Ritual Murder (2 page)

The two commingled and flared up inside him, quite agreeably. It was the first warmth he had felt since stepping out of the spring sunshine.

“Shameful!” he exclaimed, in all sincerity.

On the chapel wall, in tall red capitals that seemed to have burnt themselves into the stone, were two words, brief and to the point: SOD GOD.

In the FitzAlain chapel opening off the ambulatory, the walls were plastered: and here the blasphemy, inscribed as before between the windows, seemed to have abated some of its outrageous irreverence. The plaster had absorbed some of the paint, feathering the edges of the letters, and, by softening the medium, tempering in some degree the import of the message.

“Any more?”

Dr Carver shook his head, then qualified the negative. “None we've come upon, at any rate. Harbridge is going to take another look round.”

“I'd' a seen it, if it was there to be seen,” Harbridge asserted. He looked with hostility at the detective, the stranger to whom the cathedral's shame had been published. “Now you've had an eyeful, can I get a bucket of whitewash an' cover it over?”

“Just put the paper back for the moment.” Whilst Jurnet had not the slightest idea what, in practical terms, he could do, he had an inbuilt resistance to making away with evidence. To the pair of them he offered the only comfort he could think of, “At least, whoever did it was a Christian. I mean, you wouldn't bother, would you, with sodding a God you didn't believe in?”

Harbridge looked unappeased, but the Dean's face lightened.

“That is a very perceptive remark, Inspector. I must remember to tell the Bishop.”

“Not much help in finding out who did it.”

Turning away from the wall, Jurnet took a look at the painted tomb which was the most prominent object in the small chapel, and where Bishop FitzAlain, resplendent in mitre and cope, slept benignly, palm to palm in prayer, as he had already slept for 400 years, confident of a sweet awakening.

What a place! the detective thought. Even the ruddy beds were stone.

Still nursing his resentment, Harbridge announced darkly, “They always bring along their own booze, tha's the trouble.”

Letting the implied compliment to Angleby ale pass without comment, Jurnet pointed out, “Whoever wrote that on the wall was sober as a judge. Someone who'd practised, got the hang of it. Anyone can make a scrawl with an aerosol—but properly formed letters in a straight line and all of a size, with no dribbles—”

The Dean observed pleasantly, “Next you'll be telling us they offer a course in it at the Polytechnic.” He finished, “If it's any use to you, the aerosol's in a bag behind the bookstall.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Propped against the Bishop's chest. Someone having his little joke, I dare say.”

“I'll pick it up on the way out—though, if someone left it behind, ten to one he gave it a good wipe first.” Jurnet hesitated, then took the plunge. “Doesn't the Cathedral School hold its morning assemblies in the cathedral?”

“The seniors. In the nave. But you can't imagine—”

“And the choir, now.” Jurnet pressed on, leaving no doubt that his imagination was capable of more than the Dean gave it credit for. “The choirboys, surely, must be in and out of the place all the time. How many of them are there? The kids, I mean.”

“Twenty-four,” said the Dean, looking shaken. “But I really must protest! So far as those children are concerned, Inspector, an abiding love for this House of God is part of the very fabric of their lives. To suggest that one of them could actually be responsible for this abomination—!”

“
‘Could be'
is exactly what I meant, sir. Not
‘is'
. All I'm doing is point out the existence of another whole class of persons beside the football fans who
could
be responsible. Could equally well be some nutter or some menopausal lady with a sexual problem—you'd be surprised what some of them get up to these days—”

“You mean,” the Dean did not attempt to hide his relief, “the field's so wide there's really nothing the police can do except make soothing noises—”

Which was so exactly what the Superintendent had maintained earlier that Jurnet could not repress a smile as he returned, “If you'll let me have that aerosol, sir, I'll be on my way.”

As Jurnet and the Dean retraced their steps towards the nave, they paused to let a little procession pass. Jurnet counted twelve pairs of boys, graded as to height and looking like angelic imps in their scarlet cassocks. At sight of Dr Carver their expressions became, if possible, even more otherworldly—a detachment which did not rid Jurnet of the sensation that twelve pairs of bright young eyes had nevertheless contrived to give the Dean's companion an instant, comprehensive once-over. For himself, the red cassocks, so vivid against the grey stone, made a greater impression than the faces topping them. Only two stayed with him: a pair about twelve years old, by the look of them. One of these was pale, with a prominent forehead and pale, bulging eyes. His partner by contrast looked all the more robust, a rosy-cheeked boy with dark curly hair and an air of cheerful impudence.

In charge of the choristers was a roly-poly little man who shepherded them towards the choir with an impatient tenderness that Jurnet, for one, found oddly endearing. A vexed click of teeth at his side conveyed the information that Dr Carver did not share this feeling.

“Good morning, Mr Amos!” the Dean said sharply.

The little man swung round and beamed, unaware he was not loved.

“Dean! I didn't see you. Good morning! Lovely day!” with a jolly waggle of buttock he passed out of sight, following his charges into the wooden lacework of the choir.

From the aisle, through an arch giving on to the choir, Jurnet had a glimpse of the little crocodile dividing to right and left as the boys filed into the front stalls on either side of the central gang-way. They seemed to know the drill and to be quite unawed by their surroundings. The detective watched as the rosy-cheeked boy took a wad of gum out of his mouth and nonchalantly parked it somewhere out of sight beneath his misericord.

Jurnet glanced sideways at the Dean, hoping, for Mr Amos's sake, that the action had not been noticed.

The Dean's attention, as it happened, was fixed on a screened-off area ahead of them. A kind of roofless room made of boards some seven feet high, painted grey to blend in with the prevailing colour, occupied a fair amount of space on the north side of the organ loft, and protruded well into the north aisle. From within this enclosure came small noises not easy to identify but enough to convey that the space was not unoccupied.

Jurnet had not noticed that one of the boards was, in fact, a door, until it opened and a girl came out.

She wore dusty jeans, a stained T-shirt and a kerchief that completely covered her hair; and she seemed not absolutely ecstatic at finding herself face to face with the Dean.

“Ah—Miss Aste! Hard at it, as usual?”

“I was just popping out for a smoke, actually.”

“Haven't I persuaded you to give it up yet?” The Dean's voice had taken on a playful note which Jurnet uncharitably guessed he reserved for nubile females, especially those shaped the way Miss Aste was shaped. That he made no move to introduce his companion occasioned Jurnet no surprise. As a policeman he was used to being treated, even by the most law-abiding citizens, as an un-person, in whose company it was vaguely shaming to be seen. As a man he was used, as well, to the look the girl directed at him. He had lived too long with his looks not to know they attracted women. And long enough to know that, more often than not, as the women came to know him better, the attraction dissolved into a resentful disappointment that he was not the man he appeared to be. Not much use looking like a Sheikh of Araby all set to fling a girl across your saddle bow and gallop off with her into the sunset, when what you actually had in mind was a three-bedroomed semi with built-in mortgage. Even Miriam, at times, turned from him in sudden exasperation, as if he had promised more than he intended to perform.

The Dean, head cocked to one side, inquired winsomely, “Do I hear the Professor?”

The girl shook her head.

“Only Mosh. I think he said something about looking in this afternoon. Mosh'll know.”

She hesitated a moment, then, rebuffed by the professional blankness which Jurnet had pulled down over his face like a steel shutter, she turned abruptly and walked quickly towards the West Door.

Dr Carver gazed after her with a smile not entirely accounted for by the swing of her neat little behind.

He spoke and all was revealed. “Lord Sydringham's daughter. Delightful child.” He pulled open the door in the hoarding and projected the upper part of his body inside. “Is Professor Pargeter expected?”

The answer, if there was one, was lost, to Jurnet at least. The detective had a glimpse of a wooden table, a jumble of implements, and a young man with an Afro hair-do powdered with dust sitting with his feet dangling in a hole in the paving, smoking. At that moment a joyful reverberation rolled through the enormous building like the incoming tide. Mr Amos had found his way to the organ loft.

Immediately young voices sweet to the point of paining were lifted up in praise. Jurnet watched the anger reddening the Dean's neck, and the way, just short of insolence, the young man, without getting up, stubbed out his cigarette on an ancient tombstone set into the floor.

The thunderous surge from the organ loft gave way to wanton ripples, among which the boys' voices played like sunlight glinting off water. The Dean, straightening his body, stepped back inside the aisle, shutting the door with a violence that shook the whole makeshift structure.

“I cannot for the life of me understand,” he exclaimed, adjusting his coat with little, irritated gestures, “why he has to bring the boys into the cathedral to rehearse. You would hardly think we possess a Song School where such caterwaulings can take place in decent obscurity!”

Jurnet observed, with careful offhandedness, “I thought it sounded all right, myself.” Changing the subject, “What are they digging up in there, then?”

“Smoking in the cathedral, did you see that?” Two annoyances at once evidently stretched the Dean's Christian charity to its limits. “I warned Professor Pargeter, but he insisted. His star student, he said, and specializing in the city's medieval Jewry.” He looked sharply at Jurnet as if a thought had just that minute occurred to him. “Natural enough,” he continued, his voice, with some effort, recovering its affable calm, “for one by name Moses Epperstein. But not here, in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration. And certainly not excavating the tomb of Little St Ulf.”

The cathedral was filling up: knots of tourists moving diffidently, unsure of the correct posture in a stately home belonging to God of all people, and tending to congregate round the bookstall where money could be spent, something they were familiar with. Miss Hanks, rushed off her feet, dropped a handful of change when the Dean appeared unexpectedly at her side of the counter to reclaim the aerosol.

He did not help to retrieve the scattered money, and Jurnet, waiting a little apart, noted that neither Miss Hanks nor the crowding customers expected him to. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Amply rewarded by his smile, they genuflected with a will, pouncing on the coins with little cries of alleluia. It was the nearest thing to worship the detective had seen so far.

“Bit off your patch, Inspector,” commented a voice at his back.

Jurnet looked over his shoulder, then swivelled round. “I could say the same of you.”

He eyed the burly figure in front of him. Joe Fisher looked as though he spent a lot on his clothes, every penny of it wasted. The brute flesh and muscle would not be denied. He was kitted out in suede car-coat and expensive cords, and Jurnet had a mind to run him in for indecent exposure.

He wondered fleetingly what kind of look the man would rate from that delightful child, the daughter of Lord Sydringham.

“Hoping to flog a few bits of the True Cross that fell off the back of a lorry?” he asked coarsely.

Joe Fisher looked hurt.

“No need to go on like that, Mr Jurnet. Just 'cause I'm under an obligation to you don't give you the right to chuck insults about like they was confetti!”

“You're not under any obligation to me. Get Millie and young Willie a proper roof over their heads and I'll call you Lord Fisher T. Fish if it'll make you feel better. You've got more on your bloody back this minute than that beat-up trailer of yours is worth lock, stock, and barrel.” Jurnet looked at the trendy gear with a wearied distaste. “You know they're out to get an order to tow you off that scrap-heap?”

“Never! Millie likes it there! So does the kid, down by the river.”

“Millie doesn't know any better. And as for Willie and the river—”

“All right! So you pulled him out when he could' a drowned! How many times I got to say ta?”

“No times. Just get them moved, that's all. Before they take young Willie into care.”

“They never would! It'd break Millie's heart.”

“That's what I mean.”

The Dean, the crowd at the bookstall parting to let him through like the Red Sea for the Israelites, arrived smiling at Jurnet's side, proffering the bag containing the aerosol. The smile vanished as Joe Fisher moved a step forward and took hold of a handful of sacramental skirt.

“You, mate! Where they keep Little St Ulf, then?”

On the steps that led up to the West Door, Jurnet turned and looked back down the length of the cathedral.

Impressive, he gave you that: but not his cup of tea. Not for a boy brought up to Chapel twice on Sunday and Sunday School in between. Not for Miriam's lover—Miriam's husband if ever the Children of Israel opened their close-packed ranks and let him in. Mr Amos was still playing the organ, but the magic had gone out of it. A musical belly-ache.