David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

‘This should only take a moment, gentlemen,’ said the doctor, positioning himself at the top of the table.

‘I must ask you, Dean,’ said Chief Inspector Yates, ‘if you recognize this person.’

The doctor pulled the sheets at the top of the package away. ‘We have assembled all the sections of the body now,’ he said. ‘I should tell you as a matter of record that the private parts have been cut off and the stomach and intestines appear to have been hacked out.’ Dr Williams was pale but composed as he spoke. ‘We have tried to clean up the head as much as we can. It is little consolation to anybody but I believe it was the knife to the throat that killed him. He was dead before the mutilation.’

The Dean stared in horror at the severed head revealed beneath the sheets, marks of his wounds purple and livid around the throat. ‘I do recognize this person,’ he said calmly. ‘That is Edward Gillespie, one of our vicars choral.’

The Dean bowed his head in prayer. Dr Williams pulled the sheet back over the corpse. Powerscourt found himself thinking about the words of Old Peter who had watched the services come and go in the cathedral for fifty years or more. Every day, he had said, the Dean and the canons referred to an act of bloody savagery, wounds in the side, nails through his hands and feet, Christ bleeding to death on his cross to save mankind. Now they were inspecting a real butchered body in a hospital morgue at six o’clock in the evening.

‘Dean, Chief Inspector,’ Powerscourt and the two men were back in the little waiting room, ‘I would ask you to consider how this information should be presented to the public. It is entirely in your hands. I spoke to Patrick Butler this afternoon and I believe he is aware that there may have been another murder. Should he be allowed to print all the details? Would it be of more assistance to you in your investigations, Chief Inspector, if the full facts were made public or not? And, Dean, you must speak for the cathedral.’

The two men paused. ‘Let me say,’ the Chief Inspector began, ‘that we have, as it were, made a lot of noise today not only in Compton but all around these other villages, not just, I would remind you, in the ones where we found parts of the unfortunate Mr Gillespie, but in the ones where we didn’t. I think it would be difficult to contain the truth. A lot would depend on how the information was presented, of course. But the more the public are on our side, dare I say it, the more frightened they are, the more they will be willing and eager to help us in our inquiries.’

Powerscourt wondered if the dead man would be referred to for ever after as the unfortunate Mr Gillespie.

‘Lord Powerscourt,’ the Dean was looking at his watch, winding himself up for his later meeting perhaps, ‘what would your advice be?’

‘I’m sure,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that the Chief Inspector is correct when he refers to the way the information is presented. Patrick Butler is a responsible fellow, after all. He won’t want to offend his readers, especially the women, with the gory details. To say that the body had been cut up is much less offensive than what actually happened.’

‘Very well,’ said the Dean, preparing to leave, ‘I shall send for the young man at once. If I have to interrupt my meeting, so be it. If I may so express it, finance may have to wait for death. There’s just one other matter, gentlemen.’ The Dean had suddenly lost a fraction of his normal composure, running his hands through his hair, looking anxiously at his watch. ‘It’s about Edward Gillespie,’ he said nervously. The Chief Inspector was fiddling about in his pockets, looking for a notebook. ‘It’s bound to come out sooner rather than later. I’d rather you hear it from me rather than as a piece of chapter gossip.’

Powerscourt wondered what was coming. Was Gillespie also in debt, like his fellow chorister, the late Arthur Rudd? Was he about to be kicked out of the choir?

‘I think, no, I am certain . . .’ The Dean paused, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to deliver his message. He was, Powerscourt noticed, turning rather red. ‘Gillespie was carrying on with the wife of one of the shopkeepers in the Square,’ he blurted out at last, ‘a very pretty young woman called Sophia. He told me the other day that the husband had found out about it. He was a very worried man.’

‘Had the husband threatened Gillespie with violence?’ asked the Chief Inspector, looking up from his notebook.

‘I’m not sure. I think he probably did. Now, if you’ll excuse me I must go and chair my finance meeting. I’m late already.’

‘Just two very quick questions, Dean, before you attend to your duties,’ said Powerscourt quickly. ‘The Chief Inspector and I will accompany you to the front door. What is the name of the shopkeeper, and what was the nature of his trade?’ All three were now striding up the corridor towards the main entrance, their boots echoing on the stone floor.

‘The man’s name was Fraser, James Fraser,’ said the Dean. He marched on. Chief Inspector Yates thought he knew the answer now, but he asked the second question once again.

‘And his occupation?’

Again that pause from the Dean of Compton. Then he whispered it very softly. ‘He was a butcher. The best butcher in all of Compton.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Powerscourt said very quietly. His brain was full of images of carcasses hanging on great hooks on the wall, of butchers’ blocks and butchers’ knives, long ones, thin ones, short ones, all of them honed to a pitch of sharpness that could dissect cows or sheep or pigs or lambs or humans. The best butcher in all of Compton.

‘My wife has been a customer of Fraser’s for over five years now,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘His meat is excellent. But let me deal with this, my lord. Gillespie’s affair with Mrs Fraser may have nothing to do with his death. I shall make inquiries now and let you know.’

Powerscourt stared at the disappearing figure of Chief Inspector Yates. Had John Eustace met a perfectly innocent death? Were the butler and the doctor telling him the truth after all? Had Arthur Rudd been killed for his debt? And Edward Gillespie, had he been butchered by a cuckolded husband? The best butcher in all of Compton?

Powerscourt was on his way to reclaim his horse from the police station and return to Fairfield Park when he bumped into Patrick Butler, just leaving Anne Herbert’s cottage on the edge of Cathedral Close. Patrick already knew most of the story of Compton’s latest murder. He grimaced with distaste when Powerscourt filled him in on the final details.

‘I couldn’t possibly print all that, Lord Powerscourt. Old ladies would be fainting in their beds. I’ll have to keep it very simple.’

‘You’re about to receive a summons from the Dean, Patrick. I think he’s going to ask you to be responsible.’

‘I’ll be responsible all right,’ said the young man. Then he cheered up considerably. Powerscourt wondered for a moment if he had proposed over the Assam or the Darjeeling. He hadn’t. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Lord Powerscourt. I thought of the most fantastic headline while I was taking tea with Anne. I couldn’t possibly use it, of course. But I think it’s almost perfect.’

‘What is this Platonic headline, Patrick?’

The young man laughed and whispered very softly into Powerscourt’s ear.

‘Hung, Drawn and Quartered.’

A musical medley, a rather confused musical medley, greeted Powerscourt on his return. He could hear one piano note, played very loudly. Then there were voices, singing out of tune. He wondered if Lady Lucy had managed to steal a couple of choirboys for the evening and then he thought better of it. Choirboys couldn’t possibly be that out of tune. The piano note sounded once more.