Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (9 page)

Annabel Morrison was clearly discomfited by the question. ‘This was never in the diary that I kept.’

‘Perhaps Mr Staunton didn’t like to tell you?’

‘But if he was travelling with Mrs Morton I would have known.’

‘I gather they were rather fond of each other.’

‘What on earth are you suggesting?’

‘I am sure there was nothing compromising or untoward,’ Sidney replied, in as unconvincing a manner as he could.

He had told a second lie.

He was astonished to discover how easy it was.

The railway station at Cambridge had been built in the 1840s, in a symmetrical style in warm local stone, and was the heart of a regular service between London and Kings Lynn. When it was at its busiest the platforms were crowded with people, and this Tuesday morning was no different. A stooping elderly don kept dropping a selection of books which he had tied up with string; three girls were preparing to put their bicycles into the guard’s van; and Pamela Morton was waiting for the 10.04 express train to London. She was wearing a dark burgundy coat and a matching beret, and she carried a small portmanteau. A thickset man in a double-breasted navy pinstriped suit stood to her right. He looked, to all intents and purposes, to be a man about to do business in the City but he held neither briefcase, papers nor an umbrella.

As the express train approached, a petite but determined woman with silver hair pinned in a bun, and dressed entirely in black, made her way through the crowds. She wore dark glasses, although it was November, and leather gloves. She appeared to know exactly where she needed to be on the platform and stood directly behind Pamela Morton.

The train whistled. The woman in black stepped and stretched both arms, palms facing forward. As she leaned back to gain the necessary momentum to push Pamela Morton off the edge of the platform on to the rails and under the train, one man blocked her path, a second pulled her back from behind, while the businessman next to Pamela Morton threw his arm around her waist.

‘What are you doing?’ she shouted, struggling to break free. ‘Let go of me!’

The train braked, slowed and stopped. The businessman let go, and just as Pamela Morton was about to complain to the stationmaster she saw that the two men behind her were holding Annabel Morrison. Her face was filled with fury. ‘You tart. Isn’t one man enough for you?’

‘What do you mean? What are you doing?’

‘It’s all your fault.’

‘My fault?’

‘He was happy with me. You never knew that, did you? He never told you.’

Pamela Morton looked at her lover’s secretary. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘You.’

‘You don’t know anything.’ Annabel Morrison continued. ‘You never knew him at all; what he felt, what he went through, how he suffered. He told me everything.’

‘You tried to kill me.’

‘I could kill you all.’

The doors to the train opened, and the people of Cambridge alighted and boarded. Inspector Keating came forward to make his arrest. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Morton?’

‘I don’t understand. What is this woman doing?’

Keating gestured to his men. ‘Take Miss Morrison away.’

‘You’ll never have him now,’ she spat. ‘No one will.’

Keating turned to Pamela Morton. ‘I’m sorry. Sometimes desperate crimes require desperate measures . . .’

Pamela Morton looked hard at the Inspector. ‘You risked my life.’

‘We had two men following Miss Morrison and one man guarding you since you entered the station. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed.’

‘And how did you know someone would try to kill me?’

‘We didn’t. It was Canon Chambers who suggested that an attempted murder might take place and that we should be ready for this. I believe you know the man.’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Then you can have a word with him yourself. He has been summoned.’

‘I will need more than a word.’

‘Go easy on him, Mrs Morton.’

‘I most certainly won’t,’ Pamela replied, before looking at the receding figure of Miss Morrison. ‘That jealous, murdering bitch.’

When Sidney finally arrived to greet Pamela Morton he could tell that he was in for a roasting. ‘What on earth do you think you were doing having me followed?’ she shouted.

Sidney held out his hand in greeting but it was not shaken. He let his arm fall. ‘It was, I am afraid, a necessary evil.’

‘Was this the only way of doing things? And how did you know it would happen here?’

‘You take this train every Tuesday, I think?’

‘Most Tuesdays . . .’

‘Miss Morrison has always been very particular about train times. I also noticed that she liked to read Russian novels . . .’

‘Fascinating. But I fail to see what this has to do with me,’ Pamela Morton replied, icily.

‘The first time I spoke to her I realised that she was reading
Anna Karenina
. You will be familiar with the work?’

‘I have seen the film. I was not as impressed with Greta Garbo as everyone else seemed to be . . .’

‘A story of adultery that begins and ends on a railway platform. I informed Inspector Keating of my suspicions and although he didn’t quite believe me, he trusted me sufficiently to provide men for your protection . . .’

‘And how did that woman know about me?’

‘That I cannot reveal . . .’

‘You told her, didn’t you?’

‘I told her nothing. I let her make an assumption.’

‘That is as good as telling her. You promised that you would keep my secret. I could have been killed. Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘Sometimes it is not always what you know that matters. It is what you withhold. If you had known of the possible danger then your behaviour might have become unpredictable. It was vital that you knew nothing.’

‘A bit dicey if you ask me.’

‘A calculated risk. Taken by someone you could trust.’

‘That’s all very well for you to say . . .’

‘But we finally discovered the truth, did we not? And your suspicions were proved correct.’

Pamela Morton jumped to the necessary conclusion. ‘So that jumped-up little nobody did everything?’

‘It appears so.’

‘Then I was right.’

‘You did not point the finger . . .’

‘That is true. But I certainly raised the alarm. I suppose there’ll be a trial?’

‘Of course.’

Pamela Morton looked uneasy. ‘It will be a scandal, I imagine. How public will the information become? What shall I tell my husband? How can I explain why his secretary tried to kill me?’

Sidney hesitated. ‘You can tell him that Miss Morrison is a fantasist and create your own story, I would have thought. Perhaps you could say that despite it all, Miss Morrison was really in love with your husband and wanted you out of the way. Most men are flattered when they discover that they have a secret admirer. Convince him of that and it should blind him to everything else.’

‘I hope you’re right. Interesting that you of all people should advocate the telling of untruths.’

Sidney offered her his arm and began to escort his unwilling accomplice from the station. ‘The white lie has its purposes.’

‘I suppose it’s easier to tell than the black.’

‘I prefer white,’ Sidney added before adding a barbed question of his own. ‘But in your case isn’t it simply a matter of preserving the status quo?’

‘I am not sure either of us knows what that is.’

‘I’m sure he’ll believe whatever you say, Mrs Morton.’

‘It’s just as well I was once an actress. Do you think he’s going to go along with even more lies?’

‘Trust me . . .’

Pamela Morton shielded her eyes from the low November sun and gave Sidney a stern look. ‘Do you know, Canon Chambers, I’m not sure that I will. I think I’ve trusted you enough for one day.’

That evening Sidney stopped outside Hildegard Staunton’s front door. He was about to ring the bell when he heard the sound of the piano inside. The music was stark, angular, dramatic and mysterious. It seemed to hover on the edge of atonality, using all twelve notes of the chromatic scale as it built to a conclusion that was as natural as it was inevitable. It was Bach’s Fugue in B Minor; the final piece in the first book of
The Well-Tempered Clavier
.

Hildegard held the final chord for a long time and let the music die away. When Sidney was certain that she was not going to continue, he rang the doorbell.

Inspector Keating had suggested that the news of Annabel Morrison’s arrest would be better coming from a clergyman than a policeman, but Sidney had not decided how much to tell her about all that had happened, or how many details of the case he would leave out.

The light in the porch came on, the door opened, and Hildegard Staunton smiled. ‘Come in,’ she said as he stepped up and stood by her side. ‘I had forgotten how tall you are.’

‘I am often too tall for a room,’ said Sidney. ‘I try to sit down as soon as it is polite to do so.’

‘I hope you don’t develop a stoop,’ Hildegard replied. ‘I always think a man should be proud to be tall.’

‘I try not to be proud,’ said Sidney, sounding more pompous than he had intended.

‘You have come to tell me things?’

‘I have come to return your husband’s diary and, yes, I have come with news.’

‘I can tell already that you are nervous, Canon Chambers.’

‘Sidney . . .’

‘Very well,
Sidney
.’

‘It is not easy.’

‘I am not frightened of difficult things . . .’

‘It is to do with Miss Morrison . . .’

‘Ah . . . She loved my husband . . . I think . . .’

‘You knew?’

‘Women often know more than men think that they do.’

‘Unfortunately . . .’

‘Oh,’ Hildegard Staunton interrupted. ‘Now I see. But it can’t be?’

‘Yes . . .’ Sidney hesitated. He wondered how much she understood.

‘My husband loved me but wanted another. What did she do?’

‘Your husband did not commit suicide, Mrs Staunton. He was murdered by his secretary. I am sorry to have to tell you this.’

‘Why would she do such a thing?’ Hildegard spoke slowly as she tried to take in what Sidney was saying.

‘I think because he stopped seeing her.’

‘He wanted to come back to me? He once told me that he could never leave me.’

Sidney considered his answer. There was no need to tell Hildegard about Pamela Morton. What purpose would it serve other than to hurt her? It was true that the facts could well emerge at Annabel Morrison’s trial but it was likely that Hildegard would have returned to Germany by then. Besides, this was not the time for further revelation. The sin of omission was surely kinder than the telling of truths.

‘No,’ Sidney said quietly. ‘And he never did.’

Hildegard stood up and started to walk round the room. She stopped by the window and looked out. It was almost dark. Sidney could hear the wind gathering outside. It began to rain.

‘You are kind to tell me.’

‘The police were going to come; but I thought it better . . .’

‘If you came yourself? I am grateful. It is horrible but you make it less so.’

‘If you would like me to leave you alone, you just have to say.’

‘No,’ Hildegard replied. ‘Don’t go. We do not have to speak. I have to think of death in a different way now. I wish I didn’t have to consider it so often.’

‘I will stay for as long as you need, Mrs Staunton.’

‘Hildegard.’

‘I am sorry.
Hildegard
.’

‘Please could you sit here beside me? I will try not to cry.’

Sidney moved next to her. He took her hand and held it. Hildegard tightened her grip as she spoke. ‘I do not know what I am saying, perhaps, so you may not believe me, but, to know this, to know even part of this, is relief. That he was not so sad that he killed himself. That I did not drive him to do such a thing.’

She looked at Sidney and the tears came. ‘Is that so very selfish?’

Sidney felt in his pocket for a handkerchief but he was too slow. Her tears fell on to the hand that held hers. ‘I don’t think anyone thought that.’

‘It does not matter what anyone else thought. I thought it.’ She stood up and moved away.

Sidney heard the pain in her voice. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’

‘We cannot help what we think . . .’

‘But perhaps sometimes we should not dwell too much . . .’

‘No,’ said Hildegard as she tried to pull herself together. ‘You are right. It is why I play the piano. It stops me thinking.’ She sat back down beside him. ‘Do you play?’

‘I am afraid not.’

‘Perhaps I should teach you?’

Sidney smiled. His lessons at school had not been a success. He never could get the hang of his two hands doing different things at the same time. ‘I think Germany is rather a long way to go for lessons.’