Murder in a Cathedral (16 page)

‘But they found time to take axes to this little miracle here – our own tiny Sistine Chapel. And so in the name of God they destroyed in Westonbury – as elsewhere – the wonderful fruits of the greatest flowering of English art, designed to worship God and honour his mother and his saints. Here, they didn’t rest until they had taken from us every last little bit of beauty and vision and joy except for this remnant of previous glory. I hate, hate, hate that century of desecration. And I hate all those responsible for and sympathetic to that desecration. Dean Cooper is one of them; he’s a Roundhead and I wish he were dead.’

‘Surely you forgive him much for throwing out the shamans.’

‘No, I don’t. It doesn’t make up for wantonly destroying the Marian picture. He’s a desecrating throwback.’

‘Oh, come now, Cecil. You can’t seriously claim that pulling down the canopies and smashing that frankly not-very-good painting is on a par with Cromwell.’

‘It’s the same mentality, don’t you see? He didn’t like that painting, but he could have asked us to move it, or to give it away. And you know he said he’d have Reggie Roper’s memorial pulverized if it wasn’t that the cathedral needs the bequest. He says he’s praying for a bolt of lightning.’

‘But is it reasonable to expect him cheerfully to put up with having a gay extravaganza in his garden? I’m not surprised he’s complaining.’

‘I know the memorial’s not in the best of taste, but it is very well sculpted. And it kept Reggie happy thinking about it. Why can’t it be treated as an enjoyable folly. That’s another thing about puritans; they have no sense of humour. Nowadays they hate even what they helped to construct themselves – the great and wonderful language of the King James Bible: the dean’s language is banal.’

His voice rose to a near squeak. ‘No, no. I see how it will be. Everything beautiful will go and we will have ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly puerile minds and all will be brought down to the level of idiots and philistines.’

He stamped his right foot six or seven times. ‘What great art is about is raising the philistines and the brutish to an understanding of beauty. That was what God wanted. It was Cromwell who was the Satan. Like Cooper.’

‘Did Westonbury suffer more than most other cathedrals?’

‘No. Everywhere suffered, every little church in the country with its own little piece of beauty. All that survived was maybe five per cent – an altar cloth here and a statue there. Do you know that when they had finished with us our religious artists forgot how to paint and it was generations before any concept of religious art re-emerged.

‘Now do you wonder that I’m drawn to Rome? At least pre-Vatican II Rome. Bloody church has been going to pot aesthetically since then. Old Catholicism might have been corrupt, decadent, autocratic and greedy for power and money, but it was greedy for beauty too. Corrupt people were the sponsors for the greatest art to come out of Italy and corrupt people treasured that art and kept it in being.’

His little face took on a malign expression. ‘Every year I take some friends and we go and dance on Richard Cromwell’s grave. We can’t dance on his father’s since he was dug up and his head stuck on a spike. But people like that believe in the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children, so we reckon Richard
can
pay for the sins of Oliver – as well as his own. We curse him to hell – and I don’t mean a namby-pamby Church of England hell either, with its consciousness of difference or absence of God or any of that other insipid muck. I mean good old-fashioned lakes-of-fire-for-eternity hell of the kind the dean is so fond of.’

Amiss lay on his bed and told the story to the baroness. ‘It’s given me a whole new perspective on little Davage.’

‘Indeed. Who would have thought the little man had so much passion in him? And of course he’s absolutely right. Tell him to invite me to the next Cromwell-stomping session and I’ll wear hobnailed boots.’

She brooded for a moment. ‘He’s not afraid for his treasures, is he? Even if the dean is mildly crazed, he’s hardly going to set about the cathedral like a Roundhead. I should have thought he would get a pretty stiff rebuke from the Church Commissioners and English Heritage if he started firing rocks at the rose window.’

‘There’s something to be said for progress after all, Jack. Modern vandals are constrained by bureaucracy from physically expressing their feelings of outrage.’

‘Pah! It’s a pretty poor century that has us trouncing Dean Cooper with a set of regulations. My ancestor, old Alfred Troutbeck, would have known what to do with him. Knock his block off and stick it on one of the spires with that grinny, sappy woman of his along with him.’

‘I shall recommend that course of action to David. I’m sure he’ll take swift and decisive action.’

Tell him if he doesn’t I’ll knock his block off too.’

‘I’ve had the most awful meeting with the dean and his wife.’ The bishop was slumped in the chair behind his desk. ‘They came, as she put it, for a social call and to chat about their plans, and then began to talk about all kinds of terrible things.’

‘Like what?’

‘She simpered at me and asked if I would be “people friendly” and stop calling myself either Doctor or Bishop Elworthy and instead call myself Bishop…’ he gagged.

‘Bishop David?’

‘No. Worse. Bishop Dave. Or just Dave.’

Amiss’s attempt to keep his face straight failed. He looked across the desk at the embodiment of scholarship that was his employer and began to laugh.

The bishop looked distressed.

‘I’m sorry, David. I’m truly sorry. But I’ve never in my life seen anyone less like a Dave. You mustn’t think of giving in to that: you’d be a laughing stock.’

‘But she told me that titles frightened off ordinary people and that the cathedral must become the meeting place for all God’s children. Anyway that’s but a small thing; there’s much worse. He was talking of closing down the choir school – apparently it’s elitist – and getting rid of all traditional music in the cathedral. Henceforward, it’s all to be’ – he looked at his notes – ‘as she put it, “sing-alongs for Jesus”, rave music and whatever else is “relevant”. Incense, of course, will go, the King James Bible will go, the Book of Common Prayer will go. In will come the
Contemporary English Version
and other dreadful American muck.’

‘He can’t do that without the agreement of the chapter surely.’

‘He said he was certain they would listen to reason and she said she knew that Jesus would make them see the light. Apparently they’re asking that Rev. Bev creature to address the next meeting of the chapter to show them how’ – he scrutinized his notes again – ‘to make Jesus accessible. The dean rambled on a bit about how the Rev. Bev’s faith could move mountains.’

‘What did you say to all this?’

The bishop smiled. ‘I had, I think, a moment of divine inspiration. Anyway they left pretty quickly afterwards. I remembered that piece of advice Cromwell gave the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland which he would have done well to follow himself: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” ’

‘Will you come back and see me later this evening?’

‘Sure, Jeremy, I’d be glad to. When?’

‘About tennish.’

‘Anything in particular?’

‘The dean…’ Flubert’s mouth set itself in a hard line. ‘The dean wishes to talk to me about the future.’

‘Any hint of what he has in mind?’

‘I can’t imagine I’ll like it, whatever it is. But I don’t have to pay that much attention to it. I don’t mind making a few concessions here and there, but when the chips are down, he can’t enforce any changes without the support of three members of the chapter. And even if he gets Alice on his side…’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you. She’s being stoical about his assault on her, but she is – for her – very angry. She’s decided he’s not a good Christian, which is a frightful thing for Alice to say about anyone.’

‘Oh, good. I can’t see him getting any other support, so I’m not worried. But just in case things get unpleasant it’ll be consoling to have you to talk to about it afterwards.’

‘Ring me when you get back?’

‘Just turn up here. I’ll leave the door open. Help yourself to a drink.’

‘I hope things go well.’

‘Me too, though I fear acrimony when two positions are as irreconcilable as are ours. One of us has to end up very, very dissatisfied.’

The phone rang as Amiss was pouring himself a glass of whisky.

‘Hello. Jeremy Flubert’s house.’

‘Robert, it’s Jeremy. If you don’t mind, I’d like to meet you somewhere else.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. But I don’t want to meet you at home. Can we make it a pub. There’s one in Meltonian Street called the Dog and Duck that looks pleasant enough from the outside. I’ll try to be there about ten-thirty, but I might be late.’

Amiss was compliant but baffled, unable to think of any coherent reason why Flubert – who valued privacy above all and who almost never went near pubs – should make such an odd request. Still, he obediently knocked back his drink and set off on the twenty-minute walk across town to the Dog and Duck, which proved to be an unfortunate choice of venue. The clientele was young and noisy, its taste reflected in the metallic music that blared out over the loud speakers.

By 11.00 the thumpity, thumpity, thump had given Amiss a severe headache; he thought of going outside and wandering up and down, but feared that if he did he might miss a message from Flubert, so he sat miserable and fed up until closing time when, sorely perplexed and rather worried, he walked back to the close. Flubert’s door was open, but there was no sign that he had been there. Amiss scribbled a concerned note and went home troubled.

‘I’ve got bad news, Robert.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Amiss looked fearfully at the bishop, who stood in front of him quivering.

‘I’m afraid something terrible has happened.’

‘It’s Jeremy, isn’t it?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘Just tell me.’

‘He’s dead.’

‘How?’

The bishop’s legs appeared to give way. He fell into a kitchen chair. ‘Hanging.’

‘He hanged himself?’

‘I suppose so,’ said the bishop miserably. ‘Although he didn’t leave a note so the police are reserving their opinion.’

‘Where was he found?’

‘Oh, it’s too dreadful, too, too dreadful. He’s in the cathedral.’ The bishop’s face was a mask of pain. ‘It’s a horrifying sight, Robert. I wish they hadn’t taken me to it. I fear I lack the necessary fortitude.’ He buried his face in his hands for a moment. ‘He was hanging off one of the organ pipes. Whatever you do, don’t go and look. I don’t think I’ll ever get that sight out of my mind.’

Amiss put his arm around him. ‘Have you said a prayer for him?’

‘Oh, yes. I said one as I looked up at his poor tortured face. It’s a piece of Tennyson I always loved:

‘Speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down,

And in the vast cathedral leave him,

God accept him, Christ receive him.’

That destroyed Amiss’s unnatural calm, and for a couple of minutes the two men sobbed like children. Amiss was the first to recover, blow his nose and sit up straight.

‘Excuse me for a moment. I must go and ring Jack.’

‘Do you think she might come down to us?’

‘If she can, I’m sure she will.’

‘I’m afraid the mistress is at breakfast.’

‘I don’t care, Miss Smart. It’s Robert Amiss here.’ He ground his teeth as she emitted squeaks of delight and welcome, until, able to bear it no longer, he interrupted with,

‘I’m sorry to be abrupt, but it’s an emergency. Can you please fetch her?’

The baroness came on breezily after a couple of minutes. ‘What’s up? I had to break off in mid-harangue.’

‘Jeremy Flubert is dead.’

‘How?’

‘Hanging off an organ pipe.’

‘Apposite, at least. Suicide?’

‘Could be murder. They’ve found no note.’

‘How’s David?’

‘Very cut up. He saw him.’

‘And you?’

‘I’d become very fond of him.’ There was a silence.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Clearly you need reinforcements. I can’t do much for a couple of days. I’ve got to speak early in a Lords debate this afternoon and wind up tomorrow. And besides on Friday… oh, fuck. It’s hopeless.’ There was a brief silence. ‘I was going to say I’d send you Mary Lou, but of course the person you need is Ellis.’

‘It’s not fair to Ellis. He’s been looking forward to his holiday.’

‘Balls. He owes you. Remind him. Get to another phone and start blackmailing him. Now hand me over to David.’

‘I’m very sorry, Robert. You must be very upset.’

‘Will you come down for a few days?’

‘Would you mind if I didn’t? I’ve got so much to do here. A van arrived last night from my parents and it’s going to take days to sort everything out.’

‘I don’t care if the fucking ceiling has fallen in.’

‘We can’t all live the way you do, Robert. Look, I’ll come down for twenty-four hours in a few days when I can see daylight.’

‘Ellis, would you be kind enough to cast your mind back –
inter alia
– to a school in Kensington and a club in St James’s? Let me remind you that you owe me several very serious favours. I’m collecting my debts.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘I’ll call you as soon as I know what train I’m getting.’

Chapter 13

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Within a few hours, Flubert’s body had been removed from the cathedral, it had been established that the cord that had hanged him came from a dressing gown kept in the organ loft for especially cold weather, the search for a suicide note had been called off and the superintendent assigned to the case had interviewed the bishop so perfunctorily as to give the impression that he was barely interested. Amiss – restless and unhappy and unable to concentrate on anything – had the brainwave of calling on Alice Wolpurtstone and asking her to look after the bishop and leave him free to meet Pooley’s train.