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

explained at length that her sister Gladys, a spiritualist, had been unable to contact Ronnie so he couldn’t be dead and she was still waiting for his return; and she reassured Leonard Graham that her husband’s departure meant that she was able to ‘do’ for other people but, even so, and saying that, she regarded both indoor toilets and the bathroom off the ground-floor kitchen of the vicarage as ‘unhygienic’. She would be able to offer catering for both the clerics but it would not include too much fish as she was worried about the bones and had never quite recovered from the embarrassment of a choking incident suffered on her honeymoon at Skegness.
    Simple meals would be provided, she stated – shepherd’s pie, welsh rarebit, toad in the hole, bubble and squeak, steak and kidney pudding – and it was a lot easier now she was coming to the end of her ration book. But washing and ironing would be extra, especially if Leonard wanted his dog collars starched, and she would also be very grateful if he tidied up before she hoovered and emptied his own ashtrays.
    Leonard Graham tried to reassure Mrs Maguire when he thought she had finished, ‘I am sure that everything will work out beautifully, Mrs Maguire.’
    He was then alarmed by her retort. ‘Are you indeed? Have you been a curate before?’
    ‘I have not.’
    ‘Then everything will be a surprise to you.’
    Leonard was desperate for Sidney’s return. ‘I am sure I will be able to manage,’ he answered. ‘My role here will be more spiritual than material.’
    ‘Everyone has to eat, Mr Graham.’
    ‘Indeed they do. I think the playwright Bertolt Brecht even suggested that food must come before morals . . .’
    Mrs Maguire did not appear to be listening. ‘I don’t understand why Canon Chambers cannot write his sermons, take his services and visit the sick like any other clergyman,’ she complained. ‘He has to go poking his nose into other people’s business and it’s just going to lead to trouble. Before Christmas we had one hell of a time, I don’t mind telling you.’
    Leonard Graham defended his colleague. ‘I don’t think he goes out of his way to involve himself in the affairs of other people, Mrs Maguire. They come to him. He is merely responding to their needs.’
    ‘Well, he’s too soft and he needs to be careful, you mark my words. Crime always attracts more crime, that’s what my Ronnie used to say.’
    ‘I will remind Canon Chambers of his primary duties,’ Leonard Graham replied.
    ‘And don’t go getting involved yourself,’ Mrs Maguire counselled. ‘It’s bad enough one clergyman trying to be Sherlock Holmes. We don’t need the two of you doing it.’
    ‘I will help Canon Chambers whenever I can, Mrs Maguire, but I will not let him distract me,’ Leonard Graham answered. ‘The church and the parish will be my only concern.’
    ‘Unfortunately,’ Mrs Maguire replied, ‘that may cause you trouble enough. Grantchester may look like a typical English village, Mr Graham, but I am telling you now that, in reality, it is a nest of perfidious vipers .’
    ‘I will do my best to be careful, Mrs Maguire.’
    ‘You will need to do more than that, Mr Graham. Let vigilance be your watchword, that’s all I’m saying. I don’t waste my words.’
    ‘I can already tell that you don’t,’ Leonard Graham replied.
     
    The Cambridge coroner had a reputation for efficiency. Never one to linger over idle pleasure, Derek Jarvis was the kind of man who saw every encounter, no matter how pleasurable, as an appointment that had to conform to its allotted time. Tall, slender, and dressed in a single-breasted suit and an old Harrovian tie, he possessed the easy confidence that came with a privileged upbringing. What he lacked in obvious charm he disguised with efficiency.
    Sidney had met him once before, after an amateur cricket match in which the coroner had scored a sprightly forty-three runs in a surprise victory against Royston.
    ‘I don’t want to appear impolite, Canon Chambers, but I am not sure why this matter involves you at all. It is really between myself and the police.’
    Sidney could tell that Derek Jarvis saw his presence as a matter that would take up more time than was necessary. Consequently he needed to be both charming and exact. ‘Inspector Keating suggested that I come because Isabel Livingstone and Michael Robinson are my parishioners. They are in mourning and yet, at the same time, they are also