kind of liberty in that. You don’t know it but you were present when I made the most important decision of my life and—I freely accept—very possibly the last.”
“Which was what?” asks the man contemptuously.
Toby looks him directly in the eyes. “To get to the truth. Whatever the cost.” He smiles and bows his head. If he had a hat, he thinks, he’d doff it. “Good afternoon to you.”
A LMOST EXACTLY ONE hour later, a man pays cash for a one-way coach ticket to Edinburgh. He is small, slim, rather beleaguered-looking and dressed in an old cord jacket. He sits quietly towards the back of the vehicle as it trundles towards Scotland. He is meditative in Southampton, faraway in the Midlands, lost in the North and almost asleep as darkness falls and they approach the edge of England. No-one sits next to him—he has, you see, become the kind of man whom other travellers avoid, the one who talks to himself, the oddball, the nutter. On the empty seat beside him is an old sports bag, with a copy of the London Evening Standard laid on top. The headline of the day is just visible. It reads: MURDERED COP NAMED.
As for the close-up photograph which accompanies the piece, you would no doubt recognise—as did Toby Judd, with grief and panic seizing at his heart like a snake about a mouse—the honest, pensive face of Sergeant Isaac Angeyo.
1842
THE PARSONAGE
HAWORTH
L ONG HAS THE shadow of death enfolded the parsonage. Showing no deference to the season, it is palpable here, now, even upon Christmas Day, as the family gather in their little parlour, filled with heartache and sorrow. They are five in number yet they are grievously depleted—a father is present and three girls and a son but their dear mother is twenty years in her grave and two other daughters, departed too soon, lie mouldering beside her.
It is of mortality, of course, that the patriarch is speaking as we draw near to them, of fragility, inevitability, impermanence. He is white-haired, bowed, sixty-five years old though he seems more senior still, with that great cravat which is bound about his neck like a funeral shroud, with his watery, sorrowful eyes and his trembling arthritic gait. When he speaks, his three surviving daughters—Emily, Charlotte, Anne—listen with dutiful attentiveness though the thoughts of that triumvirate are all, in their own ways, far from this isolated spot. The young man, Branwell, seems rather unsteady on his feet, a glass of whisky punch clasped in one hand.
The smell of roasting goose pervades the building. Outside, beyond the little window stretches the vast expanse of the moor. Bleak and seemingly limitless, it fills the horizon, its light dappling of snowfall serving not to render the scene a festive one but rather to accentuate its inhospitable, minatory qualities, its utter absence of mercy.
The old man’s voice is tired from hours at the church in the morning yet it is still firm from years of practice and skilful use. Whilst the rest of him, beset by grief, decays, that voice goes on.
“I wanted,” he begins, “before we sit down to eat, to say a few words about the year that has passed.”
His children, accustomed to such pre-prandial sermonising, listen respectfully. Only Emily, the middle daughter, seems distracted, her eyes flicking constantly from her father’s face to the view from the window, to the cruel sweep of the moor.
“Our losses have been severe. Mr Weightman has gone to a better place. Your beloved aunt also. And our particular friend, Dr Andrew. Such things are always hard and they seem at such times as these almost impossible to bear. Nonetheless, we must trust in the wisdom of the Lord and that, in drawing our dear friends to Him before what seems to us to be their natural time, He is fulfilling a divine design of which we are not granted comprehension. Today, of all days, we must trust in Him and we must yield to His wisdom and to His grace.” He turns
“Which was what?” asks the man contemptuously.
Toby looks him directly in the eyes. “To get to the truth. Whatever the cost.” He smiles and bows his head. If he had a hat, he thinks, he’d doff it. “Good afternoon to you.”
A LMOST EXACTLY ONE hour later, a man pays cash for a one-way coach ticket to Edinburgh. He is small, slim, rather beleaguered-looking and dressed in an old cord jacket. He sits quietly towards the back of the vehicle as it trundles towards Scotland. He is meditative in Southampton, faraway in the Midlands, lost in the North and almost asleep as darkness falls and they approach the edge of England. No-one sits next to him—he has, you see, become the kind of man whom other travellers avoid, the one who talks to himself, the oddball, the nutter. On the empty seat beside him is an old sports bag, with a copy of the London Evening Standard laid on top. The headline of the day is just visible. It reads: MURDERED COP NAMED.
As for the close-up photograph which accompanies the piece, you would no doubt recognise—as did Toby Judd, with grief and panic seizing at his heart like a snake about a mouse—the honest, pensive face of Sergeant Isaac Angeyo.
1842
THE PARSONAGE
HAWORTH
L ONG HAS THE shadow of death enfolded the parsonage. Showing no deference to the season, it is palpable here, now, even upon Christmas Day, as the family gather in their little parlour, filled with heartache and sorrow. They are five in number yet they are grievously depleted—a father is present and three girls and a son but their dear mother is twenty years in her grave and two other daughters, departed too soon, lie mouldering beside her.
It is of mortality, of course, that the patriarch is speaking as we draw near to them, of fragility, inevitability, impermanence. He is white-haired, bowed, sixty-five years old though he seems more senior still, with that great cravat which is bound about his neck like a funeral shroud, with his watery, sorrowful eyes and his trembling arthritic gait. When he speaks, his three surviving daughters—Emily, Charlotte, Anne—listen with dutiful attentiveness though the thoughts of that triumvirate are all, in their own ways, far from this isolated spot. The young man, Branwell, seems rather unsteady on his feet, a glass of whisky punch clasped in one hand.
The smell of roasting goose pervades the building. Outside, beyond the little window stretches the vast expanse of the moor. Bleak and seemingly limitless, it fills the horizon, its light dappling of snowfall serving not to render the scene a festive one but rather to accentuate its inhospitable, minatory qualities, its utter absence of mercy.
The old man’s voice is tired from hours at the church in the morning yet it is still firm from years of practice and skilful use. Whilst the rest of him, beset by grief, decays, that voice goes on.
“I wanted,” he begins, “before we sit down to eat, to say a few words about the year that has passed.”
His children, accustomed to such pre-prandial sermonising, listen respectfully. Only Emily, the middle daughter, seems distracted, her eyes flicking constantly from her father’s face to the view from the window, to the cruel sweep of the moor.
“Our losses have been severe. Mr Weightman has gone to a better place. Your beloved aunt also. And our particular friend, Dr Andrew. Such things are always hard and they seem at such times as these almost impossible to bear. Nonetheless, we must trust in the wisdom of the Lord and that, in drawing our dear friends to Him before what seems to us to be their natural time, He is fulfilling a divine design of which we are not granted comprehension. Today, of all days, we must trust in Him and we must yield to His wisdom and to His grace.” He turns
Similar Books
