Percy Banks determined to go back to the Vicarage. He read the rejection letter a final time, then put the unwelcome correspondence into his document case. He looked round the vestry as he put on his coat. The organ music had stopped. For a moment he wondered if yet another organist had been murdered. He quickly dismissed the thought, on the assumption that, having got their way, his enemies in Halifax, Wakefield, Yorbridge, Lambeth and, most evil of all, Hartley itself, had no further need to blacken the Parish Church’s reputation.

Whatever the organ loft murders had done to dent plans and aspirations, there was no need to be concerned about the musical part of the service. Under Olivier Laverne, much to everyone’s surprise and delight, the choir was performing to an even higher state of perfectio...

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