David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

The Bishop was staring hard at the Dean. One of the pockets on the dressing gown, Powerscourt observed, had simply disappeared. Maybe his housekeeper hadn’t noticed.

‘I was merely thinking, my lord,’ the Dean went on, ‘that we could perhaps say that the poor man died in his sleep. Nobody need ever know the terrible circumstances of his passing. You could argue,’ Powerscourt sensed that the Dean felt that the Bishop was not in favour of his scheme, ‘that such a course would be the least distressing for the dead man’s family, least distressing for the wider community of the cathedral, least distressing for the national community of the Church of England.’

The Dean paused. Dr Williams was looking directly at the Bishop, as if measuring him up for any possible illnesses. The Chief Constable was also looking at the Bishop, wondering what he was going to do. The prevailing wisdom in Compton was that the Dean ruled over the Bishop with a rod if not of iron, then certainly of some hard and unbending material. Powerscourt was fascinated by the Dean’s expression. He looked, he decided, rather like a gambler who suddenly realizes that he may have overcalled his hand.

‘My dear Dean,’ said the Bishop quietly ‘I can fully understand why such a course of action might seem superficially attractive. But it is completely unacceptable. The lights of our Church may be burning low at the present time, the candles may even be extinguished, but that does not mean that we should falter in our commitment to the truth. What else, apart from our faith, do we have to cling to? I do not care how wide or how deep the scandal flows round this cathedral and round our city. I do not care how much the newspapers print, or how lurid their stories are. I do not care if the celebrations of one thousand years of religion in this place are dimmed by obloquy and disrepute. The Church must tell the truth. Our own truths, the truths of humility and repentance and the necessity of loving an invisible and often unaccountable God, may be difficult to accept for our own faithful. But what happened to that poor man Rudd is also true. We must recognize and acknowledge that truth. We must also accept that it happened inside a community which is supposed, above all others, to love its neighbour as itself. This terrible death must be as much a part of God’s purpose as was that earlier death on the cross. We must tell the truth, Dean. We can do no other.’

The room fell silent. Powerscourt thought that the Bishop might have spent years of his life searching for lost iota subscripts in the early versions of the Gospels, wrestling with the precise meaning of words in a language dead centuries before. But when the time came, even at six o’clock on a cold January morning with the snow falling outside, however unlikely a representative of God’s purpose he might have seemed, the Bishop had answered the call. His trumpet had sounded with clarity and conviction against the equivocations of the Dean. And the Dean, Powerscourt recalled, had but a single word above his stall in the cathedral choir, a word with no connotations of civic or ecclesiastical virtue. Deaconus. The Dean. The Bishop, however, had three. Episcopus, Beatus vir, Powerscourt thought to himself, looking at Gervase Bentley Moreton with fresh respect. The Bishop. A holy man.

But the Dean was very quick in his response. Powerscourt thought he was extremely light on his feet for such a burly man.

‘My dear Bishop,’ the Dean began, echoing his superior’s own preamble, ‘how very eloquently you put it. How wisely do you recall us all to our Christian duty and our obligations to our fellow men. I could not have put it better myself.’

Powerscourt thought he detected a slight smile crossing the face of the Chief Constable. Perhaps the man was an aficionado, a connoisseur of Bishop-Dean relations.

‘So now it is time to make our plans,’ the Dean swept on. A total volte-face, a complete reversal of his own position had been carried out in less than thirty seconds. Powerscourt, who was something of a student of successful military retreats, was most impressed.

‘Chief Constable,’ the Dean began the disposition of his forces, ‘could I, as the person responsible for the cathedral, request you, as the representative of the forces of law and order, to commence your investigation into this terrible death? Could I make a humble plea for all possible discretion until we have conducted the funeral?’

The Chief Constable nodded.

‘Could I make a suggestion here?’ The Bishop unclasped his hands and placed them on his knees as if ready for active service. ‘With your agreement, Dean, and yours, Chief Constable, might I propose that we ask Lord Powerscourt to take part in the investigation also, as a representative of the cathedral authorities? I’m sure his experience would be invaluable. If that is agreeable to you, of course, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt nodded gravely. He had served his sovereign in his time. He had gone on a mission to South Africa for the Prime Minister himself. He had investigated murders and mysteries for the Prince of Wales and for the masters of money in the City of London. Mammon had had its day. Now it was time for the service of God. He felt Lady Lucy would be proud of him.

The Dean embarked on a lengthy discussion with Dr Williams about funeral arrangements. The Chief Constable was staring at the snow still falling outside the window. The Bishop had closed his eyes, perhaps in prayer for the dead vicar choral, perhaps from lack of sleep. Powerscourt was listening abstractedly to the Dean as he reeled off the times when the cathedral would be unable to conduct the funeral because of previous commitments. He seemed to carry in his head the timetables of every service, prayer meeting and school visit over the next ten days.

‘My lord Bishop, Dean, Chief Constable.’ Powerscourt was beginning his service to his Lord and Master. Later he was to say it was more like the Stations of the Cross than any other event in the Christian calendar. ‘I have been thinking about what you two gentlemen have been talking about and your concerns in this terrible affair. I observed that you were both concerned in your different ways about the coverage the death of Arthur Rudd might receive in the newspapers. I would like, if I may, to offer some thoughts on that question.’

‘Please do,’ said the Dean affably.

‘The first point I would wish to make is that the tone of the coverage of the event will almost certainly be set initially by the local newspaper here in Compton. I believe it is called the Grafton Mercury. The editor here will have contacts in London. He may earn himself extra income from selling stories to the national newspapers.’

The Bishop looked astonished that such practices might be carried out.

‘My second point,’ Powerscourt continued, ‘is that there are two very different extremes in handling the gentlemen of the press. One is to tell them absolutely nothing. That can, on occasion, be the only available option, but it leaves the journalists suspicious, certain that things are being concealed from them and liable to print whatever comes into their heads. The other extreme is to take them into your confidence, to tell them as much as you possibly can, to try to convey the impression that nothing is being hidden from them. In between, of course, there are any number of gradations. The natural course to pursue in this case would be to say as little as possible. I would recommend the opposite. If this man at the Grafton Mercury believes he has been told all there is to know, he will not have his reporters running all over the place inventing stories to fill the empty spaces in his newspaper. I would suggest this man needs to be brought on board, to be made to feel so involved that he feels he is batting for the cathedral eleven, if you see what I mean.’