The Black Seraphim (18 page)

“She may buy that cottage,” said Lady Fallingford, “and she may call herself Miss Pilcher, but one thing I promise you: I’m not asking her to tea.”

That evening Peter came around with Alan Furbank and collected James for their evening visit to the Black Lion. Alan hobbled along quite briskly, his left foot encased in a lump of plaster.

“I didn’t break my ankle,” he said. “It’s the Achilles tendon. I did it a bit of no good trying to turn too quickly on the squash court. Do you play?”

“I played a bit at the hospital.”

“You ought to have a game with Amanda. She’s hot stuff. She knocked spots off me.”

“You wouldn’t need to be good at squash to knock spots off Alan,” said Peter.

“It’s more than you can do.”

The three young men were passing the school, wrangling happily, when Peter caught sight of a light in an upstairs room in Canon Maude’s house. This put him in mind of something. He said, “I’d guess that the boys know about that silly letter. Everyone in the top form, at least.”

“How on earth—”

“If you mean how did they find out, I don’t know. I imagine Anstruther told someone, who told someone else. But if you mean how do I know, I can tell you that. When Alan was taking the top form in history, he made some joke about Bottle and his admirer. Last term it would have been good for a laugh. This time it fell into a pit of stony silence.”

“Just as if I’d made a bad joke about the Queen and found out too late that she was in the audience,” said Alan.

“How very odd,” said James.

“It’s not odd, really. It’s just that they no longer think it’s funny.”

“If they all know about it, it’s going to be public knowledge pretty soon.”

“I’m not sure. If boys decide not to talk about something, the Mafia could take lessons from them.”

“Even so, it might slip out when they’re at home. Anstruther’s father is a soldier, isn’t he?”

“He’s GSO at Southern Command. Luckily, he’s by way of being a friend of the Dean’s. If anything did come to his ears, he’d probably consult the Dean first and he might be able to smooth it down.”

“It was a fairly bold decision of the Archdeacon’s, all the same,” said Alan. “Because if anything did come out, he was the one who was going to be carrying the can.”

“He wasn’t afraid of responsibility,” said Peter. “In fact, I don’t think there were many things he was afraid of.”

It occurred to James that the rehabilitation of the Archdeacon was already under way.

Next morning James discovered that the Archdeacon’s rehabilitation was not universal. As he was making for the Deanery in search of Amanda, he spotted Paul Wren hurrying across the precinct lawn.

Paul had a piece of paper in his hand, which he waved when he saw James. James waited for him to come up. The organist was smiling broadly.

James said, “You look as if you’ve been left a legacy.”

“Better than that,” said Paul and pushed the paper into his hand. It was the weekly service sheet, which came out each Thursday. James cast an eye down it without, at first, noticing anything unusual. Then he spotted it, at the bottom of the paper. “Canon in Residence: Canon Humphrey. Organist: Paul Wren.”

“Organist. Does this mean that you’ve got the top job?”

“Certainly. The Dean confirmed it to me yesterday. He’s told Lovett that the job’s no longer open.”

“That’s splendid.”

“It
is
splendid. The only fly in the ointment is that Archdeacon Raymond Pawle is no longer with us. So I’m denied the pleasure of telling him that his nasty little intrigue has failed.”

James felt slightly shocked and must have looked it, because Paul said, “I know what you’re thinking, but I refuse to change my opinion about him simply because he’s dead. When he was alive, I said he was a bastard, and I still think he was a bastard. The only difference is that he’s a dead bastard and can’t harm me now.”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” said James. “I didn’t really know the man well enough to form an opinion. Congratulations anyway.”

The door of the Deanery was opened by the Dean. He was in his shirt sleeves. He said, “As you will see, I am my own butler and footman. Also my own cook and parlour maid.” He sounded unusually cheerful.

“Then Rosa has finally ditched you?”

“On the contrary. We ditched
her.
I told her that there were enough sorrows in life without her adding to them by creeping round the house looking like a black beetle. She took umbrage and departed. Does that strike you as odd? Umbrage, I mean. It appears that you can take it, but not give it. If it’s Amanda you’re looking for, you’ll find her in the herbaceous border.”

This was literally true. The herbaceous border was a deep one which ran along the western side of the garden, and the only part of Amanda that was visible was the top of her head, a golden chrysanthemum among a wilderness of flowers and shrubs. As she emerged, he saw that she was wearing her normal off-duty uniform of sweatshirt and jeans. The mud patches on them suggested that she had been doing most of her work on her knees.

“Hello,” she said. “Have you come to help? I can find another fork.”

“I know nothing about plants. I should dig up all the wrong things.”

“Excuses, excuses. Have you seen Daddy pretending to be a butler?”

“He told me that he was cook and parlour maid as well.”

“He was showing off. You must have noticed that he likes to dramatise everything. Actually, all he does is answer the door and make his own bed. Mind you, he
can
cook. Once in India, when I had malaria and there was no one else around, he cooked for both of us for a fortnight. Quite ambitious things like pilaus and fritters, all done on an old oil stove. When I eat fritters nowadays, I always imagine they’re going to taste slightly of paraffin. But we can’t stand here talking all day. If you won’t dig, you can mow the lawn.”

“Couldn’t we just talk?”

“After you’ve mowed the lawn.”

By the time he had finished mowing the lawn, Amanda had developed another project. She said, “I really have got to get on with things in the house now, but I should be through by lunchtime. Would you like that game of squash?”

“If I can borrow the kit.”

“Peter and Alan will lend you what you want. If you come round at about half past two, I’ll drive us out. Brigadier Anstruther lets me use one of the Army courts in the afternoon.”

“I’ll be there,” said James.

As he made his way to the Deanery after lunch, carrying a rugger shirt and shorts of Peter’s and gym shoes and a squash racquet belonging to Alan Furbank, he was wondering whether Amanda was really any good at the game. When he had said that he “played a bit,” that was the sort of statement one made in conversation. In fact, squash was the only game he had ever played with real enthusiasm. As a chronic overworker, he had found it convenient. He could compress a day’s exercise into thirty minutes on the court and get back to his books, without any of the rigmarole and waste of time which seemed to attend other sporting activities. Possessed of long arms, strong wrists and a good eye, he had quickly become proficient and had often been brought in as fourth or fifth string for Guy’s in their Cumberland Cup matches. He remembered George Towcester, who played first string, grumbling at him: “Do you realise, James, that if you gave half the time and attention to squash that you give to your rotten pathology, you could be a county player?”

Good old George. Now a GP in deepest Devonshire.

“Excellent,” said Amanda. “You’ve got the stuff. Climb in.”

Southern Command District Headquarters was a solid establishment which had been put up before the war. There were two squash courts, both of them good ones. As James stepped onto the springy wooden floor, he experienced the tingling and exhilaration with which he always started a game. He felt certain that it was going to be a memorable one.

Amanda was already on the court. He remembered one of the students at Guy’s saying about the object of his current interest: “She’s the sort of girl who looks best in least.” Amanda in a sleeveless aertex vest and a short white skirt looked better than he had ever seen her before. She was certainly not fat, but equally she was not thin. There must be an appropriate adjective to describe a proper proportion of flesh to bone.

“Come in, shut the door and stop analysing me,” said Amanda.

“I was admiring your legs. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen them out of these hideous jeans girls seem to affect these days.”

“We didn’t come here to admire each other’s legs,” said Amanda coldly. She was holding the ball in one hand. Now she gave her racquet a sharp flick and dispatched the ball down the right-hand wall. James picked it neatly off the wall and returned it.

They knocked up for a few minutes, assessing each other’s game. James thought that Amanda would prove a worthy opponent. He remembered what she had said about her father, that his specialty had been fencing. He guessed that she would play squash as though it were a fencing match – fast thrust and sudden riposte, supple wrists and quick reactions, but perhaps without the patience or the tactical skill for a long rally.

To start with, either politeness or overconfidence made him stand too far back and this gave Amanda the freedom of the front court. She won the first game fairly easily, and the second with more difficulty when James abandoned courtesy and started to crowd her, after which he took the next two games.

It was like a dance, he thought. Not the modern style, which was a parody of the real thing, but an old-fashioned dance, with mutual give and take, the accommodation of body to body and step to step. Halfway through the fifth game, in the middle of a rally, he realised how deeply he was in love with Amanda. At the first opportunity, he was going to ask her to marry him.

This shook him so much that he hit what should have been a winning shot tamely onto the tin.

Amanda said, “You’re not going to ease up and let me win, I hope.”

“No, no. Nothing like that. It was just that I suddenly thought of something.”

“You shouldn’t think of less important things when you’re playing squash.”

“Actually, it
was
rather important. But I’ll keep my mind on the game now.”

He did so and finally ran out a close winner. As they were leaving the court, she put one hand on his arm and said, “That was the best game I’ve had for years, James.”

If two officers in squash kit had not chosen that moment to appear in the gallery, he would have put his free arm around her and told her everything that was in his mind.

“Afterward, when we’re in the car,” he thought.

When they got into the car, Amanda said, “Now you can tell me.”

James took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been wanting to tell you—”

“About the post-mortem.”

“Oh, that.”

The death of the Archdeacon seemed infinitely unimportant.

“You did find out how he died, didn’t you? Penny says you did, but you’re not supposed to tell anyone until the official report comes out. Is that right?”

“I suppose it is, more or less.”

“But you’ll tell
me
.”

“I don’t mind telling you as long as you keep it to yourself until the report comes out.”

As he started to speak, he realised that the casualness of Amanda’s voice and manner was a pose. She was as taut as a fiddle string.

“Dr Barkworth is going to say that in his opinion, based on his post-mortem findings, the Archdeacon died of virulent influenza, probably caught by contact with sailors in the dock area.”

He drew the sentence out to its fullest extent to give Amanda time to relax. He heard her breath going out in a long sigh.

He said, “There was some evidence to support his diagnosis.”

Tension again.

“You mean there could be other explanations?”

“There can always be more than one explanation of even quite straightforward symptoms.”

“I told you once before not to treat me like an idiot child. Just what was wrong with Dr Barkworth’s diagnosis?”

“It was pathologically correct, but it didn’t take account of the symptoms.”

“You mean what happened in the vestry when he was dying.”

“Yes. It wasn’t very pleasant.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She started the car and they drove in silence for a few minutes. Then she said, “Did Dr Barkworth ask you about these symptoms?”

“No. He was quite satisfied with what he found. He didn’t want to go outside his own diagnosis.”

“Did you tell him you disagreed with him?”

“No. In fact, he was in such a hurry to get off that, if I hadn’t insisted, I don’t believe he’d have taken any samples, except from the lungs.”

“I see,” said Amanda thoughtfully. “So what
did
you do?”

“I made sections of the heart, the liver and the kidneys. And took some blood samples.”

“What did you expect to find?”

“I didn’t expect to find anything. It was the sort of routine step one always does take.”

“Who examines these – what did you call them? – sections?”

“They’ll go to the Home Office Central Research Establishment at Aldermaston.”

“And a lot of nosy little scientists will poke and pry at them and decide that Dr Barkworth was wrong and the Archdeacon died of something quite different.”

There was so much bitterness in Amanda’s voice that James hesitated. He knew what dangerous ground he was on. To a different sort of girl he might have said, “Oh, I don’t suppose so. It was just a routine precaution,” and changed the subject. It would not serve in this case. She wanted the truth. He said, slowly, “Even if I hadn’t done what I did, I’m pretty certain that someone would have taken those samples sooner or later. The local health authority could have ordered it. Or the coroner.”

“Coroner?”

“If there had to be an inquest.”

“Why should there be an inquest?”

“Well—”

“If people believed what Dr Barkworth said, there wouldn’t be an inquest.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said James unhappily.

“Oh, why?”