by James Runcie
‘Hildegard is a widow, you will remember. I don’t think she’s ready for marriage.’
‘Does that mean that you are?’
Sidney imagined himself sitting in his study with Hildegard playing the piano in a room across the corridor. He could even picture a small child, a daughter perhaps, standing in the doorway, asking him if he’d help mend her kite.
‘Are you going to answer my question?’ Amanda asked.
Snow lay heavy on the tiled roofs, turrets and parapets of Corpus; outlining the cinquefoil lights and gabled dormers of Old Court, that most ancient of all the enclosed areas of Cambridge, as Sidney returned from seeing Amanda on to her train.
He remembered how the astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler had been intrigued by snow crystals, writing a small treatise entitled On the Six-Cornered Snowflake. In 1611 he asked the fundamental question: ‘There must be some definite cause why, whenever snow begins to fall, its initial formation invariably displays the shape of a six-cornered starlet. For if it happens by chance, why do they not fall just as well with five corners or seven?’
In his treatise, Kepler compared their symmetry with that of honeycombs and Sidney had once heard a sermon that used the miracle of the snowflake as an example of both the simplicity and the complexity of God’s creation. It might be worth reviving that idea, he thought, particularly in this weather. Instead of seeing the mass of snow, the congregation could be persuaded to look into the smallest details of it in order to find God.
‘STOP!’
Sidney did so.
‘STAY THERE!’
A large weight of stone fell from the roof of New Court and landed in front of him.
‘Good God, sir,’ cried the porter. ‘You could have been killed.’
Sidney felt the fear run through him.
‘That was close. We’ve had such trouble with the snow, sir. The college is falling apart. Some of the older buildings can’t stand it. It’s the water, you see. It gets into the stone and then freezes and thaws, expands and contracts . . .’
‘Yes,’ Sidney cut him off. ‘I understand the process.’
‘I’ll get one of the men to clear up. You must have someone watching out for you.’
‘I suppose I do.’
‘Of course, as a priest, you probably have extra protection. I imagine the angels don’t want to lose one of their own. That was a near miss.’
‘I wouldn’t call myself an angel, Bill.’
‘Better than being a devil, though, isn’t it?’ the porter winked.
Sidney was irritated. He didn’t like people winking, he had to talk to the Master, and he worried that someone was trying to kill him. In a moment of madness he wondered if it was Kit Bartlett. What the hell was going on?
Sidney was determined to have it out with the Master, but when he finally got to see him he found the man was incapable of concentrating on their conversation. He appeared to have lost something and kept rearranging the papers on his desk, looking under the stacks of books that lay on the tables, chairs and piled on the floor. Even the library ladder was so filled with academic paraphernalia that it could no longer fulfil its function in enabling the reader to reach the higher shelves in the study.
‘Have you mislaid something, Master?’
‘It’s a curious thing. It’s only notes.’
Sidney was bemused. ‘I’m sure they will turn up.’
‘I am a little worried because I have been rather acerbic and I would prefer it if they didn’t get into the wrong hands. I have looked everywhere.’
‘Perhaps your secretary has taken them away?’
‘Miss Madge knows that she must touch nothing in this room,’ the Master replied. ‘I have her well trained.’
Sidney wondered how he had achieved this. His own housekeeper, Mrs Maguire, moved everything willy-nilly and her vacuum cleaner took precedence to everything. The result was that after one of her ‘proper cleans’ Sidney could never find anything at all.
‘It’s very troubling,’ the Master continued. ‘It is not just that Lyall is so tragically dead and Bartlett has disappeared. It’s the air of uncertainty I can’t stand.’
‘I suppose we all like a semblance of order.’
‘A semblance? There’s no illusion in order. It is what we are supposed to offer in this college. History. Continuity. Academic excellence.’
‘And you think that the event on the roof of the chapel will adversely affect our reputation?’
‘It will if we don’t explain the nature of the accident clearly. Lyall was one of our better-known fellows and, even in his lifetime, he attracted a few stories. Now, of course, there are more.’
‘Insinuations, accusations of a sexual nature?’
‘You know the kind of thing. It doesn’t take much. I wish I could find these notes.’
‘Perhaps they have been stolen?’
‘I doubt that. Although it is irritating.’
‘Theft is a crime, Master. You could always call in the police.’
The Master stopped tidying his papers and asked, ‘How do you think your man is getting on?’
‘Inspector Keating?’
‘You’ve nothing to report yourself? Nothing out of the ordinary has occurred to you recently?’
Sidney was alarmed. Why would the Master ask such a question if he didn’t suspect that something had happened or that Sidney had become suspicious? He must know that Sidney was being followed. He knew that there had been attempts to scare him off the case.
‘I don’t think so,’ Sidney replied.
‘Are you sure?’
Sidney hesitated. ‘I am quite sure.’ He wasn’t going to give the Master the advantage in a situation where he wasn’t sure whom he could trust.
‘You are aware that Rory Montague has returned home?’
‘In the middle of term?’ Sidney thought that this, too, was unusual. ‘Why?’
Sir Giles tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I thought a break might be good for him.’
‘It was your idea?’
‘Just for a few days. While things calm down.’
‘Do you think he will lead us to Bartlett?’
‘I suppose he might. Bartlett’s parents certainly hope so; although I have hinted that this is a question of government secrecy and that they shouldn’t be unduly alarmed.’
‘You said that? Even though we cannot be sure? I would have thought that would only make them worry more. Have you told the police about Montague?’
‘I imagine they will find out soon enough.’
‘He is a witness; and, of course, a suspect, Master. I must tell them.’
‘Yes,’ the Master answered drily, ‘I had imagined that you would.’
Sidney felt distinctly uneasy as he made his way to his regular Thursday-night drinks session with Inspector Keating. He was now convinced that he was deliberately being kept in the dark. He was also being tailed by the dark green butcher’s van that had first cut across him before his lunch with Amanda. What could they possibly want with him? He turned off Silver Street into Queens’ Lane. The car followed as he walked past his college and entered the consoling confines of the Eagle.
Once they had greeted each other, sat down in their favourite chairs, ordered their pints, and begun their game of backgammon, Sidney tried to get to the point as soon as he could.
‘This is what I think,’ he began. ‘Valentine Lyall was recruiting for the security services.’
‘I’m sure that is the case,’ Keating replied. ‘But which? Not that we should be talking about it in here.’
‘No one is listening.’
‘The room may be bugged.’
‘The Eagle? If it was, then you would know.’
‘Probably. Although you would be surprised by how often I don’t.’
‘There is no one else here,’ Sidney continued. ‘It might as well be a private room.’
‘Well keep your voice down; and don’t name any names if you are going to st
art making suggestions.’
‘I am not going to say anything indiscreet.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it. Which side do you think our man was on?’
‘That is, of course, the crucial matter. Let us suppose that the victim, and since we are in such an ornithological location, let’s refer to him as the Falcon, was with our own intelligence services. The other two, let us call them the Buzzard and the Merlin . . .’
‘You think they were working together?’
‘I think so. It is clear that the Merlin is in love with the Buzzard.’
‘Is it?’
‘I think so. The Merlin is the keenest to impress, to belong, and therefore pretends to suffer from vertigo. The Falcon leans out from the pinnacle to give him more rope and, at the moment when he is most off balance, the Buzzard pushes him from the roof. He then heads off down the spiral staircase using a key he has obtained by making an impression on a previous visit.’
‘While the Merlin is left hanging to make it look like an accident?’
‘Not only that. He must then be interviewed and made the centre of all enquiries while his companion makes his escape. It is he who stole the Master’s papers and who, probably even now, is with the Buzzard. I don’t think they’re at home as the Master says. I think they’re in either Berlin or Moscow.’
‘So you think, as I do, that they might be KGB?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why was I being followed? Who was trying to put me off? It wasn’t one of your men, was it?’
‘No.’
‘And why, of course, did they not succeed in killing me? A professional would have made short work of it. I am sure that it would be a simple matter to dispose of me.’
‘I’m afraid you are probably right about that.’
‘And so I think it was for show, Geordie. I had to be seen to be under threat. The people responsible wanted to make our investigation seem dangerous.’
‘And who would want to do that?’
‘Our own side, of course.’ Sidney hesitated. ‘I may be wrong but let us imagine that all this was meant to happen. Think of it as a deliberate plot in which the Falcon was meant to be sacrificed. He knew that he was dying. He might as well die for his country. It was his final mission.’
‘Go on.’
‘It is a trap, laid by the man at the heart of my college. The Master is playing a double game.’
‘So our men are double agents?’
‘The Russians think that the boys have killed one of the most successful recruitment officers the secret service has ever known, and now have the files on every possible MI6 member from Cambridge . . .’
‘The Master’s lost papers . . .’
‘Although, of course, those papers will be false.’
‘They might work that out. Don’t you think it might have been made a bit too easy for them? The Falcon was known to put his recruits through the odd test or two. That’s why everyone turned a blind eye to his night-climbing escapades and, I presume, why no one wanted the police involved. But if it was all a trap to deceive the KGB then there must still be a member of the KGB working in Cambridge; a man who has recruited both of the students who were up on the roof that night?’
‘I am afraid so.’
‘And we don’t know who that is?’
‘So far we do not.’
Inspector Keating took a thoughtful sip from his pint and pulled his chair in and away from the fire. ‘I’ve never been told directly about these spying matters but even this complexity seems too straightforward. You don’t think the birds of prey could be triple agents?’
‘Recruited by the KGB, defecting to the SIS, but only pretending to work for them while retaining their Russian allegiance?’
‘Playing us at our own game?’
‘But what would they get out of the mission?’
‘A safe passage to Moscow, paid for by the British taxpayer.’
‘That is a possibility.’
Keating looked at his notebook. ‘My official responsibility is quite simple. I have to decide whether the Falcon fell or if he was killed. There is still the perfectly straightforward explanation: a reckless and foolhardy man, who knows he is going to die anyway, takes a couple of students up to the top of King’s College Chapel on a snowy, and let’s also add “windy”, night and falls off. That’s it.’
‘I am sure that is what the university would like you to think.’
‘It doesn’t seem right, Sidney.’
‘But what is the alternative? A full-scale investigation into the workings of the British secret service?’
‘You are suggesting I turn a blind eye?’ Keating asked.
‘It is what often happens in the establishment. Inconvenient truths are best left buried. If you don’t ask too many questions of a gentleman then you won’t be disappointed.’
‘And this is what makes us British?’
‘It is our face to the world,’ Sidney replied. ‘Many of us are civilised, charming and perfectly genuine people. Others have developed their reserve into a form of refined deceit. It’s why people find the British so intriguing, Geordie. The line between the gentleman and the assassin can be so very thin.’
Keating finished his pint. ‘It’s so much easier dealing with downright villains. At least there’s an honesty about them.’
The following day Sidney decided that he would try to clear up a few things with the Master before evensong. It was another bitter night and he was hardly cheered by the fact that Sir Giles Tremlett had company. Sitting on the sofa, with one arm draped carelessly across it, was the ample figure of the British Foreign Secretary. Sidney apologised for the timing of his visit.
‘Not at all, Canon Chambers, you are welcome as always. I think that you two have met before?’
‘Only by reputation,’ the Foreign Secretary answered. ‘I think you fought with my father in the war. He was in command of your regiment.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Sidney replied. ‘In Normandy.’
‘And now, of course, we have our own battles to fight. It’s a much subtler game, this question of international diplomacy. I just was talking to the Master about our problems with the Russians.’
Sidney was not as politically informed as he thought he should be, but he was still perfectly aware that the Soviets had rejected proposals to unify Germany and were attempting to block the Federal Government’s attempts to join NATO. ‘I am sure that the Prime Minister is concerned,’ he said.
‘He is always suspicious of foreign powers, but even Churchill can’t go on for ever.’
‘I imagine you have plans.’
‘Eden will take over. He’s the heir apparent. And we want continuity. Otherwise we’ll have to have yet another conference in Berlin. The Master tells me you know the city well.’
‘I was there after the war.’
‘Indeed. Giles tells me that you have a friend there.’
Sidney hesitated. ‘I wasn’t aware that the Master knew such a thing.’
‘He likes to keep his cards close to his chest.’
‘Clearly you both know more about me than I think is necessary,’ Sidney replied archly and then, emboldened by the confidence of his tone, he pushed on. ‘Is that why I am being followed?’
‘You’ve noticed?’ the Foreign Secretary asked.
‘I could hardly not.’
‘You haven’t been in any danger, I can assure you. The police knew all about it.’
‘Even Inspector Keating?’
‘Not him exactly. That would have given the game away.’
‘It’s not a game. I was alarmed.’
‘Yes, I suppose you were,’ the Foreign Secretary conceded. ‘But then we wanted you to behave anxiously.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘To show that you were not working for us.’
Sidney was exasperated. ‘But I was working for you.’
‘We also needed to offer you a little p
rotection.’
‘From whom?’
‘I think you can imagine.’
‘You mean that I could have been being followed by two different sets of people?’
The Master gave the Foreign Secretary a look that prevented him going any further. ‘Perhaps you’d like a drink, Sidney? It will be Lent soon enough.’
‘The season when we pay particular attention to the forgiveness of our sins,’ Sidney replied, as pointedly as he could.
The Master poured out a small whisky. ‘I can’t imagine that you have many sins to forgive.’
‘We pray for the sins of the world.’
‘And they are manifold,’ the Foreign Secretary concurred before rising from the sofa. ‘I am afraid that I must be going back to London.’
The Master hesitated. ‘You will not stay for dinner?’
‘My car is waiting. I am very grateful to you, Giles. It’s been a complicated business but at least it’s over.’
Sidney could not comprehend why they had begun a conversation that had by no means finished. ‘Wait a bit. I need to understand all this. You mean that Bartlett and Montague are our men while pretending to be KGB?’
The Foreign Secretary was surprised that this needed confirmation. ‘You may perhaps assume that.’
Sidney asked for clarification. ‘That’s why Bartlett’s parents didn’t make more of a fuss about his so-called disappearance.’
‘I did have a word with them . . .’
‘And Lyall was MI6?’
