Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (29 page)

Sidney had used Dickens as the excuse for his visit. It was time for a regular check-up and he wanted his Labrador to get the once-over just to ensure that all was well. ‘He has had the odd poorly moment after the cricket, and I just thought that I should make sure there is nothing more sinister,’ he explained.

‘That is wise,’ Redmond replied, as he settled Dickens on his examination table and ran a firm professional hand over the dog’s head and ears. ‘These have been strange times.’

‘I gather,’ Sidney began as tentatively as he could, ‘that since the match you have not been well yourself.’

‘I think it was the beer. There was a new barrel in and I suppose it must have been more potent.’

‘You don’t strike me as being much of a drinker,’ Sidney pressed.

‘I’m not. It’s only after the cricket. And when I’m thirsty.’

‘Did you have any of the lemonade?’

‘No, I didn’t touch any of that. I hear that you think that’s what might have done it for poor old Zafar.’

‘You hear?’

‘From my sister. Rosie said you’d been in at the shop. I thought your housekeeper did that kind of thing.’

‘No, I like to do the odd bit of shopping myself. Mrs Maguire’s cooking has, alas, come under a bit of suspicion, but you can see that I, for one, am still standing.’

‘I’m glad to see it. I suppose some of us react differently to others.’

‘Presumably, as a vet, you know how to deal with an upset stomach.’

‘Animals and humans are very different, Canon Chambers.’

‘And you cater for every animal?’

‘I do my best. Of course it’s mainly cattle round here.’ He finished his examination of the Labrador. ‘Dickens seems in good shape.’

‘I am glad that he managed to restore himself so quickly.’

‘I could have given him something to settle him down.’

‘It’s an emetic that’s normally required, is it not?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And do you have different emetics for different animals? I imagine that a treatment for a dog would be very different to that for a horse, for example?’

‘Of course, Canon Chambers. Horses require a particular treatment of their own.’

‘Hind’s Sweating Ball, I believe.’

‘You are well informed.’

‘With antimony as the core ingredient.’

‘Why are you asking about this, Canon Chambers? You are a dog man. And your Labrador is perfectly fine. There’s plenty of life left in him yet.’

On Friday 19 June Sidney joined his father and twenty-two thousand other spectators to watch the second Test match between England and India at Lord’s. India had batted first and were all out for 168, five of them falling victim to Tommy Greenhough’s leg-break googlies. Clearly this was a wicket that would take spin; the kind of bowling that Sidney was sure Zafar Ali would have loved.

England resumed the second day on 50 for 3 with Colin Cowdrey and Ken Barrington at the crease. Sidney’s father had been very keen to get to the ground early in order to see the two men bat: Barrington for his powerful drives, pulls and square cuts; Cowdrey for his elegance and timing. Sidney had first seen him when he scored a century for Oxford in the 1953 game against Cambridge. His father, Ernest, had been a tea planter in Bangalore and it was remarked, even then, that he had clearly foretold his son’s destiny by giving him the initials MCC.

Before the teams emerged from the pavilion, Sidney’s father asked for news of the parish and said he assumed it would be something of a relief for his son to absent himself from felicity awhile.

‘I am, although I am sure Felicity will be missing me.’

It was a joke they shared together almost every time they met, and they never tired of it. Sidney loved the easy companionship with his father; a friendship that had probably begun at the age of six when he had been given his first bat and been shown how to prepare it with linseed oil and knock it in, how to hold it (the left hand above the right), what guard to take at the crease (‘middle and leg, please, umpire’), and how to survey the imaginary field that was set before him, searching for gaps that would yield the most runs. Their shared interest in the game had developed over thirty years and deepened their friendship, allowing ruminative conversation that could be adjourned and resumed at leisure whether at Lord’s, the Oval, Fenners or the Parks. Sidney sometimes felt that while they were watching the cricket he could tell his father anything, although he liked to keep matters of the heart close to his chest.

‘Are you planning any more of your German sorties this summer?’ Alec Chambers asked, with an intentionally light curiosity, as if his son was only going to the shops.

‘No, I think that may have to wait. I’ve rather a lot on.’

‘And have you seen much of Amanda recently?’ Alec Chambers probed as Cowdrey cut through the covers. ‘Shot!’

‘She came to the church fête.’

‘And did that prove a success?’

‘I think so. Unfortunately I was called away.’

‘A pressing parish matter, no doubt. I suppose Amanda must be used to it.’

Foolishly, but in order to avoid further questions about the women in his life, Sidney confessed that there had, in all likelihood, been another murder in the village.

‘Good God, man, it’s like the Battle of the Somme out there.’

‘I wouldn’t quite put it like that.’

‘At least the cricket takes your mind off things.’

‘Although I have been thinking,’ Sidney replied at the end of the over, ‘how some of the greatest criminologists have been cricketers. Do you know, for example, that Arthur Conan Doyle once bowled out W.G. Grace? Extraordinary to think that the creator of Sherlock Holmes was a dab hand at bat and ball. In his first game at Lord’s he scored a hundred . . .’

‘I don’t know how much that would have helped to solve a crime . . .’

‘Lord Peter Wimsey once made centuries in two consecutive innings. A.J. Raffles was considered a dangerous bat, a brilliant field and the finest slow bowler of his decade . . .’

‘These are fictional characters, Sidney. You are getting carried away. Let’s concentrate on the game . . .’

Colin Cowdrey continued with a snick for four but was then caught behind off the fast medium-paced bowling of ‘Tiny’ Desai for 34. England were now in a spot of trouble at 69 for 4. The Indian fast bowlers were able to move the ball off the seam at a lively pace, with short balls lifting unexpectedly, making conditions difficult for the England batsmen.

Although Barrington proved steady in defence, Desai bowled Horton for two, and Godfrey Evans followed with a duck. England had slumped to 80 for 6. Alec Chambers was worried that Barrington would soon run out of partners.

‘Those players look a bit timid. You can’t play if you’re scared of the ball. It’s hardly going to kill you.’

‘Didn’t the English experiment with cricket-ball grenades in the Great War?’ Sidney asked.

‘The number fifteen?’ his father remembered. ‘You could throw it by hand or catapult. It was used at the Battle of Loos, and also, I think, in the Gallipoli campaign. But it didn’t like wet conditions . . .’

‘Rather like a real cricket ball.’

‘The match-head fuses failed to light and so it was withdrawn the following year. A pity. It would have been rather good to beat the Germans with a symbol of our national game.’

Barrington reached his fifty and the Indians opted for a change of tactics. The sky had begun to cloud over and Subash Gupte, known as ‘Fergie’ to his friends, came on to twirl a few leg-break googlies, changing the pace and flight, offering up a good, kicking top-spinner, as well as the standard leg-break with dip and bounce. He kept varying his trajectory so that the batsmen had considerable difficulty reading his wrist. Within minutes he had Fred Trueman LBW and England were 100 for 7.

‘Done him up like a Christmas turkey,’ Alec Chambers mused. ‘Although I don’t know why he keeps licking the ball.’

‘I think it gives him extra grip.’

‘I would have thought that might make it more slippery.’

‘Not if you apply it to the seam.’

‘It doesn’t seem very healthy to me. Think of the germs he could pick up . . .’

Sidney hesitated and a memory came to him with sudden dread. It was of Andrew Redmond rubbing the ball into his cricket whites between each delivery, and of Zafar Ali applying his fingers first to the ball and then to his tongue.

Had Grantchester’s captain poisoned the ball?

‘Did you like Zafar Ali?’ he asked, the next time he saw him.

‘He was the best player in our team.’

‘I didn’t ask about his cricketing ability. I asked if you liked him.’

‘We got on well enough.’

‘Are you aware that he was fond of your niece?’

‘I think it was more of a case that she was fond of him. It was a form of rebellion.’

‘So your family knew about it?’

‘We all knew about it. We didn’t think it was serious until we saw how upset she was when he died. She’s still hardly speaking, you know.’

‘I think it was serious enough for them to be secretly engaged.’

‘I think you must be mistaken, Canon Chambers. If there had been any possibility of that kind of nonsense her parents would have put a stop to it.’

‘She is nineteen years old and I am sure she could find her way to Gretna Green. She does not necessarily need their permission.’

‘She does if she wants their financial support.’

‘I think she was going to help manage the restaurant.’

‘I can’t imagine that. It’s full of Indians. It’s not her culture. His parents would never accept it, let alone Annie’s.’

‘I think they were preparing to welcome her into the family.’

‘The Muslims? I don’t think so.’

‘I admit it might seem unusual.’

‘Unusual, Canon Chambers? It’s not right. If there’s anything being a vet teaches you, it’s about keeping the bloodstock pure. You can no more mix a Christian with a Muslim than you can a Lipizzan Maestoso with a Shetland pony.’

Sidney was fairly sure that Lipizzan horses were originally crossbreeds but didn’t pick him up on his observation. ‘And you are a Christian family, of course.’

‘My sister-in-law does your flower rota week in, week out. You can hardly get more Christian than that.’

‘It’s certainly evidence of fidelity to a cause.’

‘I do have further appointments, Canon Chambers.’

‘I understand. And I must let you get on, Mr Redmond. However, I did want to ask you what happened to the cricket ball after the game. I don’t seem to have been given it.’

‘I don’t know. You were the umpire. It’s your job to pocket it.’

‘Indeed, but I think we all got caught up in the excitement. Did you pick it up, Mr Redmond? The last batsman was LBW.’

‘I think he kicked the ball away. I don’t know what happened to it after that. Why are you asking about that now?’

Although Sidney was convinced that he had never been given the cricket ball he had to accept that there was a slight possibility that he could have forgotten all about it. He was prone to absent-mindedness. There were times when he blamed Mrs Maguire for tidying the vicarage in a manner that defied logic, but even she could not be blamed for the disappearance of so many of his possessions. Although he was proud of being able to think hard when it mattered, his ability to focus on one specific problem frequently meant that everything else was pushed to the periphery of his consciousness. Everyday concerns and responsibilities were then sacrificed on the altar of concentration.

As a result, umbrellas were left on trains, scarves were abandoned on hot days, his favourite pen had been left God knows where because it had begun to leak, and his watch, the strap of which was too tight, had been removed in a library, a school or a bookshop (he couldn’t remember which). The only way he could retain his more valuable possessions was to keep them at home and in close proximity to his desk, but even there, as papers, books, notes and unfinished thoughts mounted alongside plates of biscuits, cups of tea, and even an abandoned whisky glass or two, Sidney was forced to acknowledge that he did, indeed, have a tendency to lose things. It was the price he had to pay for conjecture. How was he expected to remember the minutiae of daily existence when he had so much else to think about?

He prayed to St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost possessions, for solace and guidance but most of the time he simply had to wait for things to turn up; in a less-favoured jacket or a little-used drawer, for example. It was therefore not a complete surprise when, a few days later, he noticed the very cricket ball he had been worrying about lying in Dickens’s basket.

‘How did that get there?’

Leonard Graham was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the appointments section in the
Church Times
. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The ball.’

‘It’s always been there,’ Leonard replied off-handedly, taking a sip of his tea before turning the page to study a report on Anglican-Orthodox relations.