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

trouble.’
    ‘I don’t mean to, Miss Dee.’
    ‘You may be a preacher-man but I can’t see how any girl can be safe with you around. What got you into jazz in the first place?’
    ‘It’s a long story.’
    Gloria looked at him straight. ‘I’ve got all night.’
    ‘I’m not sure I . . .’
    ‘Why don’t you buy me a beer, Sidney?’
    ‘You remember my name?’
    ‘Sure do. Let’s ball a little.’
     
    It was nearly eleven o’clock before Sidney was able to extricate himself from the club and he wondered whether he would be able to take the last train home or if he would have to wait for the first in the morning yet again. Mrs Redmond had been prevailed upon to take Dickens in his absence but he couldn’t expect her to look after the dog much longer.
    However, Sidney also wanted to ascertain that the case that he had presented was watertight. He therefore asked if he could visit Justin Wild in his police cell. Chief Inspector Williams thought it curious that Sidney should want to do this but recognised the work he had done and could see no harm in such a visit from a clergyman while they were waiting for a lawyer.
    ‘What do you want?’ Justin Wild asked. ‘You can’t have come to give me the last rites. I haven’t been sentenced.’
    ‘But you will plead guilty?’
    ‘I will, Canon Chambers. I am proud of what I have done.’
    ‘All I want to know is why? Not “how”, because I know that: but “why”? I imagine it is a form of revenge.’
    ‘It is. But you know this. The girl’s father . . .’
    ‘Robbed your mother.’
    ‘The burglary took place during my father’s funeral. It was 1944. Crime doesn’t stop, even in wartime. The usual things were stolen: the silver, an antique clock, a few items of value that had been inherited and that no one really liked; but as you will know, Canon Chambers, Johnson was a jewel thief and he took my mother’s most prized possessions . . .’
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘No.’ The word came out of Justin Wild’s mouth like a gunshot. ‘You don’t “understand”. Those jewels may have been valuable, but they were far more than that. They told the story of my mother’s life. The police asked if she had insurance or if there were any photographs of the jewellery but of course there were not. Whoever heard of anyone photographing their own jewellery? But do you know what my mother did?’
    Justin Wild did not wait for an answer.
    ‘She drew them and she painted them: the sapphire brooch, the pearl necklace, the diamond earrings; everything she had owned. Then, when she had finished, she handed them to the police and started drawing them all over again. She couldn’t stop drawing them. After she died I found hundreds of drawings of the same piece of jewellery. The theft made her mad.’
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Sidney quietly.
    ‘My father had died months before and she was still grieving; not that grief ever stops. They say that love can last beyond the grave but so of course can grief. They had been married for forty-three years.’
    ‘And you were their only child?’
    ‘I was.’
    ‘And you had no one to talk to?’
    ‘I had my mother. Then, because of that man, she was gone.’
    ‘You blame Mr Johnson for your mother’s death?’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Not directly, surely?’
    ‘People don’t think enough about the victims, Canon Chambers. At the end of my mother’s life her doctor told me that it was possible to go mad with grief. It was a condition. That was the phrase he used. “Mad with grief.” The loss of her husband followed by the theft of her jewellery meant that she could not go on. She did not know who she was any more. It may seem a small thing, a luxury even, to have jewellery and then to have it taken away, but it wasn’t the objects or their value that mattered.’
    ‘It was what they represented,’ said Sidney.
    ‘They were her past. Each ring, every brooch and necklace carried a memory: her mother’s wedding ring, the confirmation cross from her father, earrings from her sister. When they disappeared, her memories went with them. By the end she hardly recognised me. As I sat at the end of the bed I thought: I will kill the person that has done this. I will devote my life to finding the man responsible.
    ‘How did you do it?’ Sidney asked.
    ‘I started with second-hand jewellery shops and antique dealers. I watched people come and go. I sat in cafés for hours. I read the papers for news of burglaries