Appointed to Die (18 page)

Perversely, it was a beautiful morning: opposite John Kingsley's house the east end of the cathedral shimmered golden rather than grey in the early morning sun, rising like a great ship from the faint autumnal mist which lingered in the grass around it and amongst the buildings of the Close. Somewhere a bird sang, full-throated and joyous, with a sound so piercingly pure that no Malbury chorister could ever hope to equal it. David and Lucy walked around the Close on the north side of the cathedral in silence, entering through the great west doors.

The service would be held in the Lady Chapel in the retrochoir, so it was in that direction that they went, along the north aisle and behind the Quire. The sun streamed through the east window, dappling the stone walls with colour and catching the gilding on the Comper English altar, setting it alight and haloing its angels with golden effulgence.

But the Comper angels were not alone in the chapel: two women were there already, arranging flowers on either side of the altar. One was Pat Willoughby, who looked up and greeted them briefly as she added a fragrant sprig of rosemary to the pedestal; her arrangement was simple and dignified, fashioned from what was available in her garden.

On the other side of the altar, surprisingly, was Rowena Hunt. She smiled at David first, then at Lucy, though her smile was subdued. ‘I had to come,' she explained, indicating the flowers, an arrangement of expensive cut blooms. ‘I . . . I was there on Thursday, after Evensong, and when Inspector Drewitt told me what had happened, I knew that I had to do something. The flowers from my drawing room – they were all that I had to offer.'

Guilt, reflected Lucy with surprise. It was not an emotion which sat easily on Rowena, but evidently it had affected in various measure all of those who had remained silent while a man's self-esteem, reputation – and ultimately his life – were publicly destroyed.

Inspector Drewitt himself appeared then, out of the shadows. Acknowledging Lucy and David with a nod, he said to Rowena, ‘I'm going to go up to the tower. Someone should ring the passing bell. Looks like it's going to be me.'

Rowena frowned and, oblivious to the onlookers, put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Do you think you should, Mike? Don't you know that the Dean has forbidden any bells?'

With a short ironic bark of a laugh, he raised his eyebrows. ‘So I've heard. But I'm a big boy now, Mrs Hunt. I can take care of myself.' He turned smartly on his heel and was gone before she could make any reply; she looked after him, chewing on her lip.

Tactfully Lucy and David withdrew, preparing to take seats for the service. But a solitary figure hurrying up from the south aisle intercepted them. For a moment Lucy failed to recognise Judith Greenwood: it was not just that she was wearing a long black dress that had once been elegant, though it was some years out of fashion and uncomfortably tight-fitting. More importantly, she moved with none of her usual tentative, self-effacing diffidence but instead like a woman who knew where she was going. ‘Your father is taking the service?' she asked.

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘I need to see him. Now, before the service.' Her violet eyes, usually downcast, met Lucy's forthrightly.

‘He's probably in the sacristy,' Lucy said. ‘Why don't we go there and find him? David, if you want to find us some seats, I'll be back in a few minutes.' He nodded. Lucy led Judith Greenwood around into the choir aisle to the inconspicuous door leading to the sacristy. She tapped on the door. ‘Daddy?'

‘Come in, my dear,' replied John Kingsley in a quiet voice. As they entered he turned from his contemplation of the small crucifix on the wall. He was vested in readiness for the service, wearing his own old-fashioned white chasuble, one which he seldom wore: it had been given to him at his ordination by his beloved parish priest and it was beginning to show its age.

‘Daddy, Mrs Greenwood wanted to see you.'

He smiled at Lucy, then took Judith Greenwood's hands and looked into the violet eyes. ‘Yes, Judith?'

‘I understand that there's to be no choir at the service,' she said, raising her chin. ‘I should like to sing at the offertory.'

‘Sing?' he echoed.

‘I'll take full responsibility, if the Dean doesn't approve.'

‘Oh, I'm not concerned about that. But . . .'

Judith smiled gravely. ‘You don't know whether I'm capable or not, do you? I suppose you think, like everyone else, that Rupert is the only musical one in the family.' She paused, and squared her shoulders in the snug black dress. ‘I am . . . I
was
. . . a professional singer,' she explained. ‘I may be a bit out of practice, but I won't disgrace you. The organ scholar has agreed to accompany me on the chamber organ.'

‘Yes, of course,' Canon Kingsley agreed without hesitation. ‘I'm so pleased that you want to do it. And I'm sure that Rupert is pleased, as well.'

She looked back over her shoulder as she left the sacristy. ‘Oh, Rupert doesn't know,' Judith said, smiling. ‘I haven't told him.'

Lucy lingered a moment before following her. ‘Are you all right, Daddy?' She looked at him anxiously, noting the dark circles under his eyes.

‘I still don't know what I'm going to say,' he replied elliptically. ‘But I have faith that the Holy Spirit will lead me. God hasn't let me down yet, not even . . . when your dear mother died. He'll give me the words to say.' He bowed his head for a moment; the sunlight which found its way through the small grilled window struck silver sparks from his hair.

Lucy, loving him, searched for some words of reassurance, but in the end merely kissed his cheek. Just then the tenor bell began to ring: sonorously, ponderously, tolling desolately for a life cut short. The passing bell.

The chapel, Lucy found to her amazement, was overflowing with people. In the few minutes she'd been away they'd streamed in silently, filling every available seat of the small, shallow chapel. Pat Willoughby was there, of course, in the front row, with Evelyn Marsden, Judith Greenwood, and Olivia Ashleigh. Rowena had found a place beside Jeremy; Canon Thetford and his wife were both there. Victor and Bert sat near the back, looking far more subdued than she'd ever seen them, while Todd Randall and the bell-ringers had abandoned their customary casual garb, looking almost as respectable as Dorothy Unworth. Word had clearly spread throughout the Close and the town; a few of the choristers were there with their parents, and all of the lay clerks had come. As Lucy squeezed into her seat, jealously guarded by David, she realised that the only people missing were the Subdean and the Precentor. Odd, she thought, that they should allow themselves to be intimidated by the Dean when everyone else had turned out in defiance of him.

Lucy was wrong, however: the Subdean and the Precentor were present. Unable at the last minute to face the crowd, Arthur Brydges-ffrench had sought out his stall in the Quire, where he could pray in peace and hear the service from behind the reredos. Seeing him there, alone and with tears on his cheeks, Rupert Greenwood had joined him in his own adjacent stall, just to keep an eye on the older man.

The passing bell continued its hollow, sombre tolling; all else was silence. John Kingsley took his place before the altar and lifted his hands. ‘The Lord be with you.'

Canon Kingsley was conscious of the many pairs of eyes fixed upon him as he rose to deliver his sermon. In the early hours of the morning he had made copious notes, but had discarded them all; now he merely folded his hands in front of him, and with a quick silent prayer, began.

‘A few minutes ago I read to you the New Testament lesson, 1 Corinthians 13. It is a chapter that we all know well, from many weddings and other joyous occasions throughout the years. You may wonder why I've chosen that lesson for such a sad occasion as this, and why I'm now taking it as my text for this short meditation.

‘“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

‘As familiar as this opening verse is, it is the final verse on which I'd like to concentrate. “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

‘Faith,' he said, ‘comes first, before all. Without faith, there is nothing else. And to me, faith means trusting in God, trusting in Him through all the adversities of life. Sometimes one of the most difficult areas for trust is forgiveness. We can't bring ourselves to believe in God's forgiveness on a personal level – we want to believe that what we've done is so horrendous, so sinful that God cannot possibly forgive us. This, my friends, is in itself a serious sin, perhaps the worst sin, for it shows a lack of faith, a lack of trust in His all-encompassing love.' He paused, looking around.

‘Today we are remembering a life that has been lost. Some might say that the manner of that death has placed the man beyond God's forgiveness: to take one's own life shows a depth of despair that must exclude faith. But I would say to you that nothing can place us beyond God's forgiveness, not even our own feeling that we are unforgiven or unforgivable. No sin is too great for His love to wipe out, whether we are able to accept it or not.

‘Some of us – many of us – may feel a measure of guilt, of complicity in what has happened to Ivor Jones. Guilt that we didn't get to know him better when he was here among us, and guilt that we were somehow involved in his death through our silence. But through this guilt, in which I share, there is hope of a closer relationship with God through forgiveness.

‘That brings us to hope, the second in the trio of virtues. You may think that there is not much to inspire hope in the events that have brought us here today. But again, God is bigger than our imaginations, and is always able to bring good out of evil. Ivor Jones's death may yet result in good, if we are able to put it behind us and travel on together in hope. In hope, that is, that the clouds of suspicion and fear that have lingered over this cathedral recently can and will be dispelled by God's love.

‘And so to charity, the greatest of all. Charity, also translated as love. For it is charity that we are all called upon to exercise now. Charity towards each other, towards our brother Ivor Jones, and above all towards the man whom many of us hold responsible for what has happened.' There was a collective indrawn breath and for a moment John Kingsley stood silent, meeting the eyes of the congregation one by one. When he continued his voice was quiet but firm. ‘We all know that I am speaking of Stuart Latimer. An action of his triggered the events that resulted in Ivor Jones's death. I'm sure that the Dean regrets this as much as anyone – much more, perhaps, since he must surely bear it on his conscience. And so, in Christian charity, we must forgive the Dean, as God has forgiven him, and work with him to ensure that nothing of this kind will ever again happen in Malbury. We must rise above our own personal interests and put the interests of the cathedral first. Or perhaps I should say the interests of God, for He is why we are all here. If this is our aim, we cannot fail, for He will be with us in all that we do. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”'

In the Quire, Arthur Brydges-ffrench sobbed quietly; Rupert Greenwood knelt beside him, patting his arm. The words of the sermon had come through the reredos clearly, but the Subdean had broken down in tears during the Creed. Now it was time for the offertory. The chamber organ played a few bars of introduction, and ‘I know that my redeemer liveth,' a soprano voice sang suddenly. It was a voice both pure and rich, bursting with hope and faith, and it filled the cathedral with its glorious lambent golden sound, soaring to the fan vaulting, cascading down the walls, and echoing round the pillars. For a moment everyone in the cathedral was transfixed with the beauty of it. ‘Yet in my flesh shall I see God . . .'

‘Judith?' Rupert whispered in astonished recognition. ‘Good Heavens – Judith . . .'

CHAPTER 17

    
Lord, how are they increased that trouble me: many are they that rise against me.

Psalm 3.1

After the final blessing, John Kingsley made his way back to the sacristy, followed shortly by his daughter. ‘Daddy, it was wonderful,' she said impulsively, hugging him. ‘You said exactly the right thing.'

‘Did I? I can't really remember what I said – just that it seemed right at the time.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well,' he said slowly, considering his words, ‘the best way I can describe it is like a gramophone record, with God at the centre. The centre is still, but the record spins around, and the farther you are from the centre the faster you spin. That's what I was doing earlier, spinning around the outside of the gramophone record, trying to make sense of it all on my own terms. But when I got up to speak I let God carry me towards the centre, and the nearer I got the more certain I was that He was in control. There's tremendous peace in letting go like that.'

Canon Kingsley, with Lucy, returned to the Lady Chapel as soon as possible to greet the retiring congregation. A number of people had left already: the lay clerks had slipped out immediately after the service, and the choristers and their parents had gone. Victor and Bert had rushed back to the shop, and Dorothy Unworth to the refectory. Pat Willoughby circulated among those who were left with an invitation: ‘Do come back to my kitchen for a bit of breakfast. It won't be anything fancy . . .'

Most accepted with alacrity, but Evelyn Marsden hesitated. Throughout the service she had been craning her neck discreetly, searching for Canon Brydges-ffrench. ‘I'm concerned about Arthur,' she admitted. ‘I was sure that he would have come – I saw him set out from his house, but he doesn't seem to be here.'