Murder in a Cathedral (25 page)

He sat down. ‘She thinks Tilly’s the blackmailer. So do I.’

Amiss smote his brow. ‘Of course, of course. That explains everything. Well, nearly everything. She’s been blackmailing for Jesus. God, I must be slowing up.’

‘No, you’re not. I had a while to come to that conclusion. You’ve had only half a minute.’

‘And Jack had only ten seconds.’

‘Look, we know she’s faster than either of us, but don’t start developing an inferiority complex. Think about all the things you can do that she can’t. Like what we want you to do now.’

‘If you mean trying to worm secrets out of Davage, I’m already under orders, but I expect little to emerge. I can’t tell him I know about his past. It would hardly be good news for your career if it emerged that you tell me your professional secrets.’

‘I have every confidence in you, Robert. I’m sure you’ll find a way.’

‘I’ve brought you some flowers. Shall I find a vase?’

‘How kind. How pretty. I love freesias. Now let me think. Oh, yes. Put them in the small funnel-shaped cut-glass vase you’ll find beside the kitchen sink: it’s just the perfect shape to show them off.’

‘And I’ve brought you a bottle of champagne too.’

‘My dear boy, is that wise? Look what it made me do last night.’

‘Just one little glass for medicinal purposes. Then I’ll stop it up and put it in the fridge.’

When the flowers had been arranged to Davage’s satisfaction and placed exactly in the right position, just under the pope, Amiss saluted Davage with his glass. ‘Let’s drink to survival, Cecil.’

Davage smiled ruefully. ‘To survival, though I have to say I can’t say I’m much enjoying it at the moment.’

‘Are you in pain?’

‘Not physically. Not much, anyway. But mentally, yes. It’s all very humiliating and the future looks pretty bleak.’

‘Forgive me, I don’t want to be nosy, but…’

‘Why did I do it? A mixture of drink and shame. What am I if not the treasurer of Westonbury? When I found that because of my carelessness, those possessions for which I would happily have given my life had been stolen, why, then it seemed a good idea to give my life anyway, in what I fondly imagined to be a stylish manner.’

He moved in his armchair and winced slightly as his plaster cast knocked against the revolving bookcase next to it. ‘And what happened? I succeeded in making myself an object of ridicule and wrecking another work of art for which I cared deeply.’

‘We all make fools of ourselves at times, Cecil. And remember what we’re talking about are only objects. You are a human being.’

‘I see. You then would be of the school of thought that thinks you save the baby from the burning house rather than the
Mona Lisa
?’

‘Every time.’

‘I understand your point of view. Perhaps if it were my baby I might even hesitate a little. But I feel sure the
Mona Lisa
would win every time. There’s only one of it and there are a lot of babies.’ He gave a little titter. ‘At least I’m consistent. I truly believe the Great St Dumbert’s Staff is more important than me. I can hardly bear to contemplate its loss.’

‘I ran into Ellis Pooley on my way here and he told me the police are pretty confident that the staff will be recovered. I can’t think that any sensible fence is likely to welcome a seven-foot-long staff of unique design which is featured in countless books on medieval art.’

‘That’s not what I worry about. I could bear it going to some horrid foreign collector who gloated over it in private. What terrifies me is the fear that they’ll take out the precious stones and melt down the staff.’

‘Don’t dwell on it now. Let’s think about something else. Have you heard any news of the dean?’

‘Oddly enough, I have. Less than an hour ago, I received a phone call in which he gruffly said that he hoped I was making good progress as was he, and added that he was praying for me.’

‘Good heavens.’

‘I reciprocated, of course. And we rang off blessing each other.’

‘Has he mellowed?’

‘Perhaps. It may be that what he always needed was a good bash on the back of the head. Silly old Nora.’

‘It’s good news, though, isn’t it? Surely there’s now a chance you can work out some kind of compromise together.’

‘I dare say we will.’

Amiss looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I don’t mean a capitulation of the kind you appeared to be mooting on Saturday night. I mean a compromise that will save the important cathedral traditions, and won’t cause Trustrum to hang himself off one of the remaining chandeliers.’

Davage tittered again. ‘At least he has a sort of precedent. Perhaps he could use red tape rather than rope.’

‘Seriously, Cecil.’

‘What can I say? I’m not sanguine. If the Rev. Myrtle joins the chapter, we are undone.’

‘But you still could block him.’

‘Please, Robert. I have reasons I can’t tell you about. Now can we please change the subject. How’s Gladys taking all this?’

‘She’s… he’s not been seen since Saturday night. He rang Trustrum, said he’d been held up and left a phone number. I don’t even know if he knows about you two. Listen, Cecil, I won’t be made to change the subject yet. I think I know why you won’t fight the dean. I think Jeremy was being blackmailed by Tilly Cooper. My guess is that she’s been doing the same to you.’

‘Guess away. I’m not going to help.’

‘You’re not going to deny?’

‘I’m not going to help.’

Amiss reasoned, cajoled and finally gave up and allowed Davage to chatter to him about his plans for the next series of
Forgotten Treasures
. He had found in one of the most rundown boroughs in London a tiny Victorian graveyard crammed with elaborate crypts and vaults and cherub-laden headstones. Not only was
Forgotten Treasures
to do a programme on it, but there was an application going to the National Lottery for funds to restore it.

Davage leaned forward in excitement. ‘And I’m hoping it’ll start a trend, you see. There are all these wonderful places tucked away in the most… Excuse me, I’ll just get the phone… Speaking… Yes… Yes… An unfortunate accident… Certainly not… I see… There’s not much point in denying it, is there?… You feel, do you, that in doing this to me you are providing a public service?… I see… No… I fear I cannot oblige you… No… No comment.’ He put down the phone. ‘Would you be kind enough, Robert, to give me a second glass of champagne?’

Chapter 20

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‘What took you so long?’

‘It was rather an eventful visit
chez
Davage.’

‘We held dinner for you. Come on downstairs and tell us about it.’

‘Where’s Alice?’

‘She came in for a drink after the match,’ said the bishop, ‘but then insisted on going home.’

‘Who won?’

He beamed. ‘I did. But she hadn’t played for a long time. I think after a dozen or so matches I might be in trouble.’

As Pooley ladled out the casserole and the bishop poured out the claret, Amiss said, ‘I’m warming to little Davage. He’s got more guts than I’d thought.’

Pooley sat down. ‘So tell us all.’

‘It’s not easy to put this in order, since he denied everything in the beginning and came up with the goods rather emotionally after a bombshell from outside.’

He took up a forkful of the casserole and chewed for a moment.

‘Do get on,’ urged Pooley.

‘In a nutshell, he claims that when the dean outlined his plans for closing the choir school and turning the cathedral into a wholly evangelical centre, he told him to stuff it. He was, he said, prepared to consider reasonable compromises, but not to contemplate any erosion of the strengths of Westonbury. Then Tilly came to see him and explained that if he didn’t play ball, she’d tell the tabloids about his conviction. At a stroke, she explained sweetly, that would finish his broadcasting career and make him an object of ridicule in Westonbury. He succumbed.’

‘Oh, poor, poor Cecil. Which of us wouldn’t? What a dreadful woman.’ An awful thought struck the bishop. ‘The dean didn’t know about this, did he?’

‘There’s no reason to suppose so.’

‘Why didn’t Davage tell the dean that his wife was blackmailing him?’ asked Pooley.

‘She said that if he did, the dean would take her word against his, and she would leak the story and have him ruined anyway.’

‘Does he think she blackmailed Flubert as well?’

‘He knows she did, because Jeremy rang him the evening he died to tell him about a) his conversation with the dean and b) his conversation with Tilly. Apparently she caught him in the front hall of the deanery and told him she would be calling on him in fifteen minutes. Hence the phone call to me, moving me to the Dog and Duck.’

‘So it looks as if it definitely was suicide,’ said Pooley.

Amiss, who was picking at his food, put down his fork.

‘Unless he threatened to blow the gaffe on Tilly, which he might have done. He was strong enough to contemplate ruining himself for a principle.’

‘You mean she might have hanged him?’

‘Possibly, if she had a gun.’

‘Or perhaps with the dean’s help,’ said Pooley. ‘He’s besotted enough.’

‘It seems rather unlikely that he’d be murdering Jeremy to stop the poor man telling him about his wife.’

‘Sorry, Robert. My brains are becoming addled.’

‘Yet there’s still the stumbling block of the lack of a suicide note.’

‘You’re addled too, Robert. If he left a note, it would have blamed Tilly. She could have made off with it.’

The bishop had given up eating. He sat with his head in his hands listening miserably. Amiss leaned over and spoke to him gently. ‘David, you’d better brace yourself. You’re really going to hate this.’

The bishop sat up and looked at him in dread.

‘The reason Cecil told me all this is because during my visit there was a phone call from the
Daily Filth
, asking him to comment on the revelation that he had a conviction for indecent exposure. They’re going to run with it tomorrow. TV’S DIRTY OLD VICAR is apparently the working headline.’

‘He’s not a vicar,’ said the bishop feebly.

‘The
Daily Filth
doesn’t worry unduly about nomenclature.’

The bishop retreated back into his hands.

‘How is Davage taking it?’ asked Pooley.

‘This is the good news, David. By the time we got to the end of the champagne I’d brought, he said he hadn’t felt so happy for weeks. “It’s true, you know,” he said. “Roosevelt was right: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ ” He’d be free now to join forces with Fedden-Jones and fight, and was confident of getting Alice on board and perhaps finding out what Tilly had on Trustrum and stiffening his resolve. “If my series is cancelled, my series is cancelled,” he said. “But maybe it won’t be. After all, aren’t minor offences supposed to be spent after seven years? Why should the BBC be harsher than the state?”

‘Incidentally, Ellis. Why were Jeremy’s and Cecil’s offences still on the record?’

‘They just are. They’re spent in the sense that you don’t have to own up to them, and they won’t be taken into account if you’re being sentenced for anything, but we don’t banish them completely from our records.’

‘And how did the tabloids get onto it?’

‘If I ever find the policeman responsible for that,’ said Pooley. ‘I think I’ll horsewhip him.’

‘To within an inch of his life on the steps of your club, no doubt?’

‘If I get half a chance.’

‘To continue. Cecil’s happiness was made complete by your call announcing the recovery of the croziers and the Dumbert Staff from the river. He said he can handle the loss of everything else. Congratulations. How did you manage that?’

‘It seemed obvious to me that whether on foot or in a car, the thief would have found great difficulty in inconspicuously removing assorted croziers and a seven-foot-long gold staff from the environs of the cathedral. Even if covered, such long objects on a roof rack or poking through a window or out the back of an estate car would be highly likely to attract unwelcome attention in the early hours of the morning.’

‘He might have had a van.’

‘He might. But that would have been conspicuous parked near the cathedral at night. As would have been one of the shamans’ trailers.

‘My guess was the thief would chuck them somewhere from where they might be recovered at leisure: the river seemed the only likely place. So I went behind Godson’s back and had it dredged, and bingo! we found the staff and croziers. Godson dragged himself away from his garden long enough to congratulate me and tell me we would claim it was our joint idea.’

‘So are the shamans still being hotly pursued?’

‘Yes, although I’m sure it’s a waste of time.’

By now the bishop had had enough good news to resume tucking into his casserole. ‘What is to be done about that frightful woman? Who will talk to the dean? Must I?’

‘I suppose mercy requires you to wait until he’s better. Why don’t you confer with Cecil tomorrow about when he should be told? The poor bastard will need all his strength when he discovers that he’s married to a whited sepulchre – how does it go, David?’

‘ “Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” ’

‘Jolly good, the Bible, isn’t it? I couldn’t have described Tilly Cooper more neatly myself. The dean’s going to make a heroic choice between good and evil this time. My guess is that Tilly the Tart is unlikely to come out on top – if you’ll forgive the expression. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and ring Jack.’

The bishop shook Amiss awake. ‘I’m sorry to wake you up so early, my dear boy, but I’m very worried. I can’t find Plutarch anywhere.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Just after six.’

‘Hell! So now she’s been gone for about twelve hours. That’s not like her at all.’

‘No, it isn’t. She’s never stayed out all night before, has she?’

Amiss sat up and shook himself fully awake. ‘There was that night she went out after supper and didn’t get back till about two.’