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131 pages

English

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Enjoying an overdue break in Venice, the Bishop of Rhyminster has a chance encounter with Oliver Canford; a flamboyant tour guide, staying at the same hotel who grew up in a vicarage and read Theology at Cambridge. Despite misgivings from his wife, Bishop Bob offers him the post of Bishop's Lay assistant.But Canford neglects his duties in favour of flirting with the Chorister Mums, pursuing eligible widows around Cathedral Close and disappearing to London to sing with his refined choir. When one of his absences extends to 48 hours, the Bishop worries. He calls in his old friend John Tedesco, who runs a bespoke detective agency with his colleague Lynne Davey.When a body is discovered in the Rhyme Chantry, a forbidding structure known as "the Cage", the tiny tourist city is thrust under the media spotlight, suspicion falling on a leading member of the Cathedral staff.Join Tedesco and Davey as they encounter a byzantine world of rival voluntary groups, hard pressed clergy and warring choral societies. Can they cut through the confusion and solve the mystery of "The Cage" before DCI Bloomfield jumps to the wrong conclusion?

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 octobre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781803134185
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2022 Radu Herklots

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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For Lucinda

Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Acknowledgements

THE RHYME CHANTRY
Iron and steel structure. Established in 1445 in first bay from west end South Nave Aisle as burial place of Charles, Lord Rhyme and his wife Jane St Budeaux and as chantry with Altar. After dissolution of chantries permission obtained in 1783 to move structure to present position as Rhyme family pew used by consecutive Earls of Rhyminster. Known as ‘“the Cage”’, the roof inside painted with series of motifs showing lineage of Rhymes and Woolfords.

From Notes to Guides in Rhyminster Cathedral , first published in 1958.

One
The obtrusive ring of the landline cut through the peace and quiet of another Rhyminster morning.
“Hi, Sally. It’s Barbara. Well done for Children in Need at the weekend – must catch up soon. Either of them in?”
Barbara Battershill: secretary to Robert, 78 th Bishop of Rhyminster, and arch diplomat.
Sally Munks glanced around the tiny open-plan outer office.
Aside from her, it was populated by a prone border terrier and his master, a cheerful-looking man who had arrived at his fifties in generally good nick.
He wasn’t vain, as a rule, but was proud of his thick thatch of grey hair, which offset a slightly ruddy skin tone.
The man looked up from his work, smiled at his PA and gave her the thumbs-up sign.
“Barbara – John’s in. And Barker, of course. I’ll feed you through.”
Tedesco took the call.
“Barbara. Lovely to hear from you. Now? I see, I understand, it must be urgent. Tell Bob I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
“Come on, Barker,” he said to the terrier, “let’s go for a woof down to the North Canonry. I’m sure Sally can hold the fort.”
*
John Tedesco had taken early retirement from a career as a provincial solicitor in the south-west.
After completing his training in his home city of Plymouth, he joined a partnership in the tiny cathedral city of Rhyminster.
Within a matter of days, he realised that this was it – he’d found his perfect place, and he’d never leave, and so for two decades he combined his day job – dealing with routine conveyancing, divorce and writing wills – with the post of Diocesan Registrar, or Bishop’s legal adviser.
But as he approached the age of fifty, Tedesco surprised his colleagues – and himself – by taking the decisive step of leaving his practice to form a small, word-of-mouth private detective agency with his friend and former divorce client Lynne Davey, formerly of Devon and Cornwall CID.
Although no longer the Bishop’s official adviser, he remained on call for anything particularly delicate, or out of the ordinary.
He was rarely idle.
*
Attaching Barker to his lead, he led the dog down the narrow stairway from 4A Minster Precincts into the outer Cathedral Close.
Barker stopped to cock his leg by the Victorian lamppost, and then they continued their circuit of the most glorious open space in England.
The North Canonry, or Bishop’s Palace, was at the far end of the Close.
As Tedesco stopped at the office entrance and keyed in the security code, Barbara Battershill came down to greet them, wearing her trademark navy blue bandbox-fresh suit.
“Come on, Barker,” she said. “You can help me with some paperwork. The Bishop is waiting for you in the study, John.”
As Tedesco nudged the oak study door ajar, Bishop Robert slowly rose from his partner’s desk, an item of furniture that existed in a constant state of tension between the Bishop’s inability to file paper away and his secretary’s obsessive tidiness.
The Bishop was of a similar vintage to his informal adviser. In brief, if there was such a thing as a typical bishop from Central Casting then Robert Dwyer wasn’t it.
Short and stocky, resembling a human Oxo cube, he was built for the scrum rather than the pulpit.
Rhyminster had been the culmination of a sometimes controversial career in the Church of England – apart from being one of the early advocates of women priests, and subsequently bishops, he had been outspoken on race and gender issues, and was firmly established as one of the leaders of the liberal wing of the C of E.
The two friends and erstwhile colleagues moved to a small table overlooking the Cathedral, where Barbara had already laid out the coffee and pastries.
“Thanks for coming at such short notice, John,” said the Bishop.
“My pleasure. Barker needed a walk, and I needed a break from Sally and her latest fund-raising mania,” Tedesco answered.
Bishop Robert leaned in, quasi-conspiratorially.
“Another tricky one, I’m afraid. You know Ollie Canford? My lay assistant?”
Tedesco had seen Canford around and about the Close but didn’t really know him; they had never spoken.
“Anyway,” the Bishop resumed, “he is supposed to attend the monthly staff meeting. He is invariably late but has never completely missed one until two days ago.
“He isn’t returning calls or answering emails, and there has been no sign of him in the flat.”
Canford occupied the small service flat in the Canonry, which had variously been the home of chaplains, gardeners and visiting clergy from abroad. During World War Two, it was used to house a refugee couple.
“John,” Bishop Bob went on, “Oliver does spend rather too much of his time in London – which wasn’t in the Diocese of Rhyminster when I last checked – so he may have gone AWOL up there. He has form.”
He paused, as if about to deliver a legal judgement. “But something doesn’t sit right. I don’t think we should be alerting the authorities yet, as it is still less than forty-eight hours, but could you and Lynne have a discreet look into it?”
Tedesco nodded to signify agreement, and then Bishop Bob made a surprising admission.
“To be frank, I’ve been regretting his appointment since the moment he started here.”
Tedesco looked out over Cathedral Green before turning to face the Bishop again.
“Of course, Bob. Lynne and I will see what we can find out. Can I start with background? Does Oliver Canford have any family?”
“That’s the odd thing,” replied Dwyer, “he’s never mentioned any living relatives. His late father was a vicar, and I assume that his mother is no longer with us.
“And before you ask, he doesn’t have a partner that we know about, although he has developed a following among the Ladies of the Close – something I have warned him about more than once.”
“Interesting. What about his interests? Hobbies and so on?”
“He jogs – if that’s a hobby – mainly around the Close. He has mentioned the Park Run, so it might be worth asking Lynne about that.”
Tedesco’s colleague Lynne Davey was a very keen runner, and a regular at the Saturday – morning communal jog.
“Let’s see,” the Bishop added, “he drives a rather ostentatious little car, so he may be part of an owners’ group.”
“I’ve seen him in a red Triumph Stag,” said Tedesco, “and he must be a skilled mechanic or have access to one to keep that beauty on the road. It’s a seventies classic – but I agree, maybe a little out of place for a bishop’s lay assistant. Anything else come to mind?”
“Oh, yes, there’s his singing. This may be significant, John. He is part of a very refined London choir – in Chelsea, I think – called the ‘Tuneful Company of Minstrels’. You can only imagine what Charles Tantum calls them.”
Tedesco smiled knowingly. “That gives us plenty to start with,” he said.

Two
Venice, one year earlier
“ Pronti! Let’s be having you! All members of the Honourable Order of Titianites – Andiamo!”
The young tour leader, strikingly blond, held his yellow flag proudly aloft as he led the bedraggled group of pension-padded senior citizens from the vaparetto stop onto the waiting boat.
Once they were safely aboard, he