The Bell Ringers

by Henry Porter

  She thought it odd that someone in his forties and in perfect health would think of planning their own funeral. Eyam was an atheist, incurious about his own death, and as far as she knew had no reason to expect his life was about to end. But he was also more organised than anyone she had ever known and she could easily imagine him sitting down one Sunday night to put his wishes on paper. He had chosen well. A very good countertenor sang from Monteverdi’s The Legend of Orpheus, there were readings from Byron and Milton, and Ingrid Eyam read from Shakespeare – ‘Golden lads and lasses must/as chimney sweepers, come to dust.’ It was all perfectly pleasant but none of it was moving, and no one got near Eyam. When the tributes followed from a professor of eonomics at Oxford and the home secretary Derek Glenny, they seemed to her to be going through the motions. Glenny puffed himself out, fiddled with his glasses, gazed with satisfaction around the church and told them as much about himself as Eyam. He ended with, ‘David had that essential gift for a government servant: he understood power and he knew how to use it. This was a rare and good man. He will be missed greatly.’

  Kate glanced at her watch and was just wishing the whole farce over when there was a commotion in the middle of the pew behind her as someone pushed past several pairs of knees without apology. A slender Indian man wearing a grey, chalk-stripe suit, red woollen gloves and a tightly knotted red scarf appeared in the aisle, stared about him with a wild, almost insane look, and made his way to the front, where he laid his hands on the top of the coffin. He stood for a full minute with his head bowed. Kate moved so she could see him better.

  ‘Darsh,’ she murmured under her breath. She hadn’t thought of Darsh Darshan for at least a decade. The first time she had seen him was in a church, a scrawny mathematics prodigy who arrived at Oxford on a scholarship and whom she found one dark winter evening sitting in New College chapel in an almost catatonic state. David took him under his wing and saw he was all right.

  Without turning, he spoke. ‘In my culture we draw near to death. We hold the dead close and we comfort them on their journey.’ He let his hands drop, looked over his shoulder then turned very slowly. His head was curiously oblong and his hair brushed forward so it curled above a domed, almost bulbous brow. His eyes burned with fierce self-possession that was new to Kate.

  ‘We are forgetting David,’ he said. ‘Don’t you see that? This is David, lying here! Can any of us doubt our guilt in that fact?’

  The congregation looked at each other embarrassed, shrinking in their seats with the English terror of someone making a scene.

  ‘Even if we shy from death this is no time to forget who David was and what he stood for,’ continued Darsh. ‘David was murdered. No one has used that word but that is the reality of his death. We still don’t know who murdered him, and that is an important fact to remember today.’

  The vicar stepped forward, looking flustered. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said. ‘But if you would return to your place now.’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ Darsh said quietly, then rubbed his gloved hands. ‘My name is Darsh Darshan and I was a friend of David’s for twenty years. There was no one like him, but more than this simple declaration of his individuality and of my love for him I attest to his courage, his loyalty to high principle and the cause of decency. David played the long game and he was good at it. He was patient and he respected detail. Yet he was no machine. He took his bearings early and stayed true to his course: he knew who he was, where he was at any given moment and where he was heading. He was imperturbable, inspired, unbending, brilliant and funny. You could wish for no greater friend. His mind was truly clear. So often the answer came before your question was out because he had already asked it of himself, and on the rare occasions when he hadn’t thought of the problem, he seized it with a delight that was a pleasure to behold. His brain was remarkable but his character was a glory. Such a man makes you think God is possible.’

  He paused and swept the faces in front of him. Although the majority of the congregation were convinced that Darsh was out of his mind, one or two heads were now nodding encouragement in the curious aquarium light that spilled from the stained-glass windows on the south. He placed a hand on the lid of the coffin again and patted it possessively, throwing a smile of recognition up the aisle as though David Eyam’s ghost had stumbled late into the church. Then his eyes drifted to Glenny. ‘And when our friend the minister here says that David understood power . . . Well, yes, sir, you are right. He did. But his purpose was not to have it for himself but to control it, to place obstacles in its way and to set up boundaries to restrain it.’ Kate was not sure that was absolutely true but she nodded. Darsh stopped and walked to within a few feet of the end of the home secretary’s pew and stood in a shaft of light, apparently unaware of the bodyguards who had moved from somewhere behind the altar. He looked drawn and his skin was grey. A shiver passed across his shoulders.

  ‘You see, David found all that repulsive and wrong. He resisted and then he lost. He came up against an enemy and was beaten, not because of the superiority of mission or of mind, but because of the sheer, overwhelming, implacable weight of his foe. David tripped up. He was shamed . . . mortified. And he was forced – I mean forced – out of government. For that mistake he paid with his life. Responsibility for his death lies with the people here, in this church.’

  The priest was having no more. ‘I think you’ve made your point. Now, please go back to your seat and we can continue with the service. You don’t want to spoil this occasion for others here, who I am sure you will understand grieve as much as you do.’

  Darsh moved a step closer to the home secretary, who was now looking extremely uncomfortable. ‘This man and all of them sitting here with him know what I am talking about. We don’t have the details yet but they put an end to David’s life as surely as if they had set off that bomb.’

  Someone behind Glenny leaned forward and spoke in his ear.

  Darsh continued, ‘It’s the truth – and you all know it. David was killed. He was murdered.’

  At this point two of the protection officers closed in and, with a nod from the priest, descended on Darsh. He dodged the first officer and managed to aim a blow at the home secretary’s head, at which a gasp of horror came from the back pews. Kate saw Diana Kidd’s hat rise up like a fishing float and Ingrid Eyam slump back in her pew with a look of social horror. Darsh was seized and thrown to the ground like a rag doll. His face was pressed into the two figures etched into medieval brass a few feet from where Lockhart sat. One officer held him down with a hand placed in the middle of his back while the other searched him for weapons.

  A man got up and attempted to interpose himself. ‘Is this really necessary? I know him: He means no harm.’ But they took no notice. Darsh was picked up with the same contemptuous ease as he had been floored. ‘I was going to say a prayer,’ he shouted out. ‘It’s a Christian prayer.’ He began speaking in a high, panicky voice. ‘Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. While we look not at the things which are seen but the things which are not seen.’

  As he was frogmarched towards the door he yelled out, ‘For the things . . . which are seen . . . are temporal; the things which are not seen . . . are ETERNAL.’

  A moment later he was propelled from the church. A kind of reverence was restored and the service limped to its conclusion. Then it was time for David Eyam’s remains to be borne from the church and taken to a crematorium where the job of incineration would be completed. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor were played on a clattering, wheezy organ and after a moment of introspection the congregation filed out, led by Ingrid Eyam on Glenny’s arm.

  Kate waited, looking at the faces that passed her, and became aware of Kilmartin, the man from the inquest, watching her from the other side of the aisle with candid interest. When their eyes met he gave her a little bow of his head then looked away. The crush of people in the aisle meant she could not leave immediately. Her eyes fell t
o some verses on the back page of the order of service, which she had not noticed before.

  The Death of Me

  Carry me over floods, sister!

  Carry me to the other side!

  And I’ll wait for you here, sister,

  ’Til we cross the swelling tide.

  I may be gone for now, sister,

  For others say I’ve died.

  But I’ll wait for you here, sister,

  ’Til we take the waters wide.

  I lost my heart to you, sister;

  Then death became my bride.

  Carry me over floods, sister;

  Carry me from where I hide.

  Carry me over floods, sister;

  Carry me to the other side.

  And I’ll wait for you here, sister,

  My truly beloved guide.

  Anon: nineteenth-century

  American folk song

  She read it twice, smiled, put the booklet into her bag and left the church.

  5

  Sister

  Instead of following the other mourners to the hotel for the wake Kate went to the Green Parrot cafe and bar at the top of the square, where she was eyed without enthusiasm by a teenage waitress with two-tone hair and a stud punched through her lower lip. The place was almost empty. She sat down at a table in the window, ordered a brandy and a black coffee, tipped the first into the second and wondered about taking an earlier train back to London.

  She watched the square blankly as though it were a scene between moments of action in a film, then without warning was struck by the scale of her loss. It was the verse at the end of the order of service that did it, the memory of when he called her Sister for the first time. Sometimes he reduced it to Sis, a joke referring to her past in SIS, but mostly he called her Sister, as though to underline the dangers of violation. He must have delighted in finding those verses. They had been put there for her – a final message, perhaps of true love. A tear had made its way down her cheek, which she hurriedly dispatched with one of the paper napkins held in the beak of a green plastic parrot on the table.

  Her eyes moved to the window. A man was peering into the cafe, trying to see past the reflection, then a look of recognition lit his face and he mimed that he was coming in to join her.

  A trim, eager person entered, flattening a tuft of sandy grey hair and brushing something from the jacket of a slate-blue suit that she had seen bobbing in the exodus from the church. When he reached the table he wiped his brow theatrically with the back of one hand and offered the other to her. ‘Miss Lockhart? I’m Hugh Russell of Russell, Spring & Co., David Eyam’s lawyer.’

  She nodded. ‘Actually, it’s Mrs, but I have given up making the point. Call me Kate.’

  ‘Oh, you’re married – I hadn’t realised.’

  ‘Was – my husband has been dead for nearly a decade.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ He looked embarrassed.

  She asked him to sit and he began to explain that Russell, Spring & Co. had acted for Eyam since he’d purchased Dove Cottage.

  ‘I am so glad that I’ve managed to catch you before you left High Castle,’ he said, wrinkling his nose in an odd way. ‘I found your photo on the internet but then missed you at the funeral. Mrs Kidd said that she had seen you slip in here.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Mrs Kidd.’

  ‘Yes, there’s not much that escapes her notice,’ he said and cleared his throat. ‘You may prefer to do this in my offices at a more convenient time, but if it would be of help I can tell you now the substance of what I have to say.’

  Kate opened her hands. ‘Please do.’

  ‘I don’t know much about your relationship with David Eyam, but I’m assuming you were close.’

  ‘We were, yes, but our jobs were on different continents and we saw little of each other over the last couple of years. Close but apart.’

  ‘You work for Calvert-Mayne in New York. That’s a famous outfit – you must be damned good at your job.’ His face assumed a professional cast. ‘All this must be very distressing for you – I mean the circumstances, Kate – if I may, losing such a close friend in that awful manner.’ He paused. ‘Now, this is going to be a shock to you. It certainly would be to me.’ He stopped again to give her time, and nodded to ask if it was all right to continue.

  She revolved her hand and smiled. ‘Please go on.’

  ‘I have to tell you that you are the main beneficiary of David Eyam’s will. I could have informed you by letter but he wanted me to give you the news personally – he was most insistent on that point.’

  She put down her cup. ‘Left me everything! Good Lord! You can’t be serious.’

  ‘I am. His estate comprises a house – Dove Cottage – a flat in London, which is currently rented out on a short lease, a car and all his shares and savings. He’s made one or two big bequests to local charities and so forth, but essentially you are his main heir. The estate is worth well over three and a half million pounds. And I should tell you that the savings and cash will very adequately cover the inheritance tax if you are minded to retain the property.’

  She sat back. ‘I’m astonished.’

  ‘I can well understand that, but I hope you feel that this news is some consolation in what I know will have been a very sad day for you. I have his will here and a letter addressed to you.’ He unzipped a leather document case and took out two envelopes, which he placed between them on the table. ‘There are also some larger documents, which are in the safe at my offices. Perhaps you’d care to drop by this afternoon and pick them up and we can begin on the paperwork. There’s quite a lot to go through.’

  ‘When did he make this will?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Let me think. September or late August. About six months ago: it was after he had had some . . .’ He stopped and frowned.

  ‘What?’ she said, leaning forward slightly.

  ‘I believe he received some worrying news about his health, though I am not sure of its precise nature. He intimated that he had been told to get his affairs in order. There was hope but he thought it was best to be on the safe side.’

  That explained why Eyam had planned his funeral, but not what he was doing in Colombia. She thought for a moment. ‘You think it was cancer – something terminal?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Did he say why he was going away?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know he’d left until I heard of his death. He was away about a month and what with Christmas, well . . .’

  ‘Why would he go away when he was ill? Presumably he was being treated in England.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t say because I don’t know.’

  ‘And these documents; do you know what’s in them?’

  ‘No. These are his private communication to you. The contents do not concern me.’ He smiled sympathetically. ‘I know this is going to take some time to sink in. It is after all a rather large legacy to come out of the blue. But the one thing I did want to bring to your attention is the house, which has been unoccupied for over three months. There will be things that require attention: we can talk about all of that when you come to see me. The lease on the flat in London is due to end in a few months’ time so you don’t have to think about that for the moment.’

  Her hand moved to the envelopes. ‘May I?’ she asked.

  ‘Forgive me. All this is a little irregular, but please do.’

  She opened the will first and read that Hugh Arthur Russell and Annabel Spring, wife of Russell’s partner Paul Spring, were appointed as Executors and Trustees. She read on:

  (i) I bequeath to Kate Grace Koh Lockhart absolutely the property known as Dove Cottage, Dove Valley, Near High Castle, in the county of Shropshire, all the contents therein and my car (Bristol Series 4,1974 Chassis number: 18462 Registration Number N476 RXL) and also the property at 16 Seymour Row, London W1, currently let on a two-year lease to George Harold Keenan, together with its contents.

  (ii) I bequeath to Kate Grace Koh Lockhart absolutely the
sum of £780,000 and the portfolio of shares and bonds held in my name at the time of my decease.

  (iii) I give to High Castle Arts Trust absolutely the sum of £12,000 and to High Castle Film Society the sum of £12,000 to be used in an annual lecture and film screening and to The Marches Bell Ringers Society the sum of £125,000.

  There were a few smaller bequests – Amnesty International and a charity called Tree Aid. Attached were a paper detailing the extent of his shareholding as of October 21st the previous year, and the address of his accountant in London.

  She let the will drop to the table and picked up the letter addressed to her in Eyam’s precise little hand.

  At the top was a quote from Immanuel Kant: ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them – the starry heavens above and the moral laws within.’

  For the moment the evening is mine, Sister, but soon it will certainly be yours.

  If you are reading this, Hugh Russell must have found you and given you the keys to Dove Cottage, which will come to you after you receive the news of my demise. I am dead. How odd that sounds. Anyway, welcome to my home; welcome to your home. I do wish that we had made the occupation simultaneous, rather than consecutive, but leaving it to you is the nearest I can get to that now.

  How did we let this distance between us happen? What did we do not to deserve each other? It was, I am sure, all my fault and I hope I have managed to express this to you in person or on the phone before you read this.

  Anyway, that is all regrettably in the past and now I give you my life – less tax, as it were – and with all the problems and strangeness of the last year or so; but also all the hidden delights of Dove Cottage, which I believe you will come to love. Look closely, as I know you can, and you will discover much that is surprising here. All my earthly goods are now yours: my secrets too. Think of nothing as too private for your eyes. I am opening myself to you, Sis, and though it is too late to say it, I send my love – the most tender and heartfelt of my life – and I kiss your clever eyes for good fortune and the happiness that has not been ours.