David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

The only common thread Powerscourt could wrap round this strange miscellany of foreign persons was that they all seemed to come from Catholic countries. He couldn’t see the writ or the decisions of the Bishop of Compton cutting much ice in Turin or Tipperary or Toledo. But he thought little of it.

‘I tell you what, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Anne Herbert. ‘You ought to go and talk to Old Peter. I can’t even remember his surname. Do you know what it is, Patrick?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve only ever heard him referred to as Old Peter.’

‘No relation of the apostle?’ said Powerscourt.

‘No,’ Anne Herbert laughed. ‘But Old Peter was Head Verger in the cathedral for almost thirty years. Before that he worked as the Bishop’s coachman, I think. He’s lived in Compton all his life. He must be nearly ninety now.’

‘He’s ninety-one, actually,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘We featured him last year in an article on Compton’s ninety-year-olds. There are only three of them left. The other two are sisters and live down by the railway station.’

‘Anyway Lord Powerscourt, I’m sure Old Peter would be able to help you. He’s known everybody round here for years. He lives in a little cottage at the far end of the garden in the Bishop’s Palace. I think the Bishop’s servants keep an eye on him. I could come with you and make the introductions if you like.’

Powerscourt was doing rapid arithmetical calculations as he put his coat back on and collected his walking stick. ‘Old Peter must be old enough to be the Bishop’s grandfather,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He would have been five at the time of Waterloo, well into his forties by the Crimean War. Let’s hear what this Methuselah of Compton has to say for himself.’

The most remarkable thing about Old Peter was his hair. He didn’t seem to have lost any of it through his decades of service to the Cathedral. It was snow white and flowed down the sides of his face, giving him the air of a Druid functionary rather than a man who had spent his life in the service of the Church of England. His eyes were light brown and he fiddled constantly with an aged pipe that looked as if it might have been older than he was. He pointed Powerscourt to a battered sofa in front of his fire and returned to a faded leather armchair by the side. Anne Herbert had effected the introductions and returned to her cottage. Like many elderly people Old Peter gave his visitor a preliminary bulletin on his health.

‘I can still see,’ he said, pointing the pipe dangerously close to his eyes, ‘and I can still smell. Hearing not what it used to be, my lord, so you may have to speak up a bit. The legs still work though the left one’s going a bit rickety at the knee. Doctor says I may be getting a touch of gout.’

‘I wanted to ask you about the people who live round the Cathedral Close, Peter,’ said Powerscourt raising his voice slightly. ‘Mrs Herbert told me you would know if there was anything unusual about them.’

‘Unusual, my lord?’ said Old Peter with a cackling laugh. ‘If you think going to church every day at the same time morning and afternoon and wearing the same funny clothes and saying the same prayers each time for forty or fifty years is usual, then you’re a better man than me.’

‘You’re not a believer, then, Peter?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I’m not saying I am and I’m not saying I’m not,’ said the old man diplomatically, ‘but there have been some strange goings-on at this place, long before all this terrible murder.’ He paused and began to refill his pipe with some strong black tobacco.

‘When I started here, my lord, the whole place was more like a family business than a house of God. You’ll have heard of the Fentimans, I suppose. One of them the bishop, another the Dean, every time there was a vacant canonry or prebendary, another bloody member of the Fentiman family popped up to take the position. Liveried servants behind every seat in the dining room of the Bishop’s Palace every night, whether there were visitors or not. Fentimans taking every valuable living that fell vacant and putting in vicars to hold the service and paying them a pittance. Nobody could work out how to get rid of them, my lord. Had to wait for the grim reaper to do his work in the end.’

‘I was wondering about more recent members of the Close, Peter,’ said Powerscourt, reluctant to embark on a historical survey of Compton Minster, decade by decade, ‘I was wondering about some of the foreigners. There seem to be quite a lot of them.’

Old Peter looked at him suspiciously. ‘Plenty of foreigners here, my lord. Never did hold much with foreigners myself. Don’t see why they can’t stay where they were put, if you see what I mean. Still, I suppose Jesus Christ himself would be a foreigner round here so maybe we shouldn’t complain. If you ask me,’ Old Peter paused to fiddle with a match to light his pipe, ‘the strangest one is that Italian who comes to stay with the Archdeacon.’ There was a further pause as a cloud of smoke threatened briefly to make Old Peter temporarily invisible. ‘Every month he comes, my lord, regular as clockwork, second week usually, and he stays for a week or ten days each time. He’s got his own room on the top floor of the Archdeacon’s house. Keeps himself to himself. And do you know the strangest thing about him? Every Tuesday I take my dinner with them over at the house and Bill, the Archdeacon’s coachman, told me this only the other day.’

Old Peter paused and blew a great mouthful of smoke into his fireplace. ‘Nobody’s ever seen him at a service in the cathedral, this Italian. Not once in the eight or nine years he’s been coming here. Wouldn’t you say that was strange?’

Powerscourt was keen to move on. ‘What about the French people, one with the Dean, I think, and another with the Subdean on the other side of the Close?’

Old Peter rummaged around in his pockets for his matches. The pipe, in spite of its earlier clouds of smoke, appeared to have gone out. ‘Whoever heard of a man being a cook, my lord. It’s not natural. Women were meant to do the cooking ever since we all lived in caves if you ask me. Antoine, the Subdean’s cook, is very thick with Mrs Douglas over at the Deanery. She’s French too, you see. Local shops not good enough for them, my lord. Every couple of months they go off to London and come back with hampers and hampers of smelly oils and funny looking herbs and potions they put all over their food. They’ve even got some special French mustard they put on the Dean’s rabbit. They say he’s very partial to this Frenchified rabbit, the Dean. Maybe they even give him those frogs’ legs with that horrible garlic, my lord.’

‘And the Spaniards over at the Precentor’s house, Peter? What about them?’

Old Peter scratched his leg. Maybe it was the bad one, Powerscourt thought.

‘Them Spaniards are a lovely couple, my lord. He’s strong as an ox, that Francisco. They say he was a great wrestler in his young days. And Isabella is as sweet a person as you could hope to meet. I heard the other day that she’s expecting their first child but they haven’t said anything about it.’

‘And do all these foreigners belong to the Anglican faith?’

‘They do not, my lord.’ Old Peter spat into his fire. ‘There’s a little Catholic chapel down by the station. That’s where most of them go. I don’t think Francisco goes very often.’ Old Peter brushed a couple of locks of hair away from his face. ‘I expect you’ll be wanting to know if I think any of these people round the Close could be the murderer, my lord.’

‘Do you?’ said Powerscourt, rather taken aback until he remembered that the Grafton Mercury had trumpeted his arrival to find the killer all over the county. The latest issue of the paper was lying on the floor beside him.