Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation (8 page)

In the end, he told Geordie everything. ‘I thought hell had no fury like a woman scorned,’ his friend began as he handed Sidney an inadequate tomato juice. ‘It turns out that children are even worse. It’s like a Greek tragedy out there.’

‘Well, the Greeks did write the first crime stories. They had murders all over the place.’

‘And they were supposed to be the greatest civilisation known to man. Just shows how little human nature changes.’

Sidney picked up his drink. ‘Barbara Wilkinson and Fraser Pascoe. If they’d known about the results of their affair they’d never have started it.’

‘I don’t know, Sidney. People are reckless. Sometimes these things are unstoppable.’

Geordie had that dangerous look in his eye that meant he was not going to hold back on what he was about to say, whatever the consequences. ‘You got off lightly when you think about it, old boy. Just imagine if it had been you and Babs instead.’

‘That was never a possibility.’

‘You are not going to admit that you were attracted to her when all this began?’

‘Never.’ Sidney stood up to order another round. ‘I love my wife. Restraint has always been my watchword.’

‘As long as you keep saying that.’

‘I mean it.’

‘Do you think you’re bored, Sidney?’

‘No. Too much to think about.’

‘Perhaps we still hanker for the drama of war-time?’

‘I don’t miss the loss of my friends.’

‘It’s funny, though. It seems religion is never quite enough for you.’

‘We have to keep searching. Sometimes people need distractions and moments of respite. They just have to choose the right ones.’

‘Drink is safer than flirtation.’

‘Sometimes one follows the other.’

‘In both cases you have to know when to stop.’

Sidney hesitated. ‘Have you ever given up alcohol, Geordie?’

‘I certainly have.’

‘When?’

‘I can give up for several hours at a time. Now stop getting so anxious about life, faith and women. Buy yourself a pint or a bottle of dog.’

‘Perhaps I will.’

‘You’ve earned it, man. No one’s looking.’

‘I feel a bit bad about it.’

‘If that’s the only temptation you’re submitting to then you’re doing well. Have a chaser while you’re at it.’

‘No, I think that’s too much.’

‘Howay, man, I’ll pay.’

Geordie barged his way past Sidney to the bar and bought beer and whisky for both of them. After they had settled back down in their seats and got out the customary game of backgammon, he mentioned that he thought he had seen Hildegard talking to Barbara Wilkinson in town. ‘But that can’t be right. Your wife wouldn’t bother passing the time of day with a lass like that. Just as well you kept your distance.’

‘I’ve told you, Geordie, there was never any danger of impropriety. I do have some standards. And I love Hildegard.’

‘You had a bit of luck in finding a wife like that. But I suppose you deserve it. You took a risk on a foreigner with a murky past and it paid off.’

‘Hers wasn’t the past that was murky.’

‘As far as you know.’

‘I do know. And, by the way, while we’re on the subject, I’d like to take some of the credit for my marriage.’

‘No one’s going to believe you, Sidney. Hildegard saved you. You may think it’s the other way round and even let people come to that conclusion . . .’

‘I’m just very grateful to be so blessed.’

‘I’m glad you realise. If I behaved like you do Cathy would give me hell.’

‘What do you mean “like you do”?’

‘Being all sympathetic to the ladies.’

‘That’s my job.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s what you like. That’s different. You can’t fool me.’

‘Hildegard knows all this. I tell her everything that’s been going on.’

‘Like hell. Does she do the same?’

‘Not always. I think she likes to retain a bit of mystery.’

‘Most women do. Canny, aren’t they?’

‘Would we have it any other way?’

‘We would not,’ Geordie replied, before downing his pint and contemplating his next move on the board.

‘I am glad we agree then.’

‘You know what they say about marriage? A man can either be right or happy. At least neither of us would be foolish enough to carry on, like Barbara Wilkinson, with someone else in our own home and be discovered by one of our children.’

‘No, we certainly wouldn’t,’ said Sidney, as seriously as he could before catching his friend’s eye. ‘We’d book a hotel room.’

Both men laughed. It was the first time they had done so in ages.

Grantchester Meadows

The University of Cambridge was celebrating May Week and, as with many superior organisations that never feel the need to explain themselves, the celebrations lasted longer than a week and took place in June.

The students had completed their exams, the punts were out on the river, picnic rugs fluttered down on to daisy-decorated grass, Pimm’s was poured, strawberries were served and the barefoot dancing began.

Sidney had just finished a meeting in King’s Parade for a diocesan ministry commission that had been asked to set up a new payment scheme for clergy. The plan was to abolish the current system of private patronage, introduce compulsory retirement at the age of seventy and establish a level of remuneration that neither excited financial ambition nor resulted in economic embarrassment.

It had been a long, dull affair and Sidney was discombobulated by the contrasting elitism of May Week with its collision of youthful exuberance, alcohol and high expenditure. He was due to head on into Grantchester to visit his former curate, Malcolm Mitchell, but decided to cheer himself up by popping in to see Geordie at the St Andrew’s Street police station. This certainly livened up his day, as his friend immediately reported
that one student had narrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd of cows while another had had a family heirloom stolen.

The crime scene was a party on Grantchester Meadows, organised by a Magdalene College drinking club in memory of their founder, Sir Joshua Wylie. Twelve executors had dressed up in tails to serve vodka and grapefruit juice out of watering cans at the end of the May ‘Bumps’ on the river. Within hours the ground had resembled a medieval battlefield, with drunken students sprawled across the Meadows in varying stages of consciousness and undress. At one point in the proceedings Richard Lane had ended up in the middle of a herd of cows that had banded together to fight a rearguard action against the excess. By the time the ambulance arrived, the student was half-dead, having caught his ankle and fallen into a cattle grid while trying to escape.

‘He made it that far?’ Sidney asked.

‘Accounts are hazy. Students may be able to study the origins of the Agricultural Revolution but most of them are incapable of walking across a field. In the meantime, another of their number, one Olivia Randall, “lost” her mother’s necklace.’

‘Valuable?’

‘It’s worth about a thousand pounds, she says.’

‘And no one has so far suggested that the stampede of cows was a deliberate distraction to facilitate the disappearance of the jewellery?’

‘No one, Sidney. Not even you. Yet.’

‘Olivia Randall, you say?’

‘Helena’s sister. She’s eleven years younger; an afterthought, apparently. Although you would have thought her parents
would have had misgivings after they saw how their first child turned out.’

‘Is Olivia anything like our friend, the great investigative journalist?’

‘On the contrary, she seems a bit of a hippy.’

‘And could she simply have mislaid her necklace?’

‘Yes she could; not that she’s going to admit to it. The whole situation has got out of hand. The parents of the injured boy want to sue the farmer, whom we both know is trouble from past encounters, and the Randall sisters are terrified their mother will find out about the necklace and are making all manner of fuss.’

‘When the thing might not have been stolen at all.’

‘They want us to get it back. They seem to think it’s far more important than a half-dead student with a broken leg, smashed ribs and a fractured collarbone.’

‘But in both of these cases it may be the victim’s fault; a mixture of drunken cow-provocation and careless necklace-wearing?’

‘Yes: which is why it’s so annoying we’ve been called in to sort things out.’

‘Do you have to?’

‘There could be a case of negligence against the farmer. That’ll go down well. He will retaliate with claiming wilful damage by the students. And if the necklace has gone . . . well, theft is theft.’

‘I presume it was insured?’

‘Belongs to Mummy. She lent it to her daughter for May Week. Made quite a fuss about her not losing it, probably because I am not so sure the insurance covers them if a
loopy daughter with a skinful of Pimm’s dances half-naked across the Meadows.’

‘Half-naked?’

‘You know what I mean. Anyway, apparently we have to get the necklace back before Mummy finds out it’s missing.’

‘This is, presumably, Helena’s instruction.’

‘I am afraid so.’

‘Do you need my help at all?’

‘I certainly do; both with the cow incident and the question of negligence. You have a history with the Redmonds.’

Sidney knew the farmer all too well. Harding Redmond’s wife Agatha was a formidable Labrador breeder who had provided Sidney with both Dickens and Byron. His daughter Abigail was a great beauty who had attended the same antenatal class as Hildegard.

However, Harding Redmond’s brother and sister were both in prison for poisoning a young Indian boy at a cricket match, and the farmer’s terrible temper had not endeared him to the police in the subsequent investigation.

‘I wouldn’t mind if you paid the old bastard a visit,’ Geordie continued. ‘He’s funny with the police, as you know.’

‘He has form. As do you . . .’

‘I’ll ignore that. He won’t take kindly to anyone suggesting that his animals might be to blame. Then there is the small matter of the Randall family. You are probably on better terms with Helena than I am these days, especially since you’re taking her wedding. I am sure that she and her sister will let you know more than they’ll tell me. And you’ve got Malcolm, the fiancé, on your side too.’

‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘We’ll interview all the students who were at the party, but some of your more discreet enquiries wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘Not that they’re very discreet these days.’

‘It might be easier now people are used to them. They accept you. You’ve interviewed many of them before.’

‘Which means they will be more prepared.’

‘I’m sure you can lull them into a false sense of security.’

The Cambridge quads were full of large marquees and bands unloading their equipment. This particular year the May Ball committees had secured the services of the Who, the Moody Blues and the New Vaudeville Band, who were soundchecking a jaunty number called ‘Winchester Cathedral’. Sidney wondered why on earth it was called that, and he was just thinking about the need to concentrate on his regular duties, and find a new vicar for All Saints in Newmarket, when he saw Harding Redmond on the edge of Spring Lane Meadow. The farmer was getting out of his Land Rover to look in on his herd after the drama of the near-stampede. There were about seventy cows in all, a mixture of breeders, heifers, yearlings and four or five calves, dark red in colour with white touches on the tail-switch and udder.

Redmond was an imposingly broad-framed outdoor-hued man in his mid-fifties who preferred animals to people. In his youth he had opened the bowling for the village cricket team but age had lessened his physical presence, boiling it down to a simmering aggression.

On being asked to recall the events of the previous week he said he hated the students thinking they owned the place, interfering with innocent cows and then blaming him. He’d
already had the police round, explained what had happened, and didn’t fancy going over it all again. The students had been mucking about by the river in an area known as Little Fen. The herd was in Trench Meadow and the victim had got between a cow and her calf. The animals thought they were under threat and so rushed towards one of the partygoers. The boy could only make his escape uphill and that slowed him down. He fell and the cows surrounded him. It had been a job to get them all off.

‘When did you arrive on the scene?’

‘After the ambulance. My daughter sorted it all out. Saved the boy’s life.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be grateful.’

‘We won’t be expecting thanks.’

‘And that must have been Abigail? How’s she keeping?’

‘Baby John isn’t so much a baby any more.’ The memory brought the farmer’s guard down. Sidney had been instrumental in persuading a grieving woman to return the child she had snatched from hospital in the Christmas of 1963. ‘We’ll always be grateful to you, Mr Chambers, for getting him back.’

‘I didn’t do very much.’

‘We all know you did. But you’re getting yourself involved in this now? I hope you’re not going to cause trouble.’

‘It’s not so much about the cows. There was a crime committed at the same time.’

‘Apart from the one against my animals?’

‘I’m afraid so. But please tell me: what did Abigail do?’

‘She reunited the calf with the mother. It was a third-calver and she knew our Abi straight away. As soon she’d got them back together it was all over. They’re not normally so
aggressive, not like the continental breeds – the Limousin or Charolais. Polled cattle are born with no horns. They’re a cross between the Norfolk cow that was bred for beef, and a Suffolk, which is used for dairy. So they’re dual-purpose . . .’

‘Two for the price of one.’

‘Not that they’re cheap. But they’re docile and friendly in the main. If that boy had got under some horns he’d have a punctured lung, so he’s lucky they were our polls. They’re the best cows you can get, in my opinion. The meat’s like fine wine, the beef of old England. The Queen keeps a herd at Sandringham. Not that she has to put up with students messing about.’

‘I’m sure they won’t be doing that again.’

‘A new generation comes every autumn. They never know better. They don’t understand that the land needs to be worked. It’s not a private park where they can swan past peasants doffing their caps. Those days are gone.’

‘Indeed they are, Harding. But the Meadows are common to us all.’

‘King’s College own the land. They should control it better.’

‘I’m not sure how you can police the whole countryside.’

‘None of those students know what it’s like to work for a living.’

‘They’ll find out soon enough.’

‘As long as they don’t start thinking I’m responsible. The police said I should have put up warning signs and fenced it off better. One of them told me I ought to have known that particular cow was a liability. But what about dangerous students, that’s what I want to know? If they think they can sue then they’ve got another think coming. I’ll give as good as I get, I can tell you that, Mr Chambers.’

‘If there is any problem with the university I am sure I can help.’

‘That would be good of you, I must say.’

Sidney remembered that Harding Redmond never knew how to end a conversation. He called Byron back.

‘Mind the herd with your dog, Mr Chambers. The cows will get funny if he comes too close.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he gives them a wide berth.’

‘You should come round and visit our Abi some time. She’d love to see you. So would the wife. Is your Lab holding up all right? Dickens, isn’t he?’

‘That was the last one. This is Byron.’

‘Looks like he knows his own mind.’

‘Byron has a relaxed attitude to discipline but is easily bribed by food. If he senses the possibility of nourishment he is immediately obedient.’

‘You’ll let us know if you want another? Agatha’s got some puppies on the go. You may have moved up to Ely but there’s always a welcome for you down here.’

This was about as good a farewell as Sidney was going to get. Harding Redmond climbed back into his Land Rover. It was a new series IIA, he said, and he had paid nearly £2,000 pounds for it.

‘That’s about twenty-five cows or a grant for five or six students. Funny thing money, don’t you think?’

‘It is indeed,’ said Sidney, realising that the amount was twice the price of Olivia Randall’s necklace and almost £700 more than his annual salary.

Sidney loved the Meadows around midsummer: the comfrey, lady’s-smock, water figwort and arrowhead along the river; the
commas, brimstones and meadow brown butterflies in the hedgerows with swifts and house martins overhead. The blossom on the hawthorn was starting to turn but the elderflower and honeysuckle were out, young jackdaws skirred in the sky and swallows hawked midges over the water. He wished he could stop and laze away the rest of the afternoon, but those student days were long gone.

At least he could watch a few overs of village cricket on Audley’s Field. He could perhaps enjoy the end of the game in Malcolm’s company and share a pint or two in the Blue Ball afterwards.

Grantchester was playing Hemingford Grey, a rival village that was coasting towards a five-wicket victory requiring only twenty-eight runs to win. Because he had a strong throw, Malcolm was fielding at long leg, close to the boundary, and Sidney walked round so that he could talk to him between overs. Reclining in a deckchair nearby was a retired Welsh undertaker, who reminisced about fielding in the long grass in the 1920s and jumping out of it to catch a batsman who thought he’d hit a six.

‘I was like a whale rising out of the sea. And I took the ball that was Jonah.’

‘Presumably,’ Sidney could not help but ask, ‘you didn’t swallow it?’

After just missing a difficult high chance, Malcolm said that he needed to concentrate, but the game was finished in the next twenty minutes and the two former colleagues were soon ensconced in post-match conviviality, during which various cricketing metaphors were extended towards the curate’s forthcoming nuptials; how he’d at last bowled a maiden over, that Helena Randall was quite a catch and that he’d need his third man once the covers came off.

Malcolm was, it has to be said, uncomfortable with the joshing and confessed to Sidney that he was worried about his ability to fulfil Helena’s expectations. He was sure that she was more experienced than he was and he also wanted to ask about her relationship with Inspector Keating. Had there been any funny business? They were always so odd when they were together and the inspector had been hostile towards him from the start.

‘I shouldn’t worry about Geordie. He’s always trying to bat above his average. It was a flirtation, nothing more. I think Helena just used her feminine wiles to extract information for the newspaper.’