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

far?’ Sidney asked.
    ‘Accounts are hazy. Students may be able to study the origins of the Agricultural Revolution but most of them are incapable of walking across a field. In the meantime, another of their number, one Olivia Randall, “lost” her mother’s necklace.’
    ‘Valuable?’
    ‘It’s worth about a thousand pounds, she says.’
    ‘And no one has so far suggested that the stampede of cows was a deliberate distraction to facilitate the disappearance of the jewellery?’
    ‘No one, Sidney. Not even you. Yet.’
    ‘Olivia Randall, you say?’
    ‘Helena’s sister. She’s eleven years younger; an afterthought, apparently. Although you would have thought her parentswould have had misgivings after they saw how their first child turned out.’
    ‘Is Olivia anything like our friend, the great investigative journalist?’
    ‘On the contrary, she seems a bit of a hippy.’
    ‘And could she simply have mislaid her necklace?’
    ‘Yes she could; not that she’s going to admit to it. The whole situation has got out of hand. The parents of the injured boy want to sue the farmer, whom we both know is trouble from past encounters, and the Randall sisters are terrified their mother will find out about the necklace and are making all manner of fuss.’
    ‘When the thing might not have been stolen at all.’
    ‘They want us to get it back. They seem to think it’s far more important than a half-dead student with a broken leg, smashed ribs and a fractured collarbone.’
    ‘But in both of these cases it may be the victim’s fault; a mixture of drunken cow-provocation and careless necklace-wearing?’
    ‘Yes: which is why it’s so annoying we’ve been called in to sort things out.’
    ‘Do you have to?’
    ‘There could be a case of negligence against the farmer. That’ll go down well. He will retaliate with claiming wilful damage by the students. And if the necklace has gone . . . well, theft is theft.’
    ‘I presume it was insured?’
    ‘Belongs to Mummy. She lent it to her daughter for May Week. Made quite a fuss about her not losing it, probably because I am not so sure the insurance covers them if aloopy daughter with a skinful of Pimm’s dances half-naked across the Meadows.’
    ‘Half-naked?’
    ‘You know what I mean. Anyway, apparently we have to get the necklace back before Mummy finds out it’s missing.’
    ‘This is, presumably, Helena’s instruction.’
    ‘I am afraid so.’
    ‘Do you need my help at all?’
    ‘I certainly do; both with the cow incident and the question of negligence. You have a history with the Redmonds.’
    Sidney knew the farmer all too well. Harding Redmond’s wife Agatha was a formidable Labrador breeder who had provided Sidney with both Dickens and Byron. His daughter Abigail was a great beauty who had attended the same antenatal class as Hildegard.
    However, Harding Redmond’s brother and sister were both in prison for poisoning a young Indian boy at a cricket match, and the farmer’s terrible temper had not endeared him to the police in the subsequent investigation.
    ‘I wouldn’t mind if you paid the old bastard a visit,’ Geordie continued. ‘He’s funny with the police, as you know.’
    ‘He has form. As do you . . .’
    ‘I’ll ignore that. He won’t take kindly to anyone suggesting that his animals might be to blame. Then there is the small matter of the Randall family. You are probably on better terms with Helena than I am these days, especially since you’re taking her wedding. I am sure that she and her sister will let you know more than they’ll tell me. And you’ve got Malcolm, the fiancé, on your side too.’
    ‘I’ll do what I can.’
    ‘We’ll interview all the students who were at the party, but some of your more discreet enquiries wouldn’t go amiss.’
    ‘Not that they’re very discreet these days.’
    ‘It might be easier now people are used to them. They accept you. You’ve interviewed many of them before.’
    ‘Which