Free Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation by James Runcie Page A

distance.’
    ‘I’ve told you, Geordie, there was never any danger of impropriety. I do have some standards. And I love Hildegard.’
    ‘You had a bit of luck in finding a wife like that. But I suppose you deserve it. You took a risk on a foreigner with a murky past and it paid off.’
    ‘Hers wasn’t the past that was murky.’
    ‘As far as you know.’
    ‘I do know. And, by the way, while we’re on the subject, I’d like to take some of the credit for my marriage.’
    ‘No one’s going to believe you, Sidney. Hildegard saved you. You may think it’s the other way round and even let people come to that conclusion . . .’
    ‘I’m just very grateful to be so blessed.’
    ‘I’m glad you realise. If I behaved like you do Cathy would give me hell.’
    ‘What do you mean “like you do”?’
    ‘Being all sympathetic to the ladies.’
    ‘That’s my job.’
    ‘No, it’s not. It’s what you like. That’s different. You can’t fool me.’
    ‘Hildegard knows all this. I tell her everything that’s been going on.’
    ‘Like hell. Does she do the same?’
    ‘Not always. I think she likes to retain a bit of mystery.’
    ‘Most women do. Canny, aren’t they?’
    ‘Would we have it any other way?’
    ‘We would not,’ Geordie replied, before downing his pint and contemplating his next move on the board.
    ‘I am glad we agree then.’
    ‘You know what they say about marriage? A man can either be right or happy. At least neither of us would be foolish enough to carry on, like Barbara Wilkinson, with someone else in our own home and be discovered by one of our children.’
    ‘No, we certainly wouldn’t,’ said Sidney, as seriously as he could before catching his friend’s eye. ‘We’d book a hotel room.’
    Both men laughed. It was the first time they had done so in ages.

Grantchester Meadows
    The University of Cambridge was celebrating May Week and, as with many superior organisations that never feel the need to explain themselves, the celebrations lasted longer than a week and took place in June.
    The students had completed their exams, the punts were out on the river, picnic rugs fluttered down on to daisy-decorated grass, Pimm’s was poured, strawberries were served and the barefoot dancing began.
    Sidney had just finished a meeting in King’s Parade for a diocesan ministry commission that had been asked to set up a new payment scheme for clergy. The plan was to abolish the current system of private patronage, introduce compulsory retirement at the age of seventy and establish a level of remuneration that neither excited financial ambition nor resulted in economic embarrassment.
    It had been a long, dull affair and Sidney was discombobulated by the contrasting elitism of May Week with its collision of youthful exuberance, alcohol and high expenditure. He was due to head on into Grantchester to visit his former curate, Malcolm Mitchell, but decided to cheer himself up by popping in to see Geordie at the St Andrew’s Street police station. This certainly livened up his day, as his friend immediately reportedthat one student had narrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd of cows while another had had a family heirloom stolen.
    The crime scene was a party on Grantchester Meadows, organised by a Magdalene College drinking club in memory of their founder, Sir Joshua Wylie. Twelve executors had dressed up in tails to serve vodka and grapefruit juice out of watering cans at the end of the May ‘Bumps’ on the river. Within hours the ground had resembled a medieval battlefield, with drunken students sprawled across the Meadows in varying stages of consciousness and undress. At one point in the proceedings Richard Lane had ended up in the middle of a herd of cows that had banded together to fight a rearguard action against the excess. By the time the ambulance arrived, the student was half-dead, having caught his ankle and fallen into a cattle grid while trying to escape.
    ‘He made it that