Caroline Minuscule (8 page)

Dougal was not altogether surprised to find that the booklet had been written by the Rev Oswyth Vernon-Jones, CBE, MA, Canon of Rosington. Since they had reached the Crossed Keys, a disturbing logic had usurped control of events. First the mention of Pooterkin, then the appearance of the two men – were they staying at the hotel? – one of whom was probably Lee himself, and now Vernon-Jones's name beneath the glossy cover photograph of the west front. Dougal felt like a gambler who had transcended the statistics of probability.

Amanda and he sat on a sofa with the booklet open between them and the coffee tray on a low table in front of them. Dougal was tempted to have a drink but decided in favour of a relatively clear head instead. Amanda looked at the pictures and Dougal skimmed through the text.

Vernon-Jones concentrated on the medieval period. While it was clear that he approved of the elevation of the Abbey church to the status of a cathedral, he deplored the destructive consequences of the secession from Rome:
Puritan vandals wantonly destroyed the magnificent fifteenth-century stained glass; only a few fragments remain in St Tumwulf's chapel behind the High Altar. The interior furnishings of the church, including the earliest known example of a medieval clock in the north transept, were ruthlessly consigned to oblivion by the intolerance of the reformers. It is indeed fortunate that the last Abbot and first Dean, Gervase of Charleston, was able to preserve at least some of the priceless manuscripts of the monastic library . . .

Amanda nudged him warningly. The two men were standing in the doorway of the dining room, to the left of the notice board and the reception desk, exchanging laboured compliments with the waitress. She was laden with a tray piled high with dirty dishes but was accepting the badinage civilly enough, in a manner which suggested she had been well tipped. With a final ‘Oo, you shouldn't,' she vanished towards the kitchens and the two men came out into the hall.

Both of them were flushed and breathing heavily, as if the steaks and the litre of house red which they had consumed constituted a sort of internal assault course. Dougal thought they looked like the sort of travelling salesmen who ruled the marketing of their product over large sections of the country, and had expense accounts to match their vice-regal commercial powers.

The elder one had the appearance of a well-fed, prosperous badger. He was pear-shaped, with pepper-and-salt hair and a long, wide nose which dwarfed the other features of his face. His teeth projected from his upper jaw beyond his lips; they were crooked and yellow, and gave the illusion that they were not so much teeth as an ill-devised extension of his nose.

His companion was younger – about the same age as Dougal, probably – and taller. He gangled over his leader – there was no mistaking the pecking order here: the attitudes of the two made it immediately clear. He had thinning, golden hair, which curled over his ears in a travesty of a barrister's wig.

Both of them were wearing very new, light-coloured suits. The taller man's was double-breasted and the jacket hung loosely, flapping over the hollow between his rounded shoulders, its brass buttons twinkling in the light. The older man's was more conservative in cut. In the breast pocket of each was a neatly folded handkerchief, pink and fawn respectively, which toned tastefully with the wearers' shirts and ties.

They stood talking quietly in the middle of the hall for a moment, facing Dougal and Amanda. Then the middle-aged one turned to Mrs Livabed behind the reception desk, and said something which they couldn't catch. Her reply, however, genteel modulations to the fore, was perfectly audible by the fire:

‘Well, I'm
sow
glad you enjoyed your dinner, Mr Lee. Would you care for a key if you're going out?'

‘No,' said Mr Lee, more loudly than before. He had the sort of voice with the trick of carrying if he wanted it to. ‘Should be back by about eleven. We're just meeting some friends for a drink.'

‘Mind you don't get too wet. It's still coming down as hard as ever.'

Lee laughed and his companion fetched their raincoats from the hooks on the wall. The latter helped his leader into his, and wriggled himself into his own. His long, bony wrists dangled beneath the cuffs. They said goodnight and walked out into the rain, shoulders hunched.

The Church Dormant ambled out of the dining room, a stately shuffle which was supported by a walking stick. He mumbled something to Mrs Livabed, looked over at Dougal and Amanda, sighed and made his way to the armchair furthest away from them, by the window. Dougal felt guilty; just, he suspected, as the old man had intended. He also felt worried. He put down his coffee cup, the spoon rattling on the saucer, and lit a cigarette.

‘That settles it,' Amanda whispered. ‘Hanbury was telling the truth. And there's the man who had him killed.'

Dougal nodded. He was trying to remember what Hanbury had said in his letter – something about getting out before Lee should have the slightest ground for suspicion. It would be stupid to stay here. Why risk what they had for . . .

‘It simplifies things for us, doesn't it?' continued Amanda. She looked at him. ‘Oh, come on, William! We can't chicken out now. It's just getting interesting.'

Before he had time to say anything, Mrs Livabed approached and asked if they wanted some more coffee. Amanda said yes and ordered two brandies as well. When she had gone, Dougal said:

‘I'm a bit scared – aren't you? We're playing outside our league. I don't want us to end up dead.' It was hard to make a whisper sound convincing.

Amanda explained succinctly why they were not risking anything by staying here for a day or two and, well, being open to suggestion. She managed to make Dougal feel that to do otherwise would be a despicable course of action – not so much by her words as by her eyes, which looked large and expectant, as if daring the world to disappoint her. The world might have been able to, but Dougal certainly couldn't. And, having decided to go along with her, he was about to suggest they think up an excuse for asking questions when Mrs Livabed returned.

She set the tray on their table. ‘It's not stopped raining since you came. Pouring down. Mad, that's what they are – Mr Lee and Mr Tanner – going out in this weather. They'll get soaked. As if there wasn't drink enough in here.'

‘Perhaps they were visiting friends who live nearby,' said Amanda sweetly. ‘Or maybe they're the sort who don't enjoy their pleasures unless they make an effort for them.'

Mrs Livabed laughed, a sound which took twenty years from her age. ‘You could be right there, my dear. Men are a funny lot, present company excepted, of course. And don't I know it.' Her tone hinted at a limitless reservoir of personal knowledge on the subject. ‘We get all sorts here. You're from London, then?'

Her curiosity was so lacking in self-consciousness that Dougal couldn't be offended by it. Anyway, it gave him the perfect opening to show Amanda that he was perfectly capable of dealing with this business in his own way.

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘I'm a writer, actually.' He sipped the brandy and could feel it joining the wine and beer which had gone before it, lubricating both his imagination and his tongue. ‘This is by way of a working holiday for us.'

‘You don't say. I'd never have guessed. You don't look at all like Mr Pooterkin – he was the last writer we had here. Are you interested in the cathedral too?'

‘Yes, but not in the same way. I'm a freelance writer for television, you see. I want to investigate the possibility of a documentary series on cathedral cities – you know the sort of thing: old and new – picturesque history, local buildings, interviews with people who live here, local industries, how the cathedral affects the city and . . . er . . . so on.'

Mrs Livabed was fascinated.

‘Which channel's it going to be, dear? We get BBC of course, but otherwise you can only get Anglia properly.'

‘I don't know yet. Early days. I have to write a proposal for a series and then get some company interested. It's not an easy market to break into, of course – especially nowadays.' Mrs Livabed nodded solemnly, and Dougal almost laughed aloud: it was so easy to sound convincing about something you knew nothing about. ‘We're down here to soak up the atmosphere and so forth – get an idea of the potential. Which reminds me – we were reading this booklet about the cathedral by . . .' Dougal glanced down at the cover ‘. . . this Canon Vernon-Jones. It could be useful to have a word with him this weekend about the historical side. Can you tell us where he lives?'

‘Ow, dear. You're just too late.' Mrs Livabed looked genuinely affronted by the contrariness of death. ‘He passed on last month. Heart attack. Such a pity – he would have been just the man for you. He helped Mr Pooterkin ever such a lot. There was nothing he didn't know about the cathedral. Used to live at Bleeders Hall. And such a
nice
man, too. Not all holier-than-thou and just-a-small-dry-sherry like most of the reverends round here. Liked his Scotch, he did.'

‘Oh. That's a shame.' Dougal mournfully offered his cigarettes around (‘Not when I'm on duty, thank you love, some of our customers are that old-fashioned, you wouldn't believe'). ‘I don't suppose there's anyone else who might be able to help us there?'

‘Well.' Mrs Livabed absentmindedly emptied the contents of their ashtray into the fire. ‘Your best bet would be Mrs Munns in Sacristy Row. She's a widow, poor soul – her husband was Precentor here, and when he died they let her have that house because old Canon Stevens had popped off and it was empty, not that they didn't know which side their bread was buttered because she runs the flower rota and the WI and the town would fall apart without her and that's the truth. She was very friendly with Mr Vernon-Jones – helped him with his history and all that. And he made a real pet of Lina (that's Mrs Munns's little girl: shy little thing but ever so sweet), you know the way old men can be with small children, liked surprising her with presents and seeing her smile, not that he left her anything when he passed on except that dog of his . . .'

‘Mrs Munns sounds a useful person to see.' Dougal rushed bravely into the flow of Mrs Livabed's conversation, directing his words at a point equidistant between her and Amanda.

‘She might be called,' said Mrs Livabed with refined deliberation, as if she had thought long and hard before making the judgement, ‘a pillar of society. Only the other week—' the customary speed of delivery was resumed ‘—she said to me at the Bring-and-Buy sale for St Withburga's central heating (that's our local parish church, the one on the other side of the green), she said, “Mrs Livabed, these functions just wouldn't happen if we weren't here to make the teas and see to the change.” (We were having a quiet cuppa before clearing up after the doors closed.) And I remember saying to her, I said, where would this place be without people like us, we're like the Unknown Soldier or that man in a poem we had to learn at school,
Unwept, unhonoured and unsung
. Or was it dishonoured? It's a shame kids don't learn things like that at school these days, don't you think?'

‘Women are always the real rulers,' said Amanda in the tiny pause which followed.

‘Oh, that is so true. Well look at marriage. My poor husband was always talking about wearing the trousers and that shows you, doesn't it?' She winked ponderously, like an elephant lowering her eyelid, to Amanda. ‘Still, mustn't give away trade secrets, must I? It wouldn't do for Mr Massey here to know too much.'

For one awful second, Dougal felt himself struggling with the urge to say, ‘Who's Mr Massey?' He managed to ask where Mrs Munns lived, making a mental note to practice saying William Massey to himself in front of the mirror before going to bed.

‘Sacristy Row, dear. That's up the other end of the High Street – the road that goes up by the hotel. You go past the two gateways to the close on your right and there's Sacristy Row – a little old line of houses like something out of a fairy story. It's number eight, I think. The one with the green curtains.'

The telephone at the reception desk began to ring. Mrs Livabed gathered their dirty cups and glasses on to the tray with swift, mindless efficiency. ‘More trouble than it's worth, that thing,' she confided, and moved away across the hall to answer it.

Dougal looked at Amanda and grinned. The conversation with Mrs Livabed had made him feel more cheerful. Possibly the brandy had helped. In some way, hearing about Mrs Munns had given his mind something to do besides worry about the risk posed by the presence of Lee. And the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of visiting her. And Mrs Munns, Vernon-Jones's close friend, fitted in with the suggestion contained in Hanbury's Bible reference – the
seek and ye shall find
implied something obvious, surely. Where more obvious place to start than with a person who had known the dead man well? It was odd to think how different had been the man whom Mrs Livabed had known from the man who gave Hanbury his orders.

The other reason why his mood had changed was the glow of satisfaction caused by the tissue of lies he had told Mrs Livabed. It had been so easy, though unplanned, and seemed to have been convincing. It raised his opinion of his own powers. So much so that when Amanda said, ‘William! Do you realize you'll be known all over Rosington tomorrow as that television man?' he was able to say, ‘Nonsense,' without even thinking about it. His newfound fluency continued:

‘We're not going to be here long enough for that. Anyway, it's the perfect cover for asking questions.'

‘I must say you did it quite well,' said Amanda at length. This was unusually high praise. ‘We'll have to get you one of those clipboards with a pad on and a pair of dark glasses.'

Dougal laughed. The Church Dormant levered himself to his feet and set off towards the stairs, which made Dougal think about going to bed, too, even though it was early. The thought of tomorrow excited him, and he wanted to make it happen as quickly as possible.