The Secrets of Winter

by Nicola Upson

‘And is Gerald Lancaster your real name?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘And what do you do for a living?’

  ‘I’m a railway porter.’

  ‘For which company?’

  ‘London, Midland and Scottish.’ Penrose made a note of the details, and the simple act of committing evidence to paper seemed to focus Lancaster’s fear. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said repeatedly. ‘You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know the man. Why on earth would I want to kill him?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I can’t imagine why you would force your wife to climb onto St Michael’s Chair either, so forgive me if I don’t automatically take your word for it. But you stand by your statement? You left the church with your wife and were in your room with her all night?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  He seemed sincere, and Penrose couldn’t rule out the possibility that Rachel Lancaster had seen a solution to her unhappiness in refusing to give her husband an alibi, salvaging her freedom from his guilt; he wouldn’t have blamed her for it, but he couldn’t make assumptions either way. ‘Mr Lancaster, when we get back to the mainland, you will be taken to a police station for further questioning about Richard Hartley’s death, and charged with theft and fraud. I will also be asking your wife if she would like to press charges for assault. In the meantime, you’ll be kept under supervision at all times, and you’re not at liberty to move about the castle or speak to your wife or any of the other guests. Is that clear?’ Lancaster nodded. ‘Good. Please go with Mr Lee.’

  Penrose watched them go, relieved at least that the suspect wasn’t putting up a fight. He fastened the suitcase to take with him, and ran into Hilaria in the corridor outside. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she asked. ‘I was just leaving Angela’s room when I saw Mr Lancaster being escorted downstairs. Did he kill Richard?’

  Penrose brought her quickly up to date. ‘You’ll be glad to have this back. It was quite some stash that he was planning to get away with. Does the name Joan Pascoe mean anything to you?’

  ‘Vaguely. Why?’ Hilaria listened as he explained Lancaster’s connection to the Mount. ‘I still don’t see why that would give him cause to murder poor Richard.’

  ‘No, neither do I, other than raising the possibility that they met before Richard moved to London. I suppose there’s a chance that Richard might have cottoned on to what Lancaster was doing.’

  ‘Even so, it seems a very extreme reaction. Better just to put the stuff back and deny all knowledge of it.’

  Penrose agreed. ‘How is Mrs Hartley?’ he asked. ‘Josephine told me just now how distressed and confused she is, but I will need to speak to her.’

  ‘She’s staying in her room for the time being, and I’ve asked someone to sit with her. You’re welcome to go in now, but I doubt you’ll get anything coherent at the moment. She’s very anxious about Richard’s body and how long he’ll have to stay up there, and she doesn’t seem capable of focusing on anything else. I told her I’d ask if you intended to bring him down soon.’

  It was the question that Penrose had been wrestling with, both morally and practically. He would dearly have loved a forensic opinion on the murdered man in situ, but that might not be possible for hours yet, and there was decency to consider, as well as the body’s vulnerability to birds and other predators. ‘I don’t suppose you have an undertaker on the island?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. We use Brooks, but his workshop is at the other end of the causeway. There are some good men in the village who would do it respectfully, though, and it seems right to let Richard rest in the church while he’s with us. I’m happy to oversee it now if I have your authority. To tell you the truth, I’d be pleased to have something useful to do.’

  ‘All right, thank you. I’d appreciate that, but please make sure that the church is locked at all times now. I’m sorry if that compromises its importance for you.’

  ‘I understand. These are hardly normal circumstances.’ Not for the first time, Penrose was grateful – in the absence of his professional colleagues – to have support from someone so calm and dependable in a crisis. ‘Why do you think he was killed up there?’ she asked tentatively, as if she were half afraid of the answer. ‘Was it just an obscene gesture, or is there a meaning in it that ties his death to the Mount?’

  ‘I’m trying to keep an open mind at the moment,’ Penrose said. ‘I’d have said the latter if we hadn’t been talking about St Michael and the chair at dinner – after that, everybody knew that it’s freely accessible and what it symbolises, so it doesn’t have to have been an insider.’

  ‘What it symbolises?’

  ‘Yes – dominance, prayer, judgement. St Michael was the weigher of souls at the Last Judgement, wasn’t he? Separating the blessed from the damned. Perhaps someone thought the Reverend Hartley set himself too high in the world. Or perhaps it was simply the most frightening death imaginable. Either way, I’ve rarely seen a murder that looked more staged.’ His words had hardly reassured Hilaria, so he tried to offer something more positive to offset them. ‘I’d really like an up-to-date assessment of the tides. Short of a confession, there’s only so much I can do without some outside help. If I can call the Yard, I can at least ask some questions about the people here who are strangers to us. Something useful might come up. And I’d like to talk to Richard’s sister-in-law. She’s local, isn’t she?’

  ‘St Ives way, I believe. I expect Angela will go to her, for the time being at least.’

  ‘And she might be able to give me a better picture of Richard’s life and associates. I feel as though I’m fumbling in the dark at the moment.’

  ‘Would you like me to send for Pendean so you can talk to him about getting across to the mainland?’

  ‘Yes please, and I’ll make a start on questioning the staff.’

  ‘Do you want to speak to them individually?’

  ‘No, it will save time if I see them all together, perhaps in the servants’ hall? If I’m honest, I don’t hold out much hope of their being able to tell me anything specific enough to be of use.’ He rubbed his hand wearily across his face. ‘In fact, hope of any sort is in pretty short supply at the moment.’

  ‘You’ll get there, if anyone can – and don’t forget that some of the staff bedrooms overlook the north terrace, so somebody might have seen something. I’ll go downstairs and tell them all to gather in ten minutes.’

  ‘Make it fifteen. I want to look at Richard’s room first, and I’ll try not to keep them from their duties for too long.’

  She smiled sadly. ‘Suddenly their duties don’t seem very relevant, do they? It hardly matters if lunch is late, when no one has an appetite. Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘No, I’ve been too busy.’

  ‘I’ll make sure there’s something downstairs for you.’

  She left with a renewed sense of purpose, and Penrose tried to do the same, although his hopes of finding something out from the dead man’s room yielded nothing more useful than evidence of an orderly disposition and a liking for Agatha Christie; a brand-new copy of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas sat waiting to be read on the pillow, but the bed had obviously not been slept in. He headed back to Chevy Chase, conscious that his abrupt departure with Lancaster had left everyone else without any definite instructions. The guests seemed to have paired off, he noticed. Marta and Josephine were sitting together by the fire, and the Lord Lieutenant’s daughter was talking earnestly to Rachel at the other end of the table. Marlene was in full flow, holding a coffee cup and pacing up and down as she talked to Fielding about Hollywood. She broke off as soon as she saw him. ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Where’s Gerry?’ Rachel asked anxiously. ‘Has he gone back to our room?’

  ‘No, he’ll be kept apart from everyone else until I’ve had a chance to speak to him again, this time under caution.’

  She looked relieved. ‘But you found the stuff?’
/>   ‘Yes.’

  ‘Rachel’s worried sick that she’ll be incriminated, too,’ Barbara said. ‘I’ve told her she’s got nothing to be frightened of. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  Penrose ignored the question and spoke to the group as a whole. ‘You’re welcome to stay here now or go back to your rooms, whichever you prefer. I would ask you to be vigilant at all times, though, and if anything out of the ordinary happens, please report it straight to me or to Miss St Aubyn. She’ll talk to you about the plans for the rest of the day.’

  ‘It’s hardly going to be charades round the fire now, is it?’ Fielding said. ‘Can I call the office? We’ll need to re-plan the feature.’

  No prizes for guessing the direction that the coverage would now take, Penrose thought, but he didn’t blame Fielding for prioritising his work; this assignment was a gift to his career already, but now even more so. ‘There are no telephones working at present,’ he said, glad not to have to worry about headlines for the foreseeable future, ‘but you can speak to your editor when there are, as long as you don’t give away any information which might jeopardise the investigation.’

  ‘Is there anything we can do to help?’ Josephine asked.

  He appreciated the concern in her voice. ‘Nothing at the moment. I’ll come and talk to you all again later.’

  The stairs down from the dining room were a short cut to the servants’ quarters. The smell of Christmas hit him, a rich, nostalgic blend of sage, roast turkey, bacon and spices, and just for a moment he allowed himself the luxury of its normality, finding something comforting in the illusion of the day played out as it should have been: the familiar, dissonant sounds of ordinary tasks, hollowed and amplified by the cold, stone floors; a distant babble of female voices, whose easy gossip was such a welcome contrast to the grief and fear upstairs. The castle’s vast kitchen rattled to the sound of pans boiling steadily on the range, but the room itself was strangely deserted and he realised that he was late for his rendezvous with the staff.

  Mrs Pendean was looking out for him and she showed him through to the servants’ hall, where around a dozen members of staff were seated at benches on either side of a long wooden table. The room struck him as particularly cheerless, painted a drab shade of green with no carpet and very little furniture, but its chilliness was probably a welcome relief to those whose faces were flushed from the heat of working in the kitchens. The buzz of conversation ceased as soon as the housekeeper set foot in the room, and Penrose wondered if their respect was for the role or for Mrs Pendean personally. She introduced him and he thanked them all for coming, then outlined the basic circumstances of the vicar’s death. ‘Which of you was responsible for looking after the Reverend Hartley while he was here?’ he asked, and a footman put up his hand. ‘Didn’t you think it was strange that he wasn’t in his room this morning?’ Penrose persisted, when the evening routine had revealed nothing of interest.

  ‘I didn’t know, sir. I asked him what time he’d like to be called this morning and he told me not to bother because he was an early riser and wanted to go to the church first thing. He didn’t even want morning tea, and I got the impression he preferred to be left alone. Some guests are like that. They don’t want the fuss.’

  ‘And Mrs Hartley?’ The housemaid who responded was similarly unforthcoming, except to say that Mrs Hartley was a nice lady, whose only difficulty had been in making up her mind about her clothes. ‘What about the other guests? Did anyone see Mr or Mrs Lancaster after dinner? Or someone in a part of the castle that seemed strange to you?’ There was silence around the table and Penrose knew that he was wasting his time. ‘Which of you have bedrooms overlooking the north terrace?’ he asked, and three housemaids raised their hands, glancing nervously at each other. ‘Did you see anyone coming and going to and from the church last night?’ Two of them shook their heads immediately, but the third girl – the one who had been waiting on Mrs Hartley – hesitated, and Penrose looked at her. ‘Did you see something out of place?’ he asked again.

  ‘Not really out of place …’ She broke off, torn between honesty and discretion, and Penrose waited impatiently as she looked to Mrs Pendean for guidance.

  ‘Is it me you’re thinking of, Rosie?’ the housekeeper asked, and the girl nodded vigorously, obviously relieved to have the decision made for her.

  ‘You were at the church last night, Mrs Pendean?’ Penrose asked, trying to keep a note of judgement out of his voice as he wondered why she hadn’t said anything before.

  ‘Yes. I always go last thing on Christmas Eve, just to make sure that everything’s ready for the following morning. The church is my responsibility, you see – always has been.’

  ‘And what time was this?’

  ‘Oh, quite late. Just after midnight, I’d say. Would that be about right, Rosie?’

  ‘Something like that, Mrs Pendean. I saw you as I was drawing my curtains, so it must have been around then.’

  ‘Thank you, Rosie,’ Penrose said. ‘Does anybody else have anything to say? In that case, I’ve kept you from your work long enough, but if I could have a private word with you, Mrs Pendean?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He waited while she dismissed her staff and instructed one of the kitchen maids to bring him some breakfast, which arrived almost immediately. ‘How are you?’ he asked, when she had settled again. ‘It must have been such a shock for you.’ She stared at him, thrown by the change of tone. ‘To see the vicar’s body this morning?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course. It’s a terrible thing to have happened here. This is a quiet place these days, in spite of its history. We’re not used to violence.’

  How inconsiderate of Richard Hartley to have brought it here, Penrose thought cynically, but he wasn’t surprised that the islanders’ first thought was for the impact on the Mount’s tight-knit community; things would no doubt be different if one of their own had been killed. ‘Were you in the church for long last night?’ he continued.

  ‘No, not long at all. Ten minutes at the most, I’d say.’

  ‘And did you go there on your own?’

  ‘Yes. Other people had been coming and going, obviously, because there was a path trodden through the snow, but that’s not unusual. It’s a beautiful church and most of us use it, especially Miss St Aubyn. It was empty when I went in, though.’

  ‘But it’s possible that somebody could have been in the tower?’

  She looked suddenly frightened. ‘I didn’t go to the tower. Why would I?’

  ‘No reason at all, and that wasn’t what I meant. I just wondered if you saw or heard anything out of the ordinary while you were in the church? Anything at all, even if it didn’t seem significant at the time.’

  She considered the question, then answered it reluctantly. ‘I did hear someone in the tower last night.’

  ‘Go on,’ Penrose said, resisting the temptation to curse her for not saying so earlier.

  She shrugged. ‘That’s it, really. I heard someone coming down the steps, so I hid in the hermit cell.’

  ‘Why, if you were doing nothing wrong?’

  The ‘if’ obviously grated on her, but she didn’t argue. ‘It was late, and I didn’t want to see anyone, so I waited there until I heard the main door close. Then I left and went straight home.’

  ‘So you have no idea who it was?’

  She shook her head. Penrose studied her face, noticing how tired she looked. He remembered what Josephine had said the night before about her being upset, and wished he had taken more notice. ‘How long have you worked here, Mrs Pendean?’ he asked.

  She seemed more guarded as the questions took a personal turn, but answered them readily enough. ‘All my adult life,’ she said. ‘I grew up here, and my first job was as a stillroom maid. That was the best part of forty years ago now.’

  ‘And you’ve worshipped at the church all that time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you’ll have known the Reverend Hartley before he moved to London.�
��

  ‘I knew of him, that’s all. You don’t know someone personally just because you’ve heard him preach or waited on his wife.’

  ‘Of course not, but I wondered if you could think of any reason at all why someone might want to do this to him?’

  ‘No, absolutely not. It’s a wicked thing to do.’

  There was a knock at the door, and Tom Pendean put his head round. ‘Miss St Aubyn said you wanted me, sir?’ He looked with concern at his wife. ‘Everything all right, love?’

  She stood up, obviously embarrassed by the term of endearment while she was at work, and Penrose thanked her for her help. ‘Mr Penrose was just asking about the Reverend Hartley,’ she explained. ‘He wondered if I could remember anything that might help, back from when the vicar used to be chaplain here.’

  ‘You should talk to Emily Soper, sir, if you want to know anything about the island.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘She’s got the museum at the head of the causeway, and what she doesn’t know herself she can always look up. There are photographs and newspapers going back years down there, as well as all the general displays.’

  ‘Mr Penrose isn’t here for a history lesson, Tom,’ the housekeeper said impatiently. ‘He’s got more important things to do than look for a needle in a haystack, and you know how Emily likes to talk. It’s you he wanted to see.’

  ‘Actually, that might be very useful,’ Penrose said, looking at his watch, ‘but first I need to know if there’s any chance at all of getting to the mainland? I know low tide isn’t for an hour or two yet, but is there anyone who would be prepared to take a boat across with me?’ Pendean looked doubtful. ‘I don’t want you to take any risks, but I really can’t stress how urgent this is.’

  ‘All right. I’ll take you, but I’ll need some help.’

  ‘Tom! It’s not safe!’

  ‘Let me talk to some men down in the village,’ Pendean said, ignoring his wife’s protestations. ‘If you can wait, the best thing might be to go for the causeway at the lowest point of the tide. We’ve done it before, with a few of us roped together, so if I can get a couple of volunteers, I’m happy to give it a go.’