Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (2 page)

‘And did you?’

‘I thought it was mad and impossible. I was frightened and thrilled at the same time. He talked about getting back in the car and driving away there and then, down to the coast, and taking a boat across the Channel. I didn’t know what to say. He told me to imagine how we’d laugh, thinking of the havoc we’d wrought. We could drive all the way through France, staying at hopelessly romantic hotels while everyone else continued with their humdrum lives back in Cambridge. We would be free. We would go to Nice and the French Riviera and we would dress up and dance on warm summer nights under the stars. It was crazy and it was wonderful and although we knew we couldn’t leave there and then it was surely only a matter of time. Anything was possible. Everything could change.’

‘When was this? Sidney asked.

‘It was just after the Coronation. The pub still had its bunting up. Four months ago.’

‘I see.’

‘I can understand what you’re thinking.’

‘I am not judging you in any way,’ Sidney replied, knowing that he was not sure what to think. ‘I am listening.’

‘But you must wonder. If we were that impetuous why has it taken us so long? My children have left home but, even so, I thought of them. Then, as soon as we got back home, I became frightened of what it all meant. I began to lose heart. I couldn’t quite believe what had happened. Perhaps it had been a dream and Stephen had never said those things, but then we started to meet each other in secret and I knew that it was the only thing I wanted to do. I was obsessed. I could not believe that no one had noticed any change in me. “Surely they can tell?” I thought to myself. I hardly dared to believe that I was getting away with it. The more it went on the more I couldn’t wait to leave. I was no longer myself. In fact, I didn’t know who I was, but I told Stephen that we had to be sure that we had everything settled before we could do something so rash and that we should go in the New Year.’

‘And he agreed?’

‘As long as he saw me, he said, he believed that anything was possible. And we were happy.’

‘And no one else knew of your plans?’

‘I have a friend in London. She . . . it’s difficult to explain, Canon Chambers. She let me pretend that I was staying with her . . .’

‘When, in reality?’

‘I was in a hotel with Stephen? I’m afraid so. You must think me very cheap.’

Sidney was taken aback by her frankness. ‘It is not for me to pass judgement, Mrs Morton.’

‘Pamela. Please, call me Pamela . . .’

It was too soon for such familiarity. Sidney decided to try not to offer his guest another drink.

‘So you see why I have come, Canon Chambers?’

Sidney couldn’t see anything at all. Why was this woman telling him all this? He wondered if she had got married in church, if she had ever considered her marital vows and how well she got on with her children. ‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked.

‘I can’t go to the police and tell them this.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘I can’t trust them to keep it a secret. My husband is bound to find out and I don’t want to stir things up.’

‘But surely this is a private matter? It is no concern for the police.’

‘It has to be, Canon Chambers.’

‘But why?’

‘Can you not guess? I can’t believe Stephen killed himself. It is totally out of character. We were going to run away together.’

‘So what are you suggesting?’

Pamela Morton sat up and straightened her back. ‘Murder, Canon Chambers. I mean murder.’ She fought to find a handkerchief from her handbag.

‘But who would want to do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know.’

Sidney was out of his depth. It was all very well for someone to come to him and confess their sins but an accusation of murder was a different business altogether. ‘This is quite a dangerous thing to suggest, Mrs Morton. Are you sure that you really think this?’

‘I am certain.’

‘And you have told no one else?’

‘You are the first. When I heard you speak in the service about death and loss I felt sure that I could trust you. You have a reassuring voice. I am sorry I don’t attend church more often. After my brother was killed in the war I found it hard to have faith.’

‘It is difficult, I know.’

Pamela Morton spoke as if she had said all that she had to say. ‘What I have said is the truth, Canon Chambers.’

Sidney imagined his guest sitting through the funeral service, restraining her grief. He wondered if she had looked around the congregation for suspects. But why would anyone have wanted to kill Stephen Staunton?

Pamela Morton recognised that Sidney needed to be convinced. ‘The idea that he took his own life is absurd. We had so much to look forward to. It was as if we were going to be young once more and we could be whoever we wanted to be. We would start again. We were going to live as we have never lived. Those were the last words he spoke to me. “We will live as we have never lived.” Those are not the words of a man who is going to shoot himself, are they?’

‘No, they are not.’

‘And now it’s gone. All that hope. All that wasted love.’ Pamela Morton took up her handkerchief. ‘I can’t bear it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cry.’

Sidney walked over to the window. What on earth was he supposed to do about this? It was none of his business; but then he remembered that, as a priest,
everything
was his business. There was no part of the human heart that was not his responsibility. Furthermore, if Pamela Morton was correct, and Stephen Staunton had not committed what many people still believed to be the sin of suicide, then an innocent man had been unjustly killed and his murderer was still at large.

‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked.

‘Talk to people,’ Pamela Morton answered. ‘Informally if you can. I don’t want anyone to know about my involvement in all this.’

‘But who shall I speak to?’

‘The people who knew him.’

‘I’m not sure what I can ask them.’

‘You are a priest. People tell you things, don’t they?’

‘They do.’

‘And you can ask almost any question, no matter how private?’

‘One has to be careful.’

‘But you know what I mean . . .’

‘I do,’ Sidney replied, as cautiously as he could.

‘Then you could keep what I have said in mind and, if the moment comes, perhaps you might ask a question that you might not otherwise have asked?’

‘I am not sure that I can make any promises. I am not a detective.’

‘But you know people, Canon Chambers. You understand them.’

‘Not all the time.’

‘Well, I hope you understand me.’

‘Yes,’ Sidney replied. ‘You have been very clear. I imagine this must have been terrible. To bear it alone . . .’

Pamela Morton put her handkerchief away. ‘It is. But I have said what I came to say. Are you sure I can rely on your discretion?’ she asked, looking up at him, vulnerable once more. ‘You won’t mention my name?’

‘Of course not.’ Sidney answered, already worrying how long he could keep this secret.

‘I’m so sorry about all of this,’ Mrs Morton continued. ‘I’m ashamed, really. I couldn’t think how to tell you or the words that I was going to use. I don’t know anything at the moment and I’ve had to keep so quiet. I’ve had no one to talk to. Thank you for listening to me.’

‘It is what I am called to do,’ said Sidney and immediately wondered whether this was true. It was his first case of adultery, never mind murder.

Pamela Morton stood up. Sidney noticed that, despite the tears, her mascara had not run. She pushed back that strand of hair again and held out her hand.

‘Goodbye, Canon Chambers. You do believe me, don’t you?’

‘It was brave to tell me so much.’

‘Courage is a quality Stephen said I lacked. If you find out what happened to him then I hope you will inform me first.’ She smiled, sadly, once more. ‘I know where you are.’

‘I am always here. Goodbye, Mrs Morton.’

‘
Pamela 
. . .’

‘Goodbye, Pamela.’

Sidney closed his front door and looked at the watch his father had given him on his ordination. Perhaps there would be time to look in at the wake after all. He returned to his small drawing room with the tired furniture his parents had bought for him at a local auction. The place really did need cheering up, he thought. He gathered the glasses and took them through to the kitchen sink and turned on the hot tap. He liked washing up; the simple act of cleanliness had immediately visible results. He stopped for a moment at the window and watched a robin hopping on the washing line. Soon he would have to get round to his Christmas cards.

He noticed the lipstick marks on the rim of Pamela Morton’s whisky glass and remembered a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay he had read in the
Sunday Times
:

‘What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight . . .’

‘What a mess people make of their lives,’ he thought.

Sidney’s friend Inspector Keating was not amused. ‘It could hardly be more straightforward,’ he sighed. ‘A man stays on in the office after everyone has gone home. He sets about a decanter of whisky and then blows his brains out. The cleaner finds him in the morning, calls the police, we go in, and that’s it: clear as my wife’s crystal.’

The two men were sitting at their favourite table in the RAF bar of The Eagle, a pub that was conveniently situated not far from the police station in St Andrews Street. They had become friends after Sidney had taken the funeral of the inspector’s predecessor, and they now met informally after work every Thursday to enjoy a couple of pints of bitter, play a game of backgammon and share confidences. It was one of the few off-duty moments in the week when Sidney could take off his dog collar, put on a pullover and pretend that he was not a priest.

‘Sometimes,’ he observed, ‘things can be rather too clear.’

‘I agree,’ said the inspector, throwing a five and a three, ‘but the facts of this case are as plain as a pikestaff.’ He spoke with a slight Northumbrian accent, the only remaining evidence of a county he had left at the age of six. ‘So much so, that I cannot believe you are suggesting that we set out on a wild goose chase.’

‘I am not suggesting that.’ Sidney was alarmed by his friend’s assumption that he was making a formal request. ‘I am merely raising an eyebrow.’

Inspector Keating pressed his case. ‘Stephen Staunton’s wife told us that her husband had been depressed. He also drank too much. That’s what the Irish do, of course. His secretary informed us that our man had also started to go to London on a weekly basis and was not in the office as much as he should have been. She even had to cover for him and do some of his more straightforward work; conveyancing and what have you. Then there is the small matter of his recent bank withdrawals; vast sums of money, in cash, which his wife has never seen and no one knows where it has gone. This suggests . . .’

Sidney threw a double five and moved four of his pieces. ‘I imagine you would think the solicitor was a gambling man . . .’

‘I certainly would. And I would also imagine that he might have been using some of his firm’s money to pay for it. If he wasn’t dead I’d probably have to start investigating him for fraud.’ The inspector threw a four and a two and hit one of Sidney’s blots. ‘So I imagine that, when the debts mounted up, and he was on the verge of being discovered, he blew his brains out. It’s common enough, man. Re-double?’

‘Of course.’ Sidney threw again. ‘Ah . . . I think I can re-enter the game.’ He placed his checker on the twenty-three point. ‘Did he leave a note?’

Inspector Keating was irritated by this question. ‘No, Sidney, he did not leave a note.’

‘So there’s margin for error?’

The inspector leaned forward and shook again. He had thought he had the game in the bag but now he could see that Sidney would soon start to bear off. ‘There is no room for doubt in this case. Not every suicide leaves a note . . .’

‘Most do.’

‘My brother-in-law works in the force near Beachy Head. They don’t leave a lot of notes down there, I’m telling you. They take a running jump.’

‘I imagine they do.’

‘Our man killed himself, Sidney. If you don’t believe me then go and pay the widow one of your pastoral visits. I’m sure she’d appreciate it. Just don’t start having any ideas.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ his companion lied, anticipating an unlikely victory on the board.

The living at Grantchester was tied to Sidney’s old college of Corpus Christi, where he had studied theology and now took tutorials and enjoyed dining rights. He enjoyed the fact that his work combined the academic and the clerical, but there were times when he worried that his college activities meant that he did not have enough time to concentrate on his pastoral duties. He could run his parish, teach students, visit the sick, take confirmation classes and prepare couples for marriage, but he frequently felt guilty that he was not doing enough for people. In truth, Sidney sometimes wished that he were a better priest.