by James Runcie
‘No. That would be unpopular. So, do you think it was an accident?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The book. Leonard’s present. Were you thinking of something else?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You were, I can tell. It’s that business with the piano . . .’
‘It’s a terrible tragedy. Orlando was well liked. As you are, Malcolm . . .’
‘It’s not a competition.’
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ Sidney said quickly, while inwardly acknowledging that there were certain times when he behaved as if it was. It was ridiculous to feel even slightly aggrieved that his curate was proving such a success.
His unease was, however, made worse when he couldn’t find his wallet. This was doubly irritating. There was the loss and inconvenience itself, but his generosity at the fête would be compromised. He was unable to show largesse and he didn’t want people assuming he had deliberately left his wallet behind as a calculated act of meanness in order not to spend any money. If his parishioners started to think that then it would be a long way back to regain their affection.
He tried to blame Byron. Perhaps his Labrador had run off with it and chewed it to smithereens? Or was it his own negligence? He just needed to take more time over things, Sidney said to himself.
At least the weather was clement. The home produce and gift stalls were packed with the WI’s best efforts, and Sidney didn’t have to do too much other than wave a wand of non-specific geniality across proceedings. As long as his parishioners didn’t start murdering each other (hiding dead bodies in the sandpit, battering each other with coconuts from the shy, concealing razor blades in the lucky dip – that kind of thing) then everything would pass without any significant incident.
The only crisis came when Mrs Maguire’s sister approached to tell them that the Beautiful Baby competition had been beset by controversy. A couple had come all the way from Chepstow, goodness knows how they had ended up in Grantchester, and had entered their new daughter Joanne, ruffling a few local feathers and provoking a considerable debate about whether the contest was open only to local families or not.
‘Is she likely to win?’ Sidney asked.
‘I’m afraid so. She’s a very beautiful baby.’
‘Who’s the judge?’
‘I think you are, Canon Chambers.’
‘We’d better disqualify her then. I don’t want to upset a parishioner by giving the prize to a stranger.’
As he wandered through the stalls, trying to look busy without spending money, Sidney thought about the case of the fallen piano. He was beginning to make a little deductive progress when he was interrupted by a man who wanted to ask him about the parish boundary fencing and who ended his question with the statement: ‘I know you think I am boring.’
Unfortunately, this was true. Sidney had indeed thought that and was embarrassed about being caught. The man was dull, but that did not mean he wasn’t decent, that he didn’t have any emotions, or that perhaps he was too frightened by life to take any risks and be entertaining. Perhaps his very timidity made him more interesting.
Sidney tried to pay attention to what the man was saying. It soon emerged that he was Dennis Gaunt’s brother, the father of the crane operator at the time of the accident. Now Sidney really would have to concentrate, he told himself. Perhaps he had missed something already?
It was a small world, Vic Gaunt was explaining, but at least people acknowledged what a blow this latest event had been to his family. But then, he continued, Sidney probably knew this. His curate was a family friend.
Sidney did not know this.
It turned out that Malcolm Mitchell had shared holidays with the Gaunts from the age of seven. His dad had been a pal of Dennis and they had gone with Maureen and the girls to Southsea in the mid-fifties.
Why hadn’t Malcolm said anything? Perhaps, Sidney thought, it was because he had not been asked; or was it because Sidney himself had been too preoccupied, superior even, and that his colleague had never felt that the time was right to tell him?
‘I suppose you’ll be going to see my son in hospital?’ Victor Gaunt wondered.
‘I was hoping to do so, yes.’
‘You’ll probably get more sense out of him than you would with my brother.’
‘I wasn’t planning on talking to everyone; only those in need.’
‘Oh, Dennis is in need all right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Lets things get to him. Some people say it’s since our mother died, others blame the adult-education classes he’s been taking; but he’s always been a worrier. He went to the doctor and got some pills for depression but they haven’t done any good.’
‘Who’s his doctor?’
‘Robinson. Your friend.’
‘You seem to know a lot about me.’
‘You have a reputation, Canon Chambers.’
‘I wouldn’t call it that.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you call it, does it? It’s what other people say that matters.’
‘And what do “other people say”, if that doesn’t sound too vain?’
‘Well it’s funny you should use that word, Canon Chambers.’ (Sidney did not like it when people repeated his name. It was a sign that they were about to tell him something unpleasant.) ‘Some people say that you are a bit of a show-off.’
Sidney wished he hadn’t asked.
‘They say that if it wasn’t for the crime business you’d be quite a decent priest. But you get distracted. That’s why everyone goes to see your curate.’
Sidney considered the question of popular appeal once more. He was forty-four years old, he told himself. Was it too late to change his ways?
It was true that he was bored by administrative duties, that his handling of the parish accounts would not be what a bank manager would ever describe as ‘detailed’, or even accurate, and that he probably did spend more time with women than with men, but at least church numbers were up rather than down, he had baptised more children and married more couples than he had taken funerals, and he liked to think that he always offered comfort and consolation to those parishioners who had asked in hours of need. For most of the time, he had put church before crime.
He thought back to his first involvement in an investigation. It was how he had met Hildegard. Then he remembered all the subsequent cases that had followed: of burnt barns, stolen paintings, and murdered priests, jazz musicians, actors and even some of his much-loved and elderly parishioners.
This business of the fallen piano would be his last case, he told himself. He could hardly continue after he had become an archdeacon. He could already imagine being told that there were plenty of other people, better qualified than he, who would be able to investigate crime and miscarriages of justice. He would have more important things to do: meetings with the Diocesan Board of Finance, the appointment of clergy and even judging a Most Beautiful Baby competition.
On the Monday after the fête, Hildegard had arranged to have her piano tuned. Sidney seized the opportunity to ask their visitor a few discreet questions about the technicalities involved in moving large musical instruments.
The tuner, Alfred Delbern, was a thin, precise man with tousled brown hair to match his corduroy trousers and camel-toned brogues. He was a man with unrestricted clothing and precisely cut fingernails. Everything about him was drawn towards hands which were long and exposed at the end of a light-brown cardigan and a shirt worn without a tie. There was nothing to constrict their movement.
Mr Delbern spoke of how the piano was an object of transformation; how it could take on different colour and character, suggesting at any one time the singing voice or even a full orchestra. Its action should be well measured in key depth and resistance, and it should, ideally, be suited for a concerto no less than for a lieder recital.
This was more than Sidney needed to know but, as he took in the lengthy process involved, he couldn’t help but question if it
bore any resemblance to the art of detection.
He sat for a moment and listened as the tuner hit each note hard to see how long each string stayed in tune and how long it took for the sound to die away. It was longer than the piano had taken to fall, but not as long as the echo of the metal frame, soundboard, ribs, bridges, strings, hammers, dampers and keys.
He wondered if the length of the echo was determined by the duration of the fall. Was there a limit to the volume involved and how much did the height of the drop matter? If the piano had fallen from a first-floor rather than a second-floor window, would Orlando still be alive? Did it matter which part of the instrument had hit him and where it was at its heaviest? Would a removal man have been able to calculate the nature of the drop and how difficult would it be to time it?
The piano tuner responded briefly to Sidney’s questions. He didn’t like to be disturbed in his duties and suggested that they stop for a cup of tea if the matter required further discussion. Once they had done so (to Hildegard’s considerable irritation – why couldn’t Sidney just let the man get on with his work?), Alfred Delbern put forward the idea that there was no such thing as the death of sound; that it never died but diminished in amplitude. He had a friend who believed, for example, that Stonehenge was a repository of dormant sound, and that if you invented the right device you could uncover lost music. What would the music in the stones of a Gothic cathedral sound like?
As the man was talking, Sidney shifted position on the sofa and spied his wallet. It had fallen down the side. Although he had not sat there for ages he was convinced that he had turned over the cushions eight times on the day of the fête, hunting in vain. What was his wallet doing there? He couldn’t help but feel that there was some kind of conspiracy.
He tried to concentrate. A man was being exceptionally interesting but all he was doing was worrying about his wallet. Had the piano tuner noticed that Sidney had been distracted?
No. He was still talking. Hildegard had come in to listen. They were speaking about silence.
It was the basis of music, Alfred Delbern continued. ‘We find it before, after, in, undemeath and behind the sound. Some pieces emerge out of silence or lead back into it. But silence ought also to be the core of each concert. The word “silent” is an anagram of “listen”.’
Sidney thought he could preach well about this. It was amazing how ideas came to him when he stopped and appreciated what people were telling him. The nature of silence and the opportunity it gave for prayer and contemplation might lead, he thought, to what he could call a ‘music of the mind’.
He would work on that, just as he would think about the possibility that sounds, like ideas, never died. They were waiting to be found. If he could apply that logic to the case on which he was working and find clues that were always there, ready to be discovered, then perhaps he might make some progress.
He knew his way round Addenbrooke’s Hospital from his duties as a priest but his ongoing investigations gave that familiarity added depth. It meant that he had to be particularly tactful with a hospital chaplain who had become wary of these increasing incursions on to his patch. He complained that Sidney’s visits always made him feel that the cavalry had arrived.
Lennie Gaunt lay with his upraised leg in a bed by the far window. ‘This is the only way I’m ever going to get plastered in this bloody place,’ he told his visitor. ‘Still, it could have been worse – for me, at least.’
‘It could indeed.’
‘You knew the man with the piano?’
‘He was one of my friends.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Plenty of people think it was.’
Lennie was in his late twenties. He had twelve years of experience with the family firm. He had never made a mistake like this before.
Sidney asked if there was anything unusual about the lift, the arrangement of people, the calling out of instructions. ‘It was unfortunate you slipped. It wasn’t a wet day.’
‘No, your dog put me off.’
‘I think it might have been rather more than my dog. Was the piano properly secured?’
‘It was at the bottom. Then we had to untie it to get it in. I lost my balance. My left leg’s a bit weak, I broke it playing football a few years ago, and it just gave way. Bloody useless now, and it’ll never get strong again. Just hope I can still work. They won’t put me on the crane again. That is, if we get any more business and my uncle doesn’t go off his trolley.’
‘You mean he might?’
‘He disappears. Just goes off.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘We’re not sure where he goes. He doesn’t like to talk about it. It makes him jumpy if we ask.’
‘Orlando was a nervous man too. Did any of you know him well?’
‘We just did the job. We don’t spend much time with college types. Town and gown. You know how it is.’
Sidney checked. ‘So there were no problems?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No arguments about money; or about the way to do things?’
‘What are you getting at?’
Sidney needed to backtrack and yet secure information at the same time. ‘I know Orlando didn’t have very much money. I was surprised he could afford the piano in the first place.’
‘I think the bursar paid for the move. Uncle Dennis heard that he took Wednesday afternoons off and didn’t want him to slip out without paying. Money’s a bit tight in our family. The secret, Dad says, is to be quick to invoice and slow to pay; but Uncle Dennis says we’re always on the edge of bankruptcy. It gets to him sometimes.’
‘But he wasn’t desperate, was he?’
‘It’s a family firm, Canon Chambers. It’s like a ship. If it sinks we all go down with it. That’s why I’ve got to get back to work.’
‘I imagine it’ll be a while yet.’
‘Then I’ll have to hope that something comes up. A bit of luck on the horses to make up for my leg.’
‘Did your firm have insurance?’
‘For the piano, yes. Not for my leg. In any case, those bastards never pay up.’
‘You’ve tried before?’
‘Dad has. Says you can’t trust them. You have to find other ways to cover yourself.’
‘And what do you think he meant by that?’
‘I haven’t the foggiest, Canon Chambers.’
The funeral took place on Thursday 5th August. As he robed for the service, Sidney remembered, once more, how Orlando had first welcomed his wife to Cambridge and made an arrangement of Hildegard of Bingen’s music in her honour. His bright, thoughtful, attractive personality was so far from the silence of death, he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him. Surely this was all a horrible accident and he should just speak about fate and beauty, time and chance?
Hildegard played the opening aria of The Goldberg Variations in memory and tribute, and then the choir of Corpus Christi was joined by professional singers from across the country to perform the most glorious Early English church music: the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from The Eton Choirbook; the arrangements by Thomas Tallis of the Ordinal from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter (the manuscript of which was held in Corpus) and the perfect seven-part miniature: Miserere nostri.
Sidney preached a sermon based on the late-fifteenth-century anthem ‘Jesus autem transiens’ by Robert Wylkynson. Scored for thirteen male singers, representing the twelve apostles and Christ, the work was a canon in twelve sections. One by one the apostles said their name when their turn came, proclaiming the cantus firmus – ‘Jesus passed through their midst’ – and a line from the Apostles’ Creed. The anthem moved from left to right across a line of singers, like light across a hillside, building to a moment when all thirteen voices were sounding: Christ surrounded by his disciples, before each one fell away until only one man was left singing on the extreme right before the piece ended.
Sidney began by affirm
ing that ‘Jesus passed through their midst’ and then developed his theme: that Jesus is not static but moving. He passes through, as he must through all our lives, and as we must travel through life itself. His revelation will always be for a limited time, just as our lives have their allotted span: and even though that span might be cut short, the passing moment of revelation through faith, beauty or music was no less bright, no less defining. They were moments of definition; Orlando’s decision to become a musician, to concentrate on early music, to come to Corpus and, perhaps most importantly, to marry his wife Cecilia. We carry the memory of those events as they pass among us, Sidney concluded, hoping we notice what matters and that we take the opportunity, however fleeting, of appreciating life in all its fullness.
The service ended with Mozart’s ‘Soave Sia il Vento’ from Così fan Tutte. It was the celebratory piece that had been sung at Orlando and Cecilia’s wedding. This was as good as funerals got, Sidney thought, the music enhancing the structure and beauty of the language of the prayer book; a grateful ending to a life.
Sidney walked forward to give the blessing. As he did so, he noticed a man standing at the back. He was sure that he had not been there for long. It was Dennis Gaunt, the foreman, muttering and crying. He left before Sidney could speak to him.
At the wake, Cecilia Richards was appreciative of all that Sidney had said. She repeated that she couldn’t believe what had happened. Sometimes she thought it was so unusual, so freakish an occurrence, that there must be an explanation. It couldn’t have been a random accident. Had Sidney thought that too? Was he doing any investigating?
Rather than lie, Sidney evaded the question. He talked about the exemplary nature of her marriage.
She smiled sadly. ‘No one really believes two people could be as happy as we were but there was no pretence about anything we did. We loved each other. I remember laughing that we were young enough to get up to a golden wedding anniversary and that I couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else. Perhaps I’ve been punished for expecting too much, for ignoring fate, for being happy.’
