‘Didn’t you say she was nearly in tears in your room? Perhaps that’s connected.’
‘I thought it was to do with her daughter, because she’d just mentioned her, but that could have been a coincidence.’
‘What about the vicar, though? Could he have seen something incriminating?’
‘So she forced him up the tower and slit his throat?’ Josephine shook her head. ‘It’s ridiculous that we’re even having this conversation.’
Marta drained her sherry. ‘I’m not sure I can face a cold table. Perhaps we should just go to bed and hope it’s all been a terrible dream.’
Josephine knew exactly how she felt. As a child, she had always dreaded the end of Christmas Day, clinging like Cinderella to every last bit of magic, as if that could somehow delay the stroke of midnight; now, she couldn’t wait for the day to be over.
There was a knock at the door, and Marta got up to see who it was. ‘Do you mind if I join you for a moment?’ Hilaria asked.
‘Of course not. Come in.’
‘Is there any news from Archie?’ Josephine asked.
‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’ Hilaria looked at the photograph albums that he had brought from the museum. ‘Have you been through those?’
‘With a fine-tooth comb, but we haven’t found anything.’ The albums had been meticulous in their recording of every significant moment in the Mount’s recent history – royal visits, family weddings, losses during the war – but they had given up no secrets relating to Richard Hartley or his death. ‘We know a lot more about the island,’ Marta added, ‘but that’s all.’
‘How is Mrs Pendean?’ Josephine asked. ‘It must have been a terrible shock for her.’
‘Yes, it was, but she’s remarkably resilient. I’ve just been down to see her, and she’s insisting on coming back to work to keep busy, even though there’s very little for her to do. This isn’t quite the house party we were planning.’ Hilaria smiled sadly, then added: ‘She’s a strong woman, and she knows her own mind. That hasn’t always made for the easiest of working relationships, I have to admit, but I can’t fault her loyalty.’
‘And she has a daughter?’ Josephine said.
‘Jenna, yes. She left us earlier this year, so it’s the Pendeans’ first Christmas without her. That can’t be easy.’
‘Do you mean she died?’
‘What? Oh no, that wasn’t a euphemism. Jenna took holy orders.’
‘She’s a nun?’ Josephine had to hide a smile at the unabashed horror in Marta’s question.
‘A novice, yes. She takes her final vows in a couple of months.’
‘Then she might as well be dead as far as her mother’s concerned,’ Marta said. ‘I’m not surprised Mrs Pendean’s upset.’
‘Upset?’
Josephine repeated their conversation from the night before, and Hilaria sighed. ‘Yes, she’s still grieving, I suppose – that is the only word for it. It’s put a great strain on them both, but on her in particular. She and Jenna were always so close.’
‘It’s not the sort of loss you expect to have to deal with, is it?’
‘No. It’s a great source of pride for the island, of course, a link back to our past, but at what personal cost?’ She paused for a moment, and Josephine wondered what she was going to say. ‘The convent asked me for a letter of testimony,’ she admitted. ‘It’s standard procedure, apparently, to ask people about the candidate’s life, but it put me in an impossible position.’
‘Because she wasn’t suitable?’
‘No, precisely the opposite. It felt like a betrayal either way – the girl’s wishes, weighed against the mother’s love. I was having that very conversation with poor Richard only last night.’
Josephine was quiet for a moment, struck by the intense, everyday sadnesses that were simultaneously hidden and aggravated by Christmas, borne stoically behind closed doors. ‘Did Mrs Pendean know Emily Soper well?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes, they’ve been friends for most of their lives. She was telling me just now how guilty she felt about her death, when—’
‘Guilty?’
‘Yes. She was punishing herself for not checking on Emily as soon as she realised that she wasn’t at the morning service. She wouldn’t have missed that for the world. I told her it would have made no difference by then, but she wouldn’t have it.’
‘Did you tell her that Mrs Soper was missing from church?’
Hilaria looked surprised by the question. ‘No, I didn’t mention it. She brought it up, so she must have noticed herself.’
‘But she couldn’t have done,’ Josephine insisted. ‘The Pendeans arrived late, if you remember, and they never got to the church. Mrs Pendean was so upset by what she saw on the tower that she went straight back to the castle. She wouldn’t have had a chance to look at the congregation, so how could she possibly know that Emily Soper wasn’t there?’
11
Penrose put the telephone down, shocked by the brutality of the news from London, even though he had feared the worst. Had Alex Fielding been murdered simply to pave the way for someone with a very different agenda to take her place, he wondered, or was there more to it? The details of the photographs that Fallowfield had found in her suitcase bewildered and troubled him. Thinking back, he vaguely remembered a woman among the crowd of regular journalists who covered the city’s high-profile crimes, but he hadn’t known her name or even which newspaper she represented, and she had certainly never spoken to him. If that had been Alex Fielding, he was at a loss to know why she had found him so interesting.
He glanced at his watch, assessing how long he might have to wait for the back-up from Penzance; he would rather not make an arrest until they arrived, but neither did he want to waste time. Looking through to the bar, he studied the suspect now firmly in the frame for at least one murder, and was annoyed by his own reluctance to believe it – annoyed because the feeling had nothing to do with evidence or logic, but with the simple fact that he had come to like the man who called himself Fielding. There was no doubting the deception, though, and something as audacious as this could surely only have been achieved by someone familiar with the photographer, or at least with her lifestyle; the impostor had been convincing enough to fool most of them, and if Marlene had been less knowledgeable about photography, he would probably still be getting away with it.
Dick Robertson’s line was engaged, but he got through to the editor at the second attempt. ‘Mr Robertson? It’s DCI Archie Penrose. One of my colleagues should have been in touch with you …’
‘Yes, just now. I’m still trying to take it in. Have you got the bastard who did it?’
‘That’s why I’m phoning. I was hoping you might be able to help me identify the man who’s been passing himself off as one of your photographers.’
There was a silence at the other end, as Robertson considered the implications of what Penrose had said, and the instinct for self-preservation kicked in. ‘You think he’s connected to this paper?’ he asked guardedly. ‘Unless you’re sure, Penrose, I’d be very careful—’