Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

by James Runcie

  Pamela Morton put her handkerchief away. ‘It is. But I have said what I came to say. Are you sure I can rely on your discretion?’ she asked, looking up at him, vulnerable once more. ‘You won’t mention my name?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Sidney answered, already worrying how long he could keep this secret.

  ‘I’m so sorry about all of this,’ Mrs Morton continued. ‘I’m ashamed, really. I couldn’t think how to tell you or the words that I was going to use. I don’t know anything at the moment and I’ve had to keep so quiet. I’ve had no one to talk to. Thank you for listening to me.’

  ‘It is what I am called to do,’ said Sidney and immediately wondered whether this was true. It was his first case of adultery, never mind murder.

  Pamela Morton stood up. Sidney noticed that, despite the tears, her mascara had not run. She pushed back that strand of hair again and held out her hand.

  ‘Goodbye, Canon Chambers. You do believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘It was brave to tell me so much.’

  ‘Courage is a quality Stephen said I lacked. If you find out what happened to him then I hope you will inform me first.’ She smiled, sadly, once more. ‘I know where you are.’

  ‘I am always here. Goodbye, Mrs Morton.’

  ‘Pamela . . .’

  ‘Goodbye, Pamela.’

  Sidney closed his front door and looked at the watch his father had given him on his ordination. Perhaps there would be time to look in at the wake after all. He returned to his small drawing room with the tired furniture his parents had bought for him at a local auction. The place really did need cheering up, he thought. He gathered the glasses and took them through to the kitchen sink and turned on the hot tap. He liked washing up; the simple act of cleanliness had immediately visible results. He stopped for a moment at the window and watched a robin hopping on the washing line. Soon he would have to get round to his Christmas cards.

  He noticed the lipstick marks on the rim of Pamela Morton’s whisky glass and remembered a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay he had read in the Sunday Times:

  ‘What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

  I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

  Under my head till morning; but the rain

  Is full of ghosts tonight . . .’

  ‘What a mess people make of their lives,’ he thought.

  Sidney’s friend Inspector Keating was not amused. ‘It could hardly be more straightforward,’ he sighed. ‘A man stays on in the office after everyone has gone home. He sets about a decanter of whisky and then blows his brains out. The cleaner finds him in the morning, calls the police, we go in, and that’s it: clear as my wife’s crystal.’

  The two men were sitting at their favourite table in the RAF bar of The Eagle, a pub that was conveniently situated not far from the police station in St Andrews Street. They had become friends after Sidney had taken the funeral of the inspector’s predecessor, and they now met informally after work every Thursday to enjoy a couple of pints of bitter, play a game of backgammon and share confidences. It was one of the few off-duty moments in the week when Sidney could take off his dog collar, put on a pullover and pretend that he was not a priest.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he observed, ‘things can be rather too clear.’

  ‘I agree,’ said the inspector, throwing a five and a three, ‘but the facts of this case are as plain as a pikestaff.’ He spoke with a slight Northumbrian accent, the only remaining evidence of a county he had left at the age of six. ‘So much so, that I cannot believe you are suggesting that we set out on a wild goose chase.’

  ‘I am not suggesting that.’ Sidney was alarmed by his friend’s assumption that he was making a formal request. ‘I am merely raising an eyebrow.’

  Inspector Keating pressed his case. ‘Stephen Staunton’s wife told us that her husband had been depressed. He also drank too much. That’s what the Irish do, of course. His secretary informed us that our man had also started to go to London on a weekly basis and was not in the office as much as he should have been. She even had to cover for him and do some of his more straightforward work; conveyancing and what have you. Then there is the small matter of his recent bank withdrawals; vast sums of money, in cash, which his wife has never seen and no one knows where it has gone. This suggests . . .’

  Sidney threw a double five and moved four of his pieces. ‘I imagine you would think the solicitor was a gambling man . . .’

  ‘I certainly would. And I would also imagine that he might have been using some of his firm’s money to pay for it. If he wasn’t dead I’d probably have to start investigating him for fraud.’ The inspector threw a four and a two and hit one of Sidney’s blots. ‘So I imagine that, when the debts mounted up, and he was on the verge of being discovered, he blew his brains out. It’s common enough, man. Re-double?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sidney threw again. ‘Ah . . . I think I can re-enter the game.’ He placed his checker on the twenty-three point. ‘Did he leave a note?’

  Inspector Keating was irritated by this question. ‘No, Sidney, he did not leave a note.’

  ‘So there’s margin for error?’

  The inspector leaned forward and shook again. He had thought he had the game in the bag but now he could see that Sidney would soon start to bear off. ‘There is no room for doubt in this case. Not every suicide leaves a note . . .’

  ‘Most do.’

  ‘My brother-in-law works in the force near Beachy Head. They don’t leave a lot of notes down there, I’m telling you. They take a running jump.’

  ‘I imagine they do.’

  ‘Our man killed himself, Sidney. If you don’t believe me then go and pay the widow one of your pastoral visits. I’m sure she’d appreciate it. Just don’t start having any ideas.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ his companion lied, anticipating an unlikely victory on the board.

  The living at Grantchester was tied to Sidney’s old college of Corpus Christi, where he had studied theology and now took tutorials and enjoyed dining rights. He enjoyed the fact that his work combined the academic and the clerical, but there were times when he worried that his college activities meant that he did not have enough time to concentrate on his pastoral duties. He could run his parish, teach students, visit the sick, take confirmation classes and prepare couples for marriage, but he frequently felt guilty that he was not doing enough for people. In truth, Sidney sometimes wished that he were a better priest.

  He knew that his responsibility to the bereaved, for example, extended far beyond the simple act of taking a funeral. In fact, those who had lost someone they loved often needed more comfort after the initial shock of death had gone, when their friends had resumed their daily lives and the public period of mourning had passed. It was the task of a priest to offer constant consolation, to love and serve his parishioners at whatever cost to himself. Consequently, Sidney had no hesitation in stopping off on his way into Cambridge the next morning to call on Stephen Staunton’s widow.

  The house was a mid-terrace, late-Victorian building on Eltisley Avenue, a road that lay on the edge of the Meadows. It was the kind of home young families moved to when they were expecting their second child. Everything about the area was decent enough but Sidney could not help but think that it lacked charm. These were functional buildings that had escaped wartime bombing but still had no perceivable sense of either history or local identity. In short, as Sidney walked down the street, he felt that he could be anywhere in England.

  Hildegard Staunton was paler than he remembered from her husband’s funeral. Her short hair was blonde and curly; her eyes were large and green. Her eyebrows were pencil-thin and she wore no lipstick; as a result, her face looked as if her feelings had been washed away. She was wearing a dark olive housecoat, with a shawl collar and cuffed sleeves that Sidney only noticed when she touched her hair; worrying, perhaps, that she needed a shampoo and set but could not face a trip to the hairdresser.

  Hildegard had been p
oised yet watchful at the service, but now she could not keep still, standing up as soon as she had sat down, unable to concentrate. Anyone outside, watching her through the window, would probably think she had lost something, which, of course, she had. Sidney wondered if her doctor had prescribed any medicine to help her with her grief.

  ‘I came to see how you were getting on,’ he began.

  ‘I am pretending he is still here,’ Hildegard answered. ‘It is the only way I can survive.’

  ‘I am sure it must feel very strange.’ Sidney was already uncomfortable with the knowledge of her husband’s adultery, let alone potential murder.

  ‘Being in this country has always seemed strange to me. Sometimes I think I am living someone else’s life.’

  ‘How did you meet your husband?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘It was in Berlin after the war.’

  ‘He was a soldier?’

  ‘With the Ulster Rifles. The British Foreign Office sent people over to “aerate” us, whatever that meant, and we all went to lectures on Abendländische Kultur. But none of us listened very much. We wanted to go dancing instead.’

  Sidney tried to imagine Hildegard Staunton in a bombed-out German ballroom, dancing among the ruins. She shifted position on the sofa and adjusted the fall of her housecoat. Perhaps she did not want to tell her story, Sidney wondered, but the fact that she would not look him in the eye made it clear that she intended to continue. Her speech, despite its softness, demanded attention.

  ‘Sometimes we went out into the countryside and spent the nights drinking white wine under the apple trees. We taught them to sing “Einmal am Rhein” and the Ulstermen gave us “The Star of County Down.” I liked the way Stephen sang that song. And when he talked about his home in Northern Ireland, he described it so well that I thought that this could be my refuge from all that had happened in the war. We would live by the sea, he said, in Carrickfergus, perhaps. We were going to walk by the shores of Lough Neagh, and listen to the cry of the curlews as they flew over the water. His voice had so much charm. I believed everything he told me. But we never did go to Ireland. The opportunity was here. And so our marriage began with something I had not been expecting. I never imagined that we would live in an English village. Being German is not so easy, of course.’

  ‘You speak very good English.’

  ‘I try hard. But German people are looked on with suspicion, as I am sure you know. I can see what they are thinking still, so soon after the war. How can I blame them? I cannot tell everyone that I meet that my father was never a Nazi, that he was shot at a Communist protest when I was six years old. I do not think I have done anything wrong. But it is difficult for us to live after such a war.’

  ‘It is hard for everyone.’

  Hildegard stopped and remembered what she had forgotten. ‘Would you like some tea, Canon Chambers?’

  ‘That would be kind.’

  ‘I am not very good at making it. Stephen used to find it amusing. More often he drank whiskey.’

  ‘I am rather partial to Scotch myself.’

  ‘His was Irish, of course.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Sidney remembered. ‘With a different taste and a different spelling.’

  Hildegard Staunton continued. ‘It was Bushmills. Stephen called it the oldest whiskey in the world. It reminded him of home: a Protestant whiskey, he always said, from County Antrim. His brother sends over two cases a year, one on Stephen’s birthday and the other at Christmas. That is, two bottles a month. It was not enough. Perhaps that is why he went up to London before he died. It wasn’t for business. It was to collect more whiskey. We couldn’t find Bushmills in Cambridge and he wouldn’t drink anything else.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘He said he would prefer to drink water. Or gin. And when he did that he drank it like water in any case.’ Hildegard gave a sad smile. ‘Perhaps you would like sherry instead of tea. Priests often have sherry, I think?’

  Sidney did not want to have to explain his dislike. ‘That would be kind . . .’

  Mrs Staunton moved to the glass cabinet on the sideboard. There were not many books, Sidney thought, but he noticed an upright Bechstein piano and some tasteful reproductions of landscape paintings. There was also a collection of German porcelain, including a fiddler wooing a dancing lady, and a Harlequin twisting a pug dog’s tail. Most of the figurines were of children: a boy in a pink jacket playing the flute, a girl in the same coloured top with a basket of flowers, a little ballerina, brothers and sisters sharing a picnic table.

  Sidney remembered his reason for coming. ‘I’m sorry if I am intruding. But I like to think that you are one of my parishioners . . .’

  ‘I am Lutheran, as you know. We are not regular churchgoers.’

  ‘You would always be welcome.’

  ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche.’ Hildegard smiled. ‘The German tradition. I am afraid I am not very good at any of them.’

  ‘I thought if there was anything I could do . . .’

  ‘You took my husband’s funeral. That was enough, especially under the circumstances.’

  ‘They were difficult.’

  ‘And after so much death in the war. To choose to die in such a deliberate way after you have survived. It’s hard to understand. I am sure you disapprove.’

  ‘We do believe that life is sacred, given by God.’

  ‘And therefore God should take it away.’

  ‘I am afraid so.’

  ‘And if there is no God?’

  ‘I cannot think that.’

  ‘No. As a priest that would be a bad idea.’ Hildegard smiled for the first time.

  ‘Very bad indeed.’

  Hildegard Staunton handed Sidney his sherry. He wondered why he had got himself into all this. ‘Will you go back to Germany?’ he asked.

  ‘Some people say there is no Germany any more. But my mother is in Leipzig. I also have a sister in Berlin. I do not think I can remain here.’

  ‘You don’t like Cambridge?’

  ‘It can be dispiriting. Is that the right word? The weather and the wind.’

  Sidney wondered if the Staunton’s marriage had ever been happy. ‘I was thinking,’ he began tentatively. ‘Did your husband share your feelings?’

  ‘I think we both felt that we were strangers here.’

  ‘He was depressed?’

  ‘He is from Ulster. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think all Ulstermen are depressed, Mrs Staunton.’

  ‘Of course not. But sometimes with the alcohol . . .’ Hildegard let the sentence fall into the silence between them.

  ‘I know . . . it does not help.’

  ‘Why did you ask that question?’ Hildegard continued.

  ‘I apologise. It was intrusive, I know. I was only wondering if you had any fears that this might happen?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘So it came as a shock?’

  ‘It did. But then nothing surprises me, Canon Chambers. When you have lost most of your family in war, when there is nothing left of your life, and when the only hope you have turns to dust, then why should anything shock you? You fought in the war?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then I think, perhaps, you understand.’

  If Sidney had been a better Christian, he thought, he would try to talk to Hildegard about the consolation of his faith, but he knew that it was not the right time.

  The conversation was unsettling because there were so many subjects moving through his mind: the nature of death, the idea of marriage and the problem of betrayal. To concentrate on any one of these issues was likely to upset Hildegard and so he tried to keep the conversation as neutral as he could.

  ‘And you are from Leipzig?’ Sidney continued.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘The home of Bach.’

  ‘I play his music every day. I studied at the Hochschule in Berlin with Edwin Fischer. He was like a father to me. Perhaps you have heard of him?’

  ‘I think my mother
might have one of his recordings.’

  ‘It is probably The Well-Tempered Clavier. His playing was filled with air and joy. He was a wonderful man. But, in 1942, he went to Lucerne, and I lost my confidence.’

  ‘The war, I suppose.’

  ‘It was many things.’

  ‘And do you teach?’

  ‘In Germany I had many pupils. You know that work is our weapon against world-weariness.’

  ‘Weltschmerz.’

  ‘You are familiar with the word?’ Hildegard smiled once more. ‘I am impressed, Canon Chambers. But here, work is not so easy. When I return to Germany, then, perhaps, I will teach every day. I need to work. I do not know what my husband did with money.’

  ‘He left no will?’

  ‘I do not think so.’

  ‘Perhaps your husband’s business partner was waiting until after the funeral to tell you about it?’

  ‘I do not know him well. My husband was private about his work. He told me that it was unfulfilling. All I do know is that Clive Morton felt the same. I think he was more interested in golf than law.’

  ‘Perhaps I could enquire on your behalf, if it might be helpful?’

  ‘I would not like to trouble you.’

  ‘It is no trouble,’ said Sidney.

  ‘There is nothing that is urgent . . .’ Hildegard Staunton continued. ‘I have my own bank account and enough money for now. It is only that I am so tired. I think it must be the sadness. It is like looking down a lift shaft. The gap is dark. It goes down and you can see no ending.’

  Sidney sat down beside her. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Staunton. Perhaps I should not have come.’

  Hildegard met his eye. ‘No, I am glad. I am not myself. I hope you will excuse me.’

  ‘You have had a terrible loss.’

  ‘I was not expecting it to be so violent. I knew that Stephen kept his revolver from the war. He told me that sometimes he thought about what he had done with it. The people he had killed. He had such a conscience. I think it was too much for him, the memory of that conflict. Perhaps marrying me was an attempt to make up for what had happened, but I think it made it worse. He kept thinking that he might have killed people I had known; teachers, friends, relations. It was hard to know what to say to him. It was not good.’