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

Wandlebury Ring and the Iron-Age forts of the Gog Magog Hills. In such a flat Cambridgeshire landscape Sidney liked the gently sloping elevation of the hills, the prehistoric route ways around him, the sense that he was part of a longer, more distant history, of barrows, vortexes and ley lines. This was a pre-Christian landscape that connected with an ancient folk tradition, with its reports of haunting apparitions, ghostly packs of dogs and giant chalk figures carved into the ground.
    Here Sidney sat, with the ham sandwich and flask of tea that Mrs Maguire had prepared, and let thoughts come to him. It was a form of prayer, he decided. It was not asking or talking but waiting and listening.
    The view was not as spectacular as that of the hills of Antrim that Stephen Staunton must have known as a child, but Sidney was content that it had a smaller English beauty; a contained, unfolding series of vistas that were never still as the sun moved through the clouds. He took sustenance and consolation from what he had come to refer to as ‘healing views’. There was no one to disturb him; no telephone calls, no unwelcome letters, no knock at the door.
    Autumn was his favourite time of year, not simply for its changing colours but for the crispness in the air and the sharpness of the light. As the leaves fell the landscape revealed itself, like a painting being cleaned or a building being renewed. He could see the underlying shape of things. This was what he wanted, he decided: moments of clarity and silence.
    The grass and the fields were damp after the morning rain and Sidney could not sit down. Instead, he leaned on a five-bar gate, ate his sandwich and drank his tea, letting his thoughts roam. When he had finished, he decided to climb on to the gate itself, perching on its top rung, as if he were still a boy with a whole day stretching before him and nothing to do but waste it. He looked out over the surrounding countryside and wondered how many other people had been confronted with this same view over time, and thought that this was home; this was England.
    He began to consider the case in which he had become involved. He was sure that Pamela Morton was right to be suspicious about Stephen Staunton’s death, and all was not as it appeared, but how could he give her misgivings weight and substance? Why would a man whom so many people had been at pains to point out was clearly a potential suicide not have taken his own life? And if he had been murdered then who could have done it? Clive Morton could have had a financial motive and Hildegard Staunton certainly had cause for resentment.
    Sidney was unsettled by his feelings. On approaching the Staunton residence he had felt depressed and ill at ease, but as soon as he had sat down with Hildegard he had not wanted to leave. Had her tragedy made him pity her, or were his feelings more than sympathy for her fate? Had he even, he wondered, become so fond of her that he could not believe that she could ever make a man so miserable that he would want to kill himself?
    Sidney watched the low sharp light of the day start to disappear behind the trees and remembered that he had no lights on his bicycle.
    He would have to get back.
    He returned home, poured himself the smallest of Johnnie Walker’s against the chill of the night, and looked at Stephen Staunton’s suicide note once more. Then, as the whisky took care of his anxieties, the beginnings of an idea started to emerge.
    He picked up the pocket diary and looked at the seemingly random arrangements of mornings and afternoons that had been added in pencil.
    How could he have been so slow? It annoyed him beyond measure. To have taken the information at face value; to believe what people wanted him to believe! How had he allowed himself to be taken in?
    He realised that he needed to see Pamela Morton once more, and urgently, but when he telephoned it was her husband who answered. Struck by a sudden moment of nerves, Sidney put down the receiver.
    The next day, he sent her a note but it was late the following afternoon before she called on him in person. After he had poured them both cups of tea, Sidney leaned forward in his chair and said: ‘I think, after all this time, that I might be making progress.’
    Pamela Morton was still, surprisingly, ungrateful. ‘Well, that would make a pleasant change.’
    ‘It has not been easy, Mrs Morton, and I do think it might have been simpler if you had gone straight to the police