Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death (The Grantchester Mysteries)

might be. You don’t seem to have very much to offer other than yourself. But that would be quite nice. I could look forward to that. In fact, I might save you up as a treat.’
    ‘Please don’t.’
    ‘I wonder what you are going to let me do? There are so many choices. I think I’m just going to eat your banana while I decide.’
     
    Sidney had been surprised by Inspector Keating’s anxiety about Amanda and found it touching, even though he was not unduly worried himself. She would often disappear for a few days to see friends in the country and their communication had its sporadic moments. After all, their friendship was relatively new and, as he had told Geordie, he did not like to make too many demands. Besides Sidney had concerns and duties of his own, not least Grantchester’s upcoming summer fête and the annual scout trip to Scarborough.
    He was not even alarmed when his sister first telephoned early on a Tuesday morning to say that Amanda had not been home for several days. Although that was not unusual in itself, Jennifer then explained that the National Gallery had telephoned to ask whether Amanda was ill. Her car was missing, her parents were abroad and a strange address outside Ely had been written down on a notepad together with the name ‘Wilkie Phillips’. Did Sidney know anything about any of this and should she be worried?
    Her brother pretended that all was well and told Jennifer that Wilkie Phillips was a member of the art world and that Amanda had been keen to talk to him about Holbein. There was nothing to worry about, but if she could just give him the address then he would make some enquiries and set her mind at rest. Jennifer was clearly not convinced by her brother’s attempt at a calm response, but obliged.
    As soon as he had put down the receiver, Sidney went straight to Cambridge station, where he then took a train to Ely. He took his bicycle with him and, after he had alighted, he headed off across the Fens. A feeling of dread filled his being, a sentiment not helped by the fact that the villages he passed seemed to become more remote by the mile. He asked directions to the private road where Wilkie Phillips lived and turned off down a narrow track. This then widened to reveal the ramshackle dwelling that Amanda had approached three days earlier. Her car was parked outside. The roof of the MG was down but it had been raining and the seats were wet. Now Sidney worried even more.
    He approached the front door and rang the bell. There was no reply. He rang again. Then he walked around the house. The main windows were boarded up. There was no sign that anyone lived there. He rang the bell again. Then he banged on the door.
    There was silence.
    Sidney bicycled back towards Ely but stopped at the first telephone box he saw.
    He called Inspector Keating.
    ‘I’m worried about Amanda,’ he said.
    ‘Now you tell me. What’s wrong?’
    ‘It’s not good, Geordie. I think she’s been kidnapped.’
     
    Inside the house, Wilkie Phillips was in a cheerful mood. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t hear the doorbell. I think it might have been your friend. What does he look like?’
    ‘He’s quite hard to describe. He’s very tall, with a kind face. He stands very straight. He has brown eyes. He wears black.’
    ‘He wouldn’t, by any chance, be a clergyman?’
    ‘He is.’
    ‘Oh dear. That will have been him, then. And now he’s gone. What a pity I couldn’t let him in. We could all have had a little chat. Is he your special friend?’
    ‘Not in the way that I think you mean.’
    ‘Then there’s room for me. Perhaps you are, as they say, “unattached”, Miss Kendall? Quite a catch, I would have thought. And you know about art. That makes you all the more attractive. We could have a series of discussions about the difference between the naked and the nude.’
    ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.’
    ‘Don’t you? I could take up life drawing. Or we both could. We could draw each other. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?’
    ‘I really don’t think so.’
    ‘You do know that you are going to have to be much kinder to me if you want to leave?’
    ‘Mr Phillips, I can see that you have no intention of letting me go.’
    ‘Wilkie, please. I have told you this before. It would be so much easier if you co-operated.’
    ‘And what do you want me to do?’
    ‘Why, take off your clothes of course.’
    ‘And if I do so?’
    ‘I’m only going to look. I don’t