Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by James Runcie

yes.’
    ‘Abigail Redmond, for example?’
    ‘The name is not familiar; but then, so many of them make up new names. It’s all cash so it doesn’t matter. They pay and send the photographs on to the modelling agencies. They always ask me for advice, or introductions, and I help out when I can but I only have a very limited influence.’
    ‘Do they pay you any extra for that?’
    ‘No, Canon Chambers, I do it out of the goodness of my heart.’
    ‘And you don’t have favourites?’
    ‘Like children, I love them all equally.’
    ‘And you don’t get into any scrapes?’ Sidney persisted.
    ‘Scrapes? I am amused by your euphemism. Are you asking if I get involved with any of the girls in a way of which their parents might disapprove?’
    ‘Yes, although I recognise that this is none of my business.’
    ‘It certainly isn’t. But the answer is “no”. I’m past that stage.’
    ‘You mean that you have been at “that stage” in the past?’
    ‘I like women, Canon Chambers. Don’t tell me you don’t?’
    ‘That can’t have been easy for your wife.’
    ‘You deduce correctly. She even thought I was having an affair with Jane Winton, the girl who played the manicurist in Sunrise . I did point out that she had only just got married.’
    ‘But, as you say, those days are over.’ Sidney knew he could not sustain Morden’s tolerable humour for much longer. ‘Why did you keep going, I wonder?’
    ‘Money, Canon Chambers. That and the fact that I am incapable of doing anything else.’
    ‘It seems quite a step down, if I may say so, from silent films and fashion photography to girls in skimpy dresses?’
    ‘They’re not always that skimpy. Sometimes they don’t wear anything at all. But it doesn’t make much difference. It pays well and, as I say, I need the money. I always need money.’
     
    Sidney was bemused by his conversation with the photographer but intrigued by the fact that he appeared to know Amanda. He telephoned to check if what he said was true.
    ‘I think he was the one who took my photograph when I was a deb. If that’s the man he was a rather glamorous, but ageing, roué. Has he been up to something?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    ‘That man had trouble written all over him, I seem to remember.’
    ‘Did you find him attractive?’
    ‘That’s a very leading question. Men don’t normally ask that kind of thing. They can’t bear to think of the competition. He’s a photographer , Sidney. I think I can do a bit better than that.’
    ‘I keep forgetting that your prospective marriage has necessary social implications.’
    ‘It’s my parents as well as the money, you will remember. I don’t want to be fleeced.’
    Sidney imagined that Morden was a man who could probably run through someone else’s capital at quite a lick. ‘You’re very wise, Amanda.’
    ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me all this. Most of the time I wish the subject was best avoided. I don’t like people defining me by who I might, or might not, love. It’s such a distraction and it gets in the way of work. It’s all very well for you. At least you’ve got someone in mind.’
    ‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that.’
    ‘For goodness’ sake, Sidney. I don’t know why you don’t just bow to the inevitable and get on with it. Hildegard sounds perfectly nice and I can tell you can’t stop thinking about her.’
    ‘It’s quite a complicated situation.’
    Sidney returned, momentarily, to the anxiety of his courtship. He worried if it was as right for his potential beloved as it was for him? What if Hildegard’s return to Grantchester would end, in any way, as it had done the first time, in unhappiness? What if he could not give her the redemption he felt she deserved?
    ‘Everything’s complicated if you worry too much about it,’ Amanda replied with certainty. ‘There’s never a right and a wrong time. Look at my brother. He ran off with a divorcee and he’s perfectly happy.’
    ‘I