Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil (The Grantchester Mysteries)

by James Runcie

  ‘There won’t be any more difficulty, I am sure. You have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘It won’t be long until we reach the Kingdom, Reverend. The atomic bomb is telling us now. As Jesus said, we must keep awake for the time and the hour.’

  ‘Indeed he did. We must watch and pray. I am sorry to have troubled you.’ Sidney leant forward and laid his hand on his host’s head. ‘God bless you, Omari.’

  After Inspector Keating had been given a full report of this encounter, the two men decided to visit the Director of the Fitzwilliam once more. Sidney worried that he had no proper pretext for joining his friend during the inquiry but Geordie told him to concentrate on his role as a witness and to keep asking the suspect, for that was what Graham Anderson was, a series of questions that would look as if he was simply checking that he had his own story straight.

  The Director started by telling them that understanding a crime such as this one was a lengthy process and that it could often take years to solve a mystery and return an artwork. Provided the painting had not been stolen to order, in which case there was little hope of recovery, they just had to wait and keep a close eye on the auction houses, most of whom had already been asked to look out for a masterpiece on the cheap. It was even possible for the thief to pretend not to know that it was a Sickert in order to give the buyer a sense of superiority. The potential purchaser might then offer more in the mistaken enthusiasm that he was getting a bargain. An interim price in the case of this particular picture might be between four and five hundred pounds, giving the newfound accomplices a tidy profit if the work could be sold on a second time.

  The other possibility, Graham Anderson continued, was to wait for a ransom demand, but he did not think that this was likely. The work was not sufficiently famous. He concluded that, in his opinion, there were only two motives: the theft to order or the quick, and hopefully thwarted, sale.

  ‘It could also be an insurance scam,’ said Keating.

  ‘In which case,’ the Director replied, ‘I think you are implying that I might be responsible.’

  ‘I’m not so much implying it as stating it,’ Keating began before Sidney gave him a ‘be patient’ look.

  ‘If I ever did such a thing I would be ruined, Inspector; and I am hardly likely to risk my livelihood for a minor work. I come from a family with three Rembrandts in our ancestral home. If I was a criminal I think I could do a good deal better than an unpretentious Sickert.’

  ‘Miss Kendall mentioned Jack the Ripper . . .’

  ‘That is, I am afraid, a very fanciful theory. The man who is putting that story about came to see me a few years ago when he knew that we had something of a collection here. It’s absolute nonsense. Sickert liked drama and scandal and gave dubious titles to his paintings, it is true; but he was also interested in the case of the Tichborne claimant, the Camden Town Murder and in Dr Crippen’s crimes. He could just as well have been involved in any or all of those. He may have lodged in the same boarding house once occupied by the Ripper, but he was on holiday in France at the time of the first four murders.’

  ‘In Dieppe?’

  ‘No. At Saint Valéry-en-Caux.’

  Keating cut in. ‘I agree. This whole thing has got absolutely nothing to do with Jack the Ripper. There’s a whole file at Scotland Yard and everyone there knows it was Aaron Kosminski and not a poor old painter.’

  ‘I keep wondering about the girl,’ said Sidney. ‘She had such confidence. She moved through the gallery as if she was in a dream. She did not pause at all but knew exactly what she was doing and where she had to go. Are you sure you have never seen her before, Mr Anderson?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘One of our witnesses is convinced that she was in the museum last Saturday.’

  ‘I do not work at weekends.’

  ‘The girl was in an animated conversation with a man he thought might have been you.’

  ‘Then he must have been mistaken.’

  ‘He said that she was talking to you in front of The Trapeze.’

  ‘I was on my way to the opera in London with my wife at the time. Have you been speaking to our security guard, Mr Baptiste, perhaps?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘If so, then you would do well to remember that he might simply be covering up for his failure to prevent a theft.’

  ‘If it wasn’t you, and the girl was in the gallery, then I wonder who the man was?’ Sidney asked. ‘Perhaps, like her, he was involved in the art world. If they were, then where do you think we could find them?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. People come here from all over the world.’

  ‘In London, perhaps?’

  ‘Or Paris. Or New York.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll have got as far as New York,’ said Keating. ‘But Paris is interesting. She sang in French. Do you have contacts at the Louvre and the galleries over there, Mr Anderson?’

  ‘It’s part of my job,’ the Director replied. ‘I am considered to be something of an expert in French Impressionism.’

  ‘So you speak the language fluently?’

  ‘I’m not too bad at it.’

  ‘Like the girl. You could even have spoken to her in French when you saw her then?’

  ‘As I say, I didn’t see her.’

  For the next day or two Sidney let his thoughts settle and did not involve himself in Inspector Keating’s investigation. The staff at the railway station had been questioned, garages and workshops were searched and a reward announced, but the routine pattern of inquiry yielded no results. There was no sign of the painting and no ransom demand.

  Sidney returned to his duties, attending school assemblies, taking his tutorials at Corpus, and visiting Mrs Maguire’s ninety-year-old mother, a woman who had been bedridden for the past four years and was steadfastly refusing to die. He interviewed several candidates to replace Leonard Graham, none of whom came up to the mark; and he began to amass a rota of volunteers for the church fête. He even contemplated offering his services as a stand-in wicket keeper for the Grantchester cricket team.

  His wife accompanied him on many of his walks through the village, by the river and across the meadows. The couple had begun to establish something of a routine that was their bastion against the criminality and violence that sometimes threatened to overwhelm them. Hildegard now ran regular coffee mornings and had secured a part-time teaching job at the Perse School. She also continued to give private piano lessons after school on three afternoons a week. It was still extraordinary, Sidney thought, to acknowledge the change she had brought to his life; her cheerfulness, her company, her music and the smell of baking in the vicarage. He sometimes stopped to wonder what it was that he loved most about her; the light in her eyes and the smile that was meant only for him. For he knew that she smiled differently when she was in his company; it was a particular look, a knowing confidence, a partially public yet elusive acknowledgement of the love that they shared.

  He set to work on a series of meditations on the nature of Christmas, of which he was secretly rather proud, and he was able to listen to a little jazz while he did so, relaxing to Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain, and Art Blakey’s Mosaic. He even found time to finish Iris Murdoch’s latest novel, An Unofficial Rose, enjoying the irony and pathos of nine intertwined lives. This is what the life of a vicar should be like, he thought. At last he had the time to stop, listen, learn, pray, and be himself.

  He also began to find out a little bit more about Sickert. It was not the small matter of people thinking, unconvincingly, that the painter had been Jack the Ripper, but his fascination with the female form, and his interest in the polar opposites of seediness and show business, that attracted our amateur sleuth. This was an artist who had reclaimed the figurative tradition from the mire of Victorian taste and prudery; who introduced narrative using shocking and topical subject matter, and who gave Post-Impressionism its bite and pathos. Like Sidney, Sickert was intrigued by the difference between the hidden and the reveal
ed, public confidence and private misery, loneliness and companionship.

  Sidney tried to think in a similar manner to the artist, looking for composition and compelling narrative in what he saw. He even considered how he might turn his life into a work of art. Could that be possible?

  He thought of his parishioners and his friends, and how he could be a better husband to Hildegard. He wanted to tell her how much he loved both her soul and, if he had to be frank, her naked body, and how he only felt secure when he was in her arms.

  He had just finished writing his sermon for the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity and was thinking of making his traditional late-night mug of cocoa when the telephone rang. It was Helena Randall. She told him that her friend Basil thought that he had found the girl.

  ‘She’s called Celine Bellecourt and, like the woman in the gallery, she’s French.’

  ‘That sounds promising.’

  ‘She’s been in London for the past year and is making a name for herself as a performance artist. Apparently she’s also something of a musician although Basil can’t be sure about that. She lives at the bottom of the King’s Road with someone called Quentin Reveille.’

  ‘Is he French too?’

  ‘I think not. Apparently, he’s a rather loquacious socialist from Leeds.’

  ‘Yorkshiremen aren’t generally known for their loquacity, are they?’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he’s pretending to be French. The two of them are becoming quite famous for their joint installations and their subversive use of text. Nothing is what it seems, apparently. It’s all about different ways of seeing and a new art of looking.’

  ‘Then let’s hope they can help us “look” for the painting.’

  ‘Basil doesn’t reckon they’re thieves. He says they are too involved with their own narcissism; but he thinks that we should go to their show at the ICA. Would you like to join us?’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s wise. Perhaps I’ve done enough already . . .’

  ‘Nonsense, Sidney. We know you’ll want to come. It’s called The Festival of Misfits so we should all feel at home. It’s next Wednesday. Isn’t that your day off? You could bring your wife if you like.’

  ‘I don’t think the idea will go down very well.’

  ‘Tell her it’s fun.’

  Helena gave him the details of the exhibition. It was being advertised as a ‘mixed-media Neo-Baroque happening’ with no fixed beginning or end. It was all about flux. ‘Fun’ was the last thing it sounded.

  As she spoke, Sidney was already worrying how he was going to explain to Hildegard who had been on the telephone at such an ungodly hour. He asked Helena if she had also called Inspector Keating to brief him on her discoveries.

  ‘God, no. I can’t call Geordie because I am completely forbidden from ringing him at home. In any case, it might be a wild-goose chase and I don’t want him getting cross with me. You know what he’s like. The tiniest thing sets him off.’

  Sidney did not think flirtation, potential adultery, a series of murders and now a major art theft could be construed as ‘the tiniest thing’ but decided not to pursue the matter. ‘I suppose it’s always going to be easier to ring me if you want to speak to anyone out of hours. Vicars never sleep.’

  ‘Exactly! You are a clergyman, Sidney. That’s what you always tell people. You are “never off duty”. I’ve heard you often enough and now I’m taking you up on your offer.’

  Sidney wasn’t aware that he had offered anything at all. ‘You can’t exempt us journalists,’ Helena continued breezily. ‘We are your parishioners too. Besides, you’re good at this kind of thing. And you were in the art gallery at the time. If we’ve got the right girl then you can tell Geordie and get all the glory.’

  ‘Whereas you . . .’

  ‘I just get the story. And the first interview with the mystery blonde. I’ll meet you there.’

  Sidney tried to think of an excuse for going. He was already keen to talk to Amanda and ask her a few questions about the London art scene. He supposed that it would at least give him the opportunity to see her again and to experience the ‘buzz’ of creativity at first hand. He also thought he could justify his potential attendance at the ‘‘happening’’ by arguing that he didn’t want anyone to think that he had become a fuddy-duddy. It was 1962, for goodness sake. He needed to know what young people were thinking and doing. There was a freshness in their lives. He knew it, he had heard it and he had seen it in their fashions and the way they spoke. Now he wanted to understand all this new energy and be part of a groovy modern age that had had no experience of war.

  On the other hand, Sidney didn’t want to be one of those trendy vicars who were always getting their guitars out and going on television. God forbid, he warned himself.

  He would have to strike a careful balance and find the right ‘vibe’ – not that he would use the word ‘vibe’ out loud or in company. But before he did any of these things he was going to have to get the idea past Hildegard. He would delay mentioning the word ‘Helena’ for as long as possible, he told himself, and perhaps he might even get away without saying that anyone they knew, apart from Amanda, would be at this Festival of Misfits at all.

  Hildegard was preparing for bed. Sidney hoped that if he worked for a bit longer and waited until she was asleep then he might be able to avoid any nocturnal inquisition and save their conversation for the relative calm of the following morning. But he had forgotten about the cocoa, and she would be expecting him to bring it.

  He went into the kitchen, heated the milk and collected his thoughts. He looked at Dickens. The beloved Labrador had been lethargic of late and although his owner had put it down to ageing and arthritis rather than anything sinister, perhaps it was something more? Sidney really should make an appointment at the new surgery in Trumpington, he decided, remembering that it had been founded only recently because Grantchester’s previous vet, Andrew Redmond, was in prison for murder.

  ‘What are you doing down there?’ Hildegard called down. ‘Who was on the telephone?’

  ‘I’m just coming,’ her husband replied. He climbed the stairs with both mugs in one hand and opened the door. ‘Do you think modern painting is any good?’ he asked. ‘I’ve just been doing some research into abstract expressionism and kinetic art and I’m not convinced. Figurative work may be old-fashioned but I still think there’s a place for it in the modern world. People are fascinated by the human form. Here’s your cocoa. What do you think, Hildegard? I’m not sure about all those blank white canvases and the “monochrome propositions” of Yves Klein. I rather like Sickert and his nudes.’

  ‘You’re not thinking of the art theft, are you?’

  ‘I was just doodling and making some notes but I don’t feel we know enough. I was thinking we could go to London on my day off and take in a few exhibitions. There’s so much going on and I feel rather out of touch. There’s a new Francis Bacon show, a Bridget Riley, and something called The Festival of Misfits at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Dover Street. What do you think? Shall we go? It’s just an idea.’

  ‘Will that girl be there?’

  It had to be said that Hildegard did not miss a trick.

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘The naked one; from the museum.’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’

  ‘I think that means yes.’

  ‘Well she may be part of the happening and if she were then I could probably find out a bit more about her. Perhaps I could ask a few informal questions that might lead us to the thief.’

  ‘You want to go all the way to London to identify a naked woman you saw very briefly three weeks ago?’

  Sidney tried to make a joke about it. ‘Apparently she was not naked but nude.’

  ‘And what is the difference?’

  ‘A naked person is someone like you or me in the bathroom. A nude is a work of art.’

  ‘Are you saying I am not a work of art and that this woman is?’

  �
�I am not saying that at all, my darling.’

  ‘You always call me “darling” when you know that you are in trouble. Why do you want to see this girl again?’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘And you speak more firmly too. I remember your father saying . . .’

  ‘Yes. I know. He is not always right about these things. I don’t want to see this girl, Hildegard. I’m trying to help Geordie solve the case.’

  ‘And will he be coming with you?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘Then how do you know about her?’

  Sidney hesitated. If he said the words ‘Helena Randall’ at this point in the conversation then his cause would be compromised; perhaps fatally. ‘We’ve had a tip-off.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Someone in the art world: a man called Basil Bonney.’

  ‘And do you know this bonny Basil?’

  ‘It’s Basil Bonney. Not Bonney Basil.’

  ‘I was trying to make a joke . . .’

  ‘Oh, I see, very good.’ Sidney readjusted his approach. ‘I’m sorry, Hildegard, this is just an idea. I thought it might be fun if we both went to London. We don’t have to go at all if you don’t want to but I can’t help feeling that we’ll be missing out if we just stay in Grantchester. The girl is only a small part of the show. There’s contemporary music, nuclear painting and a German outfit called Group Zero. I think there’s also a man called Gustav Metzger who paints with acid.’

  For the first time in their conversation, Hildegard had the beginnings of a smile. ‘Rather than swallowing it, you mean?’

  ‘Apparently. He throws coloured hydrochloric acid at nylon and metal which then corrodes and forms the image. It’s called auto-destructive art. We should see it, Hildegard. It will be an adventure.’

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

  ‘But this will be fun; something to tell our friends about. We can be “with it” at last.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means. Are we “without it” now?’

  ‘Of course not. You are everything to me. And I don’t want to go “without” you.’