He flashed his torch over the steps and walls as he went, but a cursory glance revealed nothing of any help to him. There would be plenty of time later for a closer inspection; what mattered now was to establish exactly what the situation was at the top of the tower. Already he had seen enough to know that there was very little chance of finding the vicar alive – depending on how long he had been there, the cold alone would have been sufficient to kill him – but it was amazing how forcefully despair and outrage could keep an unrealistic hope alive. At last he was nearing the top, and a change in the light as he made the final turn told him that the door at the head of the staircase had been left open, even before he felt the icy blast of air on his face. He slowed his pace, wary of the snow that had blown into the tower and made the steps even more perilous than they usually were. Bracing himself against the cold and the inevitable sadness, Penrose put the flashlight down on the top step and pulled himself out through the doorway.
He paused before going any further, keen to take in the scene and wary of disturbing anything when the snow made it all so fragile. The corner of the tower which held the chair was directly in front of him, and he could see immediately that Richard Hartley was beyond any help. The vicar’s body faced the open sea, his head slumped forward onto his chest – stiff and lifeless, like a deposed king who refused to leave his throne. The body was held in place by a length of rope, tied at the back of the chair, and although Penrose was at the wrong angle to see the actual wound, there was enough blood on the vicar’s clothes and the ground beneath the chair to suggest that his throat had been cut. The infinite patterns of crimson on white were shockingly vivid, and Penrose was struck by the peculiar beauty of blood upon snow.
There was a profound stillness about the scene which belied its lonely horror. The covering of snow in the narrow channel leading to the chair was scuffed and kicked, whether from a struggle or in a deliberate attempt to obscure any definite footprints it was impossible to say; either way, the marks would be of no help to him. He moved a little closer, still keeping clear of the area immediately around the body, and looked down at the dead man, noticing the raw, red discolouration on his knuckles where his skin had been exposed to the cold. His eyes were glazed and passive in death, and – perhaps the strangest detail of all – he was barefoot; the cuts and bruises on his feet suggested that he had been made to climb the tower steps without his shoes and socks. Hartley had obviously been killed after the blizzards stopped, but it seemed to Penrose that he had been on the chair for several hours, and he thought about what the vicar’s wife had said just now, on the terrace; who was the person he had gone off to see, and just how long ago had that been? It would take an expert to confirm the time of death more accurately; the snow had done its quiet work, affecting the temperature of the body, and there was little point in speculating. In any case, there were questions that interested him far more than when the death had taken place: how had the vicar been persuaded to make that fatal climb out onto the chair, he wondered, and – once he was there – why had the murderer chosen to cut his throat rather than simply pushing him to his death? And then there was the biggest question of all: as far as Penrose could tell, Richard Hartley had been a kind and decent man, so who had hated him enough to contrive this spiteful, dramatic death?
He had been too absorbed in his thoughts to acknowledge how cold he was, but as he stepped back from the body and stood by the parapet, his limbs were stiff and painful, and he tried desperately to rub the life back into his arms. Down below, he saw Hilaria come round from the church and out onto the terrace, staring anxiously up at him; he knew that she was relying on him to know exactly what to do, to take this bewildering act of violence and somehow make sense of it for her, but rarely had he felt more helpless. Cut off from the mainland and with no means of communication open to him, he had no help or support, none of the forensic expertise that was always at his beck and call, and no way of accessing any of the official records that might have made his task a little easier. He realised for the first time how much he took the teamwork of an investigation for granted. Most of all, he missed the professional camaraderie of his colleagues. The isolation – physical and emotional – was new to him, and he was painfully aware that it also carried a far greater significance: Richard Hartley’s killer – whoever he or she might be – must still be on the island, and at the moment he couldn’t decide whether to treat that as a comfort or a threat.
Reluctantly, he made his way down, nursing a gnawing if irrational guilt at leaving the vicar alone at the scene of his death; the cold and indignity had lost their power to hurt, but it seemed wrong to abandon him, and there was still the question of how long he could decently leave the body in situ while waiting for the island to become accessible again. Hilaria must have seen him leave the roof because she was waiting anxiously for him at the foot of the stairs and showed him into the vestry. ‘Well?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid he’s been killed – sometime late last night or in the early hours of the morning.’ He gave her the details as sparingly as he could, knowing that she had a right to the information but reluctant to make things any worse for her if he could help it; she would already be feeling responsible. ‘Where is Mrs Hartley?’
‘In the drawing room. Josephine and Marta are with her. She’s finding it hard to believe, and I can’t tell if it’s the shock or a more fundamental inability to understand what’s happened.’ She spoke as always with a quiet authority, but Penrose could see how devastated she was. ‘Perhaps it will sink in when we confirm the worst. Can I tell her myself?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll need to speak to her, but she’s welcome to go back to her room first as long as someone goes with her.’
‘I’ll take her and stay with her. At least it will feel like I’m doing something useful.’
‘No, I’m sorry. There are things I have to check with you before I talk to anyone else.’
‘Yes, of course there are. I wasn’t thinking. This has all come as such a shock.’ She took a deep breath, steadying her emotions. ‘Everyone out there is looking to us for direction. What do we have to do first?’
‘Will you tell Lee to send the staff back to their duties and take the guests to wait in the dining room until I can come and speak to them? All except Alex Fielding – I’ve got a job for him, so ask him to wait behind. As I said, Mrs Hartley is welcome to go back to her room or stay where she is, whichever she prefers. I’m sure Josephine and Marta will be happy to stay with her until you and I have finished here.’
‘Very well. What about Miss Dietrich?’
‘She must stay with the rest of the guests, whether she likes it or not. I don’t want her wandering round the castle on her own until we have a better idea of what’s going on. I’m sure she’ll understand.’
‘Do you think Richard’s death has anything to do with her being here?’
‘I can’t see any connections at the moment, but I’m not ruling anything out. Did the Lancasters turn up for the service?’
‘No, I haven’t seen either of them yet this morning.’
‘Then ask Lee to send someone to their room and fetch them. If they’re not there, I want to be told immediately. Do you have a doctor on the island?’