by James Runcie
‘Before you start worrying about any negligence on my part, Sidney, I would like to say that I have already alerted Inspector Williams at Scotland Yard. He is watching all the major departure points. London airport has his details.’
‘He will almost certainly be travelling with false papers. I assume your men have done a full search?’
‘They have. The reason I wanted to come is that they have already told me the room was clean: too clean in fact.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘With a student you would normally expect to find something. There should be a little bit of evidence somewhere: an unwanted book, a scrap of paper behind a chair, an old newspaper or something. But here there was nothing. It was a professional job.’
‘Which means?’
‘He did not clear his room himself. It was done for him.’
‘And who would do that?’
‘Someone wishing to leave no trace.’
‘I thought there was always a trace?’ Sidney asked.
‘Well, the fact that there is nothing is a clue in itself.’ Inspector Keating opened the outer door to Bartlett’s rooms. ‘Dark forces, you understand: government secrecy, the national interest.’
‘I see.’
‘It was so much simpler in the war, wasn’t it, Sidney? You never woke up to find that one of your colleagues in the Northumberland Fusiliers was a Nazi. Peace is more complicated. It’s easier to disguise your behaviour and pretend to be what you’re not.’
The two men walked back across Old Court and crossed King’s Parade. Sidney regarded the fan vaulting of King’s as the greatest architectural achievement in Cambridge; it was far better than the cloister walk in Gloucester Cathedral or Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It was like the inside of a beautiful boat or a perfect violin.
Soon the two men were standing at the west end looking up at the interior roof of Weldon stone, eighty feet above them.
‘People assume,’ Sidney began, ‘that Bartlett must have crawled into the hollows and supports of the vault and waited in the timbers until the coast was clear. But I believe there are other exits.’
‘Apart from the internal staircase used by Montague?’
‘There may be more than one. My friend Robin will no doubt alert us to the possibilities.’
A fresh-faced man in a red cassock approached and handed Sidney the key. ‘Of course we are going to have to change the lock,’ he explained. ‘I think one of our visitors must have made an impression into some soap or wax and then had a copy made. It means that now any subsequent tours of the roof will have to be accompanied.’
The precentor was in a hurry; one explained by the arrival of choirboys for a rehearsal before evensong. ‘If you can be down before we start that would be helpful. And please lock the door behind you. We don’t want anyone following you up there.’
‘Indeed,’ Keating replied.
‘I don’t think we’ll be long,’ Sidney smiled. ‘I am not sure about the inspector’s head for heights.’
‘I think I’ll be all right,’ his companion assured them. ‘It’ll be the closest I’ll ever get to Heaven. I hope there’s a ruddy light.’
Sidney turned the key in the rusted lock. ‘Try not to swear, inspector. The switch is here. Would you like me to go first?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind. Have you ever climbed this building yourself?’
‘I am afraid not,’ Sidney replied. ‘I gave up on the nursery slopes: the south face of Caius and the Senate House leap. That was excitement enough. And I have only been to the top of the chapel twice before, and both times by this route. The view is spectacular.’
‘Which makes one wonder why anyone would have wanted to go up at night?’
The two men climbed the spiral staircase, pausing for a rest halfway. ‘I always like the mason’s marks,’ said Sidney. ‘They are the one element of pride in an otherwise anonymous building.’
‘They remind me of prisoners trying to escape,’ said Keating. ‘I can’t imagine Bartlett wanting to stay too long up here. What on earth do you think he was doing? He must have known they’d discover him in the end.’
‘Unless he waited for a few hours or knew of a different exit? Despite what the porters say, I don’t think anyone is going to keep watch on the staircase for that long. I imagine he let himself out at around three or four in the morning and caught the first train to London.’
‘The 4.24? Then he could get down to Dover and be on one of the first ferries. If he did that we’ve little chance of finding him.’
The two men emerged on to the roof. New snowfall had erased all the footprints from the night climb and the frosted stone appeared far less solid when seen at close quarters. Sidney wondered what it must have been like for the first masons, how much they would have had to work in similar conditions and in the limited light of winter. He walked across to the north-east pinnacle. ‘I imagine Rory Montague began his descent with the rope from the first parapet; although it’s hardly straightforward.’
Keating glanced down. ‘It’s madness. To think supposedly intelligent people could do this.’
Sidney did not like to look for long. ‘I would definitely hesitate,’ he said.
‘That is interesting. Do you think that if I knew you well . . .’
‘You do know me well, inspector.’
‘That I would expect you to hesitate? I could predict it?’
‘Quite possibly.’
‘Then I might even be able to take advantage of your hesitation.’
‘What do you mean?’
Keating paced his way towards the south-west corner of the chapel. ‘Montague’s story suggests that Bartlett disappeared by running the length of the roof and disappearing through a concealed doorway in the south-west pinnacle. Montague’s hesitation, his panic, bought his friend time. It was, perhaps, all part of a plan.’
Sidney was struggling to come to terms with the direction of Keating’s thinking. ‘What kind of plan? You’re not implying that they were all in on it – that the murder, or even perhaps suicide, of Valentine Lyall, the disappearance of Kit Bartlett and the framing of Rory Montague are all part of some greater plot? That the event was deliberately staged?’?
‘I’m not sure. I just cannot believe the whole thing was a simple escapade, Sidney. It’s too dangerous.’
‘But if you want to kill someone surely there are easier ways of doing it? Why go to the trouble of something so melodramatic?’
‘Because you want it to be known. You want it to be made as public as possible.’
‘I’m not sure if I can quite believe that.’
‘I think you may have to make another visit to the Master’s Lodge,’ Keating replied.
‘You think that he hasn’t been telling me as much as he should?’
‘I think it might be an idea to get things straight. You need to try and find out if all three of these men were really on our side or not; and, if that is the case, whether they were playing a different game, in public, to throw someone else off the scent.’
‘And you think I can trust the Master?’
‘Probably not, but I’d like to know what he has to say for himself. I’ll try to make some discreet enquiries with my contacts at the Foreign Office, but I think you’re going to have to do your bit, Sidney. Those bloody colleges never tell us what’s going on and only call us in when it’s too late. It’s never the best way to run things.’
The two men began their descent from the chapel roof and Keating stopped. ‘Are you happy to talk to him? It won’t compromise your position with the college?’
‘Conscience before compromise, Geordie.’
The inspector smiled at the off-duty use of his Christian name. ‘You will tell me everything he says, won’t you?’
‘You have my word.’
‘It might be difficult. They’ll try and keep you in the dark for as long as possible but you know where your loyalties lie?’
Sidney resu
med his walk down the narrow confines of the stairway. It was unnecessary to be asked such a question again. ‘I have no doubt about that, I can assure you.’
Although it had begun to thaw, the sharp wind still cut through the warmest of overcoats and the thickest of scarves. Every foray into the outdoors became a challenge. A man needed to have something to look forward to, Sidney decided, and although he knew that the company would be challenging, he was enjoying the possibility of a warming lunch with his friend Amanda Kendall before his next encounter with the Master.
It was becoming something of a monthly routine. Amanda would take the 11.24 train from Liverpool Street and Sidney would bicycle over from Grantchester to meet her at 12.39. They would then walk over to Mill Road and have lunch at their favourite restaurant Le Bleu Blanc Rouge.
Sidney was not particularly adept at cycling, using the time to concentrate either on his forthcoming sermon or on recent events, and his attentiveness to traffic was not as sharp as it might have been. Nevertheless, he was shocked into alertness by a butcher’s van turning left across him into Bateman Street and then mounting the snowy kerb before accelerating away into the distance. Had it been a few seconds later, Sidney would have been knocked down.
This sudden awareness pulled him up short. It would take only one lapse of concentration and he could have died. He really did have to try to pay more attention: unless the driver had meant to hit him. Was someone monitoring his investigation into the death of Valentine Lyall? He wondered, once again, if he was being followed and if he should alert Inspector Keating to his suspicions. Or perhaps, he consoled himself, all of this anxiety was merely nervousness at the prospect of seeing Amanda?
His friend was known for her directness and Sidney had not thought too carefully about how open he was going to be with her; either about recent events or, indeed, his last German visit. Amanda liked clear answers to her questions. She was not that interested in either ambiguity or uncertainty despite the fact that their friendship still had its areas of unease. Sidney had been immensely attracted to her when he was younger but, since his ordination, Amanda had stated that any romantic potential had evaporated with his decision ‘to put God first’, and he, in turn, had concentrated on her Roman nose and a snaggle tooth on the top right-hand side of her mouth in order to avoid infatuation.
There remained, however, an immense, and often exclusive, affection between the two friends. They had met shortly after the war, when Sidney had become an interim replacement for Amanda’s favourite cousin, Charles, who had been killed at El Alamein. They had a shared sense of the ridiculous, loved ‘pastime with good company’, and hated any abbreviation of their Christian names (she was no more of a ‘Mandy’ than he was a ‘Sid’). Although she hated jazz, could not understand the rules of cricket, and thought that the clergy should work much harder to make their sermons entertaining, she was irresistibly attracted to Sidney’s charm and loyalty. She was also, particularly, grateful for his petty vanities and how he tolerated being teased because of them. He had, she thought, an openly vulnerable humanity and, unlike other clergy, whom she cruelly referred to as ‘theatrical cast-offs’, Sidney could preach a decent sermon. His mixture of decency and optimism reminded her of the actor Kenneth More in Genevieve. She also recognised that Sidney was, perhaps, the only man she knew who properly appreciated her intelligence (St Hilda’s Oxford, the Courtauld Institute, research into Holbein and the history of British portraiture), her love of music (she played the oboe and sang in the Bach Choir), and the complexity of her social situation (a large inheritance and the resulting hazard of fortune-seeking suitors).
Despite the horrors of a ‘freezing train and a frightful journey’, Amanda was on feisty form on her arrival, regaling Sidney with news of his sister Jennifer and a New Year house party that was full of ‘handsome men who had never bothered to learn how to be interesting’. It was a relief to get back to her work at the National Gallery, she said, and she was glad to be helping her old tutor Anthony Blunt with some research into the later paintings of Nicolas Poussin.
Sidney unfolded his napkin. ‘It is strange you should mention Blunt. He dined at the college a few nights ago.’
‘He’s not a Corpus man, is he?’
‘I think he was a guest of the Master.’
‘You didn’t talk to him? You know he’s the son of a vicar?’
‘I was a little distracted, Amanda.’
‘By anything in particular?’
‘Nothing too alarming.’
Amanda paused while the waitress finished pouring out her glass of wine. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you, Sidney. I have seen that look of yours before and it troubles me.’
‘One of our junior fellows has died. It’s been a sad business.’
‘By “junior” do you mean that he was young?’
‘It was an accident,’ Sidney answered.
‘I assume, by your tone, that it was nothing of the kind.’
‘It’s quite complicated,’ Sidney replied as their food arrived.
Amanda raised a glass of wine to her lips and made steady eye contact. ‘Are you getting into trouble again?’
‘I can’t seem to help it.’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Yes,’ said Sidney, poking at a rather unsatisfactory poached egg soufflé. ‘You can take my mind off it. Tell me about London. What have you been up to?’
‘Nothing too exciting. I’ve told you about all the parties. Your sister is still seeing Johnny Johnson . . .’
‘And what about you?’
‘There’s one chap who’s being particularly attentive, but it’s too early to tell if he’s decent or not. I’m far more careful after the Guy debacle.’
It was only a year since Amanda’s future fiancé had disgraced himself with a hot-tempered display at a London dinner party and it had taken her months to recover from the embarrassment. ‘I think I’ve given up on men for the time being. There’s far too much work to do at the gallery. In any case,’ she continued, ‘it’s not my admirers we need to be discussing; it’s yours. I am talking about the famous widow, lest we are in any doubt.’
Sidney put his starter to one side. ‘I was afraid we’d come on to that.’
‘So you admit that Hildegard is an admirer?’ Amanda smiled. ‘I think I’ll have a little more wine.’
‘We are very good friends. That is all.’
Amanda remained silent, forcing Sidney to continue.
‘I had a marvellous time.’
‘Is that it?’
Sidney remembered strolling through the Tiergarten to the Badewanne jazz club where they had listened to the Johannes Rediske Quintet play with cool control. It was a relief that Hildegard ‘got’ jazz and understood why he liked its spontaneity and freedom. Afterwards, they had walked back on the Kurfürstendamm, past the bombed-out Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche. It began to rain, and Hildegard had their only umbrella. When she put her arm through his, so that they could share it, and she squeezed up against him, it had felt the most natural thing in the world.
‘Well?’ Amanda asked. ‘Are you going to tell me anything?’
‘There’s nothing much to tell.’
‘I don’t believe that for a moment. It’s simply that you don’t want to talk about it. I seem to remember that she is musical.’
‘She teaches the piano. She plays Bach every day.’
‘She must be very serious.’
‘Not all the time. She is also a great fan of Jimmy Cagney.’
‘You have been to the cinema together?’
‘She has taken me. We went to see 13 Rue Madeleine.’
‘Intriguing.’
‘It was rather fun.’
‘And is she beautiful?’
Sidney was not going to be drawn into any comparisons. ‘I think so.’
‘Not classically then, I imagine.’ Amanda looked at Sidney but it was clear that he was not going to say anything more and she had sufficient tact not
to press the matter. ‘Will I ever meet her?’ she asked.
‘In due course.’
‘You mean that she is coming back to Cambridge?’
‘I have invited her.’
‘When?’
‘Later this year, I hope.’
‘That seems rather vague.’
‘I don’t want to rush things.’
‘Are you in love with her?’
‘That’s a very direct question.’
‘Are you prepared to answer it? Or shall I take your silence as assent?’ The waitress cleared away their plates. ‘You can think about your answer over your coq au vin. I’m sorry you found the starter so disappointing. You should have had the onion soup.’
‘Really, Amanda, it’s very hard to know what I think; and yet, at the same time, I quite like not knowing. It’s a pleasant confusion.’
‘That means you are, I would have thought.’
‘In love? I don’t know, Amanda. But I think I feel most like myself when I am with her.’
‘I thought you got that with me.’
‘You are, if I may say so, more of a challenge.’
‘That’s what most of my admirers say. Do you think it puts them off?’
‘I do think that many men find intelligent women difficult; particularly if they are cleverer than them.’
‘None of them are as intelligent as you, of course.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Amanda smiled. ‘You’re not sorry at all. You are extremely pleased.’
‘Well I do like to be top in some regard. Would you like another glass of wine?’
‘That would be kind; although I myself seem to have been displaced from the top spot.’
‘Not at all. You are very different women.’
The waitress arrived with two plates in her hand. ‘Who’s having the daube?’ she asked.
‘I am. I’m still cold,’ Amanda replied, before asking, ‘Do you think you’ll marry her?’
Sidney hesitated.
Ever since his ordination to the priesthood, he had resigned himself to the idea of celibacy. He could no more imagine a life shared with a German widow than he could with his dazzling friend opposite. Even if he were to marry he was sure that he would make an unsatisfactory husband. He was incapable of concentrating on the traditionally masculine areas of everyday life. He may have been able to translate Herodotus from the Greek but he was not able to drive a car. He could listen to the darkest fears of his parishioners and comfort them in their hours of anxiety, but he was not sure that he could change a fuse. He was hopeless with money, finding that he always had more pressing things to do than go to the bank or pay his bills. No, Sidney had always said to himself in the past; marriage was not for him. He would take as many wedding services as his parishioners required, and marry hundreds of couples in the course of his ministry, but he was destined to remain a bachelor.
