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

going to make any public announcement of our engagement until after the cremation.’
    ‘Even though Miss Livingstone is wearing a ring . . .’
    ‘Only in the house. I take it off when I go outdoors. It seems silly because everyone must have guessed by now but when you are supposed to be in mourning it doesn’t look right.’
    ‘Supposed?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Canon Chambers; my mother was not a kind woman, either at the end of her days, or even before. I can be grateful for the fact that she gave me life and that she looked after me, but recently, apart from Michael, my life has been misery. It’s hard to nurse someone who is so resentful that you are young and she is old.’
    Sidney decided to take a risk. ‘I know that sometimes, when those close to you die, it can almost be a relief.’
    ‘It was. But you are not allowed to say this.’
    ‘You can say anything to a priest.’
    ‘Or a doctor . . .’ Michael observed.
    ‘Not quite anything,’ Isabel Livingstone replied.
    There was silence.
    ‘Talking of the cremation,’ Dr Robinson resumed, ‘we were planning to have it next week but now there seems to be some kind of delay. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?’
    ‘I did hear,’ Sidney replied. ‘I think it is a delicate matter.’
    ‘I don’t see what is so delicate about it. What have you heard?’
    ‘Oh Michael . . .’ Isabel began, but her fiancé cut her off.
    ‘Mrs Livingstone died a perfectly natural death. It was heart failure. I completed the death certificate myself.’
    Sidney thought that Dr Robinson was rather too keen to justify himself. ‘And you, Miss Livingstone, were you present at the time of death?’
    ‘Of course. I nursed my mother to the end. I gave her sips of water. I mopped her brow. I made sure that she did not become dehydrated as Michael had told me. I did everything my fiancé said.’
    ‘You applied for a cremation immediately?’ Sidney asked.
    ‘We were being efficient,’ the doctor continued. ‘I don’t think there is anything unusual in that. It is what Isabel’s mother asked for.’
    ‘She had a fear of being buried alive,’ Isabel explained. ‘She hated worms. She used to say, “Don’t let the worms have me.” She could be very morbid.’
    Dr Robinson was becoming suspicious. ‘Why are you asking us this?’
    ‘It seems the coroner is not quite ready to release your mother’s body, Miss Livingstone. He may ask for a post-mortem.’
    ‘And why on earth would he do that, Canon Chambers?’ Isabel asked in a tone that sounded altogether too innocent.
    ‘I think your fiancé can explain the medical reasons for that request,’ Sidney replied.
    Dr Michael Robinson rose from his chair and looked out of the window. ‘That meddling bastard,’ he muttered.
     
    The next day Leonard Graham arrived from London to begin his duties as Sidney’s curate. He was looking forward to working both in a parish and in a university town that would allow him to continue his studies into the work of the great Russian writers, most notably Dostoevsky.
    Unfortunately, Inspector Keating had sent Sidney off to see the coroner and Leonard’s first Grantchester encounter was therefore with the housekeeper. A small, fiercely opinionated woman, five foot three and thirteen stone, Sylvia Maguire told Leonard Graham that he had no need to worry as Canon Chambers was not a practical man and it would be clearer if she explained the way in which the parish, and most notably the vicarage, was run, herself.
    She showed Leonard to his room and offered to make him a cup of tea while he began to unpack his suitcase and his boxes of books. After six or seven minutes she called up and told him that everything was ready. Leonard came downstairs, looked at his tea and sponge cake, and prepared for his induction. He already sensed that, rather than talking about the ecclesiastical status of the priesthood or the nature of the holy fool in Russian fiction with Canon Sidney Chambers, he would, instead, be treated to Mrs Maguire’s life story. This assumption proved correct.
    Mrs Maguire set off on her account of how she was born on 21 January 1901, the day that Queen Victoria had died, and yet, despite this historic date, Sidney never remembered her birthday because he was too busy thinking about criminals. She told him how she had lost three of her brothers in the First World War and how her husband Ronnie had disappeared ‘for no good reason’ in the second. She