Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night Read Online Free PDF

constellation of social codes.’
    ‘Yes, I can see that,’ Sidney tried to be conciliatory. ‘No one quite knows what the rules are.’
    ‘There are worlds within worlds when you think about it. Although I never expected to understand my husband on the subatomic level, I must say.’
    ‘You are a scientist?’
    ‘I started off as Val’s research student.’
    ‘I didn’t know that.’
    ‘When you look as I do, Canon Chambers, very few people credit you with intelligence. Even at this esteemed university, people tend to go by appearances.’
    ‘As a priest, I try not to.’
    ‘Well, even as a priest, I think you probably have rather a long way to go, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
    Sidney was shocked by this directness. He suddenly felt rather sick. In fact, he worried that he was going to be sick. Perhaps it had been one of the cheese sandwiches. ‘If you’ll excuse me . . .’
    Alice Bannerman appeared to guess his intentions. ‘The bathroom is at the top of the stairs on the right.’
    The walls on the way up were tacked with Ordnance Survey maps and black and white photographs of mountains. Once in the bathroom, Sidney washed his face to quell his nausea. The small hand-towel was damp on a ring beside him. He looked to see if there was another and then noticed a small bathroom cabinet. He wondered if Lyall had kept any Alka-Seltzer or cod-liver oil to settle his stomach. When he opened the cupboard he found that it was half-filled with prescription medicines: mechlorethamine, triethylenemelamine and busulfan. He would have to telephone his father to check what they meant but he was almost sure that they were medicines for cancer.
    He opened the window to get some air and then drank a glass of water. He took a few deep breaths and decided to go home as soon as possible.
    ‘So soon?’ Alice Bannerman asked.
    Sidney could not leave quickly enough. It was early afternoon, but already it was almost dark, the only light coming from the street lamps and the snow. When he got back to the vicarage, he decided, he would make himself a cup of tea and sit by a warm fire in the half-light and pray quietly. Then he would talk to Leonard.
    How does a man behave when he knows that his death is imminent?
    Sidney had seen evidence of changes in behaviour in wartime; the courage and recklessness of men who knew that they could die at any moment. But was it the same in peacetime and when the risks were less? Did it matter what the stakes were, or was the context immaterial? And does a man, who knows that death is certain, give less, or perhaps even more, consideration to the moral consequences of his actions? Does the murderer fear the death penalty?
    ‘Not very often. I would have thought,’ Leonard replied as he contemplated the issues that Sidney raised. He was eating a crumpet. ‘I suspect that the act of murder must be an overwhelming desire. It countermands every alternative. Dostoevsky asks this question in Crime and Punishment . For the central character, Raskolnikov, murder is an experiment in morality. It gets to the heart of this very question.’
    ‘I imagine it does.’
    Sidney sometimes thought that Leonard had entered a secret competition which involved bringing Dostoevsky into every conversation. ‘There is a recklessness about him, I seem to remember?’
    ‘A determination to have a life of meaning; to do one last thing; to make amends, or a sacrifice; a last chance at either nobility or revenge. But I can’t see Valentine Lyall as our Raskolnikov.’
    ‘Particularly since he is not a murderer but a victim.’
    ‘But if he wanted to die, or knew that he was dying, how would that change his behaviour on the roof?’ Leonard asked. ‘He might have taken more risks.’
    ‘Thereby increasing the chances of an accident; or faking one.’
    ‘But, if that is the case, then why has Bartlett disappeared?’
    ‘Panic?’
    ‘Possibly. But to have done so at such speed and with such cunning suggests