‘It looks as though someone has got to Eaves before us. Percy Slater’s man, in fact. Perhaps the gardener is looking for sanctuary in the cathedral. I’ll see where they’re going while you get help.’
‘There must be people in the cathedral. They could help stop them.’
Tom visualized a clutch of ancient reverends and canons raising a hue and cry. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you go to the police house while I try to keep track of Eaves and Fawkes. Don’t worry, I will not go near them.’
Helen saw the sense in what he was saying but she put her hand on Tom’s arm and told him to be careful, before walking back down West Walk at a rapid pace. There was a handful of other afternoon strollers further up the road but none of them appeared to have noticed anything odd about the sight of two men running in the cathedral precincts.
Tom Ansell didn’t have to leap the boundary wall since he was standing conveniently near a gap in it which opened on to one of the several gravelled paths criss-crossing the lawn. By now the figures of Eaves and Fawkes were black specks against the immensity of the west facade, which was receiving the full force of the setting sun. The clere-story windows burnt like fire and left red spots dancing in front of Tom’s eyes.
He started to run across the grass and the effort and excitement of the chase drove all caution out of him. He observed the two in front veer to the left as they neared the steps leading to the double doors in the western porch. The doors were shut fast, presumably locked. No entry or escape that way. The man in front — gardener Eaves — rounded the north-western corner of the church and vanished from sight. Something about his movement suggested that he knew where he was going, that he had a particular destination or bolt-hole. His pursuer — coachman Fawkes — was only a few seconds behind him and he too slipped round the corner.
Tom was able to save time by changing course and going on a diagonal across the grass after the first two. He ran towards the northern flank of the cathedral and halted when he had a clear view of most of that side. The area lay in the shadows cast by the great bulk of the building and it took his eyes an instant to adjust to the change of light. There was no one to be seen lurking among the buttresses of stone soaring above him, no one moving on the open lawn that lay on this side too. No shelter or hiding place apart from a fringe of trees and a scatter of houses and gardens which were several hundred yards off to the east and north.
That left the cathedral itself. There was a porch just beyond the north-west corner, providing a more convenient and less imposing access to the interior than the main doors. Tom went warily towards the side entrance, conscious that someone might be lurking in the gloom of the porch. But that too was empty. The door was ajar. He pushed his way inside, still with caution.
Once there he moved quickly into the open spaces of the nave, away from the shadows of the great pillars which stretched towards the east. He paused again. It was the first time he had entered the cathedral. Despite the circumstances he stood still for an instant, overwhelmed by the airy spaces of the vaulting above his head, the vista along the nave. A few candles twinkled in the distance at ground level but they were feeble by contrast with the shafts of red-gold sunlight that came through the clere-story. A voice from the region of the choir was intoning something — a prayer perhaps — but Tom could not distin-guish the words. There was a scattering of people down there too, but no one at this western end.
If an evening service was in progress, then perhaps Eaves and Fawkes had concealed themselves among the congregation. But there were other, more immediate places for desperate men to hide. In the shelter of the pillars which were thick as tree trunks or in the depths of the side chapels. And there must surely be further exits on the south side of the building and elsewhere.
Casting his eyes around, Tom searched for some hint, some clue as to his quarry. And found it almost straighta-way. He heard a groan. A dozen yards behind him a body lay slumped against a low outcrop of stone which ran into the narthex and supported the base of a lone pillar. The body was garbed in black and at first he thought it was one of the men he was pursuing. But as he drew nearer he realized that it was a cathedral official. A verger probably, to judge by his dark clothing.
The man was moaning and clutching at his head with a bloodstained hand. He was elderly and almost bald, with a few strands of white hair. The blood came from an injury to his scalp. Tom crouched down on his haunches.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
The verger took his hand away from his head and looked at it, puzzled. The injury was not so bad, more of a scrape than a deep cut. Tom assisted the old man to climb to his feet. He stood, propping himself against the pillar, and gazed around as though the place was as unfamiliar to him as it was to Tom Ansell.
‘Have you seen two men?’ said Tom.
‘What do you say?’
‘Men running.’
The verger dabbed at his head and examined his hand once more before replying, ‘One of them pushed me in his rush. I fell and hit my head.’
‘Where did they go? Did you see?’
The man did not answer but sank down until he was sitting on the stone surround of the pillar. Tom did not think he was badly hurt but merely shaken up. He sensed rather than saw someone to one side and spun round. But it was only another verger, a younger man hastening to the aid of his fellow. Tom did not want to stay to explain what had happened. Every moment’s delay reduced the chance of finding the two fugitives. Or rather, one fugitive and one pursuer.
‘If you see them, give them a piece of my mind,’ said the sitting man. ‘I do not know what they expect to find in the triforium.’
He gestured behind him and Tom, glancing up, noticed a wooden enclosure that formed a kind of internal porch in the north-western corner of the building. There was a door, slightly open. Tom might have suspected a trap but he reasoned that men in such a hurry that they shoved aside a harmless old verger would not take time to close doors after them. By now, the younger verger had reached the injured man. Tom nodded to him and moved away before he could be asked any questions.
He stepped through the door of the enclosure and shut it behind him. He was standing in a stone-flagged lobby which, through a vaulted opening, showed the beginning of a flight of spiral stairs. There was no other exit, no different direction in which Fawkes and Eaves could have gone. Tom took the stairs two at a time, but the tight turns in the staircase and the smoothness of the old, worn steps caused him to lose his footing more than once. A little light came squeezing through slit windows.
He reached the top and paused to catch his breath and work out where to go next. But, again, there seemed to be little choice. A narrow passage led off to a railed gallery overlooking the nave. Was this what the old verger had called the triforium? After the dimness and constriction from the ascent to this level there came an abrupt burst of light and space. To his right the sun streamed through the windows, some of clear glass, some stained. To his left were the airy upper reaches of the nave. A small part of him that wasn’t preoccupied with keeping his balance — the guardrail was low — was aware that the sound of prayer had been replaced by singing which was thin and distant.
At the far end of the gallery was another lobby and a second spiral staircase. Tom halted for an instant. Each time he was listening out for sounds coming from ahead or above. Scuffling steps, the noise of a struggle perhaps, for he was convinced that Fawkes intended to do harm to Eaves. But there was no sound.
On the next level, Tom found himself above the vaulted ceiling of the nave. By now he was well out of the public area of the cathedral. The light, strong at this western end, was swallowed up among the massive timber frames that receded into the depths of the roof. It was like being inside an upturned ark. The wind, more evident at this height, rattled at the myriad of small panes in the west-facing windows. There was a walkway along one side of the roof, stretching above the pale domes of the vaults. Tom couldn’t be sure but he thought he detected a flicker of movement at the far end.