“He must have made one hell of a lousy priest, but I’ve got to hand it to the guy; he was a scholar. But listen, Dorothy, he was up to something that day. I don’t know what. He usually came straight to the point, but this time he was cagey. As if he wanted to ask me something, but didn’t want me to know what he was after.”
“For heaven’s sake, what did he say?”
“Well, he marched over to my reading desk and said he needed the book. Just like that, no please, or excuse me for interrupting, just ‘I need to use that book for an hour.’ And I said I was in the middle of something and wouldn’t be finished until late afternoon, and he argued for a while until an attendant shut him up. And then he got polite—for him—and asked me what I was working on, and if the book helped, and like that. Just small talk, see, but he kept looking at the book as if he wanted to grab it out of my hands. And finally he left.”
“Well, that doesn’t make much sense. I suppose he was working on some new project.”
“Oh, yeah, he mentioned his latest book. lie didn’t say what it was about, though.”
“I know he just got back from a trip—to Greece, I think. I never really paid any attention to the man, except that on the rare occasions I went into the cathedral library, it was pleasanter if he wasn’t around. I’m afraid he won’t be a great loss, poor man.”
“To scholarship, he will. He knew his stuff. Not my period, really, first century, but he was good. Pity.”
The real pity was that the only good word anyone had found to say about him was so dry and academic. Perhaps it would count at the Pearly Gates, though. I hoped.
I was more than ready for my tea when my taxi dropped me at the Ritz. One look at the Palm Court banished both exhaustion and the shade of Canon Billings. That bastion of luxury and elegance was all it had ever been, a glorious Edwardian nonsense in pink and green and gold. Lynn and Tom were waiting at the table to which I was escorted with as much ceremony as if I were a duchess, many of whom, I had no doubt, had occupied that same elegant little pink velvet chair. Could the service have had something to do with my hat?
Tom gazed at it in a state of shock, and Lynn grinned broadly but forebore to comment. “We ordered for you, Dorothy. We knew you’d be tired and hungry. Indian all right, I hope?”
The Indian tea was more than all right. It was ambrosial. Without apology, and with very little conversation, I worked my way through six different kinds of sandwiches, scones with strawberry jam and cream, and several cups of tea. When I had made choices from the bountiful pastry tray and polished off the confections, I felt as sated and content as Esmeralda after her turkey. I stretched myself in my chair with a sigh of utter fulfillment.
“You saved my life, I think. That was elegant, thank you very much indeed.”
“Had a tough couple of days, have you, D.?” asked Tom, who had offered a few desultory remarks while I gorged myself, but had tactfully stayed off the subject of Sherebury.
“Moderately. Not too bad, I guess, considering. I am getting tired of being haunted by Jonathan Billings, though. I even ran into him in the British Museum, figuratively speaking.” I related my encounter.
“Funny,” commented Tom. “Funny man in a lot of ways, I hear. Well, if things get too much for you down there in the boonies, you can always come up and stay with us for a while.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said with real gratitude. “This has been wonderful, you two, but I’ve got a train to catch. Remind me that I owe you one.”
I intended to do some more hard thinking on the way back, but British Rail had, from its somewhat decrepit collection of rolling stock, provided one of the old compartment-style coaches for the train home. I made for it like a homing pigeon, and five minutes out of Victoria I was asleep. I would have slept right past my station if the guard hadn’t remembered my hat from the morning and wakened me. There are some advantages to being conspicuous.
9
TUESDAY MORNING. Dark, damp, dismal. The rain had turned once more to thick fog that blanketed the town, condensing on every surface and dripping steadily from every gray twig. It had crept into my old house through all the chinks and settled in a fine mist on everything I touched, including the cat. Emmy was as irritable as I. No cat likes to be wet, and her attempts to lick the moisture from her fur simply made matters worse. Naturally it was all my fault. In the delicately balanced relationship of feline and human, there is one basic assumption: When anything is amiss, from insufficient food to disagreeable weather to the annoying behavior of another cat, the human is to blame. Conversely, when life is good, when peace, harmony, and warmth prevail, the cat’s smug look will tell you who gets the credit. Of course.
She gave me no peace until she got me to turn on the electric heater in the parlor, then ignored it completely, stalked into the kitchen, and commented crossly on my procrastination in the matter of breakfast.
“I should like to point out, Esmeralda, madam,” I said with some asperity (after preparing her food), “that there are people in this world who prefer dogs to cats. Dogs, who offer uncritical adoration at all times. Dogs, who do as they are told and don’t change their minds every five minutes. How would you like a dog in this house?”
Esmeralda turned away from her dish, gave me a long, thoughtful look, rolled onto the base of her spine with one rear leg pointing skyward, and began attending to matters of personal hygiene. Sufficient comment.
I brewed myself tea, letting it get cold while I overcooked an egg and burned some toast. After toying with the unappetizing mess for a few minutes, telling myself it was terrible to waste food, I gave up and dumped it all into the sink. The truth was, I finally admitted to myself, neither the weather nor the cat nor an inedible breakfast was at the heart of my bad temper. It was the memorial service.
I absolutely did not want to go to Canon Billings’s memorial service this afternoon. I’ve always hated funerals, whatever they’re called, with an unreasoning passion. When I’ve been close to the person who died, or to the family, it’s all I can do not to make a fool of myself, so I sit there with clenched teeth getting a dreadful headache from suppressed tears. I can never think of the right thing to say to the family; in fact I usually can’t say anything at all over the lump in my throat. When I haven’t liked the person it’s worse. I sit, then, thinking of the waste, wishing I could have been nicer while they were alive. Of course, ever since . . . well, the last few months, all funerals had reminded me of . . . anyway, I didn’t want to go.
I had to go.
I didn’t need to let it spoil the whole day, however, reminding myself of my resolution to be positive. Why didn’t I go over and talk to Jane? My curiosity about Charles Lambert’s odd conversation with Billings at the BM demanded satisfaction. Maybe Jane would know what the canon had been working on before he died. And—oh, inspiration!—I could take Jane that teapot I was definitely having second thoughts about. Besides, she had central heating, and made an awfully good breakfast when she was in the mood.
I refused to put on anything subdued. Time enough for that later. Red. Red sweater and a Royal Stewart kilt I had bought in an unwise moment. It did nothing at all for my figure, but a great deal for my morale. And that hat crocheted out of bits and pieces of brilliantly colored yarn. So there!
“Dorothy. Good to see you. Come in. Cup of tea?”
“Here, I even brought you something to make it in. A Harrod’s bargain.”
“Hmmm.” Jane held it at arm’s length to get a good look through the bottom of her bifocals, then looked at me appraisingly over the top of them. We both burst out laughing.
“Oh, goodness, you’re right, it really is awful, isn’t it? All those roses . . . here, I’ll take it back.”
“You will not,” she said firmly. “A gift is a gift. Perfect for the jumble sale in February.” She put it on the hall table and closed the door on the fog. “Had any breakfast? Just getting around to it ourselves.”
Ourselves? Oh, yes, Nigel. I’d
actually forgotten about him, and I found myself ambivalent about meeting him. Although I wanted to make my own judgment about his character, nothing I’d heard indicated he’d be a comfortable companion at the breakfast table, or anywhere else, for that matter. “Oh, I don’t want to intrude,” I temporized.
“Nonsense.” Jane snorted with a sound exactly like a horse. “Bacon or sausage? Or both?”
“Whatever you’re having.” I followed her meekly into the kitchen, expecting to find Nigel but seeing only assorted dogs noisily finishing their meal. Jane, too, has her priorities straight: Feed the animals first.
“How is Nigel?” And where is he, but I didn’t ask.
“Well enough. Bit depressed. Went out to fetch a bottle of milk.”
“Jane, he won’t want me here, he’ll be feeling touchy about strangers. I’d better . . .”
“Afraid of him, Dorothy? He didn’t murder anybody, you know.” She was placidly assembling eggs, meat, butter.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I never thought he did! I just don’t know what to talk about. Will he in fact talk to me? George says he’s arrogant and rude, and even you implied he was difficult.”
“He’ll talk to you,” Jane said with a chuckle, slicing homemade bread competently against the bib of her apron with a wicked-looking knife. “Talk the hind leg off a donkey when he wants to. Didn’t say he was difficult; he’s impossible. In some moods. But he’s only rude when someone’s stupid; you should get along.”
“Thank you—I think. But I want to know a little more about him. He’s Welsh, you say. Well, of course he is, with a name like Evans.”
“Half Welsh. Mother was English. That’s where the Nigel came from. Born in Wales, didn’t live there long. Father died, mother moved back to Birmingham. Boy picked up odd jobs, whatever he could do. In and out of school, I gather. Mother made money any way she could, but there was never much. When he was twelve or thirteen she died.”
How like Jane to skate past the ways Mrs. Evans might have made money. Jane took people as she found them.
“Then it was orphanages and foster homes, and somewhere along the way they found out he could sing. He’s bright, as well,” she went on, turning sausages. “Got the scholarship to King’s—ouch!” A sausage had burst and spat hot fat at her. “You know the rest. Had to leave King’s, at a loose end. Hitching here and there looking for work, found it at the cathedral, and got into university. Was going to join the cathedral choir as soon as there was an opening.”
Was going to. What chance of that was there now?
“He’s lucky he had you to come to when all this broke,” I said warmly. Jane shrugged.
“Would have done all right on his own. Not used to people looking after him.”
The casual words got under my guard, giving me a sudden sharp picture of what Nigel’s life must have been like. My heart twisted. I saw a struggle for survival in a world that didn’t much care, a brilliant, good-looking boy who loved music thrown into the twilight world of petty crime and drugs and sleeping on the streets. I shuddered. He’d had to live by his wits, which were considerable. Was it entirely impossible that he had killed in a moment of rage and despair? Things had seemed to be working out, and then suddenly every man’s hand was once more against him. That Welsh temper . . . and on the streets of Birmingham, he might well have learned to put a light value on human life.
No. No, it was impossible. Please, God, let it be impossible. . . .
“Jane, what did he quarrel about, with the canon? Do you know?”
“Hasn’t said anything; I haven’t asked. Never does to ask. He’ll tell me, in time. They always do.”
Well, yes, with Jane they always would.
“Had an idea it had to do with Inga,” she began, then broke off at the sound of the back door opening and boots being scraped clean.
In a way Nigel looked better than when I’d seen him in the cathedral. The jeans and summer shirt had been exchanged for decent gray slacks and a good warm yellow sweater—at Jane’s expense, I was willing to bet. The boy’s hair was neatly combed, and he didn’t look quite so pinched and thin. But the fire in his eye that had made him so noticeable was dimmed. Without the armor of his anger and intensity, the naked vulnerability showed.
When Jane introduced us he muttered something inaudible and thumped his package on the table. She and I both ignored his response, or lack of it. Jane filled three plates and handed him one. “Dorothy, can you get the knives and forks? You know where they are.”
A proper English breakfast is a thing of beauty and a joy, but not forever. I had no intention of letting Nigel’s uneasiness, or mine on his behalf, keep me from enjoying my food while it was hot. Nor, blast it all, to deflect me from the reason—all right, the other reason—I had come. I demolished an egg and two sausages before saying casually, “Nigel, I ran into someone you may know, yesterday in London.”
My pawn was not so much ignored as shoved off the board. “I don’t know anyone in London.”
He had no particular accent, Welsh or otherwise. His voice was pleasantly pitched, but sharply dismissive, if not downright rude. He applied himself with concentration to his plate, expertly knifing a bit of sausage onto a forkful of egg and adding a triangle of fried bread to hold the edifice together.
I persisted. “I think you may know him, though. Charles Lambert. He’s American, studying right now at the BM, but he was down in Sherebury a few months ago working at the cathedral library.”
Nigel put his knife and fork down and, for the first time, looked at me. “Oh. Him. How do you know him?”
“He teaches at Randolph University in America, where my late husband headed the biology department.” Something in Nigel’s scrutiny made me add, “I met him years ago when I was doing some research for my M.A., a paper on Chaucer. The period is a bit late for him, but he helped with some manuscript questions.” I blandly finished my toast while he absorbed that.
The young are often bad at hiding their thoughts, especially when their defenses are down, and Nigel’s expressive countenance in particular was not made for concealment. I watched, amused, while he processed the information and altered his opinion of me from Old Busybody Next Door to Educated Woman Who Might Be Interesting.
“So you see,” I added mildly, “you do know someone in London.”
He had the grace to blush. “Sorry. Talk in haste and repent at leisure. My worst sin. It’s the Welsh side coming out.” He gave a little sideways grin and flashed those incredible eyes at me in what looked like a practiced technique.
“Indeed,” I said austerely. I hoped I hadn’t let him see how effective his methods were, even with a woman my age. “Dr. Lambert said something rather interesting about your late employer.”
This time the flash might have been unintentional.
I related the conversation. “I did wonder, Nigel, if you had any idea what Mr. Billings was working on. His most recent project.”
“No. He kept himself to himself, you know. How well did you know him, Mrs. Martin?”
“Not at all, really, only to say hello to.”
“Well, he—they must have told you we’d had a bloody great row the day he died. The curious thing is—I don’t suppose you’ll believe me—but we usually got on well enough. He was an arrogant bastard—” the blue eyes checked out my reaction to that “—but so long as I did exactly as I was told there was no trouble. I didn’t like him, but I did respect him; he was good. And you don’t have to believe that, either.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes!” The fire was back.
“Then I believe you. ‘Good’ being, I presume, a description of academic worth, not moral. But if you got along with him, what was the fight about?”
If I had hoped to slip that one in I was disappointed. He couldn’t control the white knuckles or the blazing eyes, but he had no intention of answering the question.
“Nothing to do with his work. I never argued with him about that. He’d t
alk to me about it at times, lecture me, really. I listened; it was worth listening to. But when he got back from Greece in November he was different, closemouthed. I asked him once if he’d got anything worthwhile and he ignored the question completely, said I was to go shelve some books, just as if I hadn’t said a word. Made me wonder.”
“Did you see anything he was doing? Over his shoulder, as it were?”
He could have been angry at that, but he just shrugged. “Not that interested. I had my own work to do.”
So the sore point had to do with something else. Perhaps Jane was right and Inga was involved somehow, though I couldn’t imagine how. “Well, that’s a pity. Not that it probably matters, but I wish I knew; it nags at me. You haven’t heard any gossip, have you, Jane?”
“Not a word.”
If Jane didn’t know, no one knew, so I might as well give it up. For the moment. I finished my breakfast, trying to make up my mind that Nigel Evans’s temper was not sharp enough for murder. I didn’t succeed.
I WALKED INTO the cathedral that afternoon just as the bells stopped tolling. The crowd, unusually large, filled the choir; everyone in Sherebury who was idle on a Tuesday afternoon seemed to be there, along with the entire cathedral clergy and staff. Chairs had been set up in the space between the choir stalls and the chancel, and I found one in the back row, settling down unhappily just as the clergy entered and I had to stand up again.
A memorial service is unusual in the Church of England. Generally a funeral, with or without the Eucharist, serves as the last rite of passage. In this case the dean presumably didn’t want to delay some form of healing rite until the authorities finally released the body for burial. Reluctant as I was to take part, I thought he was right. The sooner we could exorcise the fears and ill will generated by this death, the better.
The service was modified from the one for the Burial of the Dead, and like the rest of the Book of Common Prayer, it was beautiful and dignified. In the prayers and Bible readings the dean had chosen there was no deliberate attempt to play on the emotions of the mourners. Which was probably just as well, I reflected, because I wasn’t certain there were any decently appropriate emotions floating around. I wondered just what other people in the room did feel. Mostly relief, I suspected.
Body in the Transept Page 9
