaviour.’
‘He connived at the kidnap?’
‘He wanted the triptych reunited.’
‘Not a silly wish,’ said Cromwell.
‘But not for religious or even aesthetic reasons,’ replied Theodora, ‘but simply to repair his own family’s honour and for nationalistic politics.’
‘Reunification of the island?’
‘Reunification on Greek terms, with Greek domination and with the Stephanopouli as the instigators, to expunge a dubious and perhaps treacherous past on the part of his family, his father in the German war. The triptych from Ayia Maria in the Turkish half would have been a nice symbol to bring Greek sentiment together in both mainland Greece and Cyprus. Left to themselves the Cypriot Greeks might tolerate powersharing. If you stir up a bit of national pride you can stop all that.’
‘George had to get hold of the three icons then?’ Barbara asked.
‘Right,’ said Theodora. ‘He knew his daughter had the Virgin and child from her grandfather, and he reckoned he could count on that one as safe for him. He knew from the family’s records that Lady Braithwaite had been sold an annunciation by his grandfather in the twenties, and that it had a provenance in Cyprus. Word had come via the Greek network, particularly his driver Michel Kostas, that the Kostas clan were getting ready to sell the maesta. At first sight it all looked very possible. But he had several problems. One, the Turks knew about the Kostas icon and were intent on getting their hands on it. Two, Jessica was keen on icons and had a religious appreciation of them. She wasn’t going to part with it for her father’s shabby purposes. Indeed she kept it locked usually, when she was away from it, and the key in her own pocket. And three …’
‘Three,’ said Cromwell, ‘the Braithwaite annunciation had gone to the Bennet family. George discovered this by accident when his daughter made a copy of it. So he arranged a kidnap.’
‘Of his own daughter?’ Oenone was outraged.
‘No. The intended victim was her friend Clarissa Bennet, Clarissa was supposed to be taken by Michel Kostas’s twin brother, Dimitri. Only the description of the girl was inadequate. Both Clarissa and Jessica are fair-haired and they’re about the same height. Dimitri put his car where Michel normally puts his, directly outside the school. Jessica piled into his car, not having recognised it wasn’t the embassy one, and thinking he was his twin brother.’
Barbara Brighouse was forced to grin. ‘Sounds Irish.’
‘Certainly an absolute shambles,’ Theodora agreed. ‘It was a difficult moment for Dimitri when he passed his brother’s car and saw his brother’s face and his subsequent signals. Jessica says they communicated by CB radio, racing round south London trying to work out what to do. Neither of the Kostases was eager to return to George, a man with a nasty temper, and confess that they had kidnapped the wrong girl – his own daughter to boot.’
‘Nasty moment,’ said Cromwell, with relish.
‘Enter Kallistos Bury,’ said Geoffrey, entering into the spirit of the narrative.
Theodora nodded. ‘He, in fact, was Jessica’s idea. She said she’d no intention of giving up her icon to her father, or letting her father force her friend’s family to do that either. The only person she trusted was Bury. He’d been kind, he was a priest, he’d taught her about icons. She rather took charge of the unfortunate Dimitri and steered him back to the Church of the Resurrection early the following day. Then she announced she was going to stay with Bury until, as she put it, her father saw reason. Meanwhile she told Kostas to tell her mother where she was.’
‘Which he did not do,’ said Barbara.
‘No, instead, when he saw she wasn’t going to go home, he did a bit of blackmail on his own account, and sent a letter to Stella hoping she’d collect the other two icons for them.’
‘How did Bury feel about his unexpected guest?’ Cromwell asked.
‘When he heard the tales from Jessica, he decided he wasn’t going to let the politicians have what he rightly felt belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church. So he entered the “reunite-the-triptych” game on his own account.
‘Jessica, of course, was happy for him to have hers.’
‘Right,’ Theodora agreed. ‘Then he consulted Mrs Bennet and asked her to sell.’
‘Did she?’ asked Oenone with curiosity.
‘Not at that point. She did better than that in the end, however. When she heard he’d got the other two, she made a gift of her one.’
‘Pretty good,’ said Geoffrey approvingly.
‘Yes. She said she was sure her grandmother’s friend, Helena Braithwaite, would have wished it. Quite right, too,’ Theodora added, thinking of her Uncle Hugh.
‘And the maesta?’ Cromwell pursued.
‘This was Bury’s great coup,’ Theodora was admiring. ‘He was really very enterprising. He got hold of the Turkish ambassador and suggested it would help Anglo-European-Turkish relations if (a) the icon was united with the other two by gift of the Turkish government, and (b) it wasn’t allowed to get in to the Greek government’s hands. Both reasons appealed to the Turks.’
‘So why take it to Montevento?’ Barbara asked.
‘He didn’t,’ said Theodora. ‘I told you. Vouniki – the barman – took it to Montevento. Or rather he took it to his cousin in Kyrenia. When the Turks decided it would be good publicity to let the Greek Orthodox Church have it, he was told to give it to the Greek papa at Montevento. Bury, however, didn’t want that. It’s much too vulnerable to being bagged both by the Turks or by Greek raiders. On the whole, give and take a bit, Strachan Square provides the best access and greatest security.’
‘So what was in the parcel that Bury was carrying to the monastery?’ Oenone asked.
‘My turn,’ said Cromwell. ‘It was the copy of Lady Helena’s icon. The one done by Jessica. Presumably to show his bona fides to the Turks.’
‘How did you know?’ Geoffrey inquired.
‘He asked me for it. Hours, in fact, before Stella Stephanopoulos did.’
‘What a lot you all know,’ said Oenone with distaste to Theodora.
‘One thing I don’t know,’ Theodora admitted. She turned to Cromwell. ‘Why did Clarissa Bennet faint in your lecture?’
Cromwell smiled. ‘Could have been my beaux yeux. Or it could have been that she saw the slide of Jessica’s Virgin and child which she knew was in Jessica’s bedroom and assumed a closer connection between the two of us than is at all the case.’
‘It’s from mistakes like that,’ Theodora said, remembering her discovery in Hetherington-Pollock’s Travels in Cyprus, ‘that art comes.’
EPILOGUE
&nbs
p; Holy Terrors
The organ was improvising on the tune of Hymns Ancient and Modern number 270, ‘Christ is risen, the terror now/ Can no more of death appal us.’
In the body of the church there was a respectable throng. Geoffrey and Theodora’s people-visiting was beginning to pay off. It was felt amongst local people that the great festivals were to be supported whether one was of the same faith or none. A sprinkling of South West London lads inhabited the choir. Oenone and Ralph Troutbeck graced the front pew. A row of turbanned heads at the back betokened the Singhs, who had turned out as a family to inspect the results of their building skills. There wasn’t a cement mixer in sight, only clean floors, smiling saints in their niches and above them a watertight roof. Most satisfactory, thought Mr Singh the elder.
In the vestry of St Sylvester, Canon Langthorne vested slowly. He was eighty-four and he had not been a quick man even in his prime. It was good of them to ask him back to celebrate the Easter mass for them in the newly restored church which his grandfather had built. Later, of course, they’d have to have the bishop down to do the official opening, but Geoffrey (what was his name?) had very civilly said he’d like him to do the Easter Sunday early one and breakfast with him and Gilbert Racy afterwards. Well, that would be very nice, to have a good breakfast after the rigours of Lent and Holy Week. Would it stretch to a grilled kidney, he wondered?
He looked at the vestments laid out for him on the table; all in the right order, he observed. Someone knew what they were doing. He took up the white alb and made his prayer. His vesting prayers were his own, drawn from the Armenian Orthodox rite. He was old enough to allow himself that latitude, he reckoned. ‘Clothe me, O Lord, with the robe of incorruption …’ When he’d done, he paused and looked round the vestry. It was not quite as he remembered it. There were, to be sure, sepia portrait photographs of the giants of the Oxford movements round the walls, with Thomas Henry Newcome in pride of place, framed in ebony. But the rest of the space seemed different. In one corner there was (Canon Langthorne had poked it to make sure) a cement mixer with a tarpaulin over it, and some sort of brazier, smelling (could it really be?) of curry. A storeroom, was it? Crates, wrapping paper and boxes all over the show. A boot sale, Geoffrey had said: the modern replacement for the church fête. A vase of white plastic daisies, presumably unsold, decorated the table of vestments.
He took up the stole and made his prayer. He hoped they’d got a properly trained altar boy. Something had been said about a Greek lad: Kostas, was it? Of course he had no objection to someone from a sister church helping out, and the Greek Orthodox Easter was another fortnight in the future. But he wasn’t sure how far he trusted Geoffrey in the matter of training. He’d had to be firm when Geoffrey had offered his female deacon as server. ‘If you have a woman in the sanctuary,’ he’d said, ‘then I very much regret I cannot celebrate for you.’ He’d thought, but not actually said, that the deacon would do very well to serve breakfast later if she’d a mind to. Geoffrey had quite understood and didn’t press the point. Theodora had said she’d be perfectly happy to grill a kidney for them all afterwards.
He took up the girdle. ‘Thou shalt gird me with strength unto battle …’ Well, life was a battle. Two world wars, countless lesser conflicts, the observed working of his own and others’ hearts and passions over eightyfour years had left him in no doubt about that. It was a struggle against the terrors of the world, violence and despair within and without. We surround ourselves in our daily lives with images of outrage and evil and then wonder why we have no hope, no faith, no love. We need to arm ourselves with prayer and sacrament, ritual (properly conducted, of course) and artefact, something concrete for people to hang on to. What we need to do, he thought irritably, is to recreate a Christian culture.
He struggled stiffly into the chasuble. ‘Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness and thy saints with joyfulness …’ The bell – they had as yet but one – leaped into its last happy cadence and settled to the single G-sharp which signalled the beginning of the service. Well, it was Easter. He wouldn’t see too many more of them, so let us celebrate the resurrection.
Geoffrey put his head round the door and gazed with awe at Canon Langthorne’s biretta. Haven’t seen one of those for some time, he thought. Theodora would like it too, he reckoned.‘Everything all right?’ he inquired.
‘All Sir Garnett,’ answered the Canon heartily.
Holy Terrors Page 19
