by Nicola Upson
She could scarcely believe that she had known Archie for twenty years: so much had happened since that first meeting, a year into the war, when her lover, Jack, had invited his closest friend – a fellow medical student from Cambridge – home to Inverness for the month. The three of them had spent much of that summer together, walking barefoot for miles over the soft, yielding moss of the flats by the loch, then climbing heathery slopes which recent burning had left too rough to cross unshod. As time went on, she had come to value Archie’s humour and sense of adventure as highly as Jack did; he, in turn, fell immediately in love with Scotland and – she knew, although it had never been spoken aloud – with her. They shared a passion for history and romance – in later years, it would be Archie who reawakened her fascination with theatre – and, while tramping over the white sands at Nairn or collapsing, exhausted, on the flat top of Tomnahurich, dark with cedar and with legend, they would entertain Jack for hours with richly inventive tales of Scotland’s heroes, both real and imaginary. For all of them, the month had been tinged with sadness: when it ended, both Jack and Archie were off to war, swapping the heroics of the past for supposed glories of their own. Jack’s death at the Somme just a few months later had created an awkwardness between Josephine and Archie from which they were only just recovering, and she looked forward to seeing him now, free of the strain that had hung over them for so long.
On the table in the kitchen, as if to echo her optimism, she found a box of Miel chocolates with a Bond Street stamp, a bottle of Burgundy, and a note from Archie propped up against a jug of bluebells. She read it and smiled: making herself at home wouldn’t be difficult, although the combination of beauty and indulgence boded ill for her work ethic. She had written her first mystery novel in a fortnight to meet an impossible deadline, but that was six years ago and the effort had nearly killed her, sitting up until three every morning and falling half dead into bed. She had vowed never to do it again. This book was bound to take longer, but if she could leave Cornwall with a satisfactory plot and a few thousand words, the hardest part would be over. Personally, she felt she had too logical a mind to write a real shocker, but the last novel had sold well enough to make her publisher eager for another, and she enjoyed the demands of a medium which was as disciplined as any sonnet. In any case, it would be nice to see Inspector Alan Grant again, she thought, selecting a chocolate from the box. She had grown rather fond of him in the fortnight they had spent together, not least because she had borrowed heavily from Archie to create him, and it was about time he had another murder to get his teeth into; an unbeaten case record was hardly an achievement if she only gave him an outing every decade.
In the meantime, there was dinner in a strange house to get through. The first night of any social visit was always an ordeal for her, no matter how much she liked her hosts and, even though the Motleys were easy company, the prospect of meeting their father brought out a shyness of which no amount of fame could cure her. Resisting a second chocolate, she went upstairs to change and was dismayed to find that the two suitcases which she had packed for every occasion now seemed to contain nothing remotely appropriate. Nerves made her impossible to please, and outfit after outfit was removed from its tissue paper and flung into the wardrobe with a contemptuous shake of the head. How formal would dinner be, she wondered, hesitating over a pale gold satin evening dress; then she remembered Ronnie’s casual instructions and picked up something less showy instead. In the end, annoyed with herself for making such an issue of it, she settled for a compromise, put on a blue silk trouser suit, which she hoped would impress the girls with its daring, and left the house before she could change her mind and her clothes yet again.
The heat of the day had subsided, and a slight edge to the air reminded Josephine that summer was still in its infancy. She crossed the narrow gravel driveway which ran past the Lodge and walked down to the water’s edge, where a small wooden boathouse reminded her that there was good fishing to be had in the Loe if she found time. Once again, a nagging little voice with a definite Highland twang whispered the word ‘deadline’ in her ear, but she chose to ignore it; a rowing boat in the middle of the lake would make a very satisfactory study for the preliminary plotting, she decided in her own defence, and if she came home with a couple of trout for supper, no one could accuse her of idleness. From where she now stood, she could see that an odd sort of vessel was moored at the front of the boathouse. It was more a barge than a boat, about the length of a punt but slightly wider, with a flat bottom and a raised platform rather like a bier at its centre. It seemed half decorated for something: green ribbons hung from the stern, trailing down into the water. On the floor in the middle of the craft, tucked under the platform, were some candles and what looked like a pile of garlands, presumably waiting to be draped around the edge of the barge. She couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of occasion demanded such efforts, but Ronnie’s opinion of the decor was bound to be worth hearing.
She set off for Loe House, leaving the lake behind for a moment and skirting marshes and parkland before joining the main driveway through the estate. As she followed the road around to the left and towards a tiny bridge, she saw Archie in the distance, on his way over to meet her, and realised to her surprise that she was a little nervous of seeing him, too. It was over a year since they had spent any amount of time together – and that had been in the middle of a murder inquiry which affected them both deeply and which had led to recriminations on either side as harsh as they were honest. His recent letters had been warm and friendly, but the next couple of weeks would show to what extent the air really had been cleared between them. He waved when he saw her, and she waited on the bridge, glad of the chance to spend a few minutes alone with him before meeting the others. Dressed casually in a blazer and flannels, and already tanned from the early sun, he looked more relaxed than she had seen him since that first Highland summer, before the war made him disillusioned enough with life to give up on medicine and choose instead a career which demanded a less idealistic view of human nature.
There was no sign of cynicism now, though, as he lifted her off the ground, smiling broadly. ‘You look wonderful,’ he said, ‘and I’m glad to see you made it here in one piece. I had no doubts about the train, but your escort from Penzance worried me a little – she’s been known to take three days to find her way back to the house from there. Have you settled in all right?’
‘Yes, it’s lovely,’ Josephine said, giving him a hug. ‘But the flowers on the table were enough – you didn’t have to decorate a whole boat.’
Archie laughed. ‘So you’ve seen the ferry to Avalon already?’
She looked bewildered. ‘To where?’
‘Avalon – or at least our version of it.’ They sat down on the edge of the bridge for a moment, looking back towards the lake. ‘Did I tell you that lots of the towns and villages down here still celebrate their own feast week?’ Josephine nodded. ‘Well, ours is this week – the play at the Minack is part of it, but there’s also a cricket match on the Bar, a fair down on the beach, and various processions and blessings. The boat by the Lodge is for the final night. You see, the Loe was where Excalibur was thrown when Arthur died.’
She raised a doubtful eyebrow. ‘Oh yes – the Loe and a thousand other lakes. Don’t forget – I live next door to the Loch Ness Monster. You’re talking to an expert in legends for the gullible.’
‘Kings and oversized eels are hardly the same thing,’ he said, feigning offence. ‘And anyway, none of those other lakes has Tennyson on its side. It’s all in “The Passing of Arthur” – an old chapel near a dark stretch of land, with the ocean on one side and a great water on the other.’
‘Oh well, that’s different,’ said Josephine with good-natured sarcasm. ‘If it’s that specific, it must be true.’
‘Quite,’ said Archie, laughing. ‘So every year we cast a sword into the Loe from the bank outside the Lodge, and send Arthur – otherwise known as a chap from the village – on h
is last journey across the lake to the sea, accompanied by three lamenting queens.’
‘Let me guess – otherwise known as three girls from the local Co-operative stores,’ she said wryly. ‘What happens when they get to the other side – sorry, when they get to Avalon?’
‘They have a glass of cider and a sausage sandwich – made by the Snipe if she’s here – and that’s it for another year.’
Josephine was torn between amusement and scepticism. ‘Is it all as peculiar as it sounds?’
‘Surprisingly, no. It’s actually quite spectacular – they put candles round the edge of the boat, and if it’s a clear night with the moonlight shining on the water, it looks beautiful. The lamenting can get a bit out of hand, though,’ he admitted. ‘It depends what the Co-operative has to offer. But you’ll see for yourself on Thursday – it all goes on just below your window.’
‘It’s still going ahead, then? Even after the death here?’
‘Apparently so. William offered to call it off this year because he was afraid it might be in poor taste, but Harry’s sisters insisted on having it. It’s probably a good thing – the feast week tends to bring the whole community together, and from all the bickering I saw today we could do with a bit of that right now.’
Won over by his enthusiasm, Josephine said: ‘The Lodge is stunning, but you didn’t have to move out for me. You don’t get much time here, and I could have fallen in with the girls.’
‘You wouldn’t have had any peace, though, and I know you need to work. Anyway, the Lodge is special and I wanted you to have a chance to spend some time there. I don’t mind – I quite fancy a couple of weeks in the big house, seeing how the other half lives.’
‘Playing at Lord of the Manor? I didn’t know you were really in line for it.’
‘Ronnie told you that? Thank God the family had the sense to bow out gracefully. I could never see myself taking this lot on. William’s dedication to it is extraordinary, but I don’t know where he finds the patience. I used to think the challenge of my job was dealing fairly with so many different people and trying to keep the peace in a community, but believe me – a day in Tottenham Court Road has nothing on this place. I wouldn’t last five minutes here before the temptation to bang their heads together got too much for me.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Josephine said, thinking again how at ease Archie looked. ‘You seem quite at home to me.’ She touched his forehead playfully. ‘It’s a long time since that hasn’t been knitted together in a frown. I might have to rethink my prejudice against aristocratic detectives.’
‘I wouldn’t bother. There are more than enough of those already.’ He stood up, and they walked on towards the house. ‘By the way, Bill sends you his regards.’ Archie’s sergeant at the Yard was an avid reader of crime novels in general, and a big fan of Josephine’s books in particular. ‘Between you and me, I think he’s hoping for another appearance in this new one.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised, ‘although I can’t say I’m feeling very diligent at the moment, and somewhere as beautiful as this is hardly likely to put me in the mood for murder.’
‘Don’t you believe it.’ He told her briefly about the funeral, Morwenna’s fears, and the tensions at the wake afterwards.
‘What a terrible suspicion for his sister to have to live with,’ Josephine said. ‘I can understand why she’s angry. Do you think there’s more to it than an accident?’
‘I don’t honestly see how there could be, but there’s no doubt that certain people are closing ranks about something. It’ll be interesting to see if William’s got anything to say about Harry’s death, although obviously I can’t talk about suicide. You know how indiscreet Ronnie and Lettice can be, and Morwenna wouldn’t thank me for spreading that round the estate. It’d be me they’d have to fish out of the lake next.’
They rounded another bend in the drive, and Josephine saw Loe House in its entirety – an embattled seventeenth-century mansion, with two slightly projecting wings and many features which had clearly been added at various points over the two hundred years that followed. She could see why Ronnie had warned her not to expect anything too grand: constructed of a self-effacing pale stone and topped with a grey slate roof, the building seemed to crouch into the parkland and its obvious restorations gave it a rather patched-together appearance; nevertheless, taken with the landscape on either side, there was something quite noble about the house in front of her. A long garden wall stretched out from both wings, topped to the right with a line of dark yew trees and forming a pair of linked enclosures on the left-hand side, one of which was filled with apple trees in blossom so thick that snow seemed to have settled on the leaves. Just past the kitchen garden, where the driveway joined a track leading round the lake to the sea, there were some ramshackle farm buildings and an immaculately kept stable block, built in a U-shape and crowned with a clock turret. It was just after seven, but a couple of men were still working in the yard, taking advantage of the pleasant evening and, as she watched them go leisurely about their tasks, Josephine found it hard to imagine the kind of friction here that Archie had just described. To her, Loe House seemed to be that rare sort of place which encouraged the illusion that certain corners of England might never again be touched by conflict, the sort of place where a personal life undisturbed by politics might still be possible – and for that, she blessed it.
‘It is beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said, pleased at how captivated Josephine seemed by her surroundings. ‘It does me good to see it through your eyes for the first time – I tend to forget how special it is, particularly after a day like today. Let’s go in – the Snipe has pulled out all the stops in honour of your arrival, so I hope you’re hungry.’
Josephine nodded, noticing that there were three more cars in the driveway, parked next to Archie’s and the Austin in which Ronnie had collected her from the station. ‘Is anyone else coming for dinner?’ she asked casually, waving to Lettice, who was waiting in the doorway.
‘Good God, no,’ he said, knowing how she felt about parties. ‘William isn’t the type to stand on ceremony – he just has a passion for motor cars. And apart from being proud of Lettice and Ronnie, he’s not particularly interested in theatre, he won’t have read your novels, and he has no appetite whatsoever for the London crime scene. We might even have a nice evening.’
Kestrel Jacks stood under a sycamore tree at the edge of the small clearing, smoking a cigarette and watching as the bird beat out the last minutes of its life in the trap that he had set for it. Jackdaws were less of a threat than magpies or crows, but they were still a menace in the nesting season, hunting eggs in all the likely places, and the more he could wipe out the better. It was his father who had taught him to build this particular ambush – a wire cage with an opening at the top which formed the mouth to a funnel; a pheasant’s egg, placed carefully on the grass below, was enough to seal the fate of any unsuspecting predator: as soon as a bird went down to get the egg, it lost all sense of direction and was powerless to find the narrow end of the cone which was its only hope of escape. Now, Jacks watched his latest victim panic and batter itself against the sides of the cage as it became increasingly disorientated, catching its feathers on the wire and emitting a sharp, almost doglike cry. The kind thing to do would be to wring its neck, but he waited a moment, enjoying the fact that the bird’s characteristic jauntiness had been so easily defeated. As it tired, he opened the door and walked over to where it was flapping pathetically on the floor. He picked it up by one of its wings and it lay still in his hands, seeming to know that he held its life in the balance. In that second, the bird reminded him of his wife and he turned and swung it hard against the fence, putting it out of its misery sooner than he had meant to. Annoyed with himself, he placed a new pheasant egg on the ground and shut the cage door securely behind him.
Jacks walked through the wood with the dead bird in his hand. When he got to the fence, he wound a piece of string around its ne
ck and hung it on the fence next to the others, far enough away from the trap to ensure that the carcasses did not deter other birds from showing the same, fatal greed. As he looked up from his work, he saw Penrose in the distance, walking towards Loe House with a woman he didn’t recognise. He watched as they went inside, and followed their progress from room to room through the open curtains, feeling the anger well up inside him again as he remembered the wake. Why Morwenna let that bastard get so close to her, he couldn’t imagine. When he had seen them alone together earlier, he had wanted to smash his fist into Penrose’s face and beat him to a pulp, just as he had wanted to hurt Harry Pinching all those years ago when Pinching warned him to keep away from his sister. But now, as then, he needed to play a cleverer game. He was accustomed to waiting and watching, protecting what needed protecting and destroying anything that threatened it, and he would have Morwenna, one way or another. Penrose – like that opportunist bird, the jackdaw – should look around carefully before assuming that the prize was his.
There were nine birds on the fence now, he noted with satisfaction. He was good at his job, and people would do well to remember that.
