Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

by James Runcie

  ‘Hey man, nice lid.’

  A thin, blonde woman in a short skirt and a low-cut top was standing in a doorway. ‘Need a girl?’ she asked.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ Sidney replied. ‘But thank you for offering.’

  He met Amanda at The Moka in Frith Street and then proceeded down a series of dingy alleys where several couples were taking advantage of the darkness to get to know each other better. Sidney knew that Amanda was unused to these surroundings but decided that it was good for her to experience them. When they arrived at the club he ordered her a Martini and found a table to the side of the stage.

  ‘What time do they come on?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘Miss Dee likes it late.’

  ‘And how is your investigation?’

  ‘Slow,’ Sidney replied.

  ‘The police not much help?’

  ‘They’re doing their best but there were so many people in the club. It could have been almost anyone.’

  ‘Do you think it was a crime passionnel?’

  Sidney felt a presence by his side. ‘You talkin’ about passion?’

  It was Gloria Dee. She was wearing a golden sheath dress. It looked as if honey had been poured over her body and left to set.

  Sidney had the look of a schoolboy who had never seen a woman in his life before. ‘You remember me?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure thing, I remember you, sweetheart. Every time you show up someone gets killed. Who’s your baby?’

  ‘This is my friend, Miss Kendall.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, friend.’ Gloria turned back to Sidney. ‘You found the cat who killed that girl?

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Better get a wiggle on. Man could’ve moved miles by now.’

  ‘Or woman of course,’ Sidney replied.

  ‘Tell it to Sweeney. I don’t think a woman did that. She’s more likely to use a stiletto. Stranglin’s hard work.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

  ‘You never killed a chick?’ She looked at Sidney’s companion. ‘I mean the animal variety . . .’

  ‘Wouldn’t you leave that sort of thing to your husband?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘Aint got no husband. You don’t keep the carton once you’ve smoked the cigarette. What you preachin’, Sidney?’

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘And what you drinkin’?’

  ‘Whisky.’

  ‘Are you going to fix me one?’

  ‘Whatever you like’.

  ‘I’ll take a triple shot and have it on stage.’ Gloria signalled to the barman. He had clearly been briefed to keep an eye on her. ‘I’ve got to get myself ready. You’re one lucky woman, Miss Kendall. Don’t know if I’ve ever seen an English cat so hip to the jive as your man.’

  The lights dimmed, a spotlight moved on to the drums, followed by the bass and then the piano. Sidney realised that Gloria was about to sing one of his favourite songs: ‘Careless Love’. He only hoped Amanda would appreciate it.

  Almost all of Gloria’s songs were about love, disaster and recovery. ‘I Aint Got Nobody’, ‘I’m Wild about That Thing’, and ‘Gimme a Pigfoot’, but they were brightened by one of the most unexpected moments in Sidney’s life. Gloria dedicated a song to him.

  ‘When you hear that the preachin’ has begin

  Bend down low to drive away your sin

  When you get religion

  You’ll want to shout and sing

  There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight’

  Amanda was not amused. ‘How much more of this do we have to up with?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a rare treat,’ Sidney replied. ‘I’m enjoying it.’

  Halfway through the song Sidney realised that Gloria was teasing him.

  ‘Please, oh please, oh, do not let me fall,

  You’re all mine and I love you best of all,

  And you must be my man, or I’ll have no man at all,

  There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!’

  The song came to an end, Gloria smiled, gave a little bow and blew him a kiss.

  ‘That was hardly necessary,’ Amanda said.

  ‘She doesn’t mean it.’

  Gloria Dee thanked the audience for coming. ‘Before we take a break, I’d like to introduce the band . . .’ she began, and then paused to take a large glass of water and a shot of bourbon.

  Sidney whispered to Amanda. ‘I need to see what happens in the drum solo; if people leave. It may give me a clue. I think this is the end of the first set.’

  ‘The first set. You mean there’s more?’

  The band struck up a version of ‘Embraceable You’ and the introductions were made at the end of each solo. As soon as Tony Sanders’s moment on the drums came some of the more experienced punters used his improvisation as an early opportunity to order a sharpener at the bar or get to the toilets.

  Sidney realised how easy it would be for a criminal to take advantage of the situation but also how risky. There would only be a very short time, and there was the constant danger of being discovered.

  When the first half came to an end a waitress approached the table to ask if they wanted to order food. Amanda said that if they weren’t leaving she would like fried chicken with some white wine. As Sidney looked up, a boy and a girl pushed past to go to the bar. He ordered another beer and asked for a steak. When the couple returned he remembered that they were Liza Richardson and Justin the driver. But what were they doing out front? They had told him that they always remained backstage.

  ‘Hello again,’ he called out.

  ‘Oh,’ said Liza. ‘It’s you. We were just fetching drinks.’

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you amongst the audience.’

  ‘Sometimes we need emergency supplies.’

  Sidney looked at the drinks and was surprised to see a key on the tray. He wondered what it could be for. ‘This is my friend Amanda . . .’ he told them.

  Amanda looked at Justin. ‘Do I know you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Was it at the Blakeleys?’

  Justin seemed keen to get backstage as the number was about to finish. Perhaps he was scared of his employer. ‘I don’t know any Blakeleys, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What’s your surname?’

  ‘Wild.’

  Amanda didn’t give up. ‘I’m sure we’ve met. I never forget a face.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Justin replied. ‘I would definitely have remembered you. But if you’ll excuse me I have Miss Dee to attend to.’

  After he had gone Amanda was puzzled. ‘That was very odd. As soon as he saw me he looked frightened.’

  ‘You do have that effect on some people.’

  ‘No, Sidney, this was different. It was as if he thought I was some kind of ghost . . .’

  ‘Well, I’m sure he’ll get over it.’

  ‘And quicker than you’ll get over Miss Dee. That singer has quite turned your head.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘She has.’

  ‘She has not.’

  ‘Then you won’t mind if we leave?’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘It’s late, Sidney. I have to be at work at nine in the morning. We can’t all live the life of a clergyman.’

  ‘It has its pressures.’

  ‘Only because you create most of them. The next concert we go to will have to be at the Festival Hall. The Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra are coming next month.’

  Sidney sighed. As midnight chimed over Soho he realised that it was going to take a long time to convert Amanda to the wonders of jazz.

  The day of Claudette’s funeral was one of heat and impending storm. Sidney had been informed that there would be a procession from the Johnson household to the crematorium and was surprised to see not only the mourners waiting outside, but also a brass band and half the jazz community of London. As the white coffin emerged from the house, held by pallbearers who had taken off their hats, the band struck u
p the old spiritual ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee.’

  Three men led from the front with snare drums followed by trombones, saxophone and tuba; then the clarinets, and trumpets, and a bass drummer bringing up the rear.

  Sidney’s brother Matt came over and spoke directly into Sidney’s ear over the volume of the music. ‘It’s a jazz funeral, New Orleans style. We’re all here. Three-line whip.’

  ‘Whose idea was this?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘It was mine. We’ve even persuaded Gloria Dee to sing at the service.’

  ‘That must have taken some doing.’

  ‘I used charm. Apparently it runs in the family.’

  Sidney felt suddenly nervous about his ability to say a few appropriate words at the ceremony. He was used to speaking at country funerals and in churches where the congregation were expecting the traditions of the Anglican Communion. A jazz funeral was altogether different.

  He wondered what Martha Headley would make of all this. She was the Grantchester blacksmith’s wife who sometimes helped out on the organ at funerals but was only confident of her ability to play two tunes, seeing the coffin into the church with Mendelssohn’s ‘Song without Words’, and out with ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’.

  Phil Johnson, Johnny and Jennifer led the mourners. Behind them, three women were holding a large floral tribute that spelled out the name CLAUDETTE. As the procession made its way through the south London streets, passers-by took off their hats as a sign of respect to the dead, remembering those they had lost themselves.

  Gloria Dee had been waiting in the crematorium. She stood next to a baby grand piano and sang ‘Amazing Grace’ as the coffin was brought in. She sang unaccompanied, with such poise and intensity that at one point Sidney thought he could hear the timbers in the roof vibrate in response to the force of her voice.

  Once the congregation had settled, he read the opening prayer.

  ‘Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.’

  Jennifer sat between Johnny and his father, with Matt Chambers just behind her. Sidney found it disorientating to see his brother and sister as members of a different family. A few rows behind them he noticed the rest of Gloria Dee’s Quartet: Jay Jay Lion, Milo Masters and Tony Sanders with his girlfriend Liza. Justin the driver sat behind them at the end of a row on his own.

  After the prayers, the congregation gave a full rendition of ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’. It felt a long way from the hymn singing of Grantchester.

  Sidney climbed the three steps into the pulpit to give his address. He preached about the sin and darkness of the world and the need for light in that darkness. Claudie Johnson had been one such light.

  ‘Amen,’ a man called out.

  Sidney told them how Claudette was a girl who carried her goodness into the lives of others; and that this was the task of all us, no matter how weak or strong our faith. We needed to try and leave a better world than the one into which we were born.

  This was a moment for reflection, he said; for patience and silence and time. We must be ready not only to offer words of comfort but also to listen to words of grief. Not even the firmest faith was enough to insulate us from the pain of loss, or from the sense that, with the death of someone dear to us, our own life had lost its meaning. Time had to take its course, and in that time we should recognise that where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

  Claudette was too soon returned to earth, he continued, but she would live on both as a memory and as an example to all who had known her. There is always a future for our deepest loves.

  He ended by quoting Byron’s poem ‘To Thyrza’:

  ‘I know not if I could have borne

  To see thy beauties fade;

  The night that followed such a morn

  Had worn a deeper shade:

  Thy day without a cloud hath past,

  And thou wert lovely to the last –

  Extinguished, not decayed,

  As stars that shoot along the sky

  Shine brightest as they fall from high.’

  There was a silence and then, after the final prayers, Gloria moved to stand by the piano. Jay Jay Lion accompanied her as the coffin disappeared behind the curtains.

  She began to sing.

  ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen

  Nobody knows but Jesus’

  Sidney had never heard the song sung so slowly or with such intensity. There was a terrible truth in Gloria’s singing that seemed to stretch back over a life. Every phrase was considered; each word could be taken out and understood on its own as well as within the unfolding story of the song. The pauses between the phrases were held longer than Sidney had ever imagined possible. The song defied time and place. It was a blazingly honest performance: a lament for a life and an emphatic statement of readiness for death.

  When Gloria had finished, there was silence, shock, applause and then, finally, a loud whistle. The brass band was back and it struck up a boisterous rendition of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’. The sadness was over. The congregation was expected to clap and dance its way out of the building, to thank God for the joy of a life rather than the fact of a death.

  Phil did not join in. There was going to be a wake, he told Sidney, in a nearby boozer, and then they were going to have a memorial concert in the club in a few weeks’ time. All the jazz musicians in London were coming. ‘Just as long as we find the bastard who did this.’

  Johnny Johnson shook Sidney’s hand and thanked him for the service. His sister kissed him. His brother offered to accompany him to the reception. ‘You may feel a bit out of your depth,’ he explained.

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘That was quite a change from the usual Church of England service.’

  ‘Everything about today has been disorientating, Matt. I sometimes feel that I am living in a different world.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s unusual,’ his brother replied. ‘Isn’t that your job?’

  ‘It’s not what I was expecting.’

  ‘You did well. It was a fitting tribute. Everyone loved Claudie.’

  ‘The whole thing is a mystery, Matt. Who do you think could have done such a thing?’

  ‘Jenny told you about Sam?’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘I saw them together once. I didn’t like to say anything. But it all looked pretty innocent. And I can’t believe he was capable of violence.’

  ‘Neither can I. But we have to find someone who was.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to get dragged into the whole investigation.’

  ‘I’ve done a bit of digging around but I haven’t really found anything. And I’m worried about Jennifer.’

  ‘You don’t think she’s in any danger?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. I rather like Johnny. I just don’t want her to expect too much. I’m not sure how well she knows him.’

  ‘It’s early days. You can’t expect everything to happen at once. But they’re a decent family once you get over the fact of her father’s past.’

  ‘He’s done his time.’

  ‘Unless, of course . . .’ Matt stopped in the street. ‘Someone thinks he hasn’t.’

  ‘I am afraid we have thought of that.’

  ‘A vendetta?’

  ‘If you think Claudette was not murdered by a lover or because she was a witness to a crime then it’s one of the few explanations left.’ Sidney replied. ‘But it seems such a warped way of thinking.’

  ‘But that is how anyone investigating the crime has to think if they want to find out who did it.’

  ‘I realise that it’s necessary to get inside the mind of a murderer. However, it’s not something I ever considered doing when I decided to become a priest.’

  ‘You don’t have to get involved, you know. The police are dealing with the case.’

  ‘But they don’
t appear to be making much progress.’

  ‘You think you can make a difference?’

  ‘I have to offer to do what I can, Matt.’

  ‘Even if it’s not your job?’

  ‘When I was ordained, I studied the ordinal. It told me what priests are called to do. “They are to resist evil, support the weak, defend the poor, and intercede for all in need.” My job is to do the right thing.’

  ‘Even it overturns your life?’

  ‘Even so.’

  On the train home Sidney thought over all that had happened. Perhaps his brother was right. There was only so much a priest could do. And he had begun to become embarrassed about his love of jazz. He had to admit that it was a bit of an affectation. He was an English parish priest who had been brought up in North London rather than the hot streets of Harlem. He was never going to be a hipster or a hepcat.

  It was also becoming increasingly hard to convince himself that any of the work that he was doing for the police was of any benefit. He had found out about Phil ‘the Cat’ Johnson’s previous crimes, but there was nothing concrete to link any of them to the death of his daughter. When he got back to Grantchester he would have to stop these activities and concentrate on his duties in the parish: chairing a meeting about the church maintenance fund – the winter heating bills had been enormous – discussing the forthcoming music for the choir, as well as organising the teams of volunteers to clean the church and do the flowers. He sometimes thought that being a vicar was a bit like being the managing director of a business in which no one was paid.

  He also had to write his next sermon. Although he was tired after his funeral address he was pleased that it had gone well. Perhaps he could use that success to drive his thoughts forward to next Sunday. He would talk about love and time, he decided; human time and God’s time; earthly love and divine love; the gulf between the transient and the constant.

  The writing would require a great deal of concentration and Sidney was relieved to find a vacant compartment. The freedom from interruption was such an unexpected luxury that he imagined he was travelling in first class. That was what bishops did, he thought to himself, together with successful City types, Amanda Kendall and probably, Gloria Dee. They were not only seeking extra comfort by travelling in such seclusion, they were also desperate for a life without interruption. The main attraction in first class, he realised, was the avoidance of other people.