Murder in a Cathedral (17 page)

They managed a rough embrace without embarrassing Pooley too much. ‘I’m sorry, Robert. It was pusillanimous and mean spirited of me to hesitate about coming. I know he had become a friend. You must be feeling like hell.’

Amiss grinned sourly. ‘I should be used to it by now, shouldn’t I?’

‘One never gets used to it. Not as long as one stays human.’ Pooley smiled. ‘And you’re certainly that, aren’t you? Are you ready for a late lunch?’

‘Am I just!’

‘Jack Troutbeck. Thought I’d better bring you up to date on your chap. He’s in a bit of a state and will need comforting.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘No, he’ll be fine when he sobers up. Latest intelligence is that he has just been assisted to bed by Ellis Pooley.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘A friend of his just snuffed it.’

‘Who?’

‘Jeremy Hubert, the Westonbury organist.’

Rachel banged the telephone in frustration. ‘Oh shit, no. He’s the one he had grown fond of.’

The baroness sighed gustily. ‘So it appears. We hadn’t realized how close they’d become. What’s more he’s managing to blame himself in some obscure way for not having been around to save him.’

‘From what?’

‘Killing himself or being killed.’

‘Oh my God, you mean you’ve let him in for another round of blood and guts.’

‘He’s a grown-up.’

‘But an unusually malleable grown-up.’

‘You’re just complaining because he’s doing what I tell him rather than what you tell him.’

Rachel laughed. ‘Maybe, although actually, as he has started to admit, the truth is he does it because he wants to. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always enjoy it.’

‘Like life.’

‘Quite. But in his case, with more horrors than most people will ever experience.’

‘Don’t worry, he’s in good hands. I’ve press-ganged Ellis into promising to stay until he has to go back to work at the end of next week. Indeed I’m about to instruct him to get himself attached to the local police force, since the word is the rozzer in charge is a lemon.’

‘Do you push everyone around?’

‘I try.’

‘We must meet sometime.’

The baroness snorted in agreement. ‘ “But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth/When two strong men” – or to be strictly accurate, two strong women – “stand face to face, though they come from the ends of earth!” Yes, we must. We might get on.’

‘Yes, Jack, he’s sleeping peacefully.’

‘Good. I’ve been thinking.’

‘Mmm?’ Pooley sounded cautious.

‘There’s no point in you hanging about in Westonbury being a nanny. It’s time you and Robert got going on the case. From what David said the superintendent seems to be a waste of space. You’d better get yourself formally assigned to his staff.’

‘Don’t be daft. That’s not the way the system works.’

‘Why not? Wouldn’t they like an extra hand?’

Politeness began to give way to exasperation. ‘Surely you understand about turf wars? They’re one of the nightmares of being a policeman. Regional forces are all jealous of each other and everyone hates the Met. We’re supposed to be arrogant, patronizing know-alls.’

‘Don’t be defeatist.’

‘Jack, I can absolutely assure you there is no chance whatsoever that on hearing that a police sergeant from the Met – steeped in murders though I may be – is around here on holiday, the local superintendent in charge of the case will tug his forelock and beg me to help. You might as well expect the US Senate to ask you to become a temporary legislator when you next descend on Washington.’

‘That’s a fatuous comparison. I’m not suggesting you offer yourself to the FBI. Come on, lad, think flexibly. You’ve got to network. One of your Met pals must know this guy or one of his bosses. Look how Jim Milton got you assigned to the St Martha’s little local difficulty.’

‘I suppose if Jim were here he might be able to sort out something.’

‘Well, he isn’t. So you’d better pick up your flat feet and run with the ball.’

‘If you insist.’ The evident irritation in Pooley’s voice was completely lost on the baroness, who had already rung off.

Pooley woke Amiss with a cup of tea. ‘How are you feeling?’ Amiss sat up and shook his head vigorously. ‘Fine. Slept like the dead.’ He winced. ‘Oh, God, I’d forgotten.’

‘Try this. It’ll wake you up. You should get up for a few hours or you won’t sleep tonight.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Almost eight. We’re having dinner in half an hour. I know the bishop would be glad if you could join us.’

Amiss took a cautious sip of tea. ‘I’d be delighted. Oddly enough, I don’t feel hung over. Maybe I’m still drunk.’

‘That’s the most likely explanation. Now, I’ve got some good news. I’ve got myself drafted in to help the local police investigate Flubert’s death.’

‘Wonderful, Ellis. I was in despair at the indifference of Superintendent Godson. How did you pull it off?’

‘Under extreme pressure from Jack I rang around my most friendly colleagues; it turned out that Sammy Pike worked with Godson years ago and they’ve stayed pals. He just rang him up and fixed up for me to help him. Can you believe it?’

‘So what’s the deal?’

‘Godson says he’s short-handed and glad to have me. He thought it might be useful that I’m staying in the close and will have some inside knowledge. It’s an informal arrangement. From the point of view of the Met this won’t be a secondment: I’ll just be having a busman’s holiday.’

‘No doubt Jack’s taking the credit?’

‘Need you ask? Mind you, she probably deserves it. I’d never have thought it possible to fix up something like this. Godson must be an unusual copper.’

‘And to think he seemed to David and me to be a bit of a jerk. Well, well – a further useful lesson in not jumping to conclusions.’

‘Are you all right now, or is there anything else you need me to do?’

‘Thank you, Jack. No. You seem to have pushed people around most constructively. Rachel’s been sympathetic, Ellis is girding on his metaphorical helmet—’

‘You don’t gird on a helmet: you don it.’

‘—and David has stopped wailing and is doggedly getting on with his duties.’

‘Like you, I trust. What news have you for me?’

‘Nothing except that I had a most cheering conversation this morning with Alice Wolpurtstone. Between them, the lesbian witches, the shamans, the dean and now poor Jeremy have transformed her from crying hand-wringer to purposeful toughie. She confided that loneliness and the absence of challenge in Westonbury had unmanned her for a time. “I’ve got my sense of perspective back,” she explained cheerfully, sounding like a veritable memsahib. “They can do their worst.” ’

‘Who?’

‘The dean, obviously. Though she’s got over being mad with him. Says she should forgive him what he did to her because of what he did to Tengri, which apparently she equates with Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple. We hadn’t realized how much she was suffering at Tengri’s hands: he used to shout obscenities through her letter box.’

‘Whose side will she be on in the chapter, though?’

‘Says she’s keeping an open mind on the issues.’

‘Don’t like the sound of that.’

‘You wouldn’t. Anyway, she’s demonstrated her mettle in dealing with the witches. Apparently they arrived at her house in force last night to demand she join them in suing the dean for assault, hurt feelings and the rest of it. When she refused, they accused her of colluding with homophobics. When she explained she believed in turning the other cheek they became vituperative. She was accused among other things of being crone-unfriendly and a sadofeminist.’

‘A what?’

‘It’s a feminist who follows a patriarchal agenda.’

‘Well at least they’ve an original line in insults. So what did she do?’

‘Told them to get out and not darken her door again.’

‘And did they?’

‘Indeed they did. And haven’t been seen since. Presumably they’re delivering themselves of angry incantations and sticking pins in wax images of her, but if so they’re having no effect. She’s concluded it’s time she went back to looking after people who deserve to be looked after and has put charlatans behind her.’

‘Very good. Very, very good. That girl has more spirit than I’d have thought. We’ll make a man of her yet. I’ll be in touch.’ The phone went dead.

‘To be perfectly honest…’

Pooley adopted the interested expression that was the appropriate response to a phrase normally followed by statements like ‘I prefer good weather to bad’ or ‘I’d rather I hadn’t broken my leg in fifteen pieces’.

‘I’m lazy.’

Pooley looked at Superintendent Godson with new respect.

‘In fact I’m very lazy. Very, very lazy. At least as far as work is concerned.’ He grinned. ‘I’m telling you this, a) because Sammy Pike says you’re OK and b) because I don’t give a bugger. The only thing I give a bugger about is my garden – more particularly my carnations, which won second prize at the Westonbury Flower Show last year and which I hope this year will scoop first. If they don’t, I can tell you it will not be for the want of trying on my part.’

He sank further back into his armchair and took another sip of the coffee with which Pooley had provided him. ‘I’ll be retiring in eighteen months, so there’s now no chance of promotion. And I’m sick and tired of police work and spending my life fighting criminals and bureaucracy.

‘Quite simply, my main objective during what remains of my professional life is to get other people to do the work. Of course I take some of the credit, but I give others plenty if it’s deserved. Especially if they help me to get home in good time to tend my flowers.’ He paused expectantly.

Pooley nodded gravely. ‘I understand, sir. I hope I can be of assistance.’

‘As far as I’m concerned you’re heaven-sent. I’ve got a thick DC assigned to me on this case who doesn’t know if it’s breakfast or Tuesday. Several corpses short of a morgue, you might say.’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘Can’t think how people like that get into the police force.’

He took another sip and smiled genially. ‘And now you arrive from nowhere, bright as a button and keen as a whippet, according to Sammy Pike, and anxious to sort out what happened to that canon just for the hell of it. And if this is your idea of holiday, more fool you and lucky old me.

‘However we have to observe the proprieties. I don’t want to overstep the mark and be drummed out of the force before I’ve earned my full pension. I’ll have to be seen undertaking the basic enquiries, you understand, but you can investigate away like a good ’un with my blessing. Find me proof of suicide and I’ll be delighted. And if it turns out to be murder, I’d like the murderer delivered to me, please, in a nice package with a pink ribbon and a bow, preferably with all the paperwork stapled to it.

‘Oh, yes. As far as possible, I like my hours to be a maximum of nine to five: if I stay till six I probably won’t start until ten next day. You, of course, can ferret away all night for all I care. Just do it discreetly.’

‘All that seems fine to me, sir. Just one thing. What will my status be?’

‘You’ll be what you are – Detective Sergeant Pooley of the Met lending us a hand. None of the clerics will ask any awkward questions: we’re all plods to them. So you can attend my interviews and give me some tips where you think they will be useful: I’ve got no false pride. Just keep remembering that all I want is as little work and as much credit as possible.’

‘But what about DC Boyd, sir?’

‘DC Plod himself? Don’t worry about him. He’ll fetch and carry. He can read and write and take notes and run errands, you’ll provide the brains and energy and I’ll go through the motions.’

‘Fine by me, sir.’

‘Right.’

He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better sit down at the table and look serious. I sent Plod to pick up the dean. They should be along any minute now.’

‘Suicide or murder?’ asked Godson.

Dean Cooper gazed at him grimly. ‘I can give no opinion on that. Though I had not thought that poor wee wretch so depraved as to destroy himself. For suicide is the great abomination in the eyes of the Lord.’

‘Spare us the sermon, sir. How did you find Canon Hubert when you saw him shortly before his death?’

‘In what sense?’

‘Was he in good spirits? Did you have a disagreement?’

‘I called him to tell him that there must be changes in the music in this cathedral. He has made it a centre for the elite, for the rich, and often for the decadent and the Romish. It is time we followed the word of Jesus and suffered the poor and the deprived to come to us. It is our duty to save souls and that means we must make this place welcoming. You do not welcome a poor person by playing him music fit only for popinjays. My wife understands all this. She knows how to bring souls to Jesus through uplifting song.’

The superintendent sighed loudly. ‘I’m not interested in your justifications, sir. I want to know what happened between you and the deceased.’

‘I made my position clear to Canon Flubert and he dissented, which is hardly surprising. However, we discussed this as brothers in Christ and agreed there was room for compromise.’

‘How much room?’

‘That was to be finally determined at the next meeting of the dean and chapter. I hoped that with the help of a friend of mine I could persuade these people to take the righteous path.’

‘Was there acrimony?’

‘There may have been a slight raising of voices. No more than that.’

‘So nothing took place that would incline you to think that in his distress he went straight off and hanged himself?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘And you didn’t take such exception to his defence of his music that you took him into the cathedral and hanged him.’

Understandably outraged, the dean jumped up. and shook a furious finger at Godson. ‘How dare you make such an allegation against a man of God.’

‘How do I know what you are capable of? After all, you appear to favour a god of wrath.’ Godson laughed gaily. ‘Who can be sure that you might not have felt morally obliged to rub out Canon Hubert for the sake of the sinners he was keeping out of the cathedral.’