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

College own the land. They should control it better.’
    ‘I’m not sure how you can police the whole countryside.’
    ‘None of those students know what it’s like to work for a living.’
    ‘They’ll find out soon enough.’
    ‘As long as they don’t start thinking I’m responsible. The police said I should have put up warning signs and fenced it off better. One of them told me I ought to have known that particular cow was a liability. But what about dangerous students, that’s what I want to know? If they think they can sue then they’ve got another think coming. I’ll give as good as I get, I can tell you that, Mr Chambers.’
    ‘If there is any problem with the university I am sure I can help.’
    ‘That would be good of you, I must say.’
    Sidney remembered that Harding Redmond never knew how to end a conversation. He called Byron back.
    ‘Mind the herd with your dog, Mr Chambers. The cows will get funny if he comes too close.’
    ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he gives them a wide berth.’
    ‘You should come round and visit our Abi some time. She’d love to see you. So would the wife. Is your Lab holding up all right? Dickens, isn’t he?’
    ‘That was the last one. This is Byron.’
    ‘Looks like he knows his own mind.’
    ‘Byron has a relaxed attitude to discipline but is easily bribed by food. If he senses the possibility of nourishment he is immediately obedient.’
    ‘You’ll let us know if you want another? Agatha’s got some puppies on the go. You may have moved up to Ely but there’s always a welcome for you down here.’
    This was about as good a farewell as Sidney was going to get. Harding Redmond climbed back into his Land Rover. It was a new series IIA, he said, and he had paid nearly £2,000 pounds for it.
    ‘That’s about twenty-five cows or a grant for five or six students. Funny thing money, don’t you think?’
    ‘It is indeed,’ said Sidney, realising that the amount was twice the price of Olivia Randall’s necklace and almost £700 more than his annual salary.
    Sidney loved the Meadows around midsummer: the comfrey, lady’s-smock, water figwort and arrowhead along the river; thecommas, brimstones and meadow brown butterflies in the hedgerows with swifts and house martins overhead. The blossom on the hawthorn was starting to turn but the elderflower and honeysuckle were out, young jackdaws skirred in the sky and swallows hawked midges over the water. He wished he could stop and laze away the rest of the afternoon, but those student days were long gone.
    At least he could watch a few overs of village cricket on Audley’s Field. He could perhaps enjoy the end of the game in Malcolm’s company and share a pint or two in the Blue Ball afterwards.
    Grantchester was playing Hemingford Grey, a rival village that was coasting towards a five-wicket victory requiring only twenty-eight runs to win. Because he had a strong throw, Malcolm was fielding at long leg, close to the boundary, and Sidney walked round so that he could talk to him between overs. Reclining in a deckchair nearby was a retired Welsh undertaker, who reminisced about fielding in the long grass in the 1920s and jumping out of it to catch a batsman who thought he’d hit a six.
    ‘I was like a whale rising out of the sea. And I took the ball that was Jonah.’
    ‘Presumably,’ Sidney could not help but ask, ‘you didn’t swallow it?’
    After just missing a difficult high chance, Malcolm said that he needed to concentrate, but the game was finished in the next twenty minutes and the two former colleagues were soon ensconced in post-match conviviality, during which various cricketing metaphors were extended towards the curate’s forthcoming nuptials; how he’d at last bowled a maiden over, that Helena Randall was quite a catch and that he’d need his third man once the covers came off.
    Malcolm was, it has to be said, uncomfortable with the joshing and confessed to Sidney that he was worried about