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

institution.’
    ‘With respect, I do feel you may be barking up the wrong tree, Sidney. This was cold-blooded murder. It wasn’t an act of social justice.’
    Sidney hated the phrase ‘with respect’. It always meant the opposite. ‘I don’t think we can discount anything.’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘I think the idea of honour and reputation is important.’
    ‘It often is.’
    ‘People are terrified of losing face.’
    ‘Men like Simon Hackford?’
    ‘Indeed.’
    Inspector Keating would not be committed. ‘Nice man; a bit weak, I would have thought.’
    ‘Too weak to do the deed?’
    ‘No. It doesn’t take much to stab a man, especially in those circumstances.’
    ‘He would be your chief suspect?’
    Keating thought for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t like to say. But I wouldn’t mind you finding out a little more about his relationship with Lord Teversham. It doesn’t sound right. Perhaps you could go to Locket Hall and give them the once over?
    ‘Very well.’
    ‘You hesitate, Sidney.’
    ‘I do; but that is nothing to do with Locket Hall. A further thought troubles me . . .’
    ‘Which is?’
    ‘Was the person holding the dagger aware that he was doing the deed?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘We have to be sure,’ Sidney began, ‘that the person who administered the blow knew that the dagger had been switched. If he did not know, then he could have killed Lord Teversham by accident, leaving the real murderer with the perfect alibi. In fact, I might even be surprised if the murderer was one of the assassins. I would suggest it could equally well have been someone who switched the daggers and left the scene of the crime, knowing that the fatal blow would be administered in his, or even her, absence.’
    ‘That’s the kind of thing I’m supposed to come up with. It means the murderer could be anybody.’
    ‘Not if we find a motive. We need to look into the character of Lord Teversham.’
    ‘I agree. But there are six suspects and a reconstruction to get through first. By all means make a start on your theory. Any background you can get on Simon Hackford, then tell me in the pub on Thursday. Any foreground information or immediate suspicions, then come to me immediately . . .’
    Sidney bicycled home, lights flaring, across the fields and against a harvest moon. He met no one. Everyone in the city appeared to be asleep. He wondered how many of them had said any prayers.
    ‘Forasmuch as all mortal men be subject to many sudden perils, diseases, and sicknesses, and ever uncertain what time they shall depart out of this life . . .’
    He bicycled quickly because he was worried about having left Dickens for so long but, on opening the kitchen door, he was reassured to find him asleep in his basket and a note on the table: ‘Have walked dog. No mishaps. Leonard.’
    That was a relief. He really would have to try and be more responsible about his dog in future. Sidney made himself a pot of tea and wondered why he had stayed and taken part in the investigation. There was no need, really. Inspector Keating had said as much.
    So why had he done it? Was it vanity, he wondered, the idea that they could not manage to conduct a police inquiry without him? It was absurd to think like this, but he now had to admit that he was never far from the sin of pride. He tried to convince himself that his motives were born out of a desire to understand what had happened, to stand alongside people in their difficulty and also to be, in Bunyan’s words, ‘valiant for truth’. But it was going to take a long time both to justify his involvement and to find out the truth behind this particular murder.
     
    The next morning, unsurprisingly, Sidney overslept, missing the eight o’clock Communion service. Over a late breakfast, Leonard Graham told him that he had been informed what had happened, that he hadn’t wanted to wake his boss and that there was little point in having a curate if he couldn’t be relied upon to take a service on his own.
    There had been four people in the congregation: Agatha Redmond, the Labrador breeder; Isabel Robinson, the doctor’s wife; Gervase Bell, the local historian; and Frances Kirby, the wife of the butcher who had played Decius Brutus, a woman who made sixty toffees for her husband every week and could be relied upon to spread news of the murder, together with her personal opinion as to the most likely culprit, by lunchtime.
    ‘We must try to discourage any unnecessary