Diana's Altar Read online

  So, he had a motorcar and a room, comfortable and central, and—most importantly—a room with its own outside telephone line, a desk where he could do his work and enjoy a calming view over river and water meadow. He looked about him with disfavour at the conditions in which Hunnyton toiled. The Victorian exterior of the modestly sized building just south of the centre was ugly and unimposing. The Victorians might well be out of fashion, but they had built with swagger and solidity, sparing no expense on their public buildings—in every city but Cambridge, apparently. Here, centuries of elegant university architecture took centre stage, occupying the prime position of the old Roman site on the river Cam. The town itself, which both supplied and depended on the university, lapped deferentially about the gleaming classical colleges planted in their acres of green lawn.

  Joe reckoned that if architecture was frozen music, as it was fashionable to say, the stock of domestic buildings in Cambridge called to mind the dirty-grey debris deposited by some ancient glacier, and it was playing a finger exercise. Out of tune. The town was built largely of cheap, off-white local brickwork and showed little sign of civic pride or civic investment. Rows of dingy terraced two-up, two-downers housing the college servants filled in the gaps left by the rich landowners, spreading eastwards from the river, while workshops, reeking chimneys and gasometers were pushed out to the marshy outskirts well out of sight of the white turrets and columns of Academe. Just like the vicus, the native village attached to a Roman fort, it served its purpose and knew its place. The Romans, Joe reckoned, had not gone away. They were still there in spirit, there in the centre of things. Quiet, manipulative, empowered, self-regulating. And some of the old buggers were still speaking Latin. No one was showing much concern for civil law enforcement if this building was the best they could do.

  The ugliness of the façade was echoed in the interior. The ceiling of this cell of an office was high enough but the brick walls were painted in shiny green gloss paint. Easy to clean—had anyone tried—but depressing to the spirits. The floor was covered in brown linoleum and the furniture was turn of the century, between-two-styles heavy, dark wood, designed by someone who had paid a flying visit to Heals in the Tottenham Court Road and reckoned it could all be done more cheaply. The desk was clear of papers, sporting only the black Bakelite telephone, a pot of pens and a blotter. The filing cabinets around the room were closed, some locked. Joe tugged at the handle of the one marked p–s. Locked. He looked in vain for the pictures or posters Hunnyton might have put up to cover the bleak walls or express his own character. Nothing but a pin board carrying the week’s roster. If this was where the boss operated, lord only knew what the actual lock-up cells looked like.

  “Hunnyton, where do you have your being, man?” he asked himself.

  In a spirit of mischief, he opened his briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. He’d torn the page from a recent copy of Punch magazine, intending to share the joke with Adelaide. She’d been following Joe’s progress as advisor to Lord Trenchard as he’d struggled to convince the commissioner of the importance of requiring a certain level of educational achievement as well as physical condition in the Metropolitan Force. For years he had been irritated by the attitude of the press towards the average British policeman. Their stereotypes were a bumbling, tubby, red-cheeked country constable eternally ready to tug his forelock for the gentry, or a rat-like city policeman as corrupt as the villains he was paid to catch. Realistically, if sadly, Joe had to admit that, although these pictures came from the extreme ends of the spectrum, they rang a bell with the public and with their concerned superiors. Now that he had the authority, Joe was losing no time in working for improvements both to the reality and the perception.

  Successfully. The new educational standards for recruits had been announced in Lord Trenchard’s latest annual statement and had been duly lampooned by the Punch cartoonist. But so gently lampooned that Joe took it as a complimentary salute. A handsome uniformed young bobby in tip-top physical condition, clearly fresh out of police college at Hendon, was shown directing the traffic in the middle of Oxford Street. His elegantly extended left arm was detaining at his back a phalanx of apoplectic taxi and bus drivers while the right hand held an open book which was absorbing all his attention. The reader’s eye swivelled eagerly to read the title. The Odes of Horace.

  Joe decided to sacrifice the page in the interest of frivolity. He found four drawing pins and fixed it to the notice board, adding his own heading along the top: “Dead Poet Stops Traffic.”

  A sample of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary was waiting for Joe at the door of the ancient church of All Hallows when he arrived five minutes before the given time. Joe scanned him. Smart in his constable’s uniform, tall and gangly, with a brisk salute. Red eyes in a weary face . . . ah . . . this must be . . .

  “PC Risby, sir. Pleased to welcome you to the scene of the stabbing. If you’d like to step inside?”

  “Two things, Risby. First, call it the ‘event’ or the ‘occurrence,’ will you? Not the best English, but we never know what ears are wagging, especially in the centre of the city. Every tombstone could be concealing a gentleman of the press. We don’t want to attract a crowd of ghouls. Secondly, I prefer to take a look about the exterior first. That way I have a framework for the interior occurrence. Walk around with me, will you, and give me the benefit of your local knowledge? Oh, and thirdly, you look shattered, man. Have you had any time to get your head down?”

  “Sir! Yes, sir! No, sir. Well, not much. I conked out for four hours at home and got here early. I’m feeling fine. I always look like two yards of pump water, my ma says.”

  Joe walked around the church, establishing that there was the usual second door giving access to the vestry at the rear, where a path led through thick undergrowth that passed for a graveyard. This small wilderness backed on to a street Risby named for him as “Peas Hill.”

  “Peas?” Joe was intrigued. “Did they grow peas here or sell them? Do Cambridge folk have a particular fondness for peas?”

  “Not the vegetable, sir,” Risby corrected. “No. This was the old fish market. We used to use it every Friday back before the war. ‘Peas’ is a corruption of piscis—the Latin for fish. At least that’s what we were told at school. The master was very keen on local history. A Cambridge man himself.”

  “Your school was . . . ?”

  “The Old Grammar School. Very strict they were. But it suited me. I stayed on as long as was possible, but we couldn’t afford the weekly charge after father died, however many hours my ma put in scrubbing. Still I’d done enough to get me into the police force.”

  “Are you enjoying it?”

  “I like the exciting bits like last night. Most of the time it’s dull routine. But it’s always worthwhile in spite of the pay. Anyhow . . . the harder you pound the beat the faster and further up the ladder you go, my old ma’s always telling me.”

  Joe was satisfied. Though he rarely gave one himself, he appreciated a straight answer and he was developing quite an affection for the lad’s doughty mother. “I want to get my bearings and hear about the church before the vicar joins us. I’ve got him lined up for half past three. Tell me what happens around this church in the four quarters of the compass.”

  “You know what’s to the west, sir—that’s the alleyway down to King’s Parade.” Joe noted that the boy didn’t need to wave his arms about and squint at the sky. He knew which way was up. “To the north is that row of private buildings—the second-hand bookshop and the rest down to the tea shop on the corner. There’s student rooms on the floors over the commercial establishments. To the east you’ve got the Corn Exchange and the Guildhall leading to the Market Place where you’ll find the Tivoli cinema, tobacconists . . . pubs . . . To the south there’s university buildings—the Cavendish Laboratory.” Joe could have sworn that the constable’s back grew straighter as he added with pride, “The best in the world, they
say, sir, Cambridge scientists.”

  “Well hooray for Cambridge!” said Adelaide, who’d approached them unheard as they stood, parting shrubbery and peering around gravestones. “Sorry I’m late! I heard your voices and took you for tourists. You’d forgotten I was coming, hadn’t you? But looking at the place again from here in the daylight—are you thinking what I’m thinking, Joe? It’s a sieve! Exits everywhere! I’m guessing Mr. Mountfitchet was probably not alone last night and whoever was with him could have made his way off into the town, any part of the town, unobserved. But what sort of man sneaks away, leaving a man dying an agonising death?”

  “I’d agree. If anyone did share his last moments, he didn’t wait about to render assistance or an explanation. He was off like a rabbit into a burrow. In any point of the compass.”

  “True, sir,” Risby said. “But you could look at it from the other point of view. Ease of access from any street in the town centre. One moment you’re walking innocently along to Bacon’s for a packet of cigs, the next you’ve disappeared into the shrubbery. The door’s always open. Anyone could have got in. Good meeting place. It’s a hub.” Encouraged by Joe’s nod, the constable announced his conclusion: “We’re looking at a control centre for nefarious activities. Plenty of those going on in Cambridge.”

  Joe looked at him shrewdly, sensing he was being pointed in a particular direction. “What sort of nefariousness do you have in mind, Constable, if that’s a word?”

  “There’s student high jinks, sir. Raggings and de-baggings, dunkings and dog-fights, even bare-knuckle fights. A bunch of Bede’s men rolled up the carpet and turned the aisle of this church into a skittle alley last St. George’s Day. To nark the landlord of the Eagle who’d chucked them out for rowdiness. They nicked his skittles and set them up in front of the altar.”

  At Joe’s gentle smile, Risby cast a glance at Adelaide, apologetic yet challenging. “But there’s worse. Arrestable offences, sir.”

  “Which you wouldn’t like to mention in the presence of a lady? Go ahead, Constable. The lady is a doctor. She’s seen more of life in the raw than you or I.”

  Risby gulped. “I did say—meeting place. For rendezvousing. Gentlemen coming together with like-minded gentlemen for purposes of . . .” He ran out of euphemisms.

  Adelaide was shocked. “What! Blokes having it off with other blokes? Here? In church? I can’t believe that!”

  “Happens, miss. There’s a sort of devil-may-care Hellfire Club on the loose. Different people every year. The members come and they go, the name changes, but the club goes on. We log all the changes to show we’re alive and interested, but, really, sir, I think they’re just working their way through a thesaurus.” Risby sniffed his disapproval. “Gehenna, Hades, Hell Fire, Inferno, Tartarus . . . Every intake of Freshers, straight from their posh schools, eager to kick over the traces—they’ll sign up for anything that sounds a bit racy.”

  “I think we’d better continue the conversation inside,” Joe said. “Has a search of . . . ?”

  “All done and dusted, sir. Superintendent Hunnyton’s orders. Every last cigarette end bagged and labelled. Inside likewise. I switched the lights on already for you to take a look round.”

  “This is where he died, Joe.” Adelaide led him to the pew and outlined the events of the early morning with confirmatory nods from Risby. The kindly light streaming in through the western window and the full illumination from the electric bulbs banished any sense of mystery or horror from the scene. They were in a dusty old church redolent of wax candles and incense trapped in the folds of ancient woven hangings.

  “We’ll have to wait for the postmortem results and the report on the other forensic evidence, of course . . .” Joe began.

  “You’re not easy with the suicide bit are you, Joe? I can see why, but it couldn’t be clearer. The constable and I heard his confession. There was no one else around. What’s worrying you?”

  “Aidan just wasn’t the kind of man who would kill himself,” Joe said, and instantly pulled himself up short. “Lord! The number of times I’ve heard that from a grieving friend or relation!”

  “You knew the gentleman, sir?” It wasn’t Risby’s place to question an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and, the question having escaped, he blushed and waited for a reprimand. But the spirit of the man so recently dead still lingered, bonding the three most closely linked with his death. Joe’s response was immediate and subdued.

  “Yes. For many years. Since our army days,” Joe said. “Not intimately, but we were always pleased to see each other. Always kept in touch. He enjoyed everything he did, whether it was legal or illegal. He had many friends, laughed a great deal, drank a lot but never too much. He was well travelled. A historian. He was writing a book about Russia, where he spent some time during the revolution, I understand. The military exploits of Peter the Great.” He paused for a moment. “And he was, I’d have sworn, glad to be doing some research for me on the quiet, Risby. Keep that under your helmet. It was all a bit of a game for him but, old soldier that he was, he was giving it his best and relishing it. You don’t kill yourself if you have an immediate goal in life or if—as in Aidan’s case—there’s one more book to write, a pretty girl to meet, a picture to admire, a symphony to hear.” Joe heard his own voice beginning to sound plaintive and he fell silent.

  “That’s well understood,” Adelaide said, sensing his distress. “You can be perfectly sound in mind and still kill yourself. Have you thought, Joe, that he may well have been physically ill?”

  “Ill? He’d have fought back. Aidan would have cursed death and gone down fighting.”

  “I was thinking of an illness that might have been overwhelming . . . not to be tolerated . . . one which he . . .”

  “Wouldn’t have cared to tell his mum about?” Risby finished for her.

  “That’s right. A venereal disease of one sort or another. I’ve come across cases. Men who couldn’t bear the shame of their family hearing of it.”

  “It’s certainly possible. Let’s leave it there. No need to speculate—I asked for a full autopsy so we’ll know more tomorrow. Now, let’s do some serious detecting! Risby—how many candles were alight when you came in?”

  “One,” they said together.

  “The one at the end. It was on its last legs and had lasted longer than the others on the altar because it was in a more sheltered place, out of the draughts,” Adelaide remembered.

  “But when were they lit, I wonder?” Joe went to the altar, picked up one of the unused ones, weighed it in his hand and interrogated it.

  “Ah! I can tell you that, sir. Eight o’clock the previous evening or therebouts.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I got here early. Mrs. Peterson, the daily, was in to do her chores. She usually comes in the morning but the super had told her to hold off and leave everything as it was so she was just wandering about grumbling. I caught her and asked her about the candles. She unpacks them when they arrive and cleans up the altar after services. She told me the thin ones last the length of a service—five hours—and these fat ones last ten hours if they’re in glass jars. They can get two evenings’ use out of them if someone remembers to blow them out. They’re always from the same church supplier and consistent in performance. The vicar lights them before he gets going. So there would have been a service starting at eight o’clock last evening.”

  “Oh!” Adelaide exclaimed and fished about in her pocket. “I meant to give this to Adam! I took it off the front door when I arrived last night. It was pinned up with a couple of drawing pins.”

  Joe took the postcard from her and read it, frowning.

  “Good Lord! What an evening’s entertainment! What is all this nonsense? Distrust? Doubt? Depression? Death? You can add another ‘D’ to your list; Aidan would only have attended such a piece of indulgence under Duress.”


  “After suffering a symposium on the black humours, anyone would be feeling suicidal . . . or murderous. You must ask the reverend who else was at the grisly meeting, Joe. They were long gone by the time I arrived.”

  “Have you met the reverend?”

  “Never.”

  “Well now’s your chance. I think I heard the back door opening. Ah! Reverend Sweeting? Right on time! Good of you to see us. Distressing time for you . . .”

  Feeling like an invading Viking caught by the abbot enjoying a day’s pillaging in Lindisfarne, Joe realised he was striding about, putting the vicar at ease in his own preserve, and he stood still and lowered his voice. He introduced the three of them to the man who had slipped in through the vestry door. Making a modest entrance was a difficult trick to pull off when you were wearing the full regalia of a Church of England vicar, but Sweeting managed it. Joe had expected the day-to-day clericals—dark suit and the obligatory dog collar—but the vicar had gone the whole hog. Floor-sweeping black cassock with frothy white surplice and over and around his neck a richly embroidered stole of purple silk. He should have been an impressive figure, but the man inside the costume wore it awkwardly, like an understudy thrust without warning into the part of St. Thomas à Becket. The weight of the costume seemed too great for the man’s narrow shoulders.

  He must have caught Joe’s speculative eye on him, as he smiled, shook out a fold of his surplice, fingered his pectoral cross and explained, “You will judge me overdressed for the occasion, gentlemen . . . madam. I thought in the circumstances I’d push the boat out and conduct a special service this evening. The vestments are demanded by the solemnity of the occasion. However you look at it, Commissioner, a sinful crime was committed here in these holy surroundings last night and a ceremony of cleansing is called for to rid us of the pollution and render God’s house fit for His presence once more. All lingering traces of maleficent spirits must be swept away and directed to the place of evil and torment they themselves have chosen.”