Murder in a Cathedral (26 page)

‘Yes, but if you remember, she had no difficulty in waking us up to get us to let her in.’

‘She certainly didn’t. I was only surprised she didn’t wake up the whole city of Westonbury.’

‘This is different. She didn’t even come home to supper. I’ve looked all round the close and I can’t see her anywhere. I’m terrified she’s been run over.’

Amiss jumped out of bed. ‘I’ll come out with you.’ He pulled on his clothes and they ran downstairs. As they were going out the front door, Amiss stopped. ‘We should have thought of it last night when we were calling her. Maybe she’s locked in the cathedral.’

‘But she’s usually left it long before the verger locks up.’

‘I’d forgotten. Didn’t Ellis say something about the cathedral being closed after six p.m? I think they were still fingerprinting in the treasury, so they wanted it securely sealed off while the coppers were off duty.’

The bishop rushed inside and found his keys. ‘Oh, the poor little thing. Let’s pray that’s the answer. Oh, dear. She’ll be so hungry and thirsty…’

‘And cross.’

As the bishop opened the side door into the west wall, he sniffed. ‘There’s a strange smell in here. It’s acrid.’

Amiss sniffed. ‘Nasty. Very nasty.’

‘It’s like the aftermath of a fire, isn’t it?’

They looked at each other with dread. Amiss tried to expunge from his mind an image of Plutarch caught in a fire. They walked nervously into the body of the cathedral.

Amiss pointed to the far western corner. ‘The smell’s coming from that direction.’

Slowly and tentatively they walked towards the smell, which became stronger and more unpleasant at every step. Amiss put his hand on the bishop’s arm. ‘There’s definitely been a fire, David. And I’ve a horrible feeling that what we’re smelling is, among other things, flesh. It could perhaps have been an accident with a candle or something, and it could be that Plutarch died in the subsequent fire. It’s out now, so it can be safely left. I’m not up to looking and I’m damn sure you’re not. Let’s go and wake Ellis. He’s tougher than us. And he’s seen a lot of nasty sights in his time.’

They huddled together like children while Pooley confronted the horror. After a couple of minutes he emerged, bleak of face but even of speech. He leaned against the wall for a moment. ‘The good news is that I’m pretty sure Plutarch has not been a victim of that fire. The bad news is that a human being has.

‘I suggest you go back to the house and have some coffee while I call for reinforcements and go on looking for Plutarch in the cathedral. If I don’t find her, you can go on a more extensive hunt afterwards.’

The bishop straightened his shoulders. ‘I’ll go home soon, but first I must say a prayer over the remains of whoever has died. I am, after all, supposed to be a minister.’

The three of them went back into the cathedral, the bishop walking firmly ahead with Pooley. When they reached St Dumbert’s Chapel, he gazed inside and made the sign of the cross. After a moment he said without a quaver in his voice: ‘ “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.” ’

He made another sign of the cross. ‘
Requiescat in pace
. Amen.’

‘Amen,’ said Amiss and Pooley.

The bishop turned around, Amiss took his arm and together they walked out of the cathedral. As they reached the open air, all colour left the bishop’s face and he broke out in a sweat. Amiss propped him against the wall and held him up, for his knees were giving way. He found a handkerchief in the bishop’s pocket and mopped his brow with it. ‘Come on,’ he said, as he saw the colour come back into Elworthy’s cheeks. ‘I’ll take you back to the house. You’ve been very brave. I’m damn sure I couldn’t have done what you just did.’

‘No, no, I wasn’t, Robert. I’m horrified by what I saw there. I wasn’t brave to look. You didn’t have to. I did.’

By the time Pooley arrived back at the palace, Amiss and the bishop had showered, dressed and were sitting at the kitchen table trying to talk of inconsequentialities. Pooley came and sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘It’s grim news, I’m afraid. Only one tiny bit of silver lining.’

The bishop looked at him dolefully. ‘Do you think we could have that first?’

‘Plutarch has a chance, just a small chance. She was strangled, but she’s not dead.’

To his mingled incredulity and dismay, Amiss found himself possessed by emotions of rage, desolation and hope. The bishop was looking completely stricken. ‘Where is she? Can we go to her?’

‘She’s unconscious, David. As soon as I found her – just inside the door of the north tower – I put out a call for a vet. He’s with her now and he’s taking her back to his surgery.’ Amiss and the bishop began to speak at once. ‘Yes, yes. I told him to spare no expense and gave him the number of Robert’s mobile to report progress.’

Amiss leaned over and patted the bishop’s hand. ‘If it’s any consolation, she survived being strangled once before. She’s the toughest cat in the west.’

‘There’s no silver lining to the next piece of bad news. I’m sorry to have to tell you that it is almost beyond question that the body is that of Cecil Davage. He is not at home, his bed hasn’t been slept in and a signet ring with the initials C.J.D. that looks like the one he was wearing yesterday is among the embers.

‘It looks as if he committed suicide.’

Amiss’s voice shook. ‘He can’t have committed suicide. How can he? He was fine last night when I left him. Even happy. I told you.’

‘Maybe in the darkest hour of night he felt less happy. Look, I can’t stay. Godson’s arriving any moment.’

As Pooley left, the bishop leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

‘David, you’ve got to cancel your engagements today. You’re in bits.’

‘I can’t, I can’t. Don’t you remember? I’m visiting three schools and having lunch with the mayor. You can’t cancel engagements like that – they’ll have been making plans for weeks and it would be months before I could ever give them another date. Oh, how I hate this treadmill.’ He sat up. ‘Sorry, Robert. I’m being weak. I’ll be fine once I’m at work. What will you do with yourself? Do you want to come with me?’

‘Thanks, but no. I’ll hang about, throw myself on Alice’s mercy, talk to Jack, try to talk to Rachel and wait for crumbs of news.’

‘Will you let me know about…?’

‘I promise you that wherever you are today I will get to you news of Plutarch. Tell me, do bishops say prayers for cats?’

The bishop gave a watery smile. ‘This one does.’

‘When I find out who did this to Plutarch I will personally tear him limb from limb.’

‘Maybe it was Davage.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Robert. Davage couldn’t strangle a mouse. Anyway he had a broken arm. Whoever did this must be built on the lines of a prize fighter and must also, I might add, be covered with scratches. He should be easy to find.’

‘We can hardly expect Ellis to set the police force scouring the countryside for a large, strong, scratched person alleged to have tried to murder a cat.’

‘Why not?’

‘Be reasonable. Jack. They’re busy with Davage. In their scheme of things, a cat is not important.’

‘In my scheme of things, she is. Plutarch is a member of my family and therefore under my protection. Her enemy is my enemy. If the police won’t do anything you’d better.’

‘What? You want me to wander around Westonbury in the hope of finding somebody with a scratched face?’

‘Don’t be so pathetic. Start with the usual suspects. Especially the dean. He’s got the physique. Keep in touch.’

Feeling like a fool, but glad of something to do, Amiss decided to call on the prime suspect. He was walking across Bishops’ Green when his phone rang. ‘It’s Ellis. The dean’s body has been found at the bottom of the north tower. He seems to have fallen from the top.’

‘Is he scratched?’

‘Scratched. Of course he’s scratched. And bruised and bloody and battered, poor wretch.’

‘I mean Plutarch-scratched.’

‘Ah, yes. I’m with you now. I don’t know, but I’ll tell the pathologist to look out for cat scratches. I suppose it would relieve your mind to know who the perpetrator was.’

‘It would also stop Jack proceeding on her mission of vengeance. She’s in a very eye-for-an-eye mood.’

His mind in a spin. Amiss walked up and down Bishop’s Green half a dozen times to gather his wits, until the phone rang once again. ‘Ellis. We’ve found Davage’s suicide note’

‘And?’

‘It says he was going to commit suicide because he was afraid of exposure and because of his shame at his failure as treasurer, and that he decided to take the dean with him so as to save the cathedral.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Except for a couple of personal goodbyes to friends.’

‘Ellis, this is mad. It doesn’t fit in at all with what he said last night. Cecil was a softy. And a softy with a broken arm, at that. How could he have killed the dean?’

‘Anyone could have pushed the dean over the tower at the corner where the masonry is missing.’

‘But what about strangling Plutarch?’

‘Maybe the dean did that. We don’t know. Anyway I can’t talk any longer. Godson wants me – probably to talk over his problems with his sweet peas.’

Amiss pressed a button. ‘Get me the mistress,’ he said with an abruptness and abandonment of manners that would have done justice to the lady herself.

‘I hope this is the end,’ said the baroness. ‘Call me a wimp, but this commuting is beginning to wear me out.’

‘It’s certainly the end as far as Godson is concerned,’ said Pooley. ‘He’s already put in his report. Burglary by shamans who are still being pursued, the dean murdered by Davage and Davage immolated by himself.’

‘Did you talk to him about Plutarch?’

‘Godson said it didn’t matter. He admitted Davage couldn’t have strangled her, so said it was probably the dean.’

‘But you said the pathologist saw no scratches of the kind administered by a cat.’

‘Godson pooh-poohed that. His view was that there was absolutely no reason why there should be any scratches at all.’

‘He doesn’t know Plutarch,’ said the bishop, baroness and Amiss in unison.

‘I tried to explain that to him, but he was not interested.’

‘Back to basics,’ said the baroness. ‘It’s the only thing to do at these times. Either Godson is right or we’re looking for another perpetrator, someone who murdered the dean, strangled Plutarch, did or didn’t hang Flubert and burnt little Davage to death having forced him to write a suicide note and then presumably coshed him to make him quiet.’

‘It’s not like that. I can’t see there being any doubt about Davage having committed suicide. He was sitting on a chair, with an empty petrol can beside him. It looks as if he lit a match, doused himself with petrol and just went up in flames.’

‘Why would he choose to go in such a horrible way?’

‘Most ways are horrible. This one is at least fast, if you use enough petrol. And he was a melodramatic little fellow. Also, it enabled him to die in the cathedral itself to maximum effect; he got the drama of the fire without doing damage to the cathedral. Dumbert’s Chapel being spartan and Norman, was virtually undamaged, apart from some blackening.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Amiss.

‘Maybe not, but I fear you have to lump it. We could speculate over this forever.’

The bishop came in hesitantly. ‘I’m probably being very silly, but I have to say that often when in doubt I go back to the primary source. I am, as you know, also keen on exegesis. Could you remind me once again exactly what poor Cecil said in his note?’

‘I have a photocopy here.’ Pooley reached for his briefcase and tossed a piece of paper to the bishop. He read it closely. ‘That seems very straightforward, don’t you think so, Jack?’

She perused it swiftly, nodded and passed the paper to Amiss, who read it and shouted, ‘Eureka!’

He gazed uncomprehendingly around the group. ‘What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you understood the last paragraph? The gutsy little bugger found a way to tell us someone else murdered the dean and who it was.’

‘What? How?’

‘It reads, “Please tell Elinor I was sorry to hear about Nora and ask her to take care of Myrtle.” ’

‘Do you know who these people are?’ asked Pooley. ‘We
assume
they must be family but we haven’t yet located them.’

‘Family? You’re missing the whole point! Don’t you remember that Cecil in true camp style referred to those in his immediate vicinity by girls’ names?’

‘Not to me, he didn’t,’ said Pooley.

‘Nor to me,’ agreed the bishop and the baroness.

‘Well, he always did to me.’

‘So who is Elinor?’

‘You, Ellis. He called you after Elinor Glyn because of your red-gold hair and his fantasies about seeing you on a tiger-skin rug.’

‘What are you talking about?’

The bishop came in helpfully. ‘She was a fashionable novelist and a lady of fast reputation, Ellis, about whom a well-known verse was written – I think in the 1930s. It was popular among some of my fellow ordinands for some reason I never understood, but perhaps now am beginning to. Do you remember it, Jack? “Would you like to sin…” ’

‘With Elinor Glyn

On a tiger skin?

Or would you prefer

to err

with her

On some other fur?’

‘I suppose I should feel flattered. Who is Nora?’

‘The dean. Cecil thought it funny to give him what he said was an Irish maidservant’s name.’

Pooley’s whole body went taut. ‘Now for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Who is Myrtle?’

‘The Rev. Bev.’

‘But he hardly knew him.’

‘He hated him on sight when they met at David’s consecration. And Cecil was a good hater.’

‘Oh, my God. We never gave the Rev. Bev any thought. Why should we? The dean was his benefactor.’ He punched some numbers into his mobile phone.

‘We must pray,’ said the bishop, ‘that all will become clear in the fullness of time.’