by Nicola Upson
‘I don’t have a choice. If he’s fallen all the way down, we’re already too late. Let’s just hope he’s on one of the rocks higher up – we won’t know until we can get some light down there.’
‘Do you think he’s still alive, then?’
Archie remembered how he had felt earlier when he looked down into the zawn. Even the highest level of rocks was sixty or seventy feet down, and only a miracle would save a man’s life after such a fall. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ he said, ‘but we can’t let his body be washed out to sea if there’s anything we can do to stop it.’
William looked down into the blackness, his face full of sorrow. ‘Then at least let me get some of the men here to help. It would be madness to go down alone.’
The last thing Archie felt like doing was entrusting his safety to a man in a brown habit, but William was right – he did need someone to anchor the rope, and his uncle would not be strong enough on his own. ‘All right – fetch Jago. Make sure he comes on his own, though – the last thing we want is a crowd tramping all over the cliff, and come back as quickly as you can.’
Left alone for a moment, Archie took one of the storm lanterns and went along the path to the recess, but whoever had been waiting there had left no trace of his or her existence behind. When he got back to the steps, Rowena Cade and the man called Billy were already on their way down, laden with ropes, torches, climbing gloves and a heavy tarpaulin which could be used as a stretcher if necessary. ‘I don’t want to tell you your job, Inspector,’ she said as she set everything down on the floor in front of him, ‘but I have been down there a few times myself, and the best route is over that grass slope on the right, then down the rope on to the first level of rock. From there, if you’re careful, you can climb all the way round the zawn. Do you want me to lead the way?’
He refused the offer, but was grateful for the advice. Removing the silk habit which covered his more conventional clothes, he selected the sturdiest-looking rope and waited impatiently for William to return. When he appeared at the top of the steps, Archie was horrified to see that he was accompanied not by Jago but by Kestrel Jacks and a young man he didn’t recognise. ‘Jago’s nowhere to be found, I’m afraid,’ William called, ‘but luckily I bumped into Jacks coming down from the auditorium. And this is Angus Trew. He’s a constable over in Penzance, and he happened to be in the audience. He’s been keeping the peace out there – everyone’s getting a bit restless.’
‘Just wondered if there was anything else I could do to help, Sir,’ the policeman said.
‘Sounds like you’ve already been doing the most important thing, Constable,’ Penrose said. ‘Thank you for that.’ He thought for a second: there was little to be gained from keeping the audience here, and the process of recovering Nathaniel’s body would be a whole lot easier and more dignified without a crowd of people watching. ‘Perhaps you and Miss Cade could clear the auditorium for me. Explain as briefly as you can that there’s been an accident, and take names and addresses as people leave just in case we need to contact them later. Try to keep everyone as calm as you can. Gather the cast together in one place – the stage is probably best – and keep them there until I come and find you. We’ll need to speak to everyone who was involved in the play before they leave tonight.’ He was impressed to see that the significance of his instructions was not lost on Trew, but the constable did not waste time by asking questions. ‘I know you can’t be everywhere at once,’ Penrose added, ‘but I don’t want anyone down on the backstage path so all the steps will have to be watched. William will introduce you to my cousins and a friend of mine who are in the audience – they’ll help out if necessary.’
Trew turned to go, but William caught his arm. ‘Just one thing, Archie,’ he said. ‘Nathaniel’s parents – they’re in the audience, and obviously they’re worried. I haven’t said anything to them yet, but they need to be told something before Angus makes his announcement.’
Damn, thought Penrose – of course they were here; it should have been a proud evening for their son, and he reproached himself bitterly for not thinking of them before. ‘Will you take them to one side and break the news to them first?’ he asked William, desperately sorry that they had already had to wait so long. ‘Tell them we’re doing everything we can to find Nathaniel, but try not to give them false hope. I’ll come and talk to them as soon as I know how things are.’
He was less grateful to William for his choice of climbing companion, but there was no time to argue, nor to read anything into Jago’s absence. He handed a torch to Jacks, trying to ignore his smirk, and took the more powerful light for himself. ‘Where would you like to go over, Inspector?’ the gamekeeper asked insolently. Penrose said nothing, but led the way along the outcrop of rock to the point which Rowena Cade had identified as the safest from which to start his descent. About fifteen feet of rough grass and gorse stretched out before him, sloping down sharply and culminating in nothingness. He walked as far as he could and looked to his left, using the position of the balustrade to calculate where Nathaniel had gone over the edge; from this angle, he was able to see the rocks immediately below the backstage path and, with the help of the moonlight, could just make out a dark shape on a flat piece of stone six feet or so above the encroaching tide.
Jacks joined him, although the silent presence by his side was anything but a comfort. The gamekeeper tied the rope firmly round his waist, smiling again as Penrose checked the knots, and threw the other end over the side of the cliff. He stood at a safe distance from the edge, looking defiant, and Penrose hesitated, wondering if he should, after all, ask for more help. There was no question that Jacks had the strength to act as anchor – if he chose to, but William’s casual words were significant; where had the gamekeeper been if he was coming down from the auditorium? If he had pushed the curate over, then made his escape up the side steps to rejoin the play from the other direction, how easy it would be now to untie those knots and make it look like another terrible accident. Fleetingly, Penrose questioned the wisdom of his decision to keep the truth of Nathaniel’s fall to himself until someone in authority from the local police arrived; if anything happened to him, no one would ever know that the curate’s death was murder. Standing now on lower ground, he felt the sea against his face and, as fine a mist as it was, it weighed heavily on his conscience. There was no option but to trust Jacks: he had not yet allowed himself to analyse his own reaction to Nathaniel’s sudden death, but the young man’s confusion and vulnerability had moved him deeply during their conversation, and he felt an obligation to ensure that his body, at least, had the refuge which his mind had been unable to find.
Giving Jacks only the briefest of glances, Penrose tucked the torch into his belt, grasped the rope firmly and eased himself backwards over the edge of the cliff. It took all the self-discipline he had to put his misgivings about Jacks to one side and take his time over the descent; the temptation to hurry was almost irresistible, but he lowered himself down methodically, hand over hand, and – although he would not have won any marks for elegance – he soon reached the layer of rock that Rowena Cade had described. From there, he took the safest-looking route back into the heart of the gully, noting with relief that it would be at least another twenty minutes before the tide was far enough in to affect the level he was on.
As he approached the flat rock where Nathaniel lay, he realised that – in spite of his sober words to William – he had been subconsciously nurturing the hope that the fall might not have been fatal, and that Nathaniel might have been one of the miraculous few who escaped unscathed from the severest of accidents. The unnatural arrangement of his body made the idea laughable even before the light from the torch reached his face. The curate lay on his back, and his shattered corpse seemed to reflect the emotional fragility which had marked his last few weeks of life. The folds of his costume hid his legs, but his arms were twisted at an impossible angle to his body, like a doll which had fallen foul of a particularly spitefu
l child, and Penrose could only imagine the extent of his internal injuries. His blond hair was matted with blood, thick and viscous and dark; blood also pooled out from beneath his skull, soaking into the grey lining of his hood and following the contours of the rock, running down towards the sea as if to beat the tide at its own game. Nathaniel’s face was tilted slightly away from Penrose but his eyes stared up at the cliff, still fixed on the horror that had brought him to this, looking upwards not to heaven but to hell. The prayer book which he always kept with him lay a little to the right of his body, next to one of the lanterns which the killer had kicked over; it had obviously been dislodged from his pocket by the impact of the fall, and Penrose found its distance poignant: even the curate’s most trusted solace had abandoned him in the end. In fact, standing alone with the body, so close to the elemental power of the sea, Penrose found it hard not to resort to an age-old language of good and evil, to look for the imprint of the devil himself in Nathaniel’s eyes.
There was no doubt that death had been instant, but how long must those final seconds have seemed when he realised that his fate was unavoidable? Had he used them to contemplate his killer, or to find some sort of peace from the anguish which had dogged him since Harry’s death? Penrose mocked his own wishful thinking. He had seen Nathaniel’s face and there was no way that his last emotion had been anything other than terror, a continuation of the living hell that he had spoken of. Why? What had he done except fall in love with the wrong person, and battle with his own ideas of right and wrong? Penrose knew that the sorrow he felt at Nathaniel’s death was due in part to the pain and confusion which any investigation would create amongst those who loved him. Secrets were spilled by any sudden fatality: a letter or diary, left out in the morning because someone took it for granted that they would return later to keep it safe, could lay a life open to a thousand different stories, and murder was by far the harshest interpreter. He hoped desperately that the darker parts of Nathaniel’s heart could be kept from his parents, but he knew that was unrealistic; if he were in charge of this investigation, he would feel obliged to discuss Nathaniel’s feelings for Harry and his parents would be left mourning a stranger, at a loss to know who their son really was and with no opportunity to find out. Nathaniel had experienced that sense of betrayal when Harry died; now, the people whom he had been so anxious to protect were about to find out exactly how that felt.
Josephine slipped the Lanchester into gear, removed the handbrake and allowed the car to roll gently down the slope towards the cliff edge. More light was needed in the stage area, and those with cars had been asked to bring them as close to the scene as possible, with their headlamps turned full on; William was understandably busy with Nathaniel’s parents, and she had been glad of something to do, however small, to take her mind off the fact that Archie was still out on the cliff-side, alone with Kestrel Jacks. She left the engine running, made sure the car was safe and went back down to see if there was any news.
The audience had gone now, efficiently ushered from the auditorium by Rowena Cade and a young man whom Josephine guessed was an off-duty policeman. Everyone else had gathered together on the stage, as if solidarity could somehow soften the tragedy of the evening’s events, and she noticed that Lettice and Ronnie were doing their best to offer some sort of solace with hot tea and brandy, brought down on vast silver trays from Minack House. Most people were still in their costumes and there was a surreal quality to the scene, but nothing would surprise her any more tonight; like everyone, she had been utterly bewildered by the sudden change of mood signalled first by Archie’s distraction, and then by his obvious alarm; when news of an accident filtered back to the audience, the incident – coming so soon after the tension of Jasper Motley’s exit and the drama of Nathaniel’s leap into thin air – seemed to bear as little relation to the real world as the tale of a devilish jackdaw and a stolen ring.
It took a lot to subdue Ronnie and Lettice, but they met her at the bottom of the steps looking as shocked and bewildered as everyone. ‘Any news?’ Josephine asked, and Lettice shook her head.
‘No, absolutely nothing. I don’t suppose we can hold out any hope that he’s still alive. What a dreadful, dreadful thing to happen. I can hardly believe it.’
‘Selfishly, it’s Pa I’m worried about,’ Ronnie said. ‘He was very fond of Nathaniel, and this will really hit him hard coming so soon after Harry’s death. I don’t know why we worried about Hephzibah – tonight makes her look like a lucky charm.’
Lettice was first to ask the obvious question. ‘I wonder what on earth went wrong?’ she said. ‘It can’t have been the jump from the balustrade because Archie didn’t panic straight away, so how could Nathaniel have fallen?’
‘You don’t suppose he threw himself off deliberately, do you?’ Josephine asked. As the sisters looked at her in astonishment, she realised how out of the blue the suggestion must have sounded when they were oblivious to the suspicions surrounding Harry’s death.
‘What makes you say that?’ Lettice asked, and Ronnie looked at her inquisitively.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It just seems strange that he should fall from the path when he managed the jump so easily. And you never know what’s in people’s minds, do you?’ she added rather weakly.
‘This crime business is going to your head,’ Lettice chided her. ‘You’re spending too much time with unlikely scenarios.’
Ronnie, however, was more persistent. ‘Do you know something we don’t?’ she asked.
‘Only that I won’t come to Lettice if I want a glowing review of my plots,’ Josephine said evasively. ‘Look – that constable’s coming over. I wonder if they’ve found him?’ But the only announcement was that the police were just a few minutes away now, and someone would be along to talk to everyone as soon as possible.
‘Oh, I thought that was some definite news,’ said Lettice, disappointed.
‘Even so, I find that young man’s presence very reassuring,’ said Ronnie with a flash of her old charm. She smiled at the constable as he passed, and he nodded and blushed.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Lettice. ‘He must be at least fifteen years younger than you.’
‘Perhaps, dear, but look after the nights and the years will take care of themselves. I might just go and see if he needs some sugar in his tea.’
Josephine watched her go. ‘You have to admire her spirit, I suppose,’ she said, ‘and he is very good-looking. He reminds me a bit of Archie when he first joined the police.’ She glanced across to the back of the stage, where the steps led down to the cliff. ‘I wish we could see how he’s getting on.’
‘He won’t do anything stupid,’ Lettice said, squeezing her hand. ‘I’m going to pass these last few drinks round and go back up for more. Come and fetch me if anything happens.’
‘All right, but let me give those out,’ Josephine said. ‘I can’t just sit here.’
She took the three glasses from Lettice’s tray and gave two of them to a couple standing near her, then carried the third over to the balustrade, where an elderly woman stood clutching a rug round her shoulders and looking anxiously out to sea. ‘This might warm you a little,’ Josephine said, holding out the drink.
The woman turned to her, and startled Josephine by putting the glass straight down on the stone ledge and taking her hand instead, clasping it affectionately as if they knew each other well. ‘You’re Archie’s friend from London, aren’t you?’ she said, and Josephine – who was getting used to being at a disadvantage whenever she met anyone for the first time in Cornwall – smiled and nodded. ‘I saw you with him backstage before the play. I’m Morveth Wearne.’
So this was the woman she had heard so much about. ‘I was looking forward to congratulating you tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry that something so wonderful has ended in tragedy.’
Morveth brushed over the compliment as if the play had never existed. ‘What happened exactly?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I know Nathaniel’s fallen, but
has Archie said anything else to you?’
‘No, I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet, and he’s the only person who could have seen how it happened. No one else seems to know for sure what went on. William’s with Nathaniel’s parents, but it hardly seems possible that there’ll be anything other than the worst news for them.’
‘He was barely more than a boy,’ she said softly, more to herself than to Josephine. ‘I taught him, you know, him and all the other children on the estate – Harry and Morwenna, Simon Jacks, and Archie, of course.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I still can’t look at them without remembering what they were like as children, and they haven’t really changed, not any of them – not deep down, where it matters.’
‘What was Nathaniel like?’
‘Clever, but shy and terribly earnest. He came from a loving family, but he seemed lost at times and desperate to find a place for himself in the world. He thought about that at a much earlier age than most of us do.’
‘And did he find it in the Church?’
‘He found it in the scriptures, which isn’t always the same thing. His faith was remarkable. It was the words he loved, and he knew his prayer book off by heart – in the truest sense of that phrase, though, not as an exercise in learning. He always found a way of making it mean something to people, no matter who they were or where they came from.’
‘That’s a rare talent to have.’
‘God-given, some might say. Perhaps it made him a little naive – there’s a limit to how much faith can help people at times, and he didn’t always see that. Sometimes he tried too hard when it would have been wiser to let go, but that’s hardly a crime.’ It was an interesting choice of words, Josephine thought, looking down into the blackness. There was a pinprick of light over to the right, stationary as though someone had put a torch down on the ground and left it there, but she could see no sign of Archie, and her unease was growing as time went on. She found Morveth’s presence faintly unsettling, too; it was as if their conversation had a number of layers and only the most superficial was obvious to her. ‘There’s something not right here,’ Morveth said eventually. ‘I can sense it.’
