A Dead Man Out of Mind (9 page)

CHAPTER 6

    
Who have whet their tongue like a sword: and shoot out their arrows, even bitter words.

Psalm 64.3

Supper had been eaten and the washing up had been accomplished; Lucy and David had learned from experience, during their months of living together, that unless the washing up was done immediately after supper, it was not likely to be done until the next day. Now, though, it was out of the way, and they were curled up together on the sofa in front of the fire, drinking their coffee and enjoying each other's company. Tonight Lucy had suggested accompanying the coffee with brandy: she felt that she needed it – and deserved it – after her afternoon with the women's club.

Through supper she'd told David about the experience, dwelling on the dreadfulness of Dolly Topping. He was entirely sympathetic. ‘From what her husband said,' he confirmed, ‘I got the strongest feeling that she rules him with a rod of iron.'

‘I'm sure she does. She's really bossy – I found her absolutely terrifying. And she's unwilling to accept the existence of any point of view but her own.'

David grinned. ‘And he is a bit of a wimp, I fear.'

She'd told him, as well, of Rachel Nightingale: her tragic story, and her imminent arrival in the parish. The woman's history, seen through Emily's sympathetic eyes, had touched Lucy deeply, and she found herself returning to the subject again and again. ‘Poor Rachel. I can't imagine how they'll treat her at St Margaret's. Dolly Topping will be vile to her – she doesn't deserve that.'

‘And I don't think that the churchwardens will be particularly gentle with her either.' David set his empty coffee cup on the table and put his arm around Lucy's shoulders. The room was cosy, the fire and the brandy were warming, and he was ready to progress to the next stage of the evening.

She twisted around to look at him. ‘They didn't mention anything about her to you at all?'

‘No, nothing.' He took her cup from her, putting it next to his. ‘Though that isn't really surprising, if it wasn't announced till last Sunday. Presumably they were keeping it quiet until then.'

‘Did they know about it, do you think?'

‘Oh, probably. But I was there to talk about the silver, not the curate.' He kissed her. ‘Can't we change the subject now?' he murmured. ‘If I remember correctly, this is where we left off this morning.'

Lucy responded to him for a moment, then pulled away. ‘The silver!' she said. ‘This morning you promised to show me something about the silver, darling. A picture in a book – remember?'

David was loath to be interrupted. ‘Can't it wait till later?'

But the amatory mood was broken, at least as far as Lucy was concerned; her curiosity was as aroused as David's libido. ‘If you don't get up right now,' she predicted, ‘there's no hope of you finding that book tonight.'

He acknowledged the truth of her statement, but failed to see it as the end of the world. ‘Is that so terrible? Won't tomorrow do?' He kissed her again. ‘Isn't this more fun?'

‘Please? I'd really like to see it. Then we can go to bed.'

‘Oh, all right,' David grumbled, sighing a martyr's sigh and disentangling himself from her. ‘If it's that important to you.'

He went upstairs and pulled down the ladder to the loft, where his boxes of books were stored. When he'd moved out of his house, a few months previously, he'd put most of his books into store in Norfolk pending a more permanent arrangement, but he'd brought a few boxes of favourites with him. In the event, Lucy's tiny house, with its crowded bookshelves, couldn't absorb even these few essential volumes, and they'd been consigned to the loft.

As he looked over the boxes, his thoughts returned to their earlier conversation about Rachel Nightingale. The story interested him from a legal as well as a human point of view: he was sure that he remembered reading and hearing about the case, in which she had been awarded an astronomical amount of financial compensation, based on her husband's brilliant future in science and his subsequent reduction to a brain-dead condition. There had been something special about that case – it had set some legal precedent, or been noteworthy in some way. He wished he could remember what it was.

While his mind was thus engaged, David found the box with the books on Victorian churches, dusted it off, and in short order retrieved the book he was looking for, the catalogue from a V & A exhibition entitled
Victorian Church Art.
He took it back to the sitting room, where Lucy had put another log on the fire and was pouring out second helpings of brandy.

‘That didn't take long.' She smiled and patted the sofa next to her invitingly.

Demonstrating his displeasure at her recent treatment of him, David instead took a chair. ‘I knew which box it was in.' He flipped through the book, looking for the illustrations. ‘As I said, Pugin's style was quite distinctive. Here, for example, is a ciborium, quite similar to the pair they've got at St Margaret's.' He began to hand the book across to her, then suddenly snatched it back and stared at the illustration. ‘Good Lord,' he said.

Lucy was baffled at the look on his face as he rapidly scanned the text under the picture. ‘What's the matter, darling?'

He didn't even hear her, so focused was he on the book. ‘Good Lord,' he repeated softly. After a moment he looked up. ‘It
is
like the set they've got,' he said with quiet assurance.

‘What do you mean?'

‘The silver at St Margaret's – the silver that they want to sell. I thought that it was fairly late, made to one of Pugin's designs after his death. But it says here that this set was extremely early. Lucy love, don't you see? St Margaret's set is almost exactly like this – that means it's very rare, and much more valuable than I thought.'

‘Are you sure?'

He shook his head. ‘I can't be positive until I've seen it again, and taken a closer look at the hallmarks. I'll ring the Vicar,' he decided. ‘Perhaps he could meet me at the church.'

‘Now? At this hour?'

He glanced at his watch. ‘It's not that late – barely gone nine.'

Lucy forbore to say that he was the one who was ready to go to bed a quarter of an hour before; instead she gave him an arch look. ‘Shouldn't you ring the sacristan? After what you told me about him, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to drop whatever he's doing and meet you. At the church. Alone.'

‘Ha. Very funny.'

‘Seriously, though – shouldn't you ring the wardens? They're the ones who contacted you in the first place.'

‘Technically I'm taking instructions from the Vicar
and
churchwardens.' He went to the phone. ‘So at the risk of incurring the legendary wrath of Dolly Topping, I suppose I'd better ring them as well.'

David rang the Vicar first, and was restrained in what he told him – he had reason to believe, he said, that the silver might be more important than he had at first thought, and he would like a chance to examine it again at the earliest opportunity, in the light of what he now knew. That was enough, though, to make the Vicar amenable to going out on a cold night, and on very short notice.

In the end five of them gathered in the sacristy some twenty minutes later. Both churchwardens had been only too eager to come, and the Vicar had brought along Stanley Everitt, with whom he had been having a meeting when David's call had come through.

They all watched in anticipation as the Vicar opened the safe and brought out the pieces of silver, one by one. As Martin Bairstow had done a few days earlier, he lined them up side by side on the vestment chest. ‘There,' he commented. ‘I always did think it was uncommonly fine silver. What are you going to tell us about it now, Mr Middleton-Brown?'

David opened the book to the page he'd marked and laid it down next to the silver; the similarity was unmistakeable. ‘You see? It's very like the set he designed for St Mary's Church, Clapham – comparable in quality and design.' He picked up the thurible and scrutinised the hallmarks with the magnifying glass he'd brought along for the purpose. ‘Yes. John Hardman and Co., 1850. It all fits!'

‘Is that good?' Norman Topping asked naïvely.

‘You told us the other night that it was designed by Pugin,' Bairstow stated, looking at his watch. ‘Was this really worth bringing us out tonight for? Why does it matter that it's like the set in the book?'

David took a deep breath; there was no point getting annoyed, he told himself – they really
didn't
understand. ‘Don't you see?' he explained patiently. ‘It means that it's extremely valuable.'

‘Valuable?' echoed Stanley Everitt, his face sharpening.

‘Extremely valuable.' David reached out a finger and stroked the thurible with an unconscious gesture. ‘It's much earlier than I thought it was, made in Pugin's lifetime. Most of Pugin's work was done for the Roman Church, of course, so for an Anglican church to have a set . . .'

‘How much?' Bairstow asked bluntly. ‘How much is it worth?'

‘That's a difficult question. It always depends on how much someone is willing to pay, but I'd say that you're looking at a figure well over a hundred thousand pounds. Each piece on its own would fetch five figures, and as a set it's worth even more.'

‘Cor,' breathed Norman Topping; Everitt drew in his breath, and Bairstow nodded in satisfaction.

Father Keble Smythe had been taking it all in; now he spoke thoughtfully. ‘That's wonderful news, of course. But what are the implications, now that we know what it is?'

David had been thinking about that very question on his way to the church. ‘Well, of course it will make the sale more difficult,' he admitted. ‘For starters, the Diocesan Advisory Committee might not want you to sell it – they could quite legitimately claim that it's a unique treasure, and should stay here at St Margaret's. If the DAC throw up any obstacles, it will probably go to Consistory Court, and that will take time, and cost money – counsel will have to be briefed, and there will be other expenses. But at the end of the day,
if
you're allowed to sell it, you should have a small fortune on your hands.'

‘Oh.' The Vicar stroked his chin. ‘So it will take time, will it?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

A significant look passed between the churchwardens. ‘I think that we'd better discuss this between us before you take the matter any further,' Bairstow stated.

Everitt turned on him. ‘But surely now that we know what it is, we can't just forget about it! It's unique and valuable – you heard what he said!' Wringing his hands, he pulled his normally lugubrious mouth into an approximation of a smile, revealing long teeth from which the gums had receded; this gave him an even stronger resemblance than usual to a skull. ‘I don't know about you, but I think it's wonderful news!'

‘What is the next step?' Father Keble Smythe put in. ‘If we should decide to go ahead with the sale, that is.'

David lifted the thurible by its slender silver chains. ‘In any case, whether you decide to go ahead or not, you should have it authenticated and valued. The V and A will do that for you, and they won't charge for it, but it will take a few weeks.'

‘Do you have any doubt at all?' Everitt picked up the monstrance and held it protectively against his chest. ‘I mean, is there a chance that they'll tell us that it's a later copy?'

‘No.' David shook his head. ‘I'm sure it's a very rare set of early Pugin silver. And in three or four weeks' time, that's what the V and A will tell you as well.'

The churchwardens exchanged another look. ‘Then perhaps, Mr Middleton-Brown,' said Martin Bairstow, ‘you would be so good as to see to that for us.'

‘And I don't need to tell you all,' the Vicar added, ‘that until this is settled, the matter is not to go any farther than these four walls. No one else needs to know.'

‘What about the sacristan?' asked Everitt with an anxious look. ‘Mr West will want to know where his silver has gone.'

‘I'll deal with Mr West,' asserted the Vicar firmly. ‘I'll talk to him tomorrow – leave it with me.'

Some time later, David walked home through the chill night, his hands in his pockets for warmth. It was very strange, he reflected, that the churchwardens, who had been so keen to sell the silver when they thought it was worth a relative pittance, now seemed reluctant to pursue the sale when it could bring them a very large windfall. He didn't deceive himself that they had any attachment to the silver itself – as he would have done – either for its intrinsic value, its historic interest, or its beauty. Even the Vicar had seemed subdued in the face of what David thought of as good news of the best possible sort. Only the Parish Administrator had seemed as overjoyed as he would have expected them all to be. It was most puzzling.

He wondered what Lucy, with her shrewd insights into people and their motivations, would make of it. In spite of the Vicar's injunction, he knew that he would discuss it with her: after all, she already knew what he'd discovered about the silver, so what was the point of keeping quiet about it now? And he knew that he could trust absolutely in Lucy's discretion.

The other question that fascinated him was that of the silver's origins. How had it come into the possession of St Margaret's in the first place? Who had commissioned it? And why had no one discovered it before? From what he had read, he thought he could make a fairly good guess. At the time St Margaret's Church was built, in the mid-nineteenth century, Pugin had been considered a dangerously popish designer. If an early benefactor – perhaps the first Vicar – had commissioned a set of Pugin silver for the new church, it surely would have been sailing close to the wind. No one would have publicised it; on the contrary, it would have been considered so naughty that its existence would have been kept as quiet as possible, and within a few years its origins might have been completely forgotten. It could very easily have happened that way, David realised.