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tells me.’
    ‘Yes, that’s right. But what of it? Everybody’s forgotten about it by now.’
    ‘But he wasn’t the first one to disappear, was he? There was another one, about eighteen months back. I can’t find anybody who remembers his name, though. Even the old boy in
the cathedral couldn’t remember him.’
    Anne Herbert looked at Patrick. He was very excited. Then she remembered a young vicar choral called Peter Conway coming to lunch when her husband was still alive. He had great plans for his
future, he had told the young couple, hoping to end up as a choirmaster in one of the great cathedrals of England. Then he vanished without trace. Nobody paid very much attention to either
disappearance. Vicars choral, for some unknown reason, had a reputation for flighty and irresponsible behaviour.
    ‘I think he was called Peter Conway,’ she said very quietly. A couple of middle-aged ladies were planning a shopping expedition to Exeter in very loud voices a couple of tables away,
their voices bright with expectation and greed. ‘But what of it, Patrick?’ Something in the nature of the young man’s occupation always worried Anne Herbert. It was all too
excitable. Patrick and his colleagues were often obsessed with the dark side of human nature. As usual, he had laughed when she told him of her anxieties.
    ‘Heavens above, Anne,’ he had said, ‘do you want everything to run like your father’s trains, punctual down to the last minute, schedules planned months in advance? In
the newspaper world, believe me, variety is the spice of life!’
    Now he looked over at the middle-aged ladies. ‘Think of the reaction of respectable people like that when they read the article, Anne.’
    ‘Which article, Patrick? The one about how rich Mr Eustace was?’
    ‘Sorry,’ said Patrick Butler, turning back to inspect Anne Herbert’s eyes. They were still green, still the same colour he often thought about last thing at night before he
fell asleep. ‘I’m getting ahead of myself. Two vanished vicars choral, missing, possibly deceased. Late vicars choral. Singing for their suppers no more. One dead Chancellor Eustace,
called to his maker long before his time was up. Three of them altogether. I think I’m going to call it the Curse of Compton Minster. That should cause quite a stir!’
    Anne was appalled. She had spent most of her adult years surrounded by the clergy and the choristers of this cathedral city. Now Patrick was going to blaspheme against her household gods,
bringing the sordid techniques of his occupation to bear against the traditions of her upbringing. It was the profane assaulting the sacred.
    ‘You can’t possibly write such an article, Patrick. Nobody knows those two men are dead. I don’t think anybody even suggested it at the time. And you can’t be suggesting
that there was anything suspicious about Mr Eustace’s death. That’s ridiculous.’
    Patrick Butler thought it was time to beat a tactical retreat. Maybe certain things had to be sacrificed in the cause of love. But he wasn’t going to give up easily.
    ‘I wasn’t going to run this article soon, Anne, if it ever runs at all. I shall have to wait until after the funeral. And if it really upsets you, then I may never run it at
all.’
    Lady Lucy Powerscourt had been planning her campaign for over six months. Like all great generals she had carried out a number of reconnaissance missions. The final details had
been fixed for some time. All that mattered, as with most military missions, was the timing. If that misfired, her strategy could collapse in a matter of minutes. She looked over at her husband,
peacefully reading the newspapers in his favourite chair by the fire. It was now a fortnight since Powerscourt had stepped ashore in Portsmouth. Life was beginning to return to what she would
regard as normal. He had spent a great deal of time with his children, mostly listening as they filled him in on the details of their lives