‘She used to go out at all kinds of strange times in the evenings,’ Buckley went on. ‘I followed her. She always went to the same place, to that flat in Brompton Square. I saw him come down one evening to say goodbye. They embraced on the doorstep. I was only twenty feet away, hiding behind a tree. It was terrible.’
Buckley paused. Powerscourt waited. He said nothing. He observed that Buckley had stopped under the head of a lion, a rather fierce lion. ‘Forgive me, Powerscourt, for burdening you with my domestic troubles,’ Buckley went on, his fingers still describing strange arabesques around the watch chain, ‘it is strange if you marry late. I do not think I was ever very attractive to women. So, as the years pass, you think you may end your days as a bachelor, happy enough perhaps, but without the consolations of wife and children.’
Powerscourt suddenly thought of Lucy standing beside him with his map on the floor, of Thomas rushing around the house, of Olivia snuggled up on the sofa next to her mother. Hall-el-uj-ah.
‘Then I met Rosalind,’ Buckley went on. ‘I lost my head over her. I could not believe it when she agreed to become my wife. I had to ask her to say yes three times when I proposed to her.’ He paused again and looked down at the worn stones at his feet. ‘I knew where she kept the keys to Montague’s flat. I had them copied. Four days before he died I went to see him. I offered him twenty thousand pounds to leave England, to go and live abroad, never to see Rosalind again.’
‘What did he say?’ said Powerscourt, suddenly very afraid. Once the police knew what Buckley had just told him they would have to arrest him. They would have no choice. He could see Buckley in the witness box, a hostile jury before him, a sombre judge fingering his black cap as Buckley fingered his watch chain.
‘He was very polite. He asked for four days to think about it. No doubt he talked to Rosalind about it. I was on my way to talk to him that night. Only he was dead when I got there.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual about his flat?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘Some of the books had gone,’ said Buckley. ‘The desk was empty. I couldn’t help myself. I thought there might be letters in there, you see, from Rosalind. But it was completely empty. It must have been about eight o’clock.’
A bell tolled very loudly somewhere above their heads. It went on tolling. Powerscourt thought you must be able to hear it ten miles away across the bleak Lincolnshire countryside. He looked at his watch.
‘Mr Buckley,’ he said quietly. ‘I find your story fascinating. But it would be a great pity if we both came all this way and missed Evensong.’ He led the way past a wooden Virgin and Child on the wall into the main body of the cathedral. They took their seats at the back of St Hugh’s Choir. A small congregation, the old and the mad of Lincoln, Powerscourt thought, were sitting upright in their pews.
The choir was oval in shape, the stalls of dark brown wood. On the back of some of them were inscribed the names of the local livings attached to the holder of that particular office of the cathedral. The precentor, Powerscourt noticed, seemed to have had about eight livings attached to his position. Seated angels carved on the choir desks were playing a portable organ, harps, pipes, drums. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
The footsteps of the choir and the clergy echoed around the cathedral as they processed up the nave towards the high altar and turned to take up their positions. The senior choristers wore black capes edged with blue. The others wore blue cassocks with white surplices on top. A verger with a staff preceded the Dean.
‘When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed,’ the Dean’s voice was a rich bass, sounding as though it was regularly lubricated with fine port, ‘and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.’
The congregation knelt for the prayers. Powerscourt could feel Buckley whispering the words to himself as they proceeded. Man must be word perfect by now, said Powerscourt to himself, he’s on his nineteenth Evensong in as many days.
They rose to their feet. The choir were singing now, faces solemn as they looked down at their music sheets or watched the conducting hands of the choirmaster.
‘My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour.’ The treble voices were rising towards the vaults above. The great organ looked on. The wider congregation of saints and sinners, bishops and precentors interred beneath the floor listened too as the Magnificat went on.
‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and he hath exalted the humble and meek.’ Buckley’s eyes were closed. Powerscourt wondered what happened to those treble voices when they had broken. Did they turn into fine tenors or altos, still able to sing on into their adult years? Or did the glory of their youth simply vanish for ever, replaced by a perfectly normal adult voice with no distinction at all? It seemed rather unfair.
More prayers. Then, as prescribed in the order of service in the Book of Common Prayer, in Quires and Places where they sing, here followeth the Anthem, composed, the Dean’s fruity voice informed his worshippers, by the former master of the choir of this cathedral, William Byrd.
That was when Powerscourt noticed another procession. Not a procession of men and boys in cassocks and surplices, but men in a different uniform, the dark blue of the Constabulary of Lincolnshire. They were trying to walk softly to avoid interrupting Evensong but their boots sounded like a posse come to arrest a murderer in the night. Three of them remained by the door of the west wing. Powerscourt thought he recognized the balding head of Chief Inspector Wilson, a determined expression fixed on his face as if he were a gargoyle from the walls outside. The rest fanned out to guard the various exits. There must have been a dozen of them.
Powerscourt wondered if he should tell Buckley, still listening raptly as the last notes of the anthem died away, his hands still now, eased perhaps by the beauty of the music to desist from the frantic scrabbling at the watch chain. He did not.
‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.’ The Dean was on the final prayers now, the choir still standing, Buckley on his knees, Powerscourt peering through the tracery at the positions of the policemen. The perils and dangers of this night have certainly arrived for Horace Aloysius Buckley, Powerscourt thought, and they may last for more than forty days and nights. They might last for ever. Or a noose and a drop might put an end to them for the rest of time.
The blue cassocks and the white surplices made their way out of St Hugh’s Choir. The old and the mad of Lincoln shuffled out slowly, gossiping quietly with their neighbours. Powerscourt put a restraining hand on Buckley’s shoulder.
‘Don’t go yet,’ he whispered quietly. ‘There are policemen everywhere. I fear they may have come for you.’
The hands started their desperate motions with the watch chain.
‘I don’t think they will arrest you in the cathedral itself,’ said Powerscourt to his companion. ‘I think it counts as a place of sanctuary.’ But not for long, he said to himself, as Buckley’s eyes started round the building.
‘Is there anything more you want to tell me?’ said Powerscourt. How had they found Buckley, he wondered? Had the Lincoln Imp escaped from the walls and flown to Chief Inspector Wilson’s dreary office in the Oxford police headquarters? Had one of the angels floated through the flying buttresses with the same message of doom? ‘Why were you in Oxford the day Thomas Jenkins was killed?’
‘Powerscourt . . .’ Buckley had become quite calm. ‘Please believe me. I did not kill Christopher Montague. I did not kill the man Jenkins. I had gone to Oxford to attend Evensong at Christ Church. I took tea with my godson at Keble beforehand. It was a coincidence that I was there at the same time as the murder.’