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

it was quite a ramble because it was the three gins that were doing the talking but it’s quite upsetting when your father threatens to kill you, don’t you think?’
    Amanda stopped talking. ‘Are you listening, Sidney?’
    ‘Sorry, I . . .’
    ‘Why have you got that strange look on your face? I’ve seen you drifting off like this before. You’re meant to hang on my every word.’
    ‘I do, Amanda. I do. It’s just that I was thinking.’
    ‘What about? What could possibly be more important than what I am saying to you now?’
    ‘Murder,’ said Sidney.
    ‘But how? I was talking about Eddie Harcourt, my brother, the divorcee and my father’s drinking. What has any of that got to do with events in Cambridge?’
    ‘I must get back there as soon as possible, Amanda.’
    ‘Now?’
    ‘Come with me, if you like.’
    ‘I am supposed to be having dinner with Eddie.’
    ‘Tonight?’
    ‘Yes, tonight. What shall I do?’
    ‘Turn him down, Amanda.’
    ‘Very well. If he asks for my hand in marriage, I will. And if Daddy kicks up a fuss I’ll tell him that I did it on your advice.’
    ‘No, don’t say that,’ Sidney answered distractedly.
    ‘It’s the truth, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes, but you don’t need to tell him that.’
    Sidney was already thinking about the Teversham murder. He knew that he had not been listening properly to his friend. ‘It has to be your decision, Amanda. But you can tell your father that you are not prepared to marry without love. That is, I am afraid, the minimum requirement.’
    ‘Can you grow to love someone?’
    ‘There has to be something there in the first place, I would have thought.’
    ‘As we have, you mean?’
    ‘Yes, Amanda,’ Sidney sighed once more. ‘As we have.’
     
    Before taking the train home, Sidney telephoned Inspector Keating and alerted him to his suspicions. He was informed that due to the unexpected nature of the revelation the suspect was hardly going to anticipate that they were on to him. Any further interview could wait until the next day. It therefore wasn’t until well after nine o’clock the following morning that the two men walked in to a small engineering works off Mill Road and asked for a few words, in private, with Frank Blackwood. Two uniformed officers waited outside.
    Ben’s father was unwelcoming. ‘I’ve already told you everything I know. What more do you require?’
    ‘We wanted to ask if you had ever acted in any amateur drama before the current production of Julius Caesar ?’ Sidney asked.
    ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
    ‘It doesn’t seem your type of thing.’
    ‘We’ve been through all this. I had taken a shine to the woman playing Calpurnia. I told you before. Not that it’s done me much good.’
    Inspector Keating chipped in. ‘Did it make any difference that your son was taking part? I would have thought that it might have put you off.’
    ‘I didn’t mind.’
    ‘And you also didn’t mind that your son failed to follow in your footsteps?’
    ‘I’ve already told Canon Chambers that I did. But what can you do if your son swans off to Oxford? He was always a mummy’s boy. He would have been better off doing an apprenticeship and a bit of National Service.’
    ‘And what did you think about him working for Lord Teversham?’ Inspector Keating continued.
    ‘I wasn’t keen on the idea. But what’s all this got to do with him? You don’t think he killed the old bugger, do you?’
    ‘No, we don’t.’
    ‘I can’t imagine Ben killing as much as a fly.’
    ‘That may, of course, be a good thing,’ Sidney observed.
    ‘Wouldn’t have done us much good in the war, though, would it?’
    ‘Fortunately he didn’t have to fight.’
    ‘I don’t suppose you did, Padre.’
    Inspector Keating was, on his friend’s behalf, getting tired of this assumption. ‘As a matter of fact, Canon Chambers did fight. He won the Military Cross. Can I ask you where you were standing on the night of the murder?’
    ‘We’ve been through all this.’
    ‘How well did you know Lord Teversham?’ Keating asked.
    ‘Not well at all. He’s an aristocrat so we didn’t have anything in common.’
    ‘Your son worked for him.’
    Frank Blackwood was annoyed to be interrupted. ‘How much do you want me to go on?’
    ‘As long as you like. We’d like to know what you thought of Lord Teversham.’
    ‘Well, he wasn’t really one of the lads, was he? You were in the play, Canon Chambers. You saw what he was