Let him get on with it, thought the Dean who knew the Chief Constable well. He noticed too that, in the space of twenty minutes, Wheeler seemed to have changed his tack entirely about informing the police.
‘That’s awfully kind of you, Charles,’ said the Archdeacon conciliatorily.
‘However,’ said Canon Wheeler clearing his throat to indicate that he hadn’t finished and intended to keep the reins of conversation in his own hands, ‘what chiefly worries me at the moment is the Old Man’s reaction.’
Both the Dean and Archdeacon gazed stonily at their boots.
‘You do realise that the Bishop is not at all well?’
Clearly they both did and equally clearly they weren’t going to help Wheeler out over this one.
‘He was kind enough to give me a few minutes after Evensong yesterday.’ Wheeler’s mandarin–like courtesies when referring to the Bishop reached the point of parody. But no parody was intended: when he got his bishopric, he would expect and require his subordinates to refer to him with similar flourishes. He was celebrating, as it were, proleptically. ‘He more or less said that he’d leave the arrangements for Gray’s funeral and requiem in my hands and that, as for the press, Chapter could deal with them as they liked. He didn’t seem to grasp that we can hardly bury a head without a body. It would be most indecorous. It fact, I think canon law prevents it. I’ll have to look that one up. He really seemed not to be quite on the ball.’ Wheeler did not add that for a man whose chief pleasure in the past seemed to have been in giving other people orders, a falling off of that activity boded ill. ‘I do think, and I’m sure you share my feelings on this one,’ Wheeler continued minatorily, ‘that he needs our especial support at this juncture. I also wonder,’ he added, in his real anxiety dropping into a more common–place diction, ‘what on earth’s up with him.’
The Dean, who thought he knew what was wrong with the Bishop, who pitied him and prayed for him daily as a man of his own kind, had absolutely no intention of enlightening Wheeler.
‘I think,’ said the Archdeacon, ‘that since his wife died and his son’s’ – he hesitated – ‘death, he has withdrawn too much into his own company. I was wondering if he might not be asked out a bit more. Would he, I wonder, dine with us as he used to do?’ He spoke with a gentleness that explained why, as a pastor of the parochial clergy, he was by no means despised, however his colleagues might treat him.
Canon Wheeler was impervious to the gentleness but grasped the opportunity. His own preferment was not a little due to his discerning hospitality. If there was anything to be done in that line, he would do it and do it excellently. He glowed now at the Archdeacon. ‘I think that’s a splendid idea, Dick.’
The Archdeacon beamed in the unexpected light of the Canon’s approval. Wheeler turned to the Dean. ‘Would it be appropriate to include one or two old friends of his, do you think? I believe he knows your cousin.’
‘George likes him. I expect he’d rally round. Get that splendid girl of yours to give me a date or two and I’ll see if we can fix something up fairly promptly.’
Wheeler was delighted. The prospect of his giving a dinner party for the Bishop of Medewich and the Earl of Medewich and Markham afforded him a very straightforward pleasure. It was five past twelve. He got up and reached for the phone.
‘Rosamund, I thought I ordered sherry. Would you bring it in at once? And bring my diary with you.’
When Canon Wheeler had finished with her, Julia had wanted to go away somewhere private and weep. This, she determined, she would not do. The thought of Miss Coldharbour’s cool glance sweeping her face to detect any sign of tears aided her self–control. She clamped her jaws together and made her way back to her desk. The offending sermon lay on top of her in–tray. With loathing she began to read it through. As a result of Theodora’s attentions she was now able to decipher it more or less. The first sentence ran, ‘The greatest of these is charity.’ With immense reluctance she began typing the copy. An hour and a half later, her script checked, she placed it in Miss Coldharbour’s in–tray and started down the stairs towards a late lunch. She met Theodora coming up. The latter glanced at her keenly.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Julia bleakly. Theodora continued to regard her kindly.
‘You look a bit strained.’ In the face of kindness, Julia broke.
‘I had rather a rough passage with Canon Wheeler over the sermon,’ she said, and explained.
Theodora listened intently. ‘How frightfully interesting,’ she said when Julia had finished. ‘I’ve noticed Charles making that sort of move before. He invents rules which you then find you’ve broken unaware. There’s usually just enough rightness about them to make you feel guilty but not quite enough to stop one feeling resentful and baffled as well. The snake in the grass here is, of course, Miss Coldharbour. I had to go out so I gave your script to her to give. to you. She must have given it straight to Charles.’
Julia gulped. ‘Why?’
Theodora reflected. ‘I think she acts as a sort of procureuse for Charles. Her husband died about five years ago and she’s put all her emotional energy into her job. She’s totally loyal to Charles, absolutely discreet and sees it as part of her duty to provide Charles with those emotional satisfactions which set him up.’
‘Like bullying women,’ said Julia with resentment.
‘Yes, and men too. To do him justice he’s not choosy. He has a go at Ian every now and then.’
‘How does Ian cope?’ asked Julia with genuine curiosity.
‘To tell you the truth, he doesn’t do too well. Ian has a violent streak. I think his natural instinct might be to hit Charles rather hard. However, he hasn’t done so yet.’
‘How about you?’
‘Me?’ Theodora seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Oh, I think when Charles starts on me, I lapse into a sort of prayer. I feel so sorry for him. It seems to work.’ She sounded almost apologetic.
‘Well,’ said Julia with feeling, ‘if he goes on like this, I should think someone will break his neck.’
Theodora wheeled her bicycle over the cobbles of the market place and mounted when they ended. The machine, an extremely strong 1965 upright green–painted Raleigh with a heavy steel frame, had three gears and a sensible large carrier basket at the rear. Beautifully maintained, it had seen her through Cheltenham, Oxford, Nairobi and three years in a large parish in south London. She had seen no reason to abandon it when she came to Medewich two years ago, even though she might now have been able to afford a car.
She left the west front of the Cathedral behind her and turned up Market Street. Having negotiated the traffic bridge, she turned left again on the other side of the river to wobble along the tow–path. She passed beside the Amy Roy but there was no sign of life on board and she pressed on. The Dutch yacht which had been away last week was back in its mooring beside the wherry, she noticed. She left the towpath where it bore left round the sweep of the river which looked across to the Cathedral’s east end and peddled along the road. It wove its way through the commercial dockside industry of the town which gave place, in time, to acres given over to the cultivation of the motor car in all its stages, new, second–hand and crushed to scrap. She cruised through the 1930s’ red brick semis and the 1950s’ concrete estates on the east of the town. Soon the traffic began to thin and the road became a long straight fenland route with occasional trees and sporadic bungalows slipping into the dykes. The immense sky opened before her and the warm sun lifted her spirit.
The village of Markham cum Cumbermound had grown on one of the rare patches of clay with which the fens were dotted. Its existence was indicated by a thick belt of trees, beech and oak as well as willow, where the clay gradually reared itself out of the silt. The road began to wind rather than run straight between the dykes. Houses built of brick and flint, of indeterminate age but generally not of this century started to appear. Rounding the corner caused by one of these buildings, Theodora saw t
he square flint tower with a copula, which announced the presence of the church and village. The vicarage lay to the north of the church adjoining the graveyard; the original eighteenth–century vicarage had been modernised, Theodora noticed regretfully, by the addition of two large bay windows on the ground floor either side of the front door.
She debated whether she would do the church first or the vicarage. Deciding business before pleasure, she dismounted and walked up the front drive of the vicarage. The gravel sweep had more sand than gravel on it and the places which vehicles did not pass over were weedy. The lawn needed cutting and had daisies on it, as well as the remains of a child’s tennis set. Theodora’s heart sank. If there was one thing she did not care for it was children. She’d forgotten Gray had some. How many, she wondered despondently, and how young?
The original Georgian door had been modified with an Edwardian glass porch. Theodora was faced with the usual dilemma of such contrivances, did one hammer on the outer door (there seemed to be no bell) and risk not being heard or did one penetrate to the inner door proper and risk being judged intrusive? She was saved from that particular choice by a boy of about seven, who had apparently been playing with his train set in the porch. At her approach he rose composedly and, with all the aplomb of someone trained from birth to deal with parish callers, said, ‘You’ll want to see mama. Wait here please. I’ll find her for you.’
Mrs Gray was a tall, fairish woman with a slight stoop or at least a tendency for her shoulders to bow forward round her chest. Her hair was coiled without conviction in the nape of her neck. Her dark grey eyes in her pale face had the look of one who had been crying fairly often and recently. Two deep lines down her forehead and the complete absence of make up made her look older than her probable forty odd years. It was almost possible to smell the misery and tension in her. Her voice, when it came, was high and strained.
‘Do come through to the kitchen, won’t you? We’re in a bit of a muddle at the moment.’ The phrase, which was one she must have used a hundred times to visiting parishioners in ordinary times, took on a poignant inadequacy in the context of the murder of her husband.
Theodora followed the hair–cord runner down the middle of the dark hall to a door behind the staircase which led through to the kitchen. The room was light and whitewashed, with an Aga range, stone sink and red tiled floor. These were not the trappings of some Victorianising interior decorator. They were the original fittings left over from the beginning of the century which the Diocesan Parsonage Committee had yet to get around to modernising. The room smelt of bleach and drying washing.
On the high mantel shelf above what had once been the fireplace was a black and white photograph of a young man’s head. Theodora, who had met Gray only once, was surprised by how familiar the rather pretty features were to her. The long straight nose, thin lips and diffident, questioning expression of the eyes set rather close together would have looked as well on a girl.
When Mrs Gray had produced two very passable cups of coffee, they seated themselves at the long deal kitchen table.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Theodora, ‘to intrude on you. I’ve come to see if I may be of use.’ It was inevitable that she should start like that but it didn’t save her from a sense of her inadequacy.
‘We’ve had a fair number much less welcome than you,’ said Mrs Gray, unexpectedly smiling. ‘Most came out of,’ she paused to select her word, ‘nasty curiosity. The press are unbelievable.’
Theodora realised that in spite of the woman’s appearance and the makeshift air of the house, there was strength and intelligence there. ‘How do you cope with them?’ Theodora inquired, following her pastoral instincts.
‘The phone’s been disconnected and there were, in fact, police on the gate the last couple of days. I think they’ve gone now.’ Her voice trailed off.
‘How do the children manage?’
The tears which had not been far away came to the surface. ‘It’s far worse for them. At least Paul’s young enough not to realise quite. But Tim, my eldest, feels it dreadfully. He shows it by being angry and rude all the time to everyone. The reporters keep on ferreting around. All they seem to want to do is to dig up bits about Paul’s past. And, you know, there isn’t any past, not really, not of the sort they want.’ She paused.
Theodora said nothing. The need to talk prevailed with Mrs Gray.
‘You know Paul had a problem.’ Theodora said nothing again.
‘I hate,’ Mrs Gray burst out passionately, ‘people looking for a certain sort of reaction from me about it. I know Paul had problems but I didn’t, don’t, care. I loved him. I knew about it when we married. He hid nothing from me. He was the most truthful, the most honourable of men.’ She was weeping now in earnest. When she’d recovered, she went on. ‘I know he wasn’t too popular with everyone in the parish. In some ways he was rather young and a bit hasty. There are a lot of old people in the parish.’ She paused again. ‘He loved the children, you know, although of course Tim wasn’t his. I’d been widowed a year when we met. But he gave me Paul.’
There was another pause then Theodora prompted her. ‘Have things got worse recently?’
Mrs Gray ran her thumbnail along the grain of the deal table. ‘He’d started going into Medewich on Thursday evenings after the Youth Club here. He said he had to drop Mr Jefferson back. Mr Jefferson lived in Medewich. Well, of course, I understand that.’ Mrs Gray sounded as though she were trying to be fair. Then she continued, ‘He started staying later and later. I suppose he was at Jefferson’s. I think he got drawn in.’ She said vehemently, ‘I hate Jefferson.’ After a moment she went on, ‘I think he thought there might be some possibility of outreach, of bringing young people into the Church. But I don’t know. I don’t think it’s terribly likely. Do you?’
‘Perhaps he felt he had a chance to help,’ Theodora said. ‘Many of us want to do that.’ – But privately she wondered what had really prompted Paul Gray. A wish to redeem an equivocal past by mission? Curiosity? Self–testing? Playing with fire to show that he could? Or was there some other fascination? Why had he returned to a milieu which he must have known was a dangerous one for him? Lead us not into temptation, thought Theodora unhappily. ‘Do you think that’s where he went last Thursday? I mean the day he died?’ she went on.
‘To Jefferson’s? I suppose he might have done. He just went off after Evensong. I thought he might be going to Canon Wheeler’s.’
Theodora was surprised, although she did not show it.
‘After his … after the business at Narborough, he had to see Canon Wheeler every now and again. I think the idea was that a senior clergy should keep an eye on him, help him and so on. Isn’t Canon Wheeler in charge of post–ordination training?’
‘Yes,’ said Theodora, her tone conveying no more than that this was a fact. ‘What makes you think it was Canon Wheeler who wanted to see him?’
‘He got a note that morning with the Cathedral arms on it. I somehow supposed it was.’
‘But he didn’t say it was Canon Wheeler he was going to?’
‘No, he didn’t say anything. He just burnt it.’
‘Burnt it?’ said Theodora, and this time she made no attempt to disguise her surprise.
‘Yes. He brought it into the kitchen and put it in the Aga. We keep it going through the summer for the hot water.’ She indicated the washing strewn around the kitchen.
‘Did he usually burn his letters?’
‘No. He was rather an untidy man really. But he was angry and I think it was a sort of gesture.’ She paused. ‘I suppose that’s one reason why I thought the letter might be from Canon Wheeler.’
‘Did you tell the police all this?’
Mrs Gray shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to say anything I wasn’t absolutely certain about. And I didn’t know whether the letter was from Canon Wheeler or whether it had anything to do with his going to Medewich. If he did go to Medewich on Thursday. After all, they still haven’t found the car,
let alone his body. He might have gone anywhere.’
Theodora considered this. She wondered if Mrs Gray wanted to be fair to her husband and to avoid mentioning him in a role which showed him having to report to HQ, as it were; or whether she wanted to be fair to Canon Wheeler, about whom, her tone suggested, she might share her husband’s opinion. Either way, Theodora thought, how like the clergy it was to want to keep the clerical club intact and not let in outsiders. For a moment she almost pitied the police, who would not find it easy to get a straight tale from any of its members. ‘Why do you think Paul was killed?’ she asked finally.
Mrs Gray looked away and then up at the portrait on the mantel shelf. ‘It could only be a madman, couldn’t it? And he wouldn’t have a motive, would he? Not a rational one, anyway.’ Her tone urged Theodora’s agreement, begging for reassurance.
‘You may well be right,’ Theodora said gently.
Mrs Gray seemed to have come to the end of what she wanted to say. Gentle and brisk by turns, Theodora proceeded to business details about interregnum provisions, PCC meetings and inquest arrangements. Gradually she led the interview to a quietus, a normality of future projects. She had no manipulative intention. She knew, had always known from observing her excellent father in his parish, how to listen and console without colluding, to allow and never invite confidences, to know right from wrong and yet never to judge or reject. As she wheeled her bicycle down the vicarage drive, she had a purely professional sense of having done nothing, but nevertheless of having been of use. Mrs Gray was more relaxed now than when she had received Theodora a couple of hours ago and Theodora gave herself up to the pleasure of walking through the church yard to the church door.
Clerical Errors Page 5
