The Secrets of Winter

by Nicola Upson

  Josephine looked at Marta, baffled that the pressure to make every Christmas a happy one was so deeply rooted in the English psyche that not even murder could get in the way. ‘Please don’t think about it,’ she said, horrified that Mrs Hartley should be blaming herself on top of everything else she must be feeling. ‘I’m just so sorry there isn’t more thatwe can do. It’s precious little consolation, I know, but your husband couldn’t be in better hands. Archie won’t rest until he finds out who did this.’

  ‘But it’s all my fault.’

  Marta took her hand, so affronted by the idea that she spoke almost angrily. ‘Of course it isn’t. Why on earth would you say that?’

  ‘Because it’s true. Richard only came here to make me happy. We don’t usually go away for Christmas, and I know how special he was trying to make it for me – and why. There’s an irony in that, don’t you think? In wanting to make it memorable. Only for this to happen.’ She wound the silk round each hand and pulled it tightly, as if she could take her frustrations out on the material. ‘We’ve tried not to let it spoil our marriage, but we never thought …’

  The emotion in her eyes was too much, and Josephine had to look away. The shock of finding herself so suddenly alone would be devastating enough for Angela Hartley, but her obvious reliance on her husband made her even more vulnerable now that he was gone. ‘How long had you been married?’ Marta asked.

  ‘The fifth of September 1910, before we moved to London. I wish we’d never come back, really, but Richard was only trying to help.’

  ‘Did something happen last night, Mrs Hartley?’ Josephine asked, and then, when there was no response: ‘When did you last see your husband?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to remember. I know it’s important, but the harder I try, the more confusing it becomes.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘It’s all so muddled, you see.’

  Marta gave Josephine a warning look, discouraging what was beginning to sound like a police investigation, but she ignored it, spurred on by a troubling suspicion that she should have done more to help last night; if she had waited with Mrs Hartley, or even gone to look for the vicar herself, things might have turned out very differently. ‘We bumped into each other in the corridor,’ she prompted gently, ‘and you said he’d gone to talk to someone. Do you know who it was?’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember now. You were very kind, and you showed me the way back to my room.’

  ‘That’s right. Then what happened?’

  ‘I was cold, so I got into bed and waited for Richard to come and say goodnight, but I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember him coming back.’

  ‘So you didn’t see him again, last night or this morning?’

  ‘I didn’t see him …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I heard him. That’s right – it’s coming back to me now. He must have woken me when he got back to his room. We’d left the adjoining door open, you see, and I could hear him moving about. I remember thinking that he’d be anxious about the service. He often had trouble sleeping, especially before an important day.’

  ‘But you didn’t see anyone, so you can’t be sure it was him?’

  ‘Who else could it have been?’

  ‘No one,’ Marta said firmly, before Josephine could answer. ‘Of course it was your husband.’

  ‘Unless I dreamt it,’ Mrs Hartley said, suddenly doubting herself again. ‘I might have done. I really can’t be sure.’ She looked to Josephine for reassurance. ‘Did I go to look for Richard?’

  ‘You said you were lost on your way back from the bathroom, but your dressing gown was wet, as if you’d been out in the snow. Do you remember going out on the terrace?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps I went to the church.’

  ‘Is that where your husband was planning to meet someone?’ Josephine might have imagined it, but the expression that passed briefly across Angela Hartley’s face looked less like confusion than fear. ‘Is that why you went outside?’

  ‘I needed to give Richard his tippet before the service started. I found it in the case while I was getting dressed, and I knew he’d need it.’ She began to cry, and it would have been futile to ask anything further, even if Josephine had had the heart to. ‘This is all such a muddle,’ the vicar’s wife protested through her tears. ‘Where is Richard? Why isn’t he here to make sense of things for me?’

  It was impossible to tell if the question was a symptom of the anger that so often accompanied sudden bereavement, or of Angela Hartley’s general state of mind; either way, Josephine could think of no response to the injustice of it, and was relieved to see Hilaria making her way across the terrace to take over from them. They stood helplessly by as she tried to comfort the vicar’s wife, who eventually asked to go back to her room, then headed for the dining room to join the remaining guests.

  ‘If there is a war, they’ll be after you for the interrogation unit,’ Marta said as they walked down the Long Passage. ‘What was that third degree all about? Surely you don’t suspect her of killing her own husband on top of a tower in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. That wasn’t what it seemed like, was it?’

  ‘A little. Carry on in that vein and you’ll make Archie look like a rookie copper on his first big case.’

  Josephine smiled, in spite of the circumstances. ‘Well, I doubt that all the experience in the world will get him any further with Mrs Hartley.’

  ‘What exactly do you think she can tell him?’

  ‘I think she knows – or at least suspects – who her husband was going to talk to.’

  ‘But why would she hold something back that might help catch his killer?’

  Josephine shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m wrong, and she really can’t remember. Or perhaps she’s frightened of being targeted herself.’ She stopped before they reached Chevy Chase and took Marta’s hand. ‘It hadn’t even occurred to me until now, but what if this isn’t the end of it? What if someone else is in danger?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s occurred to Archie,’ Marta said. ‘Why else would he want us all gathered together in one place?’

  It had obviously occurred to their fellow guests, too, because every member of the group seated in the dining room seemed on edge as Josephine and Marta walked in. The atmosphere was oppressive, like the heavy silence that invariably follows a row, and when Rachel Lancaster looked up nervously to see who the newcomers were, Josephine was shocked by the livid purple marks on her temple and cheekbone. Breakfast had been laid out along one side of the room, but no one had touched it, and the long refectory table now seemed absurdly large for the dwindling number of guests. The Lancasters, Marlene and Barbara Penhaligon were clustered together at one end, an improbable attempt at solidarity that only served to emphasise the desperate situation in which they found themselves. Each place setting was finished off with a small Christmas stocking, personalised to a particular guest, and Josephine counted it a blessing that Fielding and his camera were absent from the room: it would have been hard to imagine a picture which contrasted more sharply with Hilaria’s hopes for the weekend than the scene in front of her, and she wondered where the photographer had got to.

  Marlene followed her gaze to the stockings and picked up the one in front of her. ‘It was kind, wasn’t it? Miss St Aubyn doesn’t deserve to have such sadness brought into her home. It will never be the same again for her.’ She got up and walked purposefully across to the bank of silver dishes, as if doing something practical could somehow salvage Hilaria’s good intentions. ‘We should have coffee and something to eat. It will help us to think more clearly.’ She began to put eggs, bacon and toast onto six plates, and Josephine remembered what Archie had said about her kindness on the journey down; a motherly instinct was not something she would have associated with the film star, but she liked her all the more for it. No one argued as she passed
the food round, but there was very little appetite amongst the group, and Marlene herself ate less than anyone.

  ‘How is Mrs Hartley?’ Rachel asked, pushing her plate away and looking directly at Josephine and Marta, as if daring them to mention the bruises that hovered unacknowledged on the edges of the conversation. ‘I can’t imagine how she’ll cope. They were so happy together.’

  It was a very definite statement for such a brief acquaintance, and Josephine wondered if the two women had confided in each other the night before, or if happiness was simply the accepted thing to assume after a death; somehow, she couldn’t imagine the same formality being extended to the Lancasters if one of them had been murdered in the night. ‘She’s in shock,’ Marta said, ‘and it’s hard to know how much of what’s happened has really registered yet. Hilaria has taken her to her room to lie down.’

  ‘I’ll call in on her later, if that’s allowed.’ Josephine noticed Gerald Lancaster glance sharply at his wife, but he said nothing. He, too, was pale and heavy-eyed from the excesses of the night before, and she could only speculate as to what had gone on after the couple retired to their room.

  Marlene got up again and poured the last of the coffee into her cup, then rang the bell for more. ‘I think I must have been the last person to see the Reverend Hartley alive,’ she said, drawing the focus of the gathering as deftly and surely as she did a camera’s. ‘He came to my room last night. We had a drink, and we talked.’

  ‘Why?’ Barbara Penhaligon asked, and there was a childish note of petulance in her voice, as if she resented the fact that Marlene seemed on the verge of taking the starring role in another, far more important, drama.

  ‘Because I invited him.’ Barbara repeated her question, this time even more vehemently, and in the pause that followed, Josephine realised that she had been completely wrong about the voice she had heard in Marlene’s room; no wonder Archie had ignored her innuendo. ‘I met him in the corridor last night on my way to bed,’ the actress said. ‘He was upset – crying, actually – and I thought it was because of the talk of war at dinner.’ She looked pointedly at Barbara. ‘He was chaplain at a clearing station near the Somme during the war, and it cannot be easy to live with those memories.’

  ‘And was that the reason?’ Josephine asked, conscious of how intently they were all awaiting the answer.

  ‘No, it wasn’t. It was because of his wife. He had been talking to her about their wedding, but she couldn’t remember it. She pretended to, but he could see in her eyes that it was lost to her. It was the first time that had happened, and he knew it was going to get worse, because he had seen it all before. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing the only person who shared his most intimate memories. Happiness was like guilt, he said; it only existed if someone could bear witness to it.’

  There was a long silence in the room as everyone considered the vicar’s words and what their significance might be. ‘Mrs Hartley told us that her husband had gone to talk to someone,’ Marta said eventually. ‘Do you think he meant you?’

  ‘Me? No, I don’t think so. We made no arrangements to meet – it happened by chance, and he came straight to my room. If he told her he was going to talk to someone, he must have meant someone else.’ She thought about it for a moment, then added: ‘Lots of things seemed to be troubling him. He said how ironic it was that his wife should be losing her grip on the past, while his was coming back to him when he least expected it.’

  ‘Did you ask him what he meant by that?’

  ‘No. Again, I thought he was talking about the war. It’s only because of what has happened that I’m wondering about it.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell Archie all this as soon as he gets here,’ Josephine said.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Marlene sat down and lit a cigarette, staring at Barbara Penhaligon through the smoke. ‘You seemed very anxious to know about Reverend Hartley just now,’ she said, as the pause became uncomfortable. ‘Is there something bothering you?’

  ‘He’s dead. Of course I’m bothered.’

  Barbara lit her own cigarette, gesturing with it like a weapon, but the effect wasn’t quite the same without the film star’s cool self-assurance. ‘No other reason?’ Marlene persisted.

  ‘Like what?’

  The actress shrugged. ‘Perhaps you’re wondering if your friend really did go back to the mainland?’

  ‘Just what are you suggesting?’

  She was prevented from answering by Alex Fielding, who was shown in by the butler. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Lancaster demanded, and the tension that had been building between the two women shifted seamlessly to a different part of the room. ‘We were told that everyone had to gather here immediately, so what’s so special about you?’

  Fielding ignored him and went straight over to the fire. His shoes and the turn-ups of his trousers were soaked through, and he was obviously chilled to the bone. As he rubbed the life back into his arms, Josephine noticed the moss stains and cobwebs that had dirtied his mackintosh. ‘I’ve been up that bloody tower,’ he said, when he was finally beginning to get warm. He gestured to the camera that he had dumped on the table as he came in. ‘Penrose wanted me to take some photographs. Believe me, Lancaster, I’d much rather have been sipping coffee here with the rest of you. Get off your high horse.’

  ‘So you’ve seen his body?’ Barbara said. ‘What exactly happened to him? No one will tell us anything.’

  Fielding glanced at Josephine, and she wondered if he would have been less discreet if Archie’s friends hadn’t been in the room. ‘I can’t tell you anything either,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Strict orders from on high to keep schtum.’

  More coffee arrived, and once again Marlene did the honours. Fielding took a hip flask from the pocket of his coat and poured the last of its contents into his cup. Josephine noticed how badly his hand shook as he drained the coffee in one go and accepted another. Although he had kept his promise to Archie, the ordeal of what he had witnessed – presumably in intimate detail, if the photographs were to be used as evidence – was written all over his ashen, haunted face, and Josephine’s sadness for the Hartleys only deepened.

  Fielding seemed lost in his thoughts, isolated from the rest of the group, and she tried to think of something to say to distract him, but Marlene beat her to it. She got up and disappeared briefly into the library next door, returning with a pile of the week’s newspapers that Hilaria was keeping there as a record of the Mount’s recent publicity. ‘I have been meaning to congratulate you,’ she said to Fielding. ‘There was a picture of yours that I so admired in here, and I wanted to talk to you about it.’

  The photographer seemed pleased but a little apprehensive, as he always did when the film star singled him out for attention. ‘Which one is it?’

  ‘The river at dusk,’ Marlene said, flicking through the pages. ‘That was you, wasn’t it? With the trams and the skyline and the reflection of the lights on the water?’

  ‘Probably. We have to take so many, especially at this time of year. And with an assignment like this on the horizon, some of the more run-of-the-mill stuff gets forgotten.’

  She smiled. ‘Mr Fielding, do not be so modest. You should be proud of such a picture.’ She found what she was looking for and beckoned him over. ‘See? You have composed it very well, but lots of people can do that. It’s the light that brings it to life, those things that we were talking about last night.’ They looked at the photograph together, and Josephine was struck again by Marlene’s kindness as she tried to replace the recent, traumatic images in Fielding’s mind with a different, more innocent picture. ‘Such a lovely interplay of soft lights and shadows and half-tones that you could almost believe it was colour. The sky was a deep blue, yes?’ He nodded. ‘I thought so. The best time to photograph a city. In film, we call it the magic hour, just before everything fades to black. And you?’

  ‘The same,’ Fielding said, becoming more animated. ‘That’s exactly what it feels like when you get i
t right – magic.’

  ‘Well, you most certainly have got it right here. Look at the light trails on the bridge. A fast shutter speed, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course. As you said, it’s the magic hour, and an hour isn’t long to get what you need.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Marlene nodded thoughtfully, still looking at the picture. ‘I hope your photographs of me turn out as successfully, Mr Fielding.’

  The room fell into silence again, and Josephine was beginning to wonder where the next minor skirmish would erupt when Archie appeared in the doorway. He gave a cursory glance round the room to make sure that everyone he expected to see was there, then sat down at the end of the table nearest the fire, refusing Marta’s offer of coffee. ‘As you will all know by now, Richard Hartley was murdered …’

  ‘What we all want to know, Penrose, is how quickly you can get us off this fucking island.’

  Archie glared at Lancaster. ‘I’m afraid no one is leaving this island until the circumstances of Reverend Hartley’s death are more firmly established.’

  ‘But that’s outrageous!’ Barbara argued. ‘What will my father say? You can’t keep us here against our will.’

  ‘Actually I can, Miss Penhaligon, but even if I couldn’t, I think you’ll find there’s little point in arguing when the tides are running in my favour. Now, it would save us all a lot of time if you co-operated with these inquiries rather than obstructed them. I’m sure your father would give you exactly the same advice, and I’m more than happy to check with him as soon as the telephones are working again. In the meantime, perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me the benefit of the doubt and tell me where you were late last night and in the early hours of this morning?’

  ‘In bed, of course, like everyone else.’

  ‘Except two people, at least. So you went straight to bed after leaving the drawing room?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you didn’t leave your room again until this morning?’

  ‘Only once, to go to the bathroom.’