Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation (4 page)

The dentist resumed his work. ‘Let’s see if we’re ready to continue. A little wider please, Mr Archdeacon.’

The drilling began and Mike Wilkinson drew this particular subject of conversation to a close. ‘You can’t force your children to do anything against their will. But you can cut off their source
of funds. That’s what I’ve told Barbara. But she’s too weak with Danny. She had a soft spot for Fraser Pascoe too.’

‘Really?’ Sidney mumbled as best he could.

‘Oh yes. They were quite close at one stage. Then after a couple of months it all fell apart. That’s what happens with Babs. Nothing ever lasts. Rinse and spit please . . .’

That Saturday Sidney took his wife and daughter to lunch with his parents in Highgate. Alec and Iris Chambers had both retired and now that they were well into their seventies they were thinking of selling the family home and moving somewhere smaller and warmer; Devon, Cornwall, or even France. Alec Chambers said that he wanted to ‘throw some ideas around’ but before they did so he would like ‘a bit of a man-to-man’ with his son. Sidney knew it was going to be serious as soon as he was handed a gin and tonic that he hadn’t asked for.

‘Hildegard has told us what’s been going on and we think you need to be very careful indeed.’

‘There has been a murder.’

‘I know. However, we are more concerned about the woman who came on your birthday.’

‘Barbara Wilkinson?’

‘Indeed. I hope you haven’t been tempted to get involved with her problems?’

‘There’s nothing improper, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘I was worrying about the proper, let alone the improper.’

‘I don’t appear to have much choice, Dad. She asked for my help, I went to see her son and his spiritual leader was found murdered.’

‘But that is a matter for Keating.’

‘I know. But when parishioners ask for help . . .’

‘Barbara Wilkinson is not, as far as I am aware, a parishioner.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t. I was wondering if you would have been so eager to help if the boy’s father had come to see you rather than the mother?’

‘I like to think I would; although there is quite a difference in manner between husband and wife.’

‘This has got to stop, Sidney. It’s not fair on Hildegard.’

‘Have you asked her?’

‘I don’t need to. You can’t just go charging in all over again. Unless you’re trying to impress your
femme fatale
.’

Hildegard popped her head round the study door. ‘Lunch is ready!’

‘Very good,’ Alec Chambers replied loudly but then added, as a final aside to his son, ‘she may very well not mind, but it’s embarrassing for the rest of us. You have a reputation to keep up.’

‘And I do.’

‘We don’t want gossip. Once Anna starts her education, you’ll have to think about that too. Mothers at the school gates.’

‘I don’t think we need to worry about that. Ely is a decent enough place.’

‘You don’t want to give anyone cause. A priest, like a doctor, must be beyond reproach. Didn’t they teach you anything at theological college? If you really must talk to that female again, make sure that it’s in your house and not hers. You can’t be seen going out of other women’s homes. That’s all I’m saying. Now let’s have some lunch.’

Once they were all seated in the dining room, Iris Chambers produced her famous fish pie and Sidney tried to cheer up proceedings by making a jokey reference to Sidney Bechet’s ‘Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)’. This went unnoticed. Undaunted, he then extended his marine sphere of reference by telling the assembled company that he had recently been to Johnny’s club to see Tubby Hayes play ‘Fishin’ the Blues’.

‘I presume you were “fishing for clues”,’ his mother replied as she served up the fish pie, kale and a dish of carrots that she was trying in a new way:
à la julienne
.

‘I did ask Johnny about things, if that’s what you want to know.’

‘What things?’ asked Anna.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘But,’ Sidney turned to his mother, switching to French, ‘
il n’y a rien à faire
.’

‘You mean
il n’y a pas une affaire
?’ his mother asked.

‘
Non
.’

‘It’s not fair,’ said Anna. ‘Speak in German.’

‘I’m sorry,
ma petite
,’ Sidney continued, ‘I was distracted by your grandmother’s carrots
à la julienne
. I will now speak to you only in German.’

‘That won’t last long,’ said Hildegard.

Iris Chambers gave her son an extra helping and was assured that there was nothing to worry about. Sidney was certain Johnny Johnson had been behaving himself. ‘As have I,’ he added quickly, catching his wife’s eye.

‘Guilty conscience?’ she asked.

Sidney tried to concentrate on the matter in hand. He had always been bemused by family secrets and partiality; how
assumptions were made, sometimes based on childhood and teenage years that no longer applied when siblings were fully grown adults; how one member of the family might be trusted more than another and that people never knew everything, either about their parents or their children.

‘Are we talking about Sidney or Johnny?’ Alec Chambers enquired.

‘Never you mind,’ his wife answered. ‘Some of this is simply between a mother and a son.’

‘Does it concern Jen?’

‘
Zut. C’est fini
. The moment has passed.’

‘You promised no more French,’ Anna complained.

Alec Chambers looked to his granddaughter and winked. ‘Don’t worry, poppet. We have our little secrets too, don’t we?’

‘And what are they?’ his wife asked.

‘
Zut. C’est fini
,’ he replied, and once Anna realised that he was referring to the box of Cadbury’s Lucky Numbers her grandfather had said she could have after lunch, she repeated the phrase again and again until pudding was served.

This was Angel Delight, a new strawberry and cream instant whip that could be made in seconds. ‘I thought you might be amused by the name,’ Iris Chambers told her son, ‘and it’s so easy.’

Her husband began to sing ‘Earth Angel (will you be mine)’ quietly to himself and then increased the volume once he had the attention of the room. Everyone clapped. Sidney couldn’t understand why his mother, who had been so imaginative under rationing and who prided herself in her home cooking, would want to take such an artificial short cut. ‘I remember the trifles
you used to make when I was a child: jellies with raspberries; lemon meringue pie on my birthday.’

‘Oh, I can’t be bothered with all that now. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful name? Perhaps the angels scoop it all up when they’ve had enough of playing Bach?’

‘There is no such thing as too much Bach,’ said Hildegard.

When Sidney failed to respond, his mother tried again. ‘You don’t seem to be on top form, my boy. Is it your teeth again?’

‘It’s a bit more than that.’

‘You’re not still being plagued by that ghastly woman?’

‘
Pas devant l’enfant
,’ Sidney replied.

‘Oh, for goodness sake.’

‘
Zut. C’est fini
,’ Anna shouted out, only to hear her mother observe:

‘If only it was.’

Shortly after breakfast on the Thursday, Inspector Keating telephoned to say that Dr Allan McDonald had completed the post-mortem and Pascoe’s body had not been drugged. There had been a number of blows, one of which had severed the carotid artery. The resultant bleeding and lack of oxygen to the brain had been the cause of death, but further attempts had then been made to detach the head, which had been kicked away from the body with the force of a footballer’s volley.

The blade of the murder weapon could have been up to sixteen inches long, curved like a sickle or grasshook, and there had been some additional hacking with what might have been a serrated carving knife. Whoever did it would have had blood all over them and so it was imperative to continue searching the area for both weapons and clothing.

Sidney tried not to think too hard about the horrors of the scene. ‘That rules out Barbara Wilkinson, I would have thought.’

‘Unless she was in cahoots with her husband.’

‘The dentist? They hardly speak to each other.’ Even as he said the words, Sidney did not know if this was true.

‘Decapitation is going it a bit for a dentist, don’t you think? He has so many other methods of murder at his disposal. And why would he want to kill a religious fanatic?’

‘Because of what he was doing to his son?’ Sidney replied. ‘He does have an alibi. That doesn’t stop him or his wife paying someone to do it for them, I suppose.’

‘It’s too messy for a hitman. This was brutal and personal. We need to find out who could have hated Pascoe so much. We’ll have to look a bit harder. In the meantime, there’s no harm in you seeing your lovely lady again, Sidney. Perhaps she’ll tell you a bit more. Give her a bit of your pastoral care.’

‘I’m not sure that would be appropriate.’

Keating managed a sardonic smile. ‘It hasn’t stopped you in the past.’

It had begun to snow, the drifts across the fens covering all the signs of spring. Sidney took Byron, his black Labrador, as well as his bicycle, and caught a late-morning train to Cambridge, determined to get his visit to Barbara Wilkinson over and done with.

Despite the cold outside, her heating was on sufficiently high for her to wear a sleeveless black woollen dress, with her hair in an ‘updo’ style. A soft, dark tendril fell across her eyes. Sidney found himself wanting to move it to one side
and touch her cheek. Instead he took her hand as she wept and said that she was frightened of the police. ‘They came asking the most terrible questions.’

‘About Fraser Pascoe?’

‘Danny too. They asked me how much I knew about “free love”. It was insulting.’

‘Fraser Pascoe insisted on celibacy.’

‘But I don’t think that man practised what he preached. I told you that last time.’

‘He was keen on you.’

‘That is not too unusual, Mr Archdeacon, as I’ve said before.’ Still she held his hand.

‘And you didn’t respond to his approach?’

‘Again, I’ve told you, no.’

‘But was there anything about your meetings that might have given rise to speculation?’

‘I can’t do anything about gossip. That’s why your company is so refreshing. I know I am safe. You are beyond reproach.’ She patted his hand and let it go.

Sidney was reassured and disappointed at the same time. There was something curiously fetching about the woman, despite her bare-faced lie. ‘I wanted to ask about something that may not be so easy to discuss.’

‘Oh dear. I hope this is not going to be
complicated
.’

‘It’s money,’ Sidney said quickly.

‘Oh,’ Barbara recovered. ‘I thought it might be something else.’

‘How much did you give Danny?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say.’

‘Was he stealing from you, Mrs Wilkinson?’

‘you’ve guessed?’

‘how much did he take?’

‘I don’t honestly know. But there was a forged cheque. Fortunately the bank stopped it. They couldn’t believe I would do such a thing.’

‘Do you mind telling me how much it was for?’

‘Five thousand pounds. Payable to Fraser Pascoe.’

‘That’s a vast amount of money.’

‘Now you see why I had to get my son out of there.’

‘But you didn’t go to the police?’

‘I thought if I did that then Danny wouldn’t come home. Now the police are involved I’m afraid he never will. What on earth are we going to do, Sidney? You won’t desert me, will you?’

Before he left Grantchester, Sidney decided that he needed a moment to recover from the unsettling nature of his conversation with Barbara. She had a tentacular way of pulling him into situations he would rather avoid.

What he needed was something predictably reassuring and so he chose to look in on his former housekeeper. Mrs Maguire was much slowed by arthritis, and she was less confident than usual, but she came to life when the subject turned to her assessment of current events. Barbara Wilkinson had only herself to blame.

‘She’s a terrible mother. Everyone comments. People who don’t have to work for a living can get up to all kinds of mischief. The devil makes work for idle hands, and many are the men who’ve benefited from her personal touch. I’m surprised she hasn’t got her claws into you.’

‘I have seen her . . .’

‘You’ve got yourself involved, haven’t you?’

‘Not in any improper way.’

‘I mean with the crime. My sister Gladys was saying they think the murder weapon was a scythe. That would be appropriate, wouldn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Father Time, of course. The Grim Reaper, cutting Pascoe down to size.’

‘Are Father Time and the Grim Reaper one and the same?’ Sidney asked. ‘I’m never that sure.’

‘Doesn’t matter now the man’s dead. I wonder if he knew what hit him.’

‘They think he was attacked from behind.’

‘He must have known. You can’t do that kind of thing with one blow. He would have staggered about and seen his attacker. It’s bound to be one of those young men. They’ll neither work nor want.’

‘Do you think they’re rich?’

‘Only people with money can afford to say they have no need of it.’

‘That’s very wise, Mrs M.’

His former housekeeper smiled, grateful for the acknowledgement. ‘I’ve always said there’s something dirty at the crossroads. It’s a fraud. All those boys and girls are rich children with trust funds, I’ll bet. Pascoe was raking it in. You need to look for the money, Sidney, isn’t that what they say? Perhaps Mrs Richmond’s husband could help? He works in the City. He must know people.’

‘I can’t see Henry Richmond troubling himself with this.’

‘He owes you a favour, doesn’t he?’

‘I’m not sure he does.’

‘You approved of him. Told Miss Kendall to go ahead and marry him.’

‘Only because there wasn’t anyone else left.’

‘That’s not true, Sidney. You should be ashamed of yourself for saying such things. I always said she’d have made a good wife for you.’

‘You never said anything of the sort. Besides, I’m very happy with Hildegard.’