Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins (23 page)

‘It was meant to kill
you
.’

After he had returned home, walked the dog, played with Anna, pacified his wife, and checked that there were no urgent messages, Sidney decided to enlist support. Since Malcolm Mitchell knew the family, Sidney asked his curate to call in at Vic Gaunt’s house and ask when their son Lennie was coming home from hospital; as he did so, his curate might also like to ask how the young man first broke his leg (was it really during a football match?) and find out, as tactfully as he could, whether there was any ambiguity in Susan Gaunt’s relations with the bursar.

‘I can hardly ask that in front of her husband.’

‘I am sure you will find a way of waiting for the right moment.’

‘I don’t know her that well,’ Malcolm replied. ‘Maureen is my friend really. But Susan does bake an exceptional cake. You are always guaranteed a good slice of sponge when you’re with her.’

Helena Randall was by his side. ‘Perhaps that was what the bursar was after. A nice bit of sponge?’ She managed to make the idea sound almost obscene.

‘I don’t think this case has anything to do with cakes.’

‘I don’t know,’ Malcolm attempted a bit of banter. ‘Perhaps you could make an arrest for “crimes against baking”. The murder of a meringue, the lacing of a lemon meringue pie, the d . . . d . . . d . . . drowning of a drizzle cake . . .’

‘Don’t get him started,’ Helena warned. ‘What do you want from me, Sidney?’

Sidney looked to Malcolm. He had not noticed him stutter in excitement before. He turned to Helena. ‘I don’t know if this is up your street at all and it does involve a little chat with Geordie.’

‘That depends what mood he’s in.’

‘We all know he’s got a soft spot for you,’ said Malcolm.

‘I only flirt with him to make you jealous.’

‘I don’t believe that at all.’

‘It works, doesn’t it?’

‘Every time, unfortunately.’

Sidney tried to stick to the point. ‘I was wondering, Helena, if you could find out if Lennie Gaunt has a criminal record?’

‘Can’t you ask Geordie yourself?’

‘I promised Hildegard I would be on domestic duties while she prepares for her concert. Also, I need to make things up with Cecilia Richards.’

‘I don’t know why,’ Helena answered. ‘I was the one that wrote the article.’

‘She thinks we are in cahoots.’

‘And aren’t we?’

‘Yes we are, Helena, but it is not what you might call a popular move. You have a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way.’

‘Unlike you, Mr Perfect.’

‘I know very well that I am not.’

‘You need a bit of friction if you want to generate electricity, Sidney. You can’t go round being nice to people all the time.’

‘I think that’s what you’re supposed to do if you are a clergyman.’

‘But not if you are a journalist.’

‘I think we should go,’ said Malcolm, excited by the challenges ahead.

Sidney picked up his briefcase. ‘I’m sure you’ve got plenty of volts left in you, Helena. Only I wouldn’t like to see you short-circuit.’

‘I’m like a battery, Sidney. Ever ready.’

Malcolm was at the door. ‘Shall we get on with it, Helena, or are we just going to stand swapping electric metaphors?’

‘
Lead
on, my friend,’ Helena smiled. ‘It will be good to have an excuse to see more of each other.’

Sidney was on the point of making some kind of joke about the electric charge between them but by the time he had thought of it the couple had left.

His eventual meeting with Cecilia Richards was more difficult than he had anticipated. The association with Helena Randall appeared to have eradicated all that they had shared in the past and disqualified him from future friendship. It was a mistake, he realised within five minutes of coming to the house, not to have brought Hildegard with him. She always made everything calmer. It was even getting to the stage when he had to start acknowledging that some people really did prefer to spend time with his wife.

‘That journalist . . .’ Cecilia began.

‘You read it?’

‘Such filth. I know she is a friend of yours.’

‘I don’t think I’d put it like that. We bump into each other now and then.’

‘I didn’t know priests spent time with people who are so insensitive.’

‘It is a complicated situation.’

‘I don’t think honesty or integrity are complicated, Sidney. Do you?’

‘No.’

‘Then do you think you could see your way to never working with her again?’

‘I’m not sure . . .’

‘Because it’s very simple, Sidney: you can’t be both my friend and hers. You’re going to have to choose: between a widow who has always loved and supported you and whose recently deceased husband was the first person to welcome your wife into Cambridge, and a guttersnipe journalist. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?’

Sidney decided to revisit Dennis Gaunt in his mother’s empty house. ‘The last time I was here,’ he began, ‘you were struggling with a Latin phrase about intention. You mentioned
actus reus
but what I think you meant was
aberratio ictus
 . . .’

‘It’s all an aberration, Canon Chambers.’

‘It refers to the accidental harm to a person; when the perpetrator aims at X, but by chance or lack of skills hits Y instead. Sometimes it is considered an immaterial mistake; it doesn’t matter who is killed, the killing has still taken place . . .’

‘Death, not killing. Accident.’

‘In some cases this can lead to a double charge – murder (of the
unintended
victim) and attempted murder (of the
intended
victim) – and so it is doubly serious. Do you see what I am saying?’

‘An act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty. No one meant to kill the music man.’

‘No. You meant to kill the bursar.’

‘Why would that be? My nephew’s a good boy. He broke his leg. He’s not likely to do that on purpose. He’s already broken it once before.’

‘Perhaps that was the accident you mean then? Lennie would know all about your debts. And your financial situation.’

‘He knows everything about everything. We have no secrets from each other; only from the world. None with the family.’

‘And was your nephew good at his job?’

‘Always on time.’

‘He knew how to use a crane?’

‘He was excellent.’

‘And he was unlikely to make a mistake?’

‘Very.’

‘But according to everyone, he did?’

‘I don’t know how to explain.’

‘I think I can, Mr Gaunt. Your nephew did it deliberately. When did you last see the bursar? It was that morning, wasn’t it? Did you tell Lennie about the situation?’

‘The boy knows everything. He’s going to run the company one day.’

‘And what company would that be, Mr Gaunt? Would it be the removal firm or something different? Even in another country? Using the money from the sale of this house? Before you have to pay your debts?’

A week later, on 20th August, Helena Randall and Malcolm Mitchell presented Sidney with their findings. Helena had investigated the finances of Gaunts’ Removals and looked into their annual reports. It was true that the firm was about to go under and that the Corpus bursar had served them with an eviction notice after persistent non-payment of arrears.

In the meantime, Malcolm had been to see Maureen Gaunt. She told him that her husband’s mental condition had deteriorated through the stress of the situation and that their sister-in-law Susan had indeed met the bursar but that any compensatory payment in kind had been at his suggestion rather than hers.

‘She told you all that?’

‘It took a while to dig it out.’

Helena put her hand on the curate’s knee. ‘Malcolm’s got all the gory details. People tell him anything.’

‘I’m sure they do.’

‘Do you want to know more, Sidney?’ Helena continued. ‘Lennie Gaunt has a criminal record. I got Geordie to check: armed robbery, assault and battery. He’s had a fair few warnings, getting lenient sentences when he was a juvenile, but now they would have to be more serious. Also, he broke his leg in a street fight; hooliganism, to be precise. It may have been football-related but he wasn’t playing at the time. It was after a West Ham v Millwall game.’

‘And they moved out of London . . .’

‘Ten years ago. It’s not clear whether they still have dealings in the capital but it looks like they’ve been laundering money all over the place. There are plenty of reasons why Lennie Gaunt, at least, might want the bursar dead: debt, the ruin of the family business, his mother’s reputation and the fear of never working again. That’s four motives, before we start thinking about the threat of an investigation by the tax man. Remove one man and most of their troubles disappear; at least temporarily.’

‘And so the idea,’ Malcolm summed up, ‘was to stage an accident during which Lennie Gaunt breaks his own leg as a kind of alibi; like those murderers who poison themselves before killing in order to show that they too are victims.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Only this time they got the wrong victim.’

‘So do you think the bursar is safe?’ Helena asked. ‘Shouldn’t we warn him? They might try something again.’

‘I don’t think so. They must have guessed we’re on to them.’

‘If so then you need to watch it, Sidney.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m due to meet Geordie in the next half hour.’

Inspector Keating made an arrest that very day. At first, Lennie Gaunt denied everything and was so resistant to questioning that the inspector resorted to all-out attack. ‘You broke your leg to make it appear that you couldn’t be responsible, didn’t you, Lennie-boy? That was a clever move. A bit foolhardy, though, and it doesn’t cover up the fact that you’re guilty of murder.’

‘Manslaughter. That’s the best you can get me for. Accidental death. Two years in prison – if that.’

‘How much did your uncle pay you to do this?’

‘He didn’t.’

‘Dennis Gaunt may have had debts but there’s plenty of money floating about. His safe house, for a start. Don’t tell me he just keeps that for his nerves. What did he offer you? Five hundred pounds? A thousand? Or maybe even ten grand?’

‘Don’t be daft. Who has got that kind of money?’

‘Your family. Stashed away. The removal business is just a front.’

‘I don’t think . . .’ Sidney interrupted.

‘Leave this to me, Chambers. I know what I’m doing.’

Lennie Gaunt lit a cigarette. ‘This is stupid.’

‘You’re the one that’s been stupid, matey. Who is going to believe your story?’

‘It’s the truth. Why would I deliberately break my leg when I’ve wrecked it before?’

‘And not how you say you broke it.’

‘It’s not something you shout about. Street fighting.’

‘Perhaps you got the wrong leg this time?’

‘I didn’t mean to do anything.’

‘Let’s be clear about this, sonny boy. We are accusing you of deliberately creating your own distraction. You knew the debts the firm had and that your uncle would have to leave his house . . . and come and live with you . . . and that would be too much for your mum.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘If you could get rid of the bursar . . .’

‘Why would I do that? The debts would still be there.’

‘But a new man might look more kindly upon you. At the very least it would buy you a bit more time to sort things out. It could be six months before a replacement was found. By then you could have made other plans.’

‘I broke my leg!’

‘You meant to murder the bursar.’

‘I didn’t . . .’

‘Instead, because of the timings, or because you were distracted, or because you hadn’t worked out how long it would take that particular piano to drop, and because Orlando Richards walked underneath at exactly the wrong moment, he was killed, or rather murdered.’

‘No one will believe I made that kind of mistake. The musician was killed in an accident.’

‘Yours,’ Inspector Keating insisted. ‘You cocked it all up, didn’t you, Lennie-boy? Perhaps you didn’t plan it all. It may have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Everything built up inside you. I know you’ve got a history of anger and violence. You saw the bursar earlier that morning. You talked to your uncle. He told you that Walter Collins had issued an ultimatum: pay up or get out. Uncle Dennis may even have said something about your mum. And then, when you saw the bursar coming out of the Porters’ Lodge, you decided to act. It was an instinctive decision. You untied the piano too soon, gave it a push too late and lost your balance. You didn’t mean to fall with it and you didn’t mean to kill Orlando Richards. That’s why you can keep calling the whole thing an accident. Because it was. But it was also murder. The fact that you got the wrong man and broke your leg at the same time doesn’t make any difference.’