David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

Patrick Butler was at a loss. ‘Just at the moment, my lord, I must confess it is I who doesn’t understand your reservations. Of course, if you feel that a serialization would be inappropriate, then I shall withdraw the suggestion. But with great regrets.’

The Bishop sighed. ‘I know that educational standards are rising all the time, even in remote parts of the country like Compton, but I think most, if not all, your readers, would find it difficult to understand.’

Then Patrick Butler knew what the problem was. ‘Forgive me, my lord. How silly of me not to have seen the misunderstanding. We would have to translate the document from the original Latin. Perhaps you could make a translation yourself, my lord, or suggest another scholar you feel would be fit for the task. But I am sure it would be much more widely read if we could advertise that the translation was the work of our very own Bishop. That would be a great coup for the paper.’

He would insert a great strapline into the text, Translated by the Bishop of Compton, the Very Reverend Doctor Gervase Bentley Moreton. It wasn’t every day you could number a bishop among your correspondents. He wondered how often it happened in The Times.

‘An excellent plan, Mr Butler,’ the Bishop brought him back to Compton, ‘I should be delighted to make the translation for you nearer the time. And I think you could also say, bearing in mind the reservations I have already expressed, that I intend to refer to the document in my sermon on Easter Sunday when we celebrate one thousand years of Christian worship in this community. I feel that would be perfectly proper.’

Patrick Butler was feeling elated as he made his way back to the cathedral for his second meeting of the morning. Two excellent stories discovered before twelve o’clock in the morning. A great accident overnight in the cathedral, falling masonry lying all over the place, a miracle nobody was hurt. One of the canons had given him the details earlier in the day. He wondered if he could hint that the ghost was walking again through the minster, a pale cleric clad in black robes said to come from the time of the Civil Wars when he lost his head to hostile soldiery. He would have to go to the County Library and look up the story of the ghost. There was, he remembered, a rather dramatic description of the spectral figure floating high above the choir around the time of the flight of King James the Second. And now this, the minster monk’s last words, found in the crypt three hundred and fifty years after his death. And translated by the Bishop himself. Patrick Butler felt his cup was overflowing.

‘Lord Powerscourt, my goodness me, sir, you don’t look at all well. Have you been in an accident?’

Patrick Butler found his friend seated at the back of the nave, his face pale, the bandage clearly visible beneath the curly hair. He was leaning on his alcoholic walking stick and looking at the stained glass.

‘Good morning to you, Patrick, and thank you for coming. I am going to tell you what happened to me, but I don’t want it published in your newspaper at present.’

Powerscourt rose slowly from his seat and began a limping progress up the nave towards the main body of the cathedral, the sound of his stick tapping on the stone floor echoing up towards the roof.

‘I don’t feel happy telling you about it in here,’ he said, ‘I think we could go to the chapter house. They must have had lots of conspiratorial meetings in there over the centuries.’

Patrick Butler noticed that Powerscourt was carrying a large black notebook, rather larger than the ones his reporters used. He didn’t think he had seen Powerscourt with such a thing before.

‘Here we are,’ said Powerscourt, lowering himself into a great stone seat opposite the entrance to the chapter house. In front of them the slender central pillar rose like an umbrella of stone, surrounded by carvings of foliage and unknown faces from long ago. In the centre of the tympanum above the doorway, the seated figure of Christ in Majesty, surrounded by the symbols of the Four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The story of the Book of Genesis unfolded on the walls around them, Cain slaying Abel, the drunkenness of Noah, the city and tower of Babel, Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. Powerscourt wondered about taking a sip from his walking stick to ease the pain. He desisted, fearing that he might be turned into a pillar of salt. There were several such pillars ten feet to his left.

‘I presume,’ he said, ‘that a man in your position must know most of the details of the accident in the cathedral last night?’

Patrick Butler nodded. ‘Except for the time it happened,’ he said, checking that nobody was coming to disturb them.

‘I think I may be able to help you there,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘It happened in the gap between the end of Evensong and the closing of the cathedral. It must have been about twenty minutes to six.’

‘Good God, Lord Powerscourt, how do you know that? Nobody else has any idea at all about when it happened.’ Then he looked at the bandage on Powerscourt’s forehead, the walking stick by his side. ‘You don’t mean to say . . .’

‘You’re very quick this morning, Patrick. I do mean to say. I was here when it happened. I was nearly killed by that falling masonry. I hurled myself into the choir and banged my head on one of the wooden carvings. I must have twisted my ankle in the fall. Somebody was trying to kill me.’

‘But this is terrible,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘How did you get out? Did somebody lock all the doors?’

‘Yes,’ said Powerscourt, pausing to look at a stone Adam and a stone Eve fleeing from the Garden of Eden, ‘somebody did lock the doors. I don’t yet know if it was the murderer in person or the member of staff who normally shuts the place up for the night. Lucy that’s my wife, came to find me shortly after eleven o’clock. But this isn’t important now.’

‘Somebody trying to kill you, Lord Powerscourt? I’d say that was very important.’ He stopped to let a figure in clerical robes make his way down the steps into the cathedral, his boots loud against the stone. ‘If I hadn’t printed that story about your being here to investigate the death of Arthur Rudd, this might never have happened. I could never have forgiven myself if the murderer had succeeded.’

‘Just remember, Patrick, that I asked you to print that story. I went out of my way to tell you to print it, if you remember.’

‘Is there anything you have learnt from this horrible episode, my lord? Anything that can take your investigations further forward?’

Powerscourt paused. He could hear the rain falling on the roof. He looked round at all the empty seats where members of the Chapter had sat centuries before. He wondered if they could help him.

‘Yes and No is the answer to your question, I’m afraid. I had quite a lot of time to think in here last night, wandering up and down with all those corpses and the chantry chapels. I am sure that there is a terrible secret here in this cathedral or in this community. I am sure the murderer is afraid I may discover it. The secret, or the revelation of the secret, may lie in the future rather than the past. That may be why he tried to kill me. And I need your help, Patrick.’

Powerscourt opened his black notebook at the two central pages. Butler saw that it was a plan of the cathedral and the Close. The minster itself was in the centre and the streets ran round it in a rough square, with an inlet opposite the east end of the cathedral for Vicars Close and Vicars Hall. Every house on there had a number, from the Deanery at Number One to the South Canonry at Number Twelve and Exeter House at Number Twenty-One.

‘After the murder of Arthur Rudd up here,’ Powerscourt pointed to the Vicars Hall on his map, ‘I was virtually certain that the murderer must live very close to the cathedral, must be intimate with its workings, must know every detail of what goes on in the minster and the Close. The events of last night merely confirmed that. The murderer must have known how to get to the upper reaches of the great transept without being seen. Either he had himself a set of keys, or he knew precisely what time the place would be closed. If he didn’t have the keys, then he must have allowed himself enough time to get down from the high place where he tried to tip the masonry over me.’