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

He then listened with a stethoscope to the brachial artery before slowly releasing the pressure on the cuff.
    Sidney did not like to speak during the process but wondered whether people’s blood pressure actually rose in a doctor’s surgery; if the very act of being there made them tense and their hearts race.
    ‘The coroner hardly helps matters . . .’
    ‘I can imagine . . .’
    ‘Sometimes these things are best left.’
    ‘I suppose he is only doing his job.’
    The doctor looked at his watch and then at the dial. ‘Well, he won’t find anything. I have done nothing wrong.’
    ‘Then you have nothing to fear.’
    The doctor unwrapped Sidney’s arm. ‘Your blood pressure is completely normal, Canon Chambers. Is there anything else?’
    ‘Not really. I do have trouble sleeping sometimes . . .’
    ‘Do you keep regular hours?’
    ‘It’s not so much the falling asleep as the waking up in the middle of the night . . .’ Sidney replied, thinking how soon he could move the conversation on to sleeping pills, sedatives and painkillers.
    ‘Do you try milky drinks?’
    ‘I do . . .’
    ‘And how long has this been going on?’
    ‘For the past few months.’
    ‘I find exercise also helps. And not eating too late. . . .’
    ‘You don’t prescribe sleeping pills?’
    ‘Not if I can help it.’
    ‘You don’t approve?’
    ‘Canon Chambers, forgive me for being rude but is there anything that is really the matter?’
    ‘No, I suppose not.’
    ‘I am not sure you came here because you were ill.’
    ‘I did want a quiet word.’
    ‘Anything in particular?’
    ‘It is a delicate matter.’
    ‘I am a doctor, Canon Chambers. There is no such thing as a delicate matter as far as I am concerned. You can raise any subject you like.’
    ‘Miss Livingstone . . .’
    ‘What about her?’
    ‘Is she well?’ Sidney realised he had lost his nerve. What on earth was he doing going along with all of this?
    ‘Well, she is sad, and a little nervous, but there is nothing you can’t ask her yourself . . .’
    Sidney felt rather ashamed.
    ‘You don’t suspect her of anything, do you?’
    ‘No, of course not . . .’
    The doctor looked out of the window and his confidence seemed to fall away. He looked exhausted. Perhaps he was tired of keeping up his professional demeanour.
    ‘I am sure that you have sat with the dying many times, Canon Chambers. You think that one would get used to it but it is different every time. Sometimes people are ready, and sometimes people hold on, refusing to leave, even though their time has come. They are stubborn and it is uncomfortable but they are indomitable. Isabel’s mother was not like that. She wanted to go but death was not ready for her.’
    ‘You know she wanted to go?’
    ‘She told me that she had had enough, that she was looking forward to what she called “the long sleep”.’
    ‘And so . . .’
    ‘I relieved the pain.’
    ‘And she was at peace?’
    ‘There’s an extraordinary thing I have noticed, Canon Chambers. I hope you won’t mind me saying this but in those final moments I don’t think faith makes much difference. People are either scared of death or they are not. People divide quite clearly. Even the faithful can be frightened.’
    ‘I know. It is a mystery. But perhaps they are not so much frightened of death as of dying.’
    ‘Yes, they are distinct. Do you ever turn a blind eye, Canon Chambers?’
    ‘When no harm is done.’
    ‘Well, that, of course, is my Hippocratic oath. ‘‘First, do no harm.’’ It could work just as well for priests, I suppose.’
    ‘It’s a good motto,’ said Sidney. ‘We have very clear instructions in the Church of England, guidelines as to how life must be lived. But people can’t always see what they are, of course. They move in all sorts of directions, like moral dodgems, and the lines are never straight at all.’
    ‘I agree. People don’t live neat lives.’
    There was a pause before Sidney returned to his questioning. ‘But you are convinced that you were acting in Mrs Livingstone’s best interests? That you did no harm?’
    ‘I was, even though to tell you so is none of your business.’
    ‘Sometimes I am not sure what my business is, Dr Robinson,’ Sidney replied. ‘It is everything and nothing, the whole of life, and yet my involvement is not so much on the pages of people’s lives but in the margins.’
    ‘You are too modest . . .’
    ‘No, it is true. But this is, of