how often Taylor told them that 'in here, there's only music', it always took a while before he could concentrate fully on the singing. And he had reason enough to feel distracted.
'Exsultaaaabit,' Taylor sang, 'That's a long 'a', gentlemen, please. Right, again from the beginning of the phrase.'
Līberā me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meæ...
'When we practice together with St Oda's choir next Saturday, I do not want to have to pay attention to this,' Michael said sternly, 'As I will have enough other things to pay attention to. Let's sing it through one more time, and then it's enough for today.'
Miserere mei, Deus…
'Dominic, wait a moment,' the choir master said, as the others filed out of the quire to go home. 'Are you quite all right? It's not like you to be so absentminded. At least not after the coffee break.'
'Yes, I'm fine,' Dominic tried to reassure him, 'I've run into some trouble with my research, that's all.' And he did feel fine, the music and the church had done their work, as usual.
Taylor looked as if he didn't quite believe it. 'I hope it sorts itself out, then.'
'It will, it probably will.'
It was nice of Michael to be so concerned. The choir master had gone out of his way to make him welcome when he joined three months ago, and Dominic had never been sure whether that was because he was relatively young and therefore a welcome addition to the choir, or because Michael Taylor had another kind of interest in him entirely. He'd kept his distance, as a result. He was a bit ashamed of that now.
While he was walking home Dominic noticed a man crossing the street behind him. He was sure he had seen the same fellow earlier, loitering in the Close. He had noticed him, checked him out, the way you did. And now here he was again. He hoped he hadn't been too obvious, he wasn't looking for that kind of encounter. But as Dominic opened his front door, the man passed behind him without a second glance, and got into a red Vauxhall parked a little further along the street. There was a prominent rental company sticker on the doors. Just a tourist then, who had been having a look at the church. Couldn't fault a man for that. Dominic went in, eager to see if James had answered his email yet.
12
It's happened before, of course. That's what you get when you live a long time, you get to the point where everything has happened before. You get to the point where even acknowledging the fact becomes habitual. You forget that for younger generations, this time round is still new and urgent.
The abbot thought about this as he observed the prior dealing with things. That's what the prior did, and did well. He dealt, he managed, he handled. He made the decisions weaker minds shied away from, and was admired for it. Had it always been thus, from the very beginning? The Rule said that under the abbot there was a prior as second-in-command, the abbot caring for the spiritual needs of the chapter and the prior for the secular. But priors came and went, and the division was not always that clear-cut. Tension between abbot and prior was nothing new, either. So the abbot was not surprised when one of the brothers came to speak to him in private, soon after his conversation with the prior.
'Tell me everything,' he commanded.
'I don't know everything,' Brother Stephen complained, 'That is what I wished to talk to you about. Apparently, there is a threat to our secrecy. Sarah says so, but of course he will not trust me with it. What's he planning?'
'Are you sure you wish to know?' the abbot asked him.
'No!'
It took the abbot a moment to realise that this was not an answer to his question, but a protest against its implications.
'No, it can't be that bad,' Stephen said, 'Not again. Surely he won't.'
'I am afraid he will, if he believes it necessary.'
Oh, the weasel words of it. No one, hearing this conversation, could tell what, exactly, they suspected the prior of planning. But that was always the way of it. The prior had his responsibility, and it was not theirs.
'We must protect the younger ones,' Stephen said, 'They can't know of this, father.'
'I agree. But let's not be hasty. We may forestall this, if we are careful. We may do some dealing of our own.'
He outlined his plan, so much simpler and milder than the prior's machinations.
They can't know of this! had been that early brother's cry, too, when he learned the secrets of the abbey. Dear Lothar. He had been horrified by where his convictions led him, but yet with the courage to carry them through. He had dissembled before Charlemagne himself, he had been a master of words, never betraying his unbelief. For that was the creed of the Chapter of St Cloud, brought into being by the death of two young princes: there is no life but this life and we must strive to keep it. This had been a shocking thought in an age of almost universal belief, they had been heretics before heresy was even thought of. They had been alone so long in this conviction that the abbot still found it strange that these days, most people shared it. Strange, also, that most people instead of a promised life eternal just accepted the inevitability of death. It didn't follow at all, as Lothar had so clearly seen. If this life is all there is, then we must hold onto it above all else, and that had always been the chapter's aim. Heresy and hubris. Such sins they had been, in the eyes of the church. But there was no concept of sin in the Rule of the chapter, though there had always been, and always would be, responsibility. Lothar's words still survived, in their much-copied uncial and later Gothic guises, and now in scholarly editions. He was always cited together with Theodulf and Alcuin, whom he knew and exchanged views with at the emperor's bright court, a scholar among scholars. It was easy to miss what wasn't there: nowhere in his ornate Latin did Lothar refer to the life to come. Already the chapter's thoughts were only for this life, already the abbot's days were long. Lothar died, his brothers died, and that pain was never mitigated by a fantasy of heaven.
13
DC Dasgupta waved a file at him. 'Pathologist's report, sir.'
'Just in time, give it here.'
He was on his way to see his boss, but he quickly leafed through the file to see if there was anything exceptional. He needed to see the DCI in full possession of the facts. But there was little in it of interest. The cause of death was blindingly obvious, and that the victim had been in excellent health was now sadly irrelevant.
'Morning, ma'am,' he said, entering his superior's office.
'Good morning, Collins.' She continued typing for a moment. DCI Flynn was a small, exceptionally neat woman with expensively cut grey hair. Her first name was Bridget, and she was known among her colleagues as 'old Biddy', but never to her face. She wasn't old at all, he put her at forty-five or thereabouts, and Collins always thought they might have been friendly if they hadn't had a slightly prickly work relationship. Bridget Flynn liked order, and she thought her DI's methods unnecessarily chaotic. He could never convince her that, in his head, he had it all sorted. Investigations took a certain shape where the DCI got increasingly impatient at his complete lack of progress, right until the moment when he suddenly collared a suspect. She never believed that he, too, could only explain how he got there afterwards.
'Right, that's done,' she said, 'The Chief Super is on to me again about statistics. You'd think statistics were the be-all and end-all of Her Majesty's police force, to hear him talk.'
'I'm afraid the violent crime stats have gone up by one,' he said.
'As long as the solved murder cases also go up by one,' she said. 'Will they?'
'I hope so.'
'So what have we got?'
He rapidly filled her in on the Whiteside case. 'I've got a strange feeling about this,' he concluded, very glad that Sergeant Walter wasn't there to hear him say it. 'It doesn't fit any picture I've seen before.'
Not that DCI Flynn was inclined to give him much quarter.
'Collins, a long tradition