Murder in a Cathedral Read online

  As they clinked their glasses, the baroness pronounced, ‘That’s the secret of a good old age; trample youth into the mud at every opportunity. Mind you, you don’t deserve that much credit. The blighters have no stamina these days. Not like us. They’re not eating enough red meat.’ She plumped herself back into her armchair.

  ‘I haven’t seen you doing much prancing around the court, Jack,’ observed Mary Lou amiably.

  ‘Tennis never was my sport. Too genteel. But I fancy myself against you in the hundred yard dash. Shall we try it now?’ She nodded in the direction of the garden.

  Elworthy looked alarmed. ‘My dear Ida…’ She raised an index finger reprovingly. ‘Oh, sorry. I’ll try to remember to call you Jack, but it’s not easy for me. In any case, don’t you think it might be a little unseemly to have the mistress and bursar of this establishment racing each other across the lawn at twilight?’

  Amiss sniggered. ‘Seemly isn’t the first word I would use to describe the conduct of affairs in St Martha’s. But don’t worry. She’s only bluffing.’

  The baroness jumped up, lifted her skirts and began to tuck them into her eau-de-nil directoire knickers. Mary Lou spoke firmly. ‘Just stop it, Jack. I have absolutely no intention of racing you. It would either kill you or humiliate me. And in any case, it’s time we joined our colleagues: they’ll be wanting to get a look at David. Francis is very excited. He’ll be dying to hear all about what you’ll be wearing on Monday, David.’

  Elworthy assumed a hunted expression. ‘I don’t want to be pawed over by any Francises,’ he said querulously. ‘There’s quite enough of that in Westonbury.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the baroness. ‘If you evince distress, I will interpose my body between yours and his. Now come on, you lot. Duty calls.’

  ***

  St Martha’s hospitality was considerably less austere than during Amiss’s brief tenure as a fellow. Conversation was better too. While much of the talk at high table had the parochialism to be expected of academics, the baroness on several occasions succeeded in livening things up by introducing remarks that caused consternation among some of her colleagues’ guests and led to spirited arguments. Francis Pusey’s interior decorator friend was outraged by her claim that there had been no worthwhile art or music in England since Turner and Elgar respectively, while her contention that far from considering sharing a single currency with Europe, the British government should forthwith abandon Johnny Foreigner to make a mess of things in his own way, and while they were at it abolish the metric system and return to pounds, shillings and pence, caused Elworthy some alarm.

  ‘My dear Id…Jack! Surely it is out of the question to turn the clock back in such a manner. One must move with the times.’

  ‘Bollocks.’ She smiled genially around the table. ‘This has all been very pleasant, but I fear I must now ask you to excuse me and my guests: we have business to discuss. But the bursar will do the honours in the senior combination room. I hope you enjoy the ’66 port.’

  ***

  ‘Cigar?’

  Elworthy waved away the mahogany box. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Bad for the chest.’

  ‘What an old fusspot you are. Robert?’

  ‘Love to. Can’t.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘Because—as I’ve explained to you on numerous occasions but you refuse to take in—even one puff is liable to send me straight back to the fags.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ she said. ‘The fags. Exactly what we’re here to discuss.’ She threw herself into her armchair, lit her cigar, drew in smoke, exhaled expansively and smiled seraphically. Plutarch, who had been sleeping off the Mickey Finn and a good supper, leaped onto her lap and put up unprotestingly with some robust stroking. ‘OK, David. Shoot.’

  Elworthy took a cautious sip of his brandy. ‘All this is a bit delicate, Ida. Sorry, Jack.’ He looked nervously at Amiss.

  ‘Stop shillyshallying. I’ve told you before that Robert is my faithful lieutenant.’ A memory struck her. She smiled coyly. ‘And more. I have no secrets from him.’

  Amiss was too full of good food and drink to care how she was portraying their relationship. He settled back cosily in his armchair, his feet on the table in front, sipped his brandy and gazed contentedly into the log fire, hoping Elworthy’s story would be gripping enough to keep him awake.

  Elworthy turned to him. ‘How much do you know about the modern Church of England?’

  ‘Not in good shape, I gather. Short of money and members. Splits over the ordination of women.’

  ‘Do you see any theological tensions?’

  ‘You mean the frolicking queers at loggerheads with the happy-clappies,’ interjected the baroness. ‘Just like in Trollope.’

  ‘There weren’t queers…I mean gays—’

  ‘I won’t have that excellent word misused in my college.’

  ‘Oh, sod off,’ said Amiss. ‘There weren’t homosexuals in Trollope. The war was simply between the respective enthusiasts for High-and Low-Church practices.’

  She snorted. ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Is it your view that all those clergy leaning towards the High are of the homosexual persuasion, while no homosexuals lean towards the Low?’

  ‘Oh, stop nit-picking, David. You know very well what I mean.’

  ‘Do I? Have you not—?’

  ‘Listen, David, will you for Christ’s sake stop trying to turn this conversation into a bloody Socratic dialogue. You’re not supposed to be conducting a seminar in which you will tease out the truth; you’re telling us about what is making your life a misery at Westonbury.’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘Oh dear. You’re quite right. Indeed that’s just what poor Cornelia used to say to me: “Stop pussyfooting and spit it out.”’

  ‘She was a good girl,’ said the baroness gruffly.

  ‘She was. I am utterly bereft. For I fear that apart from being a wonderful wife, she protected me so much that in addition to being a widower, I feel like a constitutional monarch, suddenly deprived of his wisest counsellor—his prime minister—just at a moment when the country faces revolution.’

  The baroness spoke gently. ‘David, just tell us the story of what’s been going on at Westonbury.’

  ‘I don’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Begin with your appointment.’

  ‘I was asked last September to take the job.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I didn’t really want to but Cornelia said I should. She pointed out that although our theological college had been spared the axe there was no guarantee it would survive the next round of cuts. Life is very insecure since the church commissioners lost all those hundreds of millions in property speculation. Why, there is a possibility that they may decide to sell my palace and dispatch me to a villa.’

  ‘Surely you fancied being a bishop just a little bit? However high-minded you are, it must be a slightly thrilling prospect. At the very least all that flummery must be great fun—swanking around in public in cloaks and purple waistcoats and silly hats. In the Lords we only get to put on fancy dress once a year. You’ll be doing it at least once a week. I feel quite envious.’

  ‘You would.’ Elworthy smiled gently. ‘But then you always liked showing off. I don’t. Except sometimes when I win a game of tennis or score in some scholarly debate. But of course I would be deluding myself if I didn’t admit I was pleased with the honour conferred on me by Her Majesty. And Westonbury wasn’t a frightening cathedral. It’s small, off the tourist track and it seemed quite tranquil. “Mouldering,” Cornelia called it approvingly. After all it seemed to have run smoothly for twenty-five years under the same bishop and dean.’

  Amiss sat up. ‘Twenty-five years! What age were they when they were appointed?’

  ‘When they died they were respectively eighty-four and eighty-two.’

  The baroness snorted. ‘Good for them. Though I thought they booted you out at some absurdly young age these days.’

  ‘Yes,
indeed they do. No one appointed these days can stay beyond seventy. But anyone in situ before that can hang on as long as they can get away with it. Hubert was lucky enough to die with his mitre on. Literally. He had a heart attack when disrobing in the sacristy. And Reggie Roper, the dean, died in his bed a few weeks later.’

  The baroness scratched her head. ‘Clean sweep, eh? Who’s the new dean?’

  ‘Ah, my dear Jack. You have put your finger on the nub of the matter. Though before I tell you what I know of Norman Cooper, I had better explain a little about the current state of Westonbury.’

  ‘We know, don’t we? Run by a coven—or whatever is the male equivalent—of raving Romish poofters.’

  Elworthy looked uncomfortable. ‘Romish is putting it a little strongly, but I must admit the force of your description. Really the only matter on which most of the canons differ from the present pope is in their attitude to gays—’

  ‘I told you to reserve that word for its proper place.’ Her voice rose in song:

  ‘Stately as a galleon, I sail across the floor,

  Doing the Military Two-step, as in the days of yore…

  So gay the band,

  So giddy the sight…

  ‘Bugger. Can’t remember the rest.’ She shot Elworthy a reproving look. ‘Do you realize good stuff like that is unperformable these days because it makes idiots titter? We’ve got to fight to recapture our language.’

  Seeing Elworthy’s confused expression, Amiss intervened. ‘Jack, will you please desist from refighting a battle that was lost about ten years ago and let David get on with his story.’ He turned to Elworthy. ‘You were saying—when you were so rudely interrupted—that your new colleagues are as High as kites.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, that is, some of them are. And I don’t mind that really—except for the misogyny evinced by a few of them. But while I love tradition and quite enjoy Anglo-Catholic trappings like candles and incense, they’ve gone too far in some respects—as you’ll see when you come to Westonbury. And there’s worse to come!’

  ‘What sort of worse?’ asked the baroness.

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it here. I’ll have to show you the plans.’

  ‘So your problem has to do with making these guys see reason and play down the gaiety, is it?’

  ‘If only that were all, Robert.’ Elworthy rested his forehead in his left hand for a moment. ‘Let me put this plainly. What I’m facing in Westonbury is a horrifying confrontation between the spiritual legatees of a pig-headed old queen—Cornelia’s term not mine—and someone equally pig-headed who despises Anglo-Catholicism and wants to try to turn our cathedral into what has been described to me as a “happy-clappy, devil-stomping, bible-thumping rave.”’

  ‘Norman Cooper?’

  Elworthy nodded and shuddered. ‘Or Norm, as his wife calls him. It was her description.’

  ‘How did the appointments unit come to perpetrate such lunacy?’ asked the baroness.

  ‘He kept a rein on his excesses until he got the appointment. After that he started to let rip in his own church: I’ve heard some frightening stories of what goes on there.’

  ‘Exaggerated perhaps?’

  ‘Maybe, Robert. And I admit he’s kept quiet since he was installed at Westonbury a couple of weeks ago, but his colleagues are fearful of what he might have in mind and so too am I.’

  ‘Won’t you be able to keep him under control?’ asked Amiss. ‘Dammit, you’re the bishop.’

  ‘I can see you have a lot to learn about the Church of England,’ said Elworthy wearily. ‘I have a certain amount of power over the incumbents of the parishes in my diocese, but the best I can hope for within the cathedral is influence. Those with control are the dean and five canons who are in charge of the building itself and the houses and offices within the close, the music and the services. I can’t even preach there without a formal invitation.’

  ‘Didn’t you follow what went on in Lincoln?’ demanded the baroness of Amiss.

  ‘Wasn’t it something to do with sex?’

  ‘At core it was a dispute between bishop and dean,’ said Elworthy. ‘The dean was a tactless reformer who had upset many of his colleagues and things got so poisonous that the bishop backed the application by a female verger to take the dean to a church court, charged with sexual misbehaviour. It took eighteen months, cost a fortune, he was found not guilty and the whole thing brought shame on the church and resolved absolutely nothing. In fact the net result is that the pressure is on to keep the lid on domestic rows and sweep anything troublesome under the carpet.’

  ‘How unlike the British Establishment,’ said the baroness.

  Elworthy looked at his watch. ‘My goodness. Is that the time? It’s late.’

  ‘I would hardly call ten-thirty late,’ said the baroness.

  ‘I expect you don’t rise at six to run.’

  ‘You expect right.’

  Elworthy drained his glass. ‘My terror is that Lincoln’s problems will pale into insignificance compared to what is brewing in Westonbury. If Dean Cooper is remotely as extreme as I fear him to be, much exposure to his new colleagues will cause him to run amok. The only bright spot is that there’s a stay of execution: he’s off to America for a month on Tuesday.’ He stood up.

  ‘When your wife died,’ asked Amiss, ‘were you tempted to duck out of the appointment?’

  ‘Tempted! I’ve never been so tempted by anything in my life. But when she realized she was dying, Cornelia told me it was my duty to soldier on. “Pray!” she said. “And get yourself some allies to do the dirty work.”’

  The baroness’s eyes filled with tears. ‘A great woman, Cornelia.’

  Turfing Plutarch off her lap, she jumped up and gave Elworthy a clumsy hug. ‘Off you go now, up the wooden stairs to bedfordshire. Robert and I will take the cat for a stroll in the starlight. Sleep peacefully in the knowledge that you’ve got yourself two doughty allies.’

  With a ‘Goodnight and God bless’ Elworthy departed, unaware that Amiss’s pleasant features were contorted with alarm and apprehension.

  Chapter 3

  As they emerged from the cathedral in the midst of the throng, Amiss shook his head vigorously. ‘Do you think we could get some fresh air before we proceed to lunch? All that incense made me feel quite sick.’

  ‘Really? It always gives me an appetite. But yes, certainly. Fresh air by all means. Can’t have you throwing up all over the festive board. Come on, then. Turn sharp left and we’ll take a canter along the river.’

  By the time they had crossed the bridge to the towpath Amiss was feeling better. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘Talk about smells and bells!’

  ‘Yes, excellent, wasn’t it? There were moments when I could hardly see the congregation through the smoke.’

  ‘You’re pretty High Church as atheists go, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Tell the truth but don’t stint on the glory, that’s my motto. What’s the point of religion if it isn’t full of spectacle? That was terrific stuff. All those self-important bishops in embroidered copes and boy sopranos in starched surplices and poncy canons in fancy cassocks and stately processions and the right hymns and the unadulterated Book of Common Prayer. Excellent, excellent. You’d think time hadn’t moved on in centuries. As long as it’s the product of a long tradition it’s fine by me. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Don’t know. All this is new to me. I fear the Amiss family went in for a dreary Low-Church austerity. Our local church was chilly, bleak and without any architectural merit and the vicar’s cassock sported no flounces.’

  ‘His chasuble fell short on the orphrey front, I infer.’

  ‘Whatever you might find a turn-on we were definitely short of in St Joseph’s.’

  ‘Too bad. I hadn’t realized how deprived was your childhood.’

  ‘You know, I wouldn’t have associated you with religious carry-on. Stupid of me, really. I should have realized you’d be attracted by excess in any form. I’m
surprised you didn’t go over to Rome.’

  She shook her head. ‘Alas, I couldn’t do that. The trouble with Rome is they expect you to take it seriously, believe in God and obey all the ghastly rules stopping you doing anything you want especially if they haven’t had it themselves, and what’s more, they disapprove of you only turning up to services when you want to.

  ‘Roman Catholic prelates look good, but sadly they’re mostly life-denying misery-guts. And what’s more they’ve got rid of their greatest glory—the Latin mass. Now that was something that used to carry me away—a sung Latin mass.’ She bellowed ‘Kyrie Eleison’ a few times. ‘In any case Rome is Rome and I’m not going to be pushed around by a crowd of wops. The Church of England is right for England.’

  ‘You mean full of dottiness and doubt and tolerance and the rest of it.’

  ‘Absolutely. Fortunately’—she stopped and pointed towards the cathedral—‘we’ve got all the grandest buildings. The papists haven’t anything to beat that. Look at it. Nigh on a thousand years of faith and hope and Englishness.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Isn’t that magnificent?’

  ‘Englishness is pushing it a bit, isn’t it? That’s surely a Norman tower.’

  She hit him a painful blow with her handbag. ‘Stop being such a fucking pedant. We Anglo-Saxons absorbed those buggers in no time at all. Anyway, while I grant you the tower and those superlative spires, what makes Westonbury one of my favourite cathedrals is all that Gothic exuberance. No other cathedral can beat that explosion of naturalistic carving.’

  ‘L’excès, toujours l’excès.’ He dodged another swing of the bag. ‘OK, OK. It is wonderful and I am moved by it. It’s just that I get embarrassed and English about admitting such emotions.’

  ‘You’ll come to love it.’

  ‘Jack, I have explained to you in words of one syllable that I am shaking the dust of Westonbury off my feet after today and going home for good. I was not taken in by that cock-and-bull story about your needing to be protected from David’s advances. Maidenly delicacy is not a problem with which I associate you.’