Diana's Altar Read online

  “Will I do?” Hunnyton asked, noting this, and he turned sideways to strike the jaunty pose of a man in a knitting pattern, chin jutting, one hand on hip, the other holding an imaginary pipe.

  Risby knew exactly what his mother’s reaction would have been: “Fine figure of a man!” and she would have fluttered her eyelashes.

  But it was Hannah Douglas who replied, in a voice quietly holding back amusement, “Oh, yes, you’ll do, Adam. Whatever you’ve got in mind.”

  She turned quickly back to the kitchen table and handed them each a bacon sandwich wrapped in a brown paper grocer’s bag. “Eating on the hoof!” she tutted. “You’ll ruin your digestion. Now, don’t let anyone we know catch you scoffing this in the street. I don’t want people to think I’m running a whelk stall. This is Maids’ Causeway, not the Market Place!”

  The Cambridge police presence at the scene stepped forward and saluted as they approached the church. “Morning, sir. There’s another constable with me. PC Batty’s inside with the lady doctor and the deceased. We got here ten minutes ago.”

  “Good man, Hinton. Stay right where you are while I assess the damage. Come in with me, Risby.”

  They were greeted with less formality by a second PC, who was clearly glad to see them.

  “Sir! She won’t leave go of him!” He tried unsuccessfully to deliver his concern in a subdued tone. “I’ve tried to persuade her to let the body flop down sideways onto the bench, natural-like, but she seems to feel she’s got to support him.” Anxiously, in a whispered aside, he added, “And she keeps talking to him. An’ him dead this last hour! That can’t be right, can it?”

  “Constable, I wouldn’t like to be the one to explain the finer points of doctoring to Doctor Hartest. If you want to criticise her technique and don’t mind having your ears torn off, you can give it a go.”

  Hunnyton hurried to the front of the church and put a firm hand on Adelaide’s shoulder. “Well done, old girl!” he said. “You’ve made it! Now just let me and Constable Risby attend to the gentleman. We’ll make him a bit more comfortable, shall we? You can let go now. We’ve got our hands on the tiller . . . Risby?”

  Risby instantly came forward to grasp the body by the feet and, with Hunnyton at the shoulders, they had it laid out the length of the pew in a second.

  “Adam! Thank God you could come! I don’t know who this is. He didn’t have time to tell me his name,” Adelaide whispered. “There was so much I wanted to hear but all he could tell me was that he was unhappy with the state of his soul and he’d killed himself using the dagger you’ll see still in position in his chest. We both heard his confession, Constable Risby and I. I think he was trying to say . . .”

  “That’s all right, Adelaide, love.” Hunnyton surprised the constables by pulling the doc up off her knees, folding her in a hug and murmuring in her ear. “Shush, shush now! Risby filled me in on the way here. No need to say any more for the moment. We’ll keep it for the statement, shall we?” He released her and handed her down into an adjacent pew. “Now just sit there and hold still while I give this the once-over, will you? I’ll be treating it as a suspicious death until we know otherwise—that’s the routine—so you may find my procedures somewhat pernickety and time-consuming. I can assure you there’s method and good sense behind all this palaver.” He broke off to shout in exasperation, “Batty! Find the switches and let’s have some light shed on this medieval scene!”

  He took a pair of rubber gloves from his murder bag and handed a second pair to Risby before starting his check on the body. A search through the pockets of the greatcoat followed. As he removed articles of interest, Hunnyton named them one by one and Risby, who seemed well able to anticipate the detective’s every move, made a list in his notebook and packed the items neatly in a folding paper carrier that Hunnyton produced from his bag.

  “I hardly need to look in here,” the superintendent admitted, drawing out a wallet. “I know this man’s name.” He looked inside and gave a confirmatory nod of the head. “Aidan Mountfitchet. Sir Aidan Mountfitchet I suppose I should say these days. Cambridge man. St. Benedict’s, I remember. Before the war.” He was silent for a moment, head bent, eyes turned away from his audience. “I’ll have him taken down the road to Addenbrooke’s. We’ll use the hospital morgue. They have much better facilities than we have and they’re right on the doorstep, so to speak. There’ll be many people to inform . . . Not least, I’m afraid: Joe. He’s not going to be pleased.” He took off his gloves, coming to the end of his investigation. With a sharp gaze at Adelaide, he asked casually, “Is he with you? Joe?”

  “What! With me? Of course not!” was the swift retort. “At seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning in Cambridge? Why would he be? He’s in London doing London things. Probably having a shave before catching a taxi to the Yard. I’m sure you’re more familiar with his habits than I am.”

  Hunnyton smiled, seemingly pleased with the reaction he’d provoked. “Well, perhaps you could alert him? Go and ring him for me, will you?”

  “Why should I? What’s it got to do with Scotland Yard? The suicide of a Cambridge man in a Cambridge church?” She gave him a shrewd look. “The deceased would seem to have been an interesting man but surely of no concern to the Metropolitan Police? What’s more, I would have thought . . .”

  He stopped her flow of protest by putting a finger over her lips. “That’ll do, Adelaide! Look—this here isn’t a case for the Cambridge CID, I’m afraid. You’ll have to take my word on it. I’ll do the necessary for now but this is Joe’s man. He’ll soon come swanning in, taking over. I hope so! This is one wasps’ nest I don’t want falling on my head.” In a louder, more official tone he added, “I’ll be requiring a statement from you, Doctor Hartest, but it can wait until later this morning. You look done in. Why don’t you go put your head down for an hour or two? I’ll have you paged if need be.”

  “Very well. But while I still have my wits about me and can get my jaw to work—there’s one more thing . . .” She stood and faced him formally to give emphasis to her words. “I should like to report a second death.”

  “Eh?” Hunnyton was startled into running a fearful eye over the pews he had unthinkingly assumed to be unoccupied by the living or the dead.

  “No, not here. And, in fact, a first death if we take them chronologically. It’s been a busy night. I was on my way back from attending a patient—not one of mine, one of Doctor Easterby’s. In Madingley village. The lady is dead and I don’t believe her death resulted from natural causes or accident. I think her death was most probably premeditated and prepared. I mean to say—she was murdered. A Cambridge woman. In a Cambridge village. Would that qualify for your attention or will you be wanting Joe to look into that too?”

  Hunnyton blinked and sighed. He did what she was beginning to expect from him: he returned a soft and joking response to her rudeness. “And things are done you’d not believe /At Madingley, on All Hallows’ Eve! To misquote my favourite poet,” he grumbled. “Rupert Brooke would rap me on the knuckles for that superfluous syllable in the second line.”

  And, wearily—“Get your notebook out again, Risby!”

  Chapter 5

  Adelaide checked that she had Easterby’s office to herself. “Operator, can you get me a London number, please? It’s Flaxman 8891.”

  “Give Joe a ring for me, will you?” Hunnyton had asked. Wasn’t that a little unprofessional? Adelaide could only guess the Cambridge police would be making all the correct approaches themselves, and if the superintendent assumed she had a special line through to the office of an assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, he was mistaken. Sandilands was one of those active officers who refused to be desk-bound and was frequently out of reach of a telephone. But he had given her the number of his flat in Chelsea. If that proved fruitless she would have to leave a message.

  As she waited through the beeps and buzzing for her connec
tion, Adelaide tried to conjure up a picture of her friend Joe Sandilands. She saw him rarely and found it increasingly difficult to recall his features, let alone visualise his movements and surroundings. Of course he was probably on his way to the Yard in the back of a staff car, sliding through the heavy traffic on the Embankment or already sitting behind his grand desk on the third floor of his airy office overlooking the Thames. She pictured him: sleek, suave, smiling and ordering up a cup of Jamaican coffee in a Worcester china cup to stiffen the sinews before sanctioning the assassination of a Communist Party cell boss or an IRA terrorist. She probably exaggerated his powers; arrest was more likely than clandestine killing. Though you could never be sure with Joe. She had guessed at official powers he never disclosed. Not even—perhaps especially not—to her.

  The responsibilities he was free to declare were impressive enough: authority over the Metropolitan Detective Force, the Flying Squad and, his biggest headache, the Special Branch. He jokingly referred to them as his “bunch of patriotic scoundrels in trench coats. Lively lads! The cream of the detective force. Twenty-six languages among them, guns in their armpits and fists like steam hammers. I try not to annoy them!” He wore his power lightly, uniform sparingly, medals hardly ever, but Adelaide remembered with a shudder that she had had a glimpse early on in their acquaintance of the man below the charming exterior. In the company of a dozen other witnesses last summer, she’d watched helplessly as he put in jeopardy—calculatedly, though not without pity—the lives of a whole family and household in a bid to flush out the killer in their ranks. Throughout the process, he’d maintained the righteous authority of an ancient prophet. A stern and devious man whose company she would have fled had she not, by that time, been completely in love with him.

  She had thought to try his Chelsea flat first. Her preferred option.To her delight and relief, Joe picked up the phone at once.

  “Adelaide! How wonderful! But this is an hour and six minutes before I expected to hear your voice telling that I’m about to be made the happiest of men!” The jocular confidence in his tone faded and he added, “I say—is everything all right?”

  “Not really. I’m ringing from Doctor Easterby’s office and he’s likely to put in an appearance any minute now. Look, Joe, this is official business, not personal. I’ll keep it short. Where are you? Not got one foot out of the door, umbrella in hand, have you?”

  “No, no . . . I’ve been having breakfast for the last hour. You catch me slumped at the table, covered in crumbs . . . Ah, well, I made the mistake of opening up a book I’ve just bought for young Jackie before I wrap it up and post it to him. Bad move! I’ve been stuck here ever since, enraptured—smiling and snuffling by turns and much admiring the new illustrations . . . The Wind in the Willows. Do you know it? I’d marked a bit to read to you when you rang.” He paused, hearing his voice rattling on as he sometimes did when he was nervously trying to stave off unpleasant or unexpected news. Having plunged in, he struck out further, “A not-very-subtle bit of heavy-duty persuasion—you won’t be deceived!—but it so took me back to our first romantic outing on the Cam last summer . . . the picnic hamper, the willows, the ducks a-dabbling. Listen.

  “Ratty is telling his friend the Mole that he doesn’t talk about his river but he thinks about it all the time. And Mole says: ‘Shall we run away tomorrow morning, quite early—very early—and go back to our dear old hole on the river?’”

  Into the lengthening silence he murmured with the low Scottish roughness that always broke through and betrayed emotion or uncertainty, “That was your cue, Adelaide. Are you still there? I’m asking you for the umpteenth time to run away with me. Your river or mine? It needn’t be tomorrow—today will do. Just say the words. There’s only four: ‘Joe, I’ll marry you.’”

  “Joe! For God’s sake! Stuff the ducks! You weren’t listening. I’m not ringing to give you my decision—I’m speaking on behalf of the Cambridge CID. There’s been a death. Hunnyton says it’s one you will need to work on personally. The dead man is what he called ‘one of yours.’ Whatever that means. So, yes, for quite the wrong reason, I’m saying get over to Cambridge as soon as you can. Sorry, Joe. No canoodling on the river this time, I’m afraid. You’ll have to put ‘Adelaide’ away in your pending tray for a bit.”

  His recovery was instant. “The name of the dead man?”

  “Aidan . . . um . . .”

  “Mountfitchet?”

  “That’s right. Mountfitchet.”

  “I’ll be down on the 10 a.m. from King’s Cross. Tell Adam to send a car out to that godforsaken station, will you?”

  The line went dead and the operator spoke in her plummy voice: “So sorry, madam. Communication seems to have been interrupted.”

  “You’re not kidding, miss. Thanks anyway . . . No, don’t bother to try to reconnect. The party I was calling is no longer available.”

  “Aidan Mountfitchet, were you saying?” The voice was tetchy and dismissive. “Did I hear correctly? I know a person of that name in Cambridge. He’s not on our list, I believe.”

  Dr. Easterby had entered the room and was thoughtfully putting his overcoat and bowler onto the hatstand.

  Adelaide was in his office, using his telephone. She could hardly resent him listening in to her conversation, but she was taken aback. “You don’t need to be on our list to die,” she said bluntly. Easterby always brought out the truculence of a rebellious schoolgirl in her. “I came upon him in his last moments and offered . . . not sure whether it was first aid or last rites . . . a friendly face at any rate. He committed suicide in All Hallows Church at some time in the night. Stabbed himself rather clumsily, hara-kiri style, and lingered in agony until I happened by. I made all the right communications with the law and Superintendent Hunnyton instructed me to call an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard to come down and take over the case. You heard me passing on the message.”

  “Hara-kiri? The case? The Yard? Sounds as though someone’s making a three-act melodrama out of it.” And, shrewdly, “Suicide, you’re saying? A rather, er, flamboyant exit, wouldn’t you agree? At All Hallows on All Hallows’? A scenario, one might suppose, deliberately staged to titillate the headline writers of the local rag. Hmm . . . Nothing like it since the Bursar of Bede’s defenestrated himself and died, speared on the wine cellar railings, thirty years ago. The claret, as they said with ghoulish glee, flowed. Mmm . . .” Schoolmasterly humour turned skittishly to schoolmasterly reprimand. “Suicides aren’t usually heralded by a blast on the Metropolitan trumpet. A discreet enquiry and a death certificate signed by an understanding physician is all that’s normally required. What are you not telling me, Doctor Hartest? Come now! You must account for your role in this Grand Guignol. Meddling again, eh?”

  “Meddling? Yes. If that’s what you’d call trying to save a stranger’s life.”

  He sighed wearily. “The deceased may not be connected with our practice, but as you were there officiating in a medical capacity at the end, we must be to some extent called upon to accept a modicum of responsibility and provide the officers of the law with at least a statement. I insist on being kept informed. I shall need to know how to answer questions.” Without pausing to hear a reply, he chuntered on, “I shall need also to hear your report on the legitimate business I entrusted to you last evening. I anticipate a favourable and preferably undramatic account of the outcome.”

  He checked the time swiftly through the back window of his gold half hunter and slipped it into a pocket of his waistcoat, smoothing down the chain that held it in place. He began to rock his considerable bulk backward and forward, heel to toe, in the annoying way he had of indicating that he was being kept waiting. His heavy ginger moustache bristled with impatience.

  “Very well, Doctor Easterby. I’ll start. And I’ll stop when you’ve heard enough or when I drop from exhaustion, whichever is the sooner. Though, as I shall tell this story backward, you m
ay like to stay with me until I reach the intriguing bit where I recount my adventures at the beginning of my shift. The bit where I try unsuccessfully to treat the female patient you sent me out to attend. The patient who, I do believe, was unlawfully killed by person or persons unknown—to me at least. You may have better information. If you have, you may want to order your thoughts—and your files—before Superintendent Hunnyton makes enquiries of you. Or the editor of the Cambridge Gazette.”

  •

  Adelaide woke up at her usual time and with the usual reason for waking after an all-night duty—at lunchtime with a raging hunger. She opened her eyes to see a mug of tea on her bedside table. Disoriented and sleepy, she reached out a forefinger to test the temperature. Hot. Someone had placed it there only a moment before. Mrs. Gidding? Phoebe Gidding, the daily cleaner, was a good-hearted woman and might well have struggled with the gas ring and put the kettle on, but she worked the early bedders’ hours imposed by Easterby and had been on the point of leaving, her hat on, her duties done, as Adelaide made her way upstairs. And Easterby would never have hauled his bulk up three flights of stairs to the room of an unmarried woman even if the idea of indulging his youngest partner had occurred to him. She peered over the eiderdown and focussed on movement at the hearth.

  Joe was on his knees, busy lighting the fire. Overcoat and black fedora had been abandoned over a chair and he was working in his shirtsleeves. Adelaide watched him silently. Capable hands assembled firelighters and a pyramid of sticks above them in the grate, followed by the remains of yesterday’s half-consumed pieces of coke, the edifice topped off with fresh lumps of coal from the scuttle. He took a lighter from his pocket, clicked it and sat back on his heels to admire the enthusiastic rush of flames up the chimney.