Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (10 page)

‘Oh, Canon Chambers, everyone knows that. She’s one of those socialites with a soft spot for vicars.’

‘You mean there’s more than one?’

‘A lot of women like to have a clergyman to get them out of a scrape. It’s a good insurance policy.’

‘Talking of insurance . . .’ Sidney began.

‘It’s just as well I paid my premiums, isn’t it?’ Morden replied quickly. ‘There should be a tidy sum. I shall have to be careful not to celebrate too lavishly.’

‘Isn’t the money meant to replace the equipment you have lost?’

Morden nodded. ‘It is. But I am having second thoughts about the rest of my life.’

‘You won’t start again?’

‘I was about to give it all up, not that you have much choice in this business. You only know you’ve retired when the telephone stops ringing. Hollywood is a lifetime away.’

Sidney tried again. ‘There’s one thing I’m not sure about, and it’s why you rented the summerhouse in the first place.’

‘It wasn’t the most exotic location, I’ll grant you. In fact it was falling down, but it had perfect natural light; south-facing, with windows down one side that you could soften with gauze.’

‘I thought photographers needed a darkroom?’

‘I did all the developing here in the flat. There’s a bathroom and a spare room at the back.’

‘I was also going to ask about your family.’ Sidney thought he knew the situation but wanted to hear Daniel Morden explain it.

‘You’re taking an unusual amount of interest in my life. Are you like this with all your parishioners?’

‘I try to be of service to everyone. I think that’s part of my job.’

‘I imagine some people might find you a bit of a nosy parker.’

‘That’s something of an occupational hazard.’

‘I suppose that depends on which of your occupations you might be referring to.’

‘I am a priest.’

‘And a part-time detective, I hear. Word does get around.’

‘I hope that one does not compromise the other.’

‘I’m not so sure, but I’m happy enough to tell you about my family. Not that there’s much of it. I have a son. He’s in France. We don’t speak to each other.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘We had a disagreement.’

‘And his mother?’

‘She died, although not before divorcing me. It was a bad time.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nothing to be done.’

Sidney knew he should leave. ‘You said you were thinking of stopping. I wonder what you might do instead of photography?’

‘I’m going to try and paint. I’ve always wanted to do that. Photography, however, is more lucrative.’

‘Painting is a slower process, I imagine.’

‘And time passes all too quickly, don’t you think?’ Morden asked. ‘You can’t ever really comprehend its momentum. All you
can
do is to take hold of individual moments and analyse them closely: the way light falls through a window, for example. That’s why the summerhouse was perfect. You could spend a whole day watching the light.’

‘Is that what you want to paint?’

‘I try to capture beauty,’ Daniel Morden answered. ‘I want to find stillness in the middle of movement.’

‘And youth too, I imagine?’

‘Yes, of course, the rose before it flowers. Once it comes into full bloom you can already anticipate its decline. I like to photograph promise, and the moment before full beauty. Then you have expectation; drama. But I am sure I am boring you, Canon Chambers.’

‘Not at all. You speak with such enthusiasm I wonder why you are planning on giving it up?’

‘I’m not sure people appreciate what I am trying to do; and, of course, as with all artists, there is the problem of confidence. Not to mention the balance between doing what you want to do and earning a living.’

‘Are they very different?’

‘Sometimes you have to prostitute yourself in order to earn money, Canon Chambers. It is easier for a doctor, or even a priest, to retain his integrity. People will always be ill, and they will always die, and so you will always be in work. No one really
needs
a photographer.’

‘And have you lost everything?’ Sidney asked.

‘I still have the Leica I took to the wedding. And I also carry round an everyday camera. It’s a little Minox. I’ve been experimenting, as a matter of fact.’

‘I don’t think I’ve heard of a Minox.’

‘It’s the camera spies use for photographing documents, although I’ve been using it for people. I don’t even look through the lens. You have to guess the framing, fire the shutter and hope for the best. It’s shooting from the hip but you often discover unexpected angles, surprising accidents, hidden everyday moments; sometimes, if you are very fortunate, the revelation of unexpected beauty.’

‘Do people know they are being photographed?’

‘No, that’s the point. You catch them unawares. They have no idea the camera is on them and so they are more like themselves. It means you can be a bit of a voyeur, but I don’t mind that.’

‘It sounds quite hit and miss.’

‘Life is hit and miss, Canon Chambers; this kind of photography mirrors the elusive unpredictability of our existence.’

‘As elusive as knowing who would have wanted to burn down your studio?’

‘I have no idea about that.’

‘You have no enemies?’

‘I probably do, but they have been very careful not to tell me who they are.’

‘You have no clues?’

‘I don’t believe in looking for clues where the results may be distressing, Canon Chambers. I don’t like to seek out more trouble than I’ve already got.’

On his way home, Sidney decided to stop at the garage and have a look at the scene of the fire. He also hoped that he might be able to have a word with Gary Bell. Why had a petrol can been left lying around? Did the Bells keep a disorganised garage or were they tidy and efficient? How well did they know Daniel Morden and why had they rented out the summerhouse in the first place?

Sidney approached with trepidation, as he was still sure that it was Gary Bell who had called him a pervert when he had been walking Dickens two weeks previously. The memory rankled.

Gary was working on a motorbike in his blue boiler suit and it was not going according to plan. Abigail Redmond stood beside him, dressed in a gathered white blouse and skin-tight jeans, ready for a ride.

‘I don’t know what you’re doing here,’ Gary began after Sidney had made his introduction. ‘The last thing we need is a priest.’

‘People often say that to me,’ Sidney began, ‘and, of course, in many cases it’s the last thing people get: a priest at the moment of death.’ He was not going to put up with any nonsense.

‘Well no one has died here.’

‘It could have been close.’

‘I don’t think so. Morden was hardly ever around. He was always off with his friend Benson, looking at women. I thought you were one of them. What were you doing gawping at us the other day?’

‘Yes, I wanted to have a word with you about that. I was merely walking past with my dog. I did not “gawp”, as you say.’

‘I saw you looking at us.’

‘I glimpsed as I passed. It seemed you had other things on your mind,’ Sidney replied firmly.

‘Well, I did, as a matter of fact.’ Gary smirked at Abigail.

His girlfriend spoke for the first time. ‘That man with the beard and the shotgun. Benson. He’s always prowling around. I think he’s following me.’ She lit a cigarette.

Sidney decided not to let on that he had recently as good as witnessed a confrontation between them. He didn’t want the couple developing their notion that he was something of a voyeur. ‘Have you told the police?’

Gary took over the conversation once more. ‘What’s the point of that? They’d probably start following her too.’

‘They could call Benson in: issue a warning.’

Abigail Redmond took a drag on her cigarette. ‘My dad says we can sort it out ourselves. He’s going to go round. He says we don’t need the police.’

Sidney was concerned. ‘I wouldn’t advise taking the law into your own hands.’

Gary Bell looked him up and down. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. What do you want from us?’

‘I just wanted to clear up the matter of the other evening. I was not, I repeat not, spying on you in any way. I was accosting Benson because I believe he had shot an owl, which is illegal. I also came here because I wanted to ask when you last saw Daniel Morden?’

‘What’s that got to do with you? Has something happened to him?’

‘I mean before the fire.’

‘I saw him that morning. He had called a taxi and he was carrying all his equipment and a couple of round silver cans. I asked if he was going to make a film . . .’

‘He was all sweaty,’ Abigail added.

Gary explained. ‘That’s the drink. If he’d been in there at the time of the fire he’d probably have been too drunk to get out.’

‘And have you any idea how the blaze began?’

Gary Bell stopped work on his bike. ‘The police told me they found one of our petrol cans outside. They asked me questions like they thought I’d done it. If I had I wouldn’t have been so thick as to leave the evidence next to the scene of the crime, would I?’ He turned to Abigail for approval. She nodded, dropped the stub of her cigarette and ground it underneath the sole of her red high heels.

‘Yes, I am sure you would not,’ Sidney replied. ‘I was also wondering how well you both knew Mr Morden?’

‘Enough to say hello. That’s all it was.’

‘And did he never ask to take your photograph, Miss Redmond?’

Gary Bell interrupted. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

Abigail was defiant. ‘I don’t pose for no one.’

As he bicycled round Cambridge, Sidney worried what all this meant. Why would anyone want to burn down a summerhouse of such little value? Could it simply be an insurance fraud or was it something more? Could Gary Bell, or even Abigail Redmond, have started the fire to get Daniel Morden out of the building? Surely it would have been simpler not to renew his lease? Might there be some romantic history between Morden and Abigail, even though she was still so young? And Benson the taxidermist seemed, from what Abigail had said, to be a bit of a stalker; perhaps he was more than that? How well did Morden know him?

He would have to go back to the photographer. If nothing else, he was sure that Morden had a few good stories in him, and that should be entertaining in itself. Perhaps, since he had worked in Hollywood, he had met some of Sidney’s jazz heroes like Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle. He thought of Benny Goodman in
Hollywood Hotel
, Bessie Smith in
St Louis Blues
, Fats Waller in
Stormy Weather
and even Dooley Wilson in
Casablanca
.

It was a Monday afternoon in early September. Morden was glad of the opportunity to reminisce, but he had never enjoyed privileged access to the lives of any of the legendary jazz figures about whom his guest was hoping to hear. ‘Most of them were after my time, I am afraid, Canon Chambers. I was more of a silent-movie man. The talkies did for me as they accounted for so many others.’

‘Surely you saw it coming?’

‘Of course, but we didn’t go in for too many words. If you take the most famous film I worked on, we were determined to tell the story visually. We tried to use cards as little as possible: in fact on one of Murnau’s other films,
The Last Laugh
, he only used one card in the whole picture, and that was to explain the ending. He believed the picture alone should tell the story. “
Satis verborum
” was our motto. “Enough of words!” We wanted the audience to look at film and at life as if it were a dream or a memory. It should appeal to a part of the brain that had only just been discovered. We were very pure about it.’

Sidney was intrigued. ‘What was the film?’

‘
Sunrise.
It’s about a man who plans to murder his wife. Only he doesn’t. Most of the drama happens on a lake. It’s about forgiveness, I suppose, and it’s beautiful. We used all the qualities of dream; flash backwards and forwards, superimposition, composites, fantasy, multiple exposures.’

‘I’d like to see it.’

‘The existing print’s not very good because they had to make a new negative so it’s not as sharp as it was when people first saw it. The blacks have gone grey and the soundtrack’s too noisy.’

‘A pity.’

‘It’s still worth seeing. You can tell it’s a masterpiece.’

‘And what did you do after that?’

‘I began to direct myself, even though I wasn’t as good as Murnau. Then I had my trouble.’

‘I’m sorry. You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘It’s a common enough story. The work didn’t go the way I had planned, the demon drink became as much a part of my life as the younger starlets, and I found myself on a plane home.’