Angel With Two Faces (20 page)

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.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Josephine.

‘Nathaniel seemed troubled of late. He wouldn’t talk about it, and I suppose it’s arrogant of me to think that I could have helped if he had. But I wish he’d come to me, and now it’s too late.’ She turned back to Josephine, and the anxiety in her eyes was infectious. ‘Whatever happened here tonight, I don’t believe it was an accident. It’s too much of a coincidence, coming so soon after Harry.’

It seemed to Josephine that the time to keep silent out of loyalty to Archie’s confidences was long gone, and this cloud of secrecy was beginning to irritate her. In any case, she had no doubt that Morveth would see right through any pretence that Archie had not discussed people on the estate with her. ‘Do you mean it was suicide or murder?’ she asked bluntly, and then, exasperated by Morveth’s reluctance to continue the conversation she had started: ‘Look, if you know something about Harry’s death
or
Nathaniel’s, you must tell Archie, even if it affects someone he cares for. Does it have something to do with Morwenna? Or Kestrel Jacks? Or your vicar?’

The older woman looked genuinely startled. ‘Why should it have anything to do with them?’

‘Well, Morwenna’s taken against Nathaniel for some reason,
I doubt there’s a woman on the estate who doesn’t know what Beth Jacks goes through behind closed doors, and I can hardly believe that Jasper Motley is particularly well disposed to his curate after that little stunt with the coins. And that’s just what
I
know about after two days here.’

‘What are you talking about? What stunt?’

‘During the play – didn’t you see it?’

‘No. I had to go back to the bus for something.’

Morveth listened quietly while Josephine described the improvised scene which had taken place in her absence. ‘You’ve no idea what that man is capable of,’ she said at last.

‘The obvious inference is that he’s defrauding the Church of funds, but Loveday told me that much. She also said that Nathaniel had found out about something more serious. Perhaps that’s earned him more than he bargained for – more than a book off your shelf, at least.’

Morveth looked at Josephine with a growing respect. ‘You’ve met Loveday, then? What do you think of her?’

‘I like her very much. She says what she means, and so far she’s the only person I’ve met here who does anything of the sort.’

Her honesty seemed to defuse the tension and drew a reluctant smile from Morveth. ‘I don’t know a better way of finding out what someone’s really like than through their reaction to Loveday,’ she said. ‘Most dismiss her instantly; some feel sorry for her; only a handful are wise enough to listen to her.’ She held out her hand again, and Josephine sensed a fresh start between them. ‘I can see why Archie trusts you,’ Morveth continued, ‘and I’ll ask something from you, if I may. The past is dead and buried now. Don’t let Archie unsettle it if there’s anything you can do to stop him.’

Was Harry the past, Josephine wondered, or was Morveth speaking metaphorically? She didn’t seem the type to deal in clichés. ‘Archie’s a policeman,’ she said, more gently this time because the request had been a plea rather than a threat. ‘I can’t stop him doing his job if that’s what it comes to, and I wouldn’t try.’

‘He’s a policeman in London, yes, and a good one I’ve no doubt. Here, he’s vulnerable because he cares too much. He could so easily lose himself again, just like he did when his parents died – like he did when he came back from the war. You and I both know how close to despair he’s come in the past, and how distant he can be.’

Josephine was disconcerted by how much Morveth obviously knew about her shared past with Archie, but she, for her part, knew that his commitment to the truth was more than a professional obligation. ‘If you’re telling me that Archie is the last person to ask for help when he really needs it, then I couldn’t agree with you more, and I’ll always support him if he’ll let me – but I can’t ask him to turn his back on something that matters to him, particularly when I don’t even understand what it is I’m asking.’

‘Not even if there are things he’s better off not knowing?’

‘You see? That’s exactly what I mean. If you stopped talking in these ridiculous riddles for a moment, I might have a better idea of what I’m supposed to help you protect Archie from. What sort of things is he better off not knowing?’

Morveth turned to her, and it occurred to Josephine that she had rarely seen a face with more strength in it. ‘Archie’s mother, Lizzie, was my closest friend,’ the older woman said quietly. ‘In the days leading up to her wedding, I could see
something was bothering her, and we took a boat out on the lake to talk. It took her a while to tell me, but she was worrying about whether or not to tell her new husband that her brother, Jasper, had taken advantage of her.’

‘The vicar?’ asked Josephine, shocked.

Morveth laughed bitterly. ‘Yes, the Reverend Motley. It began when she was ten and he was thirteen, and continued on and off for three years. By that time, getting pregnant frightened her more than he did, so she had the courage to defy him and lock her bedroom door at night so that he couldn’t come and go as he pleased.’

Her words echoed Loveday’s description of Morwenna’s behaviour with Harry, and Josephine was more convinced than ever that she had been right about the violence in their relationship, but it was Archie’s family which concerned her more at the moment. ‘Did William know?’ she asked.

‘No. She didn’t tell anyone while it was happening because Jasper had convinced her that it was her fault for leading him on, and that she would be the one to be punished if they were caught. And afterwards, when her parents had died and William inherited, she couldn’t tell him because she knew he’d force Jasper to leave and she was afraid of the scandal. Shame is a powerful emotion, isn’t it? Much more powerful than love or even jealousy. She told her husband, James, though, and her marriage was the stronger for it, but it was her worst fear that her son would find out. She never wanted him to think of his mother as frightened and ashamed, you see. It was obvious to everyone that she despised her brother, because she rarely set foot inside that church from the day he was ordained, and she left him a pinch of salt in her will. No one really knew why she hated him so much, though, except Archie’s father, and he was
a good man – wise enough to see that loving Lizzie was much more important than punishing Jasper.’

‘Do you think that’s what Nathaniel knew?’

‘I doubt it. I don’t see how he could have found out. There are only two people left alive who do know; one of them certainly won’t want it talked about, and I’ve only ever told you. But that’s what I mean – it’s all very well to say truth must out, but it’s not always best; sometimes the braver thing is to keep silent. There’s a darkness in most households if you look hard enough; you just have to do the best you can with the knowledge you have.’

Josephine doubted that Morveth would trust her with any knowledge of the Pinching family, but she needed to ask the question. Before she could think of the best way to phrase it, however, there was a murmur of relief from the stage as the powerful headlights of two police cars and an ambulance appeared at the top of the slope. Morveth walked over to stand with Nathaniel’s parents while William greeted the officers, and the opportunity, for now, was gone.

Penrose waited with Nathaniel’s body while the police made their way across the rocks. The senior officer introduced himself and Penrose gave a succinct account of what had happened, then left the team to its work and retraced his footsteps wearily round to the outcrop, where a more secure method of access had now been put in place.

William and Rowena Cade were standing on the backstage path with a distinguished-looking man who was familiar to Penrose but whose name he did not know. ‘This is Chief Constable Stephens, Inspector,’ explained Miss Cade. ‘He’s always been a great friend to the Minack and to me, and I
wanted him to know what had happened straight away.’ And to find out what it means for your theatre, Penrose added mentally, but he could not blame Rowena Cade for her concern; the Minack was her vision and, by all accounts she had created it virtually single-handed and spent a considerable amount of her own money on it. In her position, his priorities would have been exactly the same.