Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation Read Online Free

Keating was on the scene within an hour, the farm was cordoned off and no one was allowed to leave. Road blocks were set up at Coton Road, Broadway and Mill Way, police went door to door asking for witnesses, and Sidney was summoned that evening.
    ‘Why didn’t you warn me this might happen?’ Geordie asked. ‘This is the man that woman in the fur coat was telling you about.’
    ‘I didn’t think it would come to this.’
    ‘But you were uneasy. I know you, Sidney Chambers. Do you think Barbara Wilkinson could have done it herself? Taking the law into her own hands?’
    ‘I hardly think she’s responsible. She wouldn’t have the strength.’
    ‘You’d be surprised. If the axe was sharp enough . . .’
    ‘You think it was an axe?’
    ‘What else could it have been? We’ll have to interview every member of that bloody cult. Never mind Mrs Wilkinson, I suppose any one of them could have done it.’
    ‘Or one of their parents . . .’
    ‘Or a local madman, for that matter. We have no leads. You’ll talk to the boy; and his dreadful mother, of course. Did you ever get round to meeting the victim?’
    ‘I didn’t like him at all, Geordie, I must confess. Even the dean said he was a “perfect menace”. Although I wouldn’t put
him
down as a murderer.’
    ‘All this religion has a lot to answer for.’
    Sidney tried to explain the difference between good and bad religion; that it wasn’t the fault of any individual belief system but misunderstandings by their followers. Even if people fall short of their ideals, it is still better to have them than not.
    ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Keating. ‘Wouldn’t it be preferable to have no religion at all?’
    *    *    *
    The next morning Sidney attended a meeting of the Cathedral Chapter in the Lady Chapel. Items on the agenda concerned the maintenance of gravestones in diocesan churchyards, a review of parish tithes for the financial year 1967/1968, forthcoming missionary work in Nigeria, and a discussion of the Church’s attitude to homosexuality in the light of the recent Sexual Offences Act.
    Despite the importance of the issues, his attention was unsurprisingly diverted to the carved figurines that decorated the chapel. One hundred and forty-seven statues had been mutilated, vandalised and indeed decapitated by the puritan reformers in the sixteenth century. It was the worst of violent religion, the smashing of images, the stripping of the altars. The stained glass had been destroyed, the walls whitewashed, all colour and imagery removed. A building intended to represent God’s green garden had been razed by fire. This was a living embodiment of religious zealotry.
    Had someone approached Pascoe with similar fury? Perhaps the motivation for his murder could have been religious after all?
    Sidney thought of the saints, martyrs and other victims of decapitation: John the Baptist, St Alban, the first English Christian martyr, St George and Thomas More. He prayed for them all. He even prayed for Fraser Pascoe.
    Then he called in to see Mrs Wilkinson. She was wearing some kind of day-gown and although her make-up was incomplete she still looked vulnerably attractive. Ever since his wife and friends had warned him how compromising the woman might be, he had found himself thinking more and more about her. Sidney told himself to concentrate.
    ‘I was afraid something like this would happen,’ she said. ‘It’s dreadful.’
    ‘Have you seen Danny?’
    ‘I went to the farm but there were police everywhere. My son still won’t talk to me so I wrote him a little card and included some money to help him along. One of the girls said they would take it to him. I am doing my best.’
    ‘I’m sure you are.’
    ‘Do the police have any clues as to who might have done such a thing?’
    ‘There’s nothing they are prepared to say publicly.’
    ‘And will you involve yourself? I know you are friends with the inspector.’
    ‘I have come to ask if there is