Read First, Do No Harm
One of the clerical undertakings that Sidney least enjoyed was the abstinence of Lent. The rejection of alcohol between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday had always been a tradition amongst the clergy of Cambridge but Sidney noticed that it neither improved their spirituality nor their patience. In fact, it made some of them positively murderous.
What Sidney needed, he thought, was either a single malt or a pint of warm ale – perhaps even both – but he knew that he had to resist.
It had been a Siberian winter. The roads were blocked with drifted snow, rooks fell silent in the deep woods and arctic geese passed over fields where lambs had frozen to the ground. It was a bad time to be old, and Sidney had already spent too much time at the bedsides of elderly men and women who had fallen victim to influenza, hypothermia, pleurisy and pneumonia, a disease that seldom warranted its nickname as the old man’s friend. Instead, there was anxiety both in the village and in the town, a sense of unease and even unhappiness in the darkness. It was a world where people seldom looked up, but checked their footing on the road ahead, wary of falling, trusting neither weather nor fate.
What Sidney needed, he thought, was either a single malt or a pint of warm ale – perhaps even both – but he knew that he had to resist.
The strictures of this self-imposed restraint amused Inspector George Keating, who stuck to his regulation two pints of bitter on the regular backgammon night he shared with Sidney, each Thursday, in the RAF bar of The Eagle.
‘Still on the tonic water, Sidney? You don’t want me to liven it up with some gin? It’s cold out.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Such a shame. Still, if you catch your death I can always slip you a brandy.’
‘That won’t be necessary. We are encouraged,’ Sidney continued dejectedly, as if he had learned the words by heart and no longer believed in them, ‘to reject such temptations and observe a time of fasting, prayer and silence.’
Inspector Keating tried to cheer things up. ‘You could have just the one. No one would notice. It is only us.’
‘But I would know. It would be on my conscience.’
‘I wish some of the members of the public had your self-awareness. This town would be a lot quieter if they did.’
‘The Anglican Church is supposed to be the conscience of the nation,’ Sidney mused. ‘We encourage people to believe that a moral life is, in fact, a happier life.’
‘People should be good for selfish reasons?’
‘Indeed. Shall we begin?’
Sidney laid out the backgammon on the old oak table in the lounge and the two men began to play their favourite game, gambling moderately for a penny a piece. Sidney found this to be one of the consoling moments of his week, a refuge from the cares of the world and the tribulations of office. He took a sip of his tonic water and tried to concentrate on the game. He threw a five and a four and began to move the checkers away from his home board Inspector Keating threw in response and was delighted to open with a double six. ‘I think it’s going to be my night . . .’
Sidney smiled. ‘I like it when you have a strong start. It lulls you into a false sense of security.’
‘I don’t think you need to worry about that. I’m on the top of my game . . .’
Sidney threw a three and a two and tried to think tactically. He moved his pieces and said, quietly, but with a hint of friendly menace, ‘Of course I do feel guilty when I keep winning so often . . .’
The inspector did not rise immediately. He threw a four and a one but noticed that he still had the advantage from his early sixes. ‘Double?’
‘Are you sure?’ Sidney asked. ‘I wouldn’t want another victory on my conscience.’
The inspector smiled. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’
Sidney threw a two and a one and began to realise that he might lose.
‘Talking of conscience,’ Inspector Keating continued, in a tone of voice that Sidney both recognised and dreaded, ‘I think I may be facing what you call “a moral dilemma”.’ He threw a three and a six, moved one of his checkers nine points.
‘Oh really?’ Sidney threw once more; a four and a three. ‘I have warned you to be careful about such things.’
‘The coroner came to see me. Re-double?’
‘Of course. I am not afraid. What has happened?’
‘It seems a certain lady has asked for her mother to be cremated rather too quickly.’
‘A certain lady?’
‘It is meant to be confidential.’
‘You have my confidence.’
‘Isabel Livingstone.’
‘I know her, Geordie.’
‘I am aware that you do.’ The inspector placed the dice back in the cup and threw again: five and a six. He smiled at the resumption of his fortune.
‘I saw her only the other week,’ Sidney remembered. ‘She was with my doctor, Michael Robinson. They are planning to marry. Nice couple, and well suited, I would have thought.’ He took a sip of his disappointing tonic water and tried to remember the conversation. ‘They told me that they had decided to wait for the ceremony until after her mother had died.’
‘Don’t you think that is unusual? Most daughters would want their mother at the wedding.’
‘They were planning on Easter . . .’
The inspector rattled his dice. ‘Well, they can have it now if they like . . .’
Sidney could see that too many of his opponent’s pieces were in advantageous positions.
‘We don’t normally conduct marriages in Lent. But I seem to remember that Mrs Livingstone was opposed to the whole idea of matrimony. Her husband had left when Isabel was an infant. After that she had taken a violent dislike of all men.’
‘He must have been quite a man to have wrought such havoc.’
‘Such a pity, to let resentment fester.’
‘Well, it won’t be festering any more.’
‘And so she has died? I am surprised I have not been informed.’
Inspector Keating was matter-of-fact. ‘And so am I. But there may be a reason for that . . .’
Sidney could see that too many of his opponent’s pieces were in advantageous positions. He was already anticipating a gammon. ‘You hesitate, Inspector . . .’
‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘You hesitate in a manner that alarms me.’
George Keating threw his dice and began bearing off but his heart was no longer in the game. He spoke without looking at his friend. ‘The problem is… Sidney… that I am not sure that Mrs Livingstone’s death was entirely natural…’
‘I was afraid you were going to say that. You mean?’
‘That the lovers might have helped things along? I am afraid I do…’
‘But it is the winter, and Mrs Livingstone had been in very poor health for a long time,’ Sidney observed. ‘I would have thought she had a pretty pressing appointment with her Maker.’
‘Well, I’m afraid that’s not what the coroner seems to think. A friend of Mrs Livingstone came to see him. He asked us to take a look and it’s now become a little more complicated.’ The inspector threw a one and a six and began to bear off his checkers. ‘You remember the Dorothea Waddingham case?’
‘The nursing home murderer? You’re not suggesting?’
‘In the Waddingham case they found three grains of morphine in the first body they examined and then a fatal dose in the second. Sometimes, doctors and nurses get carried away and death comes on a bit too easily.’
Sidney threw again even though he knew it was futile. ‘Was Mrs Livingstone wealthy?’
‘Moderately… but I would have thought the doctor had a good enough income. It can’t have been for the money.’
‘And why are you telling me this?’ Sidney asked.
The inspector leaned back and put an arm over the back of the chair next to him. ‘When people come to you to be married, you tend to put the couple through their paces beforehand, don’t you?’
‘I give them pastoral advice.’
‘You tell them what marriage is all about; warn them that it’s not all lovey-dovey and that as soon as you have children it’s a different kettle of fish altogether…’
Knowing that Inspector Keating had three children under the age of seven, Sidney recognised that he had to be careful of his reply: ‘Well, I…’
‘There’s the money worries, and the job worries and you start to grow old. Then you realise that you’ve married someone with whom you have nothing in common. You have nothing left to say to each other. That’s the kind of thing you tell them, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t put it exactly like that…’
‘But that’s the gist?’
‘I do like to make it a bit more optimistic, Geordie. How friendship sometimes matters more than passion. The importance of kindness . . .’
‘Yes, yes, but you know what I’m getting at.’
Sidney could tell that the inspector was impatient for another drink. ‘I think I can guess what you want me to do.’
Keating stood up. ‘I’ll pay even though it’s your round…’ ‘There’s no need for that…’
‘You’re not drinking anyway. All I am asking is that you do a bit of digging. Give them a few tough questions when they come and see you. Ask the girl about her mother. Watch the doctor’s face. I wouldn’t want you marrying a couple of murderers…’
‘I don’t think that’s likely… they’re a very friendly couple…’
Inspector Keating ordered his third pint of the evening. ‘Well, if they’re as nice as you say then we won’t have anything to worry about, will we? Another game?’
Taken from Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death by James Runcie
