Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation

by James Runcie

  ‘And tell me,’ Sidney answered, giving the invitation a duck, ‘how do you achieve the trance-like state necessary for revelation?’

  ‘Silence, meditation; just like your prayers. The aim is to live beyond the body in pure light.’

  ‘And how do you find that brightness?’

  ‘We share a loving cup. We discover ourselves through love.’

  ‘And is that expressed physically?’

  ‘That is a question that befits a journalist rather than a clergyman. As I have already explained, Mr Archdeacon, we are a celibate group, uncorrupted by human bondage. I hear you would like to talk to Danny?’

  ‘If that is allowed.’

  ‘We are a free community. People come and go as they please.’

  ‘And you are self-sufficient, I think you said?’

  ‘Everything people need can be found in the community: food, shelter, safety, companionship and, I hope, wisdom.’

  ‘Danny’s mother is worried about him.’

  ‘Barbara Wilkinson is naturally anxious,’ Pascoe continued. ‘A man less charitable than myself might even describe her as neurotic.’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘I have had conversations and, in the past, I offered her a way of rest. But she is too attached to the cares of the world. Her son needs space and distance. That is why he is safely with us.’

  ‘And how did he come to be here?’

  ‘I am sure he can tell you himself. I believe he is in the kitchen. We are having an onion soup with our home-made bread. As I say, you would be welcome to join us.’

  Given his insistent toothache, Sidney thought that simple food might be a comfort but he did not want to prolong his stay. ‘That is kind but I think a conversation will be enough . . .’

  ‘To allay a mother’s fears. There is nothing frightening about our family, Mr Archdeacon. We live very simply, as you will see. But sometimes people are threatened by simplicity, just as they were by Jesus.’

  The kitchen still had an old gas range and the peeling paint was partly disguised by hippy posters preaching love and self-improvement: ‘Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds; you can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.’ One wall had been covered by a recent fresco of a rainbow over the Himalayas; another depicted a field of daisies with peace signs and psychedelic self-portraits at their centre. Danny Wilkinson was slicing onions, dressed in a simple olive-green crew-neck jumper with jeans and plimsolls. He was of medium height, with a goatee beard and hair that fell to his shoulders in a style that most parents would have described as ‘girls’-length’.

  Sidney apologised for the intrusion. ‘I know you are old enough to make up your own mind about the way you live your life.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t follow my mother, man.’

  ‘She has had a challenging time, I gather.’

  ‘After Dad left? I knew it was bad before anything happened: the rows, the drinking. My parents were swingers. What do you expect? I think they still are. It’s too much.’

  Sidney was momentarily flummoxed by a generational role-reversal in which a trainee hippy appeared to be more moral than his parents. ‘How did you come to be here?’ he asked.

  ‘Life was doing my head in. A friend saw I needed sorting out.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  ‘Tom Raven. You met him when you arrived.’

  ‘With the large white shirt?’

  ‘That’s him. He’s the only one who still cares about what he wears.’

  Sidney did not bother arguing that an untucked shirt worn over jeans hardly required much effort and continued with his questions. ‘How long do you intend to stay, Danny?’

  ‘I don’t believe in time any more.’

  Pascoe explained. ‘We encourage all our young people to live in the moment. Now is the only reality. The past has gone; the future will come. Father Time has no place here.’

  ‘I sometimes think it’s advisable to learn lessons from the past and make preparations for the future,’ said Sidney.

  Danny repeated what was surely a mantra. ‘Our only reality is now. Love is our truth. Desire is illusion. Simplicity is our only need.’

  Sidney had had enough of being lectured. ‘Then I can tell your mother that you are content?’

  ‘You can tell her that I am discovering a happiness that she’ll never know.’

  ‘I may not put it quite like that. But I will say, if I may, that she has nothing to worry about.’

  ‘You can tell her what you like, man. I never want to see her again.’

  The train back to Ely was delayed by frozen points. The hold-up only increased Sidney’s sense of unease. Even though Christmas was long gone, it felt as if he was still stuck in the bleakest of midwinters. He wiped a smear across a steamed-up window to reveal a dull view of the scuffed and bruised earth, wind-damaged fences and empty telegraph wires. The landscape looked abandoned, with only a couple of blanketed horses in the paddocks, a solitary crow and a dead fox that had trapped itself under a railing.

  He decided to call in on his friend Felix Carpenter, the Dean of Ely, before evensong. ‘I don’t know why I am so irritable,’ he confessed. ‘I think it must be a mixture of cold, toothache and impatience. The visit to the Family of Love has hardly helped. I find those people so difficult. I know it’s not very Christian of me.’

  ‘Perhaps it is their certainty,’ the dean replied. ‘I am not sure faith comes so easily as they seem to believe.’

  ‘There’s a smugness to them. I don’t like it and then I become even more annoyed that they seem to have got to me. Do you think I could be jealous?’

  ‘No, I think you find it simplistic, Sidney. Our faith is born out of the pain and suffering of the Cross. It’s about a little more than sharing a bowl of lentils and doing the odd bit of yoga.’

  Cordelia Carpenter came into her husband’s study with tea and digestive biscuits. She asked after Sidney’s toothache and recommended the Maltings dental practice and a Mr Wilkinson in particular. Sidney imagined that this must be Barbara’s former husband and immediately recognised that he could kill two birds with one stone.

  It was impossible, Cordelia Carpenter vouchsafed, to concentrate on anything properly while suffering from such pain.

  ‘Trollope’s novels are full of teeth,’ her husband remembered. ‘I think he never travelled without a toothbrush and seldom described a woman or a girl without referring to their mouth. Of course in those days there was, I think, greater dental variety. People had teeth in gold, tin, ivory, wood and bone. It made them nervous of smiling. Nothing to do with Victorian propriety; they just didn’t want to show their gnashers.’

  ‘Didn’t they also take them from corpses and reuse them?’ his wife said as she removed the teapot to make a fresh supply.

  ‘I think so. Had you been alive then, Sidney, you might have had a teeth-related mystery to solve.’

  ‘I am more than happy to live now,’ their friend replied, eager to return to the subject in hand as soon as Cordelia had left them alone. ‘The Family of Love are taught that there is no such thing as past or future. They live only in the present.’

  ‘And so they are unlikely to appeal to historians or futurologists.’

  ‘Their leader is certainly aware of the future. I think there is some preparation for the end of the world; the final rapture.’

  ‘Has he been kind enough to set a date on it? Pope Innocent III predicted it would end 666 years after the rise of Islam; Martin Luther thought it would be no later than 1600. Recently I have been told it might be 1968, 1975, or even 1984, but I have my doubts. We don’t all live by the same calendar.’

  ‘I think you have to be one of his adherents to be illuminated . . .’

  ‘Or indoctrinated. How dangerous do you think they are, Sidney?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It feels rather creepy, that’s all.’

  ‘What about their leader? Is he all he’s cracked up to be?’

  ‘
Definitely not. I am sure he is a charlatan.’

  ‘Has he taken money from the people who stay there?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘That’s what you need to find out. If you can’t get them on their philosophy, you have to hit them with their economics. If there’s fraud you can bring in Keating.’

  ‘I can’t see him sharing a loving cup.’

  ‘Indeed. But I’d like to see them offer. You will look after yourself, won’t you, Sidney? I don’t want you taking on too much.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m taking on anything.’

  ‘At least go to the dentist, as my beloved Cordelia suggests. I always find it easiest, if you want an untroubled life, to do what your wife says. That’s the kind of simplicity that’s easy to follow and you don’t need to go to the trouble of joining a cult.’

  Sidney smiled and finished his tea, loving the dean and his wife for their loyalty, generosity of spirit and their unpretentious goodness. Their home was such a welcoming contrast to the commune, with its deep sofas and fresh flowers, its aroma of baking and Brasso, sherry and furniture polish. This was a different, old-fashioned, Church of England timelessness, he thought; the oak and mahogany tables, cabinets, chests and chairs passed down the generations, watched and measured by the reassuring tick and strike of the grandfather clock in the hall.

  He was in a far better mood during evensong and returned home almost cheerfully in time for a simple supper of Welsh rarebit and a bit of easy television.

  Hildegard had finished her piano teaching for the day and was reading Anna the story of Little Red Riding Hood in the original German. She asked Sidney if he’d like to join them. Perhaps both father and daughter could become bilingual?

  Anna laughed. ‘You can be the big bad WOLF, Daddy . . .’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve got the teeth for it,’ Sidney smiled indulgently before promising that he would try his best.

  On Monday 20th February, the Grantchester churchwarden discovered the dead body of Fraser Pascoe in a field between the farm and the church. He had been decapitated.

  There was no sign of a murder weapon. The head lay a few feet from the body, as if someone had taken an almighty swing at the victim while he was walking, but the pathologist reported that it would have required several attempts to sever it from the body and that it was more likely to have been tossed or even kicked aside once it was off.

  Inspector Keating was on the scene within an hour, the farm was cordoned off and no one was allowed to leave. Road blocks were set up at Coton Road, Broadway and Mill Way, police went door to door asking for witnesses, and Sidney was summoned that evening.

  ‘Why didn’t you warn me this might happen?’ Geordie asked. ‘This is the man that woman in the fur coat was telling you about.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would come to this.’

  ‘But you were uneasy. I know you, Sidney Chambers. Do you think Barbara Wilkinson could have done it herself? Taking the law into her own hands?’

  ‘I hardly think she’s responsible. She wouldn’t have the strength.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. If the axe was sharp enough . . .’

  ‘You think it was an axe?’

  ‘What else could it have been? We’ll have to interview every member of that bloody cult. Never mind Mrs Wilkinson, I suppose any one of them could have done it.’

  ‘Or one of their parents . . .’

  ‘Or a local madman, for that matter. We have no leads. You’ll talk to the boy; and his dreadful mother, of course. Did you ever get round to meeting the victim?’

  ‘I didn’t like him at all, Geordie, I must confess. Even the dean said he was a “perfect menace”. Although I wouldn’t put him down as a murderer.’

  ‘All this religion has a lot to answer for.’

  Sidney tried to explain the difference between good and bad religion; that it wasn’t the fault of any individual belief system but misunderstandings by their followers. Even if people fall short of their ideals, it is still better to have them than not.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Keating. ‘Wouldn’t it be preferable to have no religion at all?’

  * * *

  The next morning Sidney attended a meeting of the Cathedral Chapter in the Lady Chapel. Items on the agenda concerned the maintenance of gravestones in diocesan churchyards, a review of parish tithes for the financial year 1967/1968, forthcoming missionary work in Nigeria, and a discussion of the Church’s attitude to homosexuality in the light of the recent Sexual Offences Act.

  Despite the importance of the issues, his attention was unsurprisingly diverted to the carved figurines that decorated the chapel. One hundred and forty-seven statues had been mutilated, vandalised and indeed decapitated by the puritan reformers in the sixteenth century. It was the worst of violent religion, the smashing of images, the stripping of the altars. The stained glass had been destroyed, the walls whitewashed, all colour and imagery removed. A building intended to represent God’s green garden had been razed by fire. This was a living embodiment of religious zealotry.

  Had someone approached Pascoe with similar fury? Perhaps the motivation for his murder could have been religious after all?

  Sidney thought of the saints, martyrs and other victims of decapitation: John the Baptist, St Alban, the first English Christian martyr, St George and Thomas More. He prayed for them all. He even prayed for Fraser Pascoe.

  Then he called in to see Mrs Wilkinson. She was wearing some kind of day-gown and although her make-up was incomplete she still looked vulnerably attractive. Ever since his wife and friends had warned him how compromising the woman might be, he had found himself thinking more and more about her. Sidney told himself to concentrate.

  ‘I was afraid something like this would happen,’ she said. ‘It’s dreadful.’

  ‘Have you seen Danny?’

  ‘I went to the farm but there were police everywhere. My son still won’t talk to me so I wrote him a little card and included some money to help him along. One of the girls said they would take it to him. I am doing my best.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’

  ‘Do the police have any clues as to who might have done such a thing?’

  ‘There’s nothing they are prepared to say publicly.’

  ‘And will you involve yourself? I know you are friends with the inspector.’

  ‘I have come to ask if there is anything I can do.’

  ‘I am not sure that is the only reason for your visit. You have come to ask me questions.’

  ‘And I have asked one,’ Sidney replied carefully before repeating himself. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘You can get my son out of there.’

  ‘I have tried. But now the situation has changed. The police will want to keep them all on site during the investigation. Danny will be a suspect along with the others.’

  ‘They all worshipped that man. Why would they kill him?’

  ‘Why would anyone? That’s what the police need to find out.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me that I might be a suspect?’

  ‘That is a possibility . . .’

  ‘Even though I am “a weak and feeble woman”?’

  ‘You never spoke to Fraser Pascoe yourself?’

  ‘Not recently. Not at all.’

  Sidney remembered something the man had said. ‘Didn’t he offer you “a way of rest”?’

  ‘He made a pass at me, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘He claimed they were a celibate community.’

  ‘That is nonsense in his case, Mr Archdeacon, and he made it perfectly obvious. I am quite used to men making propositions, as I am sure you can imagine.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘In fact, I’m sometimes surprised when they don’t. People are never very subtle about it.’

  ‘And you refused him?’

  ‘Of course I did. What kind of woman do you think I am?’

  ‘Your son . . .’

  ‘What has h
e said about me?’

  ‘I think . . .’ Sidney hesitated. It was too soon to discuss what he had heard of Barbara’s life as a swinger. In any case, it was probably better to give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘I imagine Danny wants some time away from his parents. It’s a process of discovery. I’m sure you know that this is common in adolescence.’

  ‘But a mother’s love never stops. I am still responsible for him.’

  ‘I think Danny wants you to let go.’

  ‘I can’t. He may be in danger.’

  ‘Is there anything you know that you’re not telling me, Mrs Wilkinson?’

  ‘Call me Barbara, please. I hate this formality.’

  ‘Go on . . .’

  ‘Fraser Pascoe may be dead but I don’t think the trouble is over. It’s my feminine intuition; something I can’t quite explain. Haven’t you felt something similar, Sidney? It makes me shiver. That place is evil; evil masquerading as love. I am convinced that we haven’t seen the last of all this, that there are terrors still to come.’

  Sidney returned to the Family of Love. The weather was appropriately sombre, with low and heavy skies, slanting rain and a biting wind that seemed to be blowing hard at him.

  Inspector Keating asked Danny Wilkinson about Pascoe’s background. The cult leader had experimented with alternative medicine, learned Transcendental Meditation in San Francisco, studied under a guru in India, and returned to his home country to teach others what he called ‘the way of all knowledge’. His plan had been to let the mind run freely – ‘jazz thinking’ he called it – in order to find the underlying harmony of all religions and link human consciousness to the beginning of creation. Once a moment of eternal union had been achieved then his adherents could be filled with inner light and find themselves at one with the cosmos.

  Geordie pretended to find this appealing but, as soon as they had time alone, he asked Sidney how anyone could ever believe in ‘such utter crap’. They then began to interview the residents.

  There was Roger Nelson, a burly young man with a forward stoop as a result of a rugby injury at school; Kevin Jenkins, a boy who’d had rickets as a child and whose father still blamed him for failing his eleven-plus; Sam Swinton, who had the requisite air of sullen silence that suited the most obvious suspect; Tom Raven, the boy in the white shirt who appeared remarkably unconcerned, as if recent events had nothing to do with him; and two women, Bea Selby and Rachel Sladen, who claimed that they had been in bed with what they thought was an out-of-body experience but turned out to be flu.