Ritual Murder (15 page)

“It can't be the easiest thing to play the organ up here and conduct the choir down there at the same time.”

Mr Amos gave his jolly laugh.

“It's lovely! Only wish I could do it all the time.” Explaining, “I'm only the Vice-Organist. Dr Hurne, our Organist, is touring the Continent, giving recitals. Last Sunday—” the man's utter lack of envy was indeed lovable—“he played in Cologne Cathedral! What do you think of that! Everybody says it was a triumph! You really should make a point of coming along to hear him when he gets back. Oh dear—silly me again!” Mr Amos sighed. “I do apologize. I had no right whatever to assume you were not a regular cathedral-goer.”

“Not all that regular,” Jurnet returned, poker-faced. “You cathedral people, on the other hand,” he went on, turning the other's
faux pas
, rather cleverly, he thought, to his own purpose—”obviously you have to attend when you're needed, feel like it or not. But how many services do you attend that you don't have to?”

“Such as last Sunday morning's Communion you mean?” the little man stated, rather than asked. “Yes, I was there, at 8 o' clock, in St Lieven's chapel.” He added, “I expect you will also be interested to hear that I was in the cathedral a good deal earlier than that. Not much past 7.”

“Indeed, sir? Any special reason?”

“For the very special reason that I would rather be there than anywhere else in the world.” Mr Amos looked at the detective with eyes of a transparent candour. “I live in the Lower Close—one of those houses which were recently turned into flats. I have no wife, I live alone, and I am a confirmed early riser. Once awake, I find that my thoughts invariably turn to this place, and, more often than not, as soon as I have got myself dressed, my feet also. These spring mornings—” his eyes brightened just to speak of them—“the cloister is absolutely delightful! Shadow and chill at first, and then comes the moment when the sun clears the eastern wall—magic!” In the voice of one promising a great treat, Mr Amos exclaimed, “You really must come one morning and see for yourself!”

“I must do that.” Then, “How do you get into the cloister so early?”

“From the Song School. I have keys to both doors, of course—the one that opens into the Close, and the one on to the south cloister.”

“What about the cathedral proper? Could you get into that, if you wanted to, before it opens for business?”

“Certainly. I also have a key to the Prior's Door into the south transept. Not that I used it on Sunday. The cloister was so lovely, and so quiet. For once, none of the boys was there to play their games—traditional, but so noisy! I sat until it was almost 8 o' clock. By then, the Prior's Door was unlocked anyway, and I went directly to Communion.”

“Did you notice anybody about in the nave as you crossed the transept?”

The Vice-Organist shook his head.

“I'm afraid I can't help you.” Again he lifted to Jurnet eyes that were disturbing in their utter lack of guile. “I was on my way, unworthy as I am, to partake, if only symbolically, of the body and blood of Our Blessed Saviour. Called to such a feast, do you really expect me to notice who was and who wasn't about in the nave?”

Somewhat at a loss, Jurnet turned away and looked over the chest-high panelling which fenced in the organ loft, discovering that, from that vantage point, it was possible to see down into the Little St Ulf dig. The actual excavation was cut off by part of the hoarding, but the table was visible, and some bowls and sieves piled haphazardly in a corner. Turning back to Mr Amos, who had followed the direction of his gaze, the detective was taken aback to see that the man's eyes were full of tears.

Jurnet said awkwardly, “It's hard to accept the violent death of a child.”

Mr Amos nodded, and a tear fell down upon the sandy hairs that coated the backs of his strong little hands.

“Even a boy like Arthur,” he said.

“I can see,” Mr Amos said, “that I must get this over and done with. Otherwise you'll be wondering whether it was I who killed him.” The Vice-Organist looked down at his clasped hands, his head a little to one side. “Poor Arthur! Poor little boy, so odious and corrupt!”

Startled, Jurnet said, “If that's what you thought of him, I don't know what you're so upset about.”

“To be cut off in sin, with no possibility of repentance—is not that the most terrible fate of all? To die young and still not innocent?”

Jurnet demanded, “What did he do?”

“He never was an attractive boy—” the other appeared to go off at a tangent. “A pale mean look and a mean, slope-shouldered body. Hard to believe a frame so unlovely could house a voice of such angelic purity. If you had heard him in Tallis's Canon—!” Mr Amos broke off and shook his head in affectionate bemusement.

The detective, trained to listen, said nothing. The Vice-Organist, exactly as if the other had made some observation, went on, “Ah! You've noticed I began by talking about Arthur's looks, and I imagine you find that suspicious—understandably so, you who must spend so much of your time in dark places. So when I say further that not only do I love my boys for their divine gift of song, but that I find the physical beauty, equally God-given, of the well-favoured ones as great a delight to the eye as the other is to the ear, I may well confirm your worst fears.” The man regarded Jurnet comfortably. “You will think me ridiculously naive, I'm afraid, but Arthur was the first to bring home to me the construction the outside world might put upon my unthinking admiration of young male beauty.”

“Threatened you, did he?”

“Please!” Mr Amos put a protesting hand. “Now you're thinking badly of him, when pity is what's called for. For myself, I'm immensely grateful to him for trying to blackmail me as a homosexual. It really doesn't do, does it, to go through life a moral simpleton?”

Jurnet refused to be deflected.

“So he asked you for money?”

“He importuned me to buy him an easel and a set of oil paints. If I didn't, he said, he would write to the Dean and complain that I was sodomizing the choristers.”

“What did you do?”

Mr Amos opened his eyes wide, as if the question astonished him.

“Nothing, naturally.”

“You didn't think of having him up in front of the Dean as a lying little so-and-so?”

“But then he would have been expelled without a doubt. And his mother is a widow, of very modest means. I could not bring myself to jeopardize a boy's future on account of a youthful venality which, with God's help, he might outgrow. Especially as I felt myself in some degree culpable, in having behaved in such a way as to put the idea into the child's head in the first place.”

“So what happened?”

“Oh, he wrote his letter, just as he said he would. Anonymously.” Mr Amos looked at the detective hopefully. “I think that was a good sign, don't you? It showed, wouldn't you say, that he already had some misgivings? A stepping back from the brink?”

Jurnet chose not to leave the man that comfort.

“Gave himself an out, is how I'd interpret it. In case things went against him. What did the Dean do?”

“He sent for me, of course. To ask if I had any idea who might have written it.”

“Not whether the charges it contained were true?”

Mr Amos bowed his head.

“That too.”

“And you still didn't give the boy away?”

“How could I? When challenged directly on the point, I had to say I thought I knew who was responsible; but that, equally, I did not feel able to pass the name on.”

“And how did the Dean take that?”

“He was not pleased.” Mr Amos's troubled expression deepened. “Will he have to know now that it was Arthur?”

“It wouldn't surprise me if he's put two and two together already. You understand,” Jurnet insisted, “that I myself am quite unable to give any undertakings of any kind.”

“I understand.” Mr Amos sighed. “It's just that it seems such a pity, now that he's dead and can do no more harm.”

“That remains to be seen,” said Jurnet. “He's not doing too badly so far.”

“Wet,” said Christopher Drue. In the shadowy cloister the boy's voice had an odd, sweet resonance. “If you really want to know, Arthur Cossey was the most awful drip.”

Jurnet said, “I really want to know.”

The boy hesitated and then—or so it seemed to the detective—decided to give his questioner his trust. Jurnet, who saw the decision mirrored in the vivid young face across which thoughts and impressions chased each other like clouds before the wind, was foolishly glad of it.

“I know we're not supposed to speak ill of the dead,” the boy went on, “and I
am
awf'ly sorry for him. I'm sure I shouldn't like to be murdered, whatever sort of drip I was—but it wouldn't be honest not to tell the truth to a police officer, would it?”

“It wouldn't be honest not to tell the truth to anyone.”

“Oh, yes, sir! But especially a policeman. I mean, you could do things if I told lies.”

“Like shutting you up in a dungeon and putting you on bread and water? Let's hope it won't come to that! Mr Amos couldn't think of anyone who had been what you might call real friends with Arthur; and you were the nearest thing he could get to it. Mostly, I think, because you walk in line together in the choir. So don't worry. I'm not expecting to hear you two were like David and Jonathan, if you know who they were.”

“Yes, sir. The Bible. Jonathan got killed too, didn't he?”

“So he did. I should have known they teach you scripture in the Cathedral School. What Mr Amos did say was that whatever you might think of Arthur, he had the impression that Arthur thought the world of you. Was that right?”

Christopher nodded gravely. A dark lock of hair flopped over his forehead. “He had a crush on me. He followed me about everywhere, like a dog. Even if I went to the loos. It was an awful bore. He'd never take no for an answer.”

“Why didn't you want him for a friend?”

The boy concentrated with drawn brows.

“I didn't like him in the first place because he was who he was in the first place. I mean, you can't like a drip, can you? Nobody can.”

“It
is
hard,” Jurnet conceded. “Just the same, were there never times when you let him join in with whatever it was you were all doing?”

“We let him play marbles with us. He was rotten at it, but he used to buy all the special kinds—not the ordinary 35p a bag ones, the big ones you buy separately. Some of them cost 35p
each
! Arthur was the only one with money to buy marbles like that.” Christopher chuckled. “We always won them off him, though.”

“Where did he get the money from, do you know?” The boy looked startled, as though the question had never before occurred to him. “I mean, his mother's not well off, from all I gather.”

“He had a paper round,” Christopher suggested doubtfully. Then, with a brilliant smile, “But you'll find out about it, won't you, being a detective.”

Jurnet grinned.

“I'll do my best. Now, what about weekends and school holidays—did you ever see him then, out of school?”

“Not if we saw him first! Sometimes, if we were standing about with our bikes, he'd come up and want to go riding with us. Do you know, he had the best bike of anybody in the form—seven speeds—and he still couldn't keep up for toffee!” The child laughed merrily. “It never took us long to give him the slip!”

This glimpse into the jungle of childhood prompted Jurnet to observe, though with careful detachment, “That must have upset him a bit.”

“Upset Arthur!” Plainly, the possibility had not occurred to his school fellow. “Nothing upset Arthur. He was always smiling. We once thought of asking his mother if he smiled when he was asleep, but we were afraid she might not like being asked. Mr. Hewitt was always on at him to take that silly grin off his face.” Coming so close to the detective that a rosy cheek rubbed against Jurnet's jacket, he added, a little breathlessly, “Why, he even smiled when—”

“When what?”

“I don't know whether I ought to tell you.” Then, “Will you tell Mr Hewitt?”

“I shouldn't think so.”

“Or Mr Amos?”

“So long as you aren't going to tell me it was you who killed him.”

“It was something worse, in a way,” Christopher asserted solemnly. “Well, not worse, but—” He broke off and tried again. “It was only because he was always saying how much he liked me and how there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for me—”

“So?”

“So one day when he said it we were in the Lower Close, and a lady was there, walking her dog. And just as she went past us the dog sat down and did its business.”

“Well?” demanded Jurnet.

“Well, I was so sick of hearing there wasn't anything he wouldn't do, so I said—” the boy's face was completely hidden now, pressed into Jurnet's jacket—“so I said, if you mean it, then eat the dog's do.” Another pause. “And he did.
And
he was still smiling. It was all over his hands, and some of it was smeared round his mouth, but he was still smiling.”

“Are you very angry?” the boy ventured at last, when the silence had been prolonged. The cloister lawn sparkled in the sun. Had the old monks, Jurnet wondered, been allowed out there, or had they been condemned to promenade these freezing alleys, mortifying the flesh for the love of God? Had they loved God enough to eat dog shit in His Name?

Did he, Jurnet, love Miriam enough to do it, should she call for such a bizarre proof of his passion? He knew he never could; and he stood, silent, shaken with envy for the great love Arthur Cossey had borne for the boy at his side.