by Nicola Upson
‘You think Morwenna had something to do with Harry’s accident? That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it?’ she asked, slightly irritated by the dismissal. ‘Loveday says Morwenna lied about being at home when he went into the water, and sending you off on a suicide trail is a marvellous smokescreen.’
‘You didn’t see her,’ Archie insisted. ‘She’s devastated. The idea that Harry committed suicide is tearing her apart. You’re way off there.’
‘All right, all right – I’m only telling you what I thought.’
‘Anyway, you can’t necessarily trust what Loveday says,’ Archie continued, less abruptly but still a little defensive.
‘So everybody says, but she seemed to talk a lot of sense to me.’ They both applauded as Lettice executed a surprisingly elegant square cut for four from the last ball of the over, and Josephine decided to change the subject. ‘Anyway, discovering Loveday has given me an idea,’ she said while the fielders were swapping ends. ‘I’ve got a body on the beach, so I suppose that’s a start. I’ll worry about who she is tomorrow.’ The bowler charged in, seemingly spurred on by his team-mate’s success, and there was a dull thud as the ball hit the new batsman’s pads. ‘That looked pretty plumb to me – I think you’re in.’ Her verdict was confirmed by Jago’s raised finger, and Archie got up. ‘Good luck,’ she said, and he smiled, the tension between them disappearing as suddenly as it had arrived.
As he walked out to the wicket, Archie had to admit to himself that his reaction to Josephine’s hypothesis had surprised him as much as it had her; he was usually more objective. He chose middle and off, and made his mark on the sand.
‘Don’t make yourself too comfortable, Penrose,’ Jacks said behind him. ‘You won’t be there long.’ There was a chuckle from the slips, offered in a good competitive spirit and without a hint of the malice that lay behind the wicket-keeper’s remark. Well, thought Archie, if he wanted a fight he could have one. The first two balls were short, and he brushed them easily away towards cover for a couple of runs apiece. Comfortably back in his own crease, he smiled at Jacks. ‘It’s a shame Harry’s not here today,’ he said, aware that few things would needle Jacks more than the thought of his old enemy. ‘He was always the star of your team.’
‘We’ve started well enough,’ Jacks said. ‘We don’t need him.’
The next delivery veered wildly to the leg side. Jacks dived to his left, but the ball went wide of his gloves and sped to the makeshift boundary for four byes. ‘Are you sure about that?’ Archie asked as the wicket-keeper picked himself up and scowled. Someone went chasing after the ball, and the estate captain drew back the two slips to create a more defensive field. ‘I gather you saw the accident?’ Archie said, taking advantage of the fact that everyone else was now out of earshot. Jacks ignored him, but Archie had no intention of giving up that easily. ‘I bet your heart leapt,’ he goaded, ‘and I don’t suppose you tried too hard to save Harry.’
‘He was past saving, so don’t start coming the policeman round here. No one in his right mind would go into the Loe, and I’m certainly not playing the hero for that little shit.’
The ball was returned to the bowler, who, as Archie had suspected he would, tried to make up for the loose delivery by concentrating on a good-length ball. He played a defensive stroke, straight back down the pitch. ‘You must have thought all your dreams had come true at once with Harry out the way. It couldn’t have worked out better if you’d forced him in there yourself.’
‘It wasn’t me doing the forcing that morning. You need to look elsewhere for that.’
‘You mean there was someone else there?’ Archie could have kicked himself for the eagerness in his voice, but he managed to stop short of asking if it was Morwenna. He’d have to sound less desperate for information if he wanted to get anything else out of Jacks, who was clearly enjoying having the upper hand for a while.
‘There might have been,’ the wicket-keeper said, and crouched down ready for the next delivery.
Archie played the next ball effortlessly off his pads, edging it down to long leg, and was furious when Lettice pushed for a third run which took him away from the strike and from Jacks. Stranded at the other end, he opened his mouth to tell Jago about Christopher, but the umpire told him to be quiet before he could utter a word. ‘It’s cricket, Archie, not the bar at the Commercial. There’s been enough chat from you down the other end.’
Never mind: this was the last ball of the over, and Jacks would be back with him as long as Lettice didn’t try too hard to keep the strike. The bowler ran in purposefully, but Slogger had her eye in by now and hit the ball easily away on the off side. It went straight to the man at extra cover and there was no real hope of a single, but Lettice had a habit of being undone by her own optimism and never learned from past mistakes. ‘No!’ Archie shouted, but she was on her way down the pitch and he had no choice but to run as well. He had started far too late to stand any chance at all: the ball was already coming in from the fielder and, although he dived recklessly for the crease, his bat held out in front of him, he was unlucky with the quality of the throw. Jacks swept the bails off easily, and Archie found himself face down in the dirt.
There were cheers from the crowd and the estate team circled round the jubilant fielder – all but Jacks, who bent down low and spoke quietly to Archie. ‘You might want to ask young Christopher Snipe what he was doing out by the lake that morning,’ he said. ‘He’s got a throwing arm almost as good as Roland here, and he put it to good use that day.’ His face was so close that Archie could see the spittle at the corners of his mouth, but his pride – or what was left of it – kept him from moving away. ‘Christopher doesn’t know it, but I saw him waiting for Harry in the bushes with a rock in his hand. I suppose I could have stopped him, but I don’t like to interfere in other people’s business. It’s live and let live down here, except in Harry’s case of course, so I let him throw the rock at Harry’s horse and I watched as it bolted.’ He stood and looked down at Archie. ‘If you must know, I was cheering all the way, but I’d like to see you arrest me for that.’
Archie got up and looked at Jago, but he was talking to the other umpire. Jacks, too, had gone off to celebrate with his team-mates, so he walked back to where Josephine was sitting, thinking about what he had heard. Eager to share it with her, he cut short her commiserations on his run-out.
‘Do you believe him?’ she asked when he had finished.
‘I don’t know. It might explain why Christopher’s suddenly gone missing. Perhaps he did know he was seen after all, and thought it was only a matter of time before Jacks mentioned it. I have to say, it sounds more likely to me than Morwenna taking revenge on a violent brother.’
Anything would sound preferable to that, Josephine thought, but she said nothing. A small boy suddenly appeared from the direction of the church, and ran over to where William was sitting with his increasingly dejected batting side. She and Archie watched as he listened to the boy, then exchanged places with Jago, who hurried back off towards the village. ‘I suppose that means curtains for Mrs Trevelyan,’ Archie said drily. ‘It’s reassuring to know that not even cricket can stand in the way of a good send-off.’
‘Didn’t you tell me that Jacks was in love with Morwenna?’ Josephine asked thoughtfully.
‘Obsessed by her would be more like it, but what’s that got to do with anything?’ She just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re not suggesting that he’d make up something like that to protect her? Surely it’s much more likely that Christopher has panicked and run off?’
‘Wouldn’t he have done that a lot sooner if he was going to?’ Josephine knew she was playing devil’s advocate, but Archie’s stubborn resistance only made her more determined to argue her case.
‘Maybe.’ He thought about it. ‘If it is true, though, I wonder why he’d do it? What could Christopher have against Harry?’
Reluctant as she was to give up her theory, Josephine came cle
an with Archie and told him what Loveday had said about the fight and Christopher’s resentment of it. To his credit, he managed not to look smug. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll give Jago a bit of time, then I’ll see if he can shed any light on what these secrets might be.’
*
The cricket match was well underway when Jasper Motley made his way slowly down the narrow path which led from the rectory to St Winwaloe’s, but he had no desire to take any part in it. If his brother wanted to convince himself that he was running a peaceful estate where everyone lived in perfect harmony with one another, then so be it, but it would take more than a game of cricket and a handful of festive days to make the pretence a reality: it was human nature to hurt and dominate, and that was as true here, in a place of beauty, as it was in the bleakest of city slums. A pretty backdrop was nothing more than that – and he had his own charade to maintain before he concerned himself with William’s fantasies.
It was another warm day, and the sweat was already running down his back by the time he had walked the short distance to the churchyard. He stopped just inside the gate, running his finger round the inside of his collar and regretting the excesses of his lunch, and looked out over the yew hedge to the stretch of sand below. There was, he feared, more to the discomfort he felt than indigestion: it was pointless to pretend that what he had overheard in the church that morning had not unsettled him, but the important thing was to keep calm and decide what to do about it. He heard Loveday’s singsong voice again in his head, and turned instinctively to look at the pile of fresh earth that marked her brother’s grave. The girl was a halfwit; you only had to look at her behaviour yesterday to realise that, and, if he had his way, she’d be taken straight to the Union now that Harry was dead – along with that cold bitch of a sister, who seemed completely unable to control her. William would never countenance such a thing, though; apart from anything else, it would be tantamount to an admission of failure on his part. But something would have to be done now that Loveday had started to spout her nonsense to strangers – someone might take her seriously. As it was, he was sure that the dark-haired woman had caught him listening from the vestry; he wondered who she was and what she was doing on the estate.
The path to the south porch took Motley past his own family plot, and he paused briefly by the grave where his sister, Elizabeth, was buried with her husband; next to them, a simple stone stood over the final resting place of William’s young wife. Both graves were, as always, marked with flowers, and the understated bluebells – the flower of constancy, he remembered bitterly – opened the door to that familiar twinning of jealousy and spite which accompanied any reminder of his childhood. His earliest memories were of exclusion and resentment: despite being born between his brother and sister, he had never been able to insert himself into their affections or, failing that, to undermine the bond they had with each other. His parents had always been scrupulously egalitarian in their love, but that simply made Jasper despise them for being too dishonest to admit that he was cared for less than the others, and, in any case, no amount of fairness could compensate for the injustice of being born in second place. As he grew up, he learned to reward himself with petty retaliations – usually against his sister – to show how little he needed their approval or any wholehearted acceptance into the precious family ring. If he could not be part of something, it seemed reasonable to him to sully or destroy it – and, before he knew it, that childish logic had become the private religion upon which Jasper built his adult existence.
He turned away from his buried resentments and went back inside the church, where he sat down heavily in the vestry. The slightest exertion left him short of breath these days, and years of immoderate behaviour were finally catching up with him. Is that what it had come to, he wondered, looking around at the tricks of his godly trade. Would a little breathlessness and a modest annuity be all that he had to show for his life? He laughed to himself as he remembered the look on his parents’ face when he had announced his intention to go into the Church; they knew as well as he did that he had no calling for it, but he stuck to his decision, realising that it would offer him certain privileges and comforts which it would have been harder to come by any other way. It was a position of power, although he never fooled himself that his teachings could influence anyone: the vast majority of local people went to chapel rather than church, and it wasn’t difficult to please a minority who were already convinced of their status. At first, he tried to fake a sincere piety but he soon realised that the effort was more than his flock required; they were creatures of habit, as undemanding in their worship as he was lethargic in his preaching, and he felt no connection with his community. He knew that and so did they, and it would have been hard to say who cared about it less. In the early days, the Church had at least afforded him certain sensual pleasures: the music and intoxicating smell of incense; the chink of coins on a collection plate; the placing of a communion wafer on an eager young woman’s tongue. Now, any sensual pleasures he took were as worn and as dirty as the ageing altar cloth.
Which brought him back to the problem of Loveday Pinching and his curate. He had always despised Nathaniel for his faith and his obvious popularity but, after what he had heard earlier, his hatred intensified as any emotion does when mixed suddenly with fear. Determined not to panic, he tried to judge what he could get away with – personally and professionally. His wife would turn a blind eye to most things as long as her standard of living was not affected, and family ties would no doubt outweigh any rumours of pilfering and hypocrisy as far as William was concerned, but the slightest whiff of a more serious scandal would leave his brother no choice but to act, even if it was not a criminal matter, and that was something he absolutely refused to risk. How much did the curate really know, he wondered, and what could be done to ensure that it could never be used against him? He could combat the threat of shame with shame, of course: satisfying his needs in secret was second nature to him after all these years, but no man – if he was honest – was any different, and he had heard Nathaniel asking his God for forgiveness at the altar one day when he thought he was alone – but forgiveness for what? He had no idea what sin Nathaniel was guilty of, let alone any proof, and he doubted that it was serious enough to serve his purpose. As he looked around the vestry, trying not to give in to the anxiety that gnawed away at him, his eye fell on a brown monk’s habit which hung next to Nathaniel’s surplice and altar robes. He knew it was only the costume for a play, but its insistence on chastity spoke to him as accusingly as if the curate had been present to deliver the reprimand in person, and anxiety turned quickly to anger. Why, after all this time, should he be made to feel guilty by a weak and ignorant boy? And why here, in his own church, where even God had never been able to touch his conscience?
Jago Snipe’s workshop was in the village, in a narrow lane which ran between the backs of two rows of houses and rose sharply at the far end. The workshop was on the left-hand side of the street, just where the hill was at its steepest, and Penrose – feeling the climb in his calf muscles – sympathised with those who had to carry anything other than themselves up the slope. The two-storey building was set back slightly from the road, and the sound of sawing came from the ground floor, making it clear where Jago was to be found. Penrose walked across the yard towards a set of double doors, whose paintwork – which was chipped and rather shabby – claimed the colour of brick but not the endurance. The right-hand door was open, and a solid chain and padlock hung redundant from its handle. Penrose could see Jago inside, bent low over a piece of wood and dressed in a pair of bib-and-brace overalls, pulled hurriedly on over the shirt he had worn for the cricket match. The undertaker was intent on his work, and only looked up when Penrose knocked.
‘Archie,’ he said, sounding surprised and a little suspicious. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about Christopher, but we can make it another time if you’re too busy.’
> Jago glanced over at another man who was busy polishing the lid of a coffin towards the rear of the workshop. ‘Take a break, Jim,’ he said, ‘You’re making a first-class job of that, and we’ve got a bit of time yet.’ Jim looked curiously at Penrose, but gladly exchanged his cloth for a packet of tobacco and nodded as he went out into the yard. Jago beckoned Penrose inside. ‘Whatever it is you’ve got to say, you’ll have to do it while I’m working. Mrs Trevelyan won’t bury herself.’
‘That’s fine,’ Penrose said. ‘I won’t keep you long.’ He stepped into the narrow, low-ceilinged workshop and looked around. The building was out of the sun and very little daylight made it over the threshold, so a row of hurricane lamps provided the light to work by. Two benches, each about four feet wide, ran end to end, punctuated by heavy wooden vices and decked with large piles of shavings. There was a stack of oak by the door, and a larger pile of elm – more suitable for most people’s pockets, Penrose guessed. The wood, which probably came from the Loe estate, was laid flat with strips in between to allow the air to circulate and season the timber, and the smell of it filled the room, reminding Penrose of a walk through the woods after rain. Several different groups of tools were displayed here and there, sharp and immaculately kept, and Archie was touched to see a set which looked much newer than the rest. He could imagine the pride with which Jago had handed them over to his son, looking forward to the years of working together and, eventually, to the time when he could let the business go altogether, confident that it was in safe hands – the hands that he had trained himself.
He watched as Jago resumed sawing through the elm, carefully judging how far he could go to ensure that the wood could be safely bent to form the coffin sides, and opened the conversation as casually as he could. ‘No sign of Christopher yet, then?’
