‘Here, Sammy,’ Tony said. ‘You got your mobile? Telephone the undertakers, there’s a good girl.’
‘So resourceful, your husband. Try 801349. Always remember it – year of the black death.’
But she was beaten by the phone ringing.
‘Who’s that?… Who?… Aunt Ada’s in Australia… Well, fancy that, I’d never have believed it. She grinned at Lucas. ‘It’s Harvey’s sister – she’s on her way. Now we’ll have to wait.’
‘Where is she?’
‘At the station.’
Lucas lost no time in addressing the bearers. ‘Look, we have to wait for the deceased’s sister. Can you chaps come back in an hour?’
‘Well, I dunno, it’s a bit irregular. Is the pub still open?’
‘Assuredly, assuredly. They’ll make you most welcome.’
When the bearers had left the churchyard Lucas said, ‘Now, we must think. How can we be absolutely certain that…’
‘Try lifting the coffin. He didn’t weigh much.’
‘Think you can tell?’
‘If we rock it a bit, he’d roll wouldn’t he. He, he, geddit… rock and roll…’
‘Good one, Tony,’ Sam said. ‘Hey, look, it’s beginning to rain again.’
They lifted the coffin. ‘Bloody heavy,’ Tony said.
Sam was becoming agitated. ‘Now it’s pouring. We can’t leave him here, but I’m going home. I suggest you take him inside.’
Lucas and Tony grabbed the handles and manoeuvred the coffin into the porch. Lucas grappled with the door, which failed to budge. ‘Does this when it’s wet,’ he said. They tried again. The door gave way and they were in. They placed the coffin on the floor.
‘Thirsty work,’ Crib said.
‘There’s some red in the cupboard. If the ringers haven’t beaten us to it.’
Cribb returned with a bottle. ‘No goblets, Vicar?’
‘Sorry. They went when the silver got… er… taken away. But, changing the subject, what are we going to do…’
‘What would your good lord have us do?’
‘You mean…?’
‘Use your nous. Darkness to light. Enlightenment. Open the bugger. Take a look, then we’d know, wouldn’t we?’
‘I can’t… I see where you’re coming from. With what, though?’
‘The church doesn’t have a tool kit?’
‘Good gracious, no! Things spiritual, not temporal.’
Cribb looked at the screws of the coffin. ‘Bloody Philips screws anyway.’ He paused. We could always… um… try another way.’
‘How, Tony?’
There was a tinkling sound from outside the church door. ‘That’s Agatha’s bicycle,’ Lucas said. ‘If she’s here the other flower ladies can’t be far behind. If they should see us… Shouldn’t we just take him back before the bearers return?’
‘And live in doubt for the rest of our lives? Vicar?’
‘Quickly, then. Into the vestry with it.’
They manhandled the coffin into the vestry and pulled the curtains.
‘Look,’ Tony said.’ In my car I’ve got a drill. Only needs a little hole.’
‘I can’t permit…’
‘Body there, put it back. Something else, well…’
Using the vestry’s side door, Crib fetched his electric drill and made a small hole just below the lid of the coffin. Then he inserted the serpentine length of fibre-optic cable attached to a small screen. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘What do you see?’
‘Wonderful things! Cups, plates… candlesticks…’
‘Chalices?’
‘Come again? Yeah, them too.’
‘Let me see.’ Lucas peered at the screen. ‘This is something for the police, I think.’
‘Well, don’t let’s be hasty about that, Vicar.’
‘Those pieces look familiar. Remember the theft at the Minster? Are there gold chalices, by any chance?’
‘Could be. Look for yourself.’
‘My God, there are.’ Lucas was becoming distraught. ‘What are we to do?’
‘For sure we can’t bury them.’
‘Assuredly not.’
‘So here’s how I see it. We take them out. You got space in your chest, Vicar?’
‘Well, yes, as it happens, since…’
‘Then we weight the coffin with something heavy, seal it up, get the bearers in and away we go. Bob’s your uncle.’ Crib suddenly became serious. ‘After all, no-one’s going to enquire into stolen goods, are they? At least not yet. Then you sleep on it, and tomorrow you’ll come up with a solution.’
As they transferred the silver to the chest Tony examined the two golden chalices. Ignorant of such matters he failed to notice that each was of an unusual design and featured a glass bottom.
Their work done, they manhandled the now slightly lighter coffin back into the nave, just in time before the bearers came looking for it.
That night, back in the vicarage, sleep was even harder for Lucas to achieve than deciding on a course of action. He couldn’t get out of his head that the coffin – which he believed was now six feet under the earth – contained half an oak beam from the belfry, a coil of rope and two bags of bat droppings strategically placed to limit possible movement inside when they carried it back. Then there was Aunt Ada’s barely concealed satisfaction as the earth closed over the coffin. And he had never seen Tony Crib looking so… well… innocent as when he tossed in the last handful of earth.
The key from the chest seemed to grow under his pillow. Yet wasn’t there some kind of logic here, some ordering of events that smacked of a controlling hand besides his own, or even that of the felons – whoever they were – who had used the undertakers for their nefarious work, if indeed it had not been the undertakers themselves. When he’d… well… found a home for the plate from his own church, was this not so that repairs to the roof – so necessary to keep out the dripping water that week by week had reduced his congregation – could be effected? No worse, surely, than selling indulgences in medieval times. And the resignations of the two churchwardens just before it happened, so that no-one thought to compile the annual inventory – was that not more than just fortuitous? And now here was his chest replenished, as it were. Ignoring for a moment the one or two clearly identifiable pieces, the contents of the collection looked much the same as they had done before. In short, no-one would be the wiser. Only then, with that resolved, did he think to wonder what might have happened to poor Harvey Crib’s body. Hopefully it had found its way to the crematorium – but that was someone else’s concern.
After breakfast Lucas thought he would take a stroll in the churchyard, if only to stifle a little niggle that all might not be as he remembered it. He headed for the grave, now a raised mound of earth, still waiting to be set off by the headstone that he knew would never come. But he failed to notice that the flowers from yesterday were not quite in their original positions, nor the little spoils of earth trampled by heavy feet around the mound’s edge when yesterday the grass had been raked clean. It was then that he saw Tony watching him from the other side of the graveyard hedge. Lucas walked over to him.
‘A very good morning to you, Anthony. The golden sun shines upon us, I believe.’
‘You could say that, Vicar. And so quiet here this fine morning – after yesterday. One might almost say that silence is golden, if you take my meaning.’
‘I’m not quite with you, Anthony.’
‘Only that discretion sometimes merits reward.’
‘Ah. I see. By golden you mean…’
Tony beamed. ‘Got there in one.’
They walked together to the church door. Lucas took out his keys and turned the lock. All was as it had been; enhanced, even, by the flowers that the good ladies had placed there the previous afternoon. He glanced up at the figure of Christ, half-expecting a turn of the head and a reproving look; but none came. Tony was already in the vestry, contemplating the chest, fidgeting in anticipation. When the great doors swung open, there was the silver plate, exactly as it had been. Tony reached in, removed the two golden chalices and clutched them to his chest. ‘Episode closed?’ Lucas said.