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

couple who planned to marry in his church. ‘And after the post-mortem?’ he asked.
    ‘I think I have already outlined the possibilities, Canon Chambers. If morphine is found then we may be able to overlook Mrs Livingstone’s earlier than expected demise. But in the case of potassium chloride . . .’
    ‘The doctor would then have to stand some kind of trial . . .’
    The coroner hesitated. ‘And not just the doctor, of course . . .’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Isabel Livingstone had a duty of care. She was in her mother’s house and could have intervened to prevent such actions, if untoward actions there were. She is, potentially, an accessory to the crime and, in consequence, could face the same sentence.’
    Derek Jarvis was speaking as if he was already in the witness box. ‘The same?’
    ‘In certain circumstances she might get away with manslaughter but in this case, I am afraid they would both, most likely, be charged with murder. And therefore they could both hang.’
    ‘Good heavens,’ said Sidney. ‘That’s terrible. I am sure that what they were doing was in Mrs Livingstone’s best interests . . .’
    ‘That may be, Canon Chambers, but it is not the law of the land.’
    ‘Then the law should be changed . . .’
    ‘I will not argue about the ethics but, until such a time as the law is actually changed, if there is any suspicion of foul play, then it is my duty to raise matters with the police.’
    ‘There is nothing to be done?’
    ‘Are you suggesting that I pervert the course of justice?’ the coroner asked.
    ‘No, of course not,’ Sidney replied.
    ‘I am sorry to have to make myself so clear. The course of any investigation must be allowed to proceed unimpeded. Your best course of action, Canon Chambers,’ the coroner suggested, ‘is to pray.’
     
    The only event to lighten Sidney’s mood, amidst the death and darkness of Lent, was the arrival of his friend Amanda Kendall. At least she would cheer him up, he thought, as he bicycled carefully through the snow and waited for her at the railway station.
    It had taken him a good half-hour to get there and the journey had allowed him plenty of time for contemplation. It was so long since he had been anywhere other than Cambridge or London, he thought. He really should broaden his horizons. He remembered Robert Louis Stevenson: ‘The great affair is to move.’ Yet, since the war, he had hardly travelled at all. Perhaps he could take a holiday in France, he wondered? Or Germany, of course . . .
    Hildegard had invited him to stay and he imagined that it would be a considerable comfort to see her again; but Sidney also worried that he had begun to exaggerate the consolation of her company and that absence had, perhaps, made his heart grow too fond.
    At least with Amanda he knew where he stood; for despite their affection for each other there was no ambiguity or worry about romantic love or passion. This was a hearty friendship, he told himself, a treat in his life and the dose of liveliness he needed. He only hoped that he could live up to her expectations and that he did not bore her.
    ‘As elegant as expected,’ Sidney said, as Amanda stepped off the train. She was wearing a tailored camel coat and carried a chestnut-coloured Gladstone bag.
    ‘I’ve decided to simplify my wardrobe: lilac in town and brown in the country. It makes life so much easier,’ she said.
    ‘This is hardly the country . . .’
    ‘Oh Sidney, Cambridge is not London. You may kiss me.’ She stretched out her cheek. ‘Where are we lunching?’ she asked
    ‘We are going to the Garden House Hotel,’ he announced. ‘I hope it will do.’
    ‘Then lead on.’
    Sidney kept to the outside of the pavement and pushed his bicycle as they walked to the restaurant. As he did so, Amanda told him how extraordinary it was that she had got through the snow at all. She had got talking to a farmer called Harding Redmond who had been complaining on the way up how the turnips in the fields on his farm had rotted, how the ewes had so little milk and the lambs were dying. It was so distressing, she said. His wife bred Labradors and was so worried about a recent litter that she had refused to leave home until she knew that they were safe from the cold.
    Sidney asked about the National Gallery and Amanda told him that she was beginning to do the research for a monograph on the paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger. There was, she said, so much more to discover