by Nicola Upson
He flushed, and Marta suddenly understood what he had meant. “Ah, you mean Josephine was trying a spot of matchmaking?”
“Something like that, although I think it was more Jack’s idea, and we never really hit it off.” He looked down at the list again and changed the subject. “Well, I can help you with Simon Cassidy for a start. He died in prison about five years ago.”
“Really? I don’t suppose it had anything to do with a nasty accident in a greenhouse?”
“I’m afraid not. Just a common or garden financial scandal. Cassidy was a member of parliament for one of the home counties constituencies during the 1920s—quite high profile and a cabinet minister for a while, but he fell from grace when a journalist exposed him for swindling his way to a fortune by selling bonds and siphoning off most of the cash. I can’t remember all the details or when he went to jail, but I do know that they eventually traced his misdemeanors back to the war—and this will interest you. He might have got over the bonds business—people don’t really care about that sort of financial fraud—but nobody was going to forgive him when it came out that he’d been abusing his position in the Ministry of Food, taking backhanders from foreign farmers to downplay the urgency of British food production.”
“My God, so that means he’ll have had things to hide during the period we’re talking about?”
“Yes, although I’m not sure how a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl would have worked that out when he managed to fool the government.”
“But if she did, it would have given him a motive to silence her.”
“Hard to prove now that they’re both dead.” He drained his glass and grinned at her. “I don’t know how you’ve got the cheek to say that Josephine’s taking this too far. You seem quite keen on getting to the bottom of it yourself. The same again?”
“Yes, but I’ll get them. Can I get Phyllis a drink while I’m there?”
“She seems to have something different every time we go out, so you’d better wait and see.”
“Right, let’s talk about Harriet and George,” Marta said when she got back from the bar. “My money would be on one of them having killed Dorothy, which is why I’m worried about Josephine seeking them out. How easy is it to trace someone after so long?”
“Not very easy at all. There are electoral registers, of course, so you could start with Devon—where you know they were living, at least for a while—and work from there. It has to be said, though, if someone really doesn’t want to be found, the chances are that they won’t be, and if they’ve been harassed to the extent that you say they have, they might even have changed their names. Leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can do.” He made a note on the piece of paper she had given him, then asked, “Who’s Vera Simms? You’ve starred her, so she’s obviously not a Moira House girl.”
“She worked for Harriet and George. There’s a possibility from something Josephine overheard that she and Harriet were conspiring over something, perhaps even having an affair.”
“So Vera would be a suspect if that was one of the secrets that Betty and Charity found out?”
“I suppose so, but the implication of what Josephine heard was that Vera wanted George to know, so on that tack we’re back to Harriet again—or her cousin.”
“That must be Peter Whittaker,” Archie guessed. “He’s the only name left on the list.”
“Yes, and he hated George, apparently. Perhaps Dorothy too if these are anything to go by.” She reached for her bag and took out the sketchbook that she had borrowed without Josephine’s knowledge. “We’ve just found out that Whittaker died in the war, but these are his. Josephine described them as rehearsals for Dorothy’s murder, and she’s got a point.”
Archie studied them closely. “If he did them,” he said, flicking through the pages.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, look at the picture of the body in the greenhouse compared to the one hanging in the barn—one is much more confident than the other.”
Marta looked again and saw that he was right. “One is pencil and the other is pen and ink, though,” she argued. “That makes it harder to compare them.”
“It might just be that, I suppose. You’d have to get an expert to be sure.” He fell quiet, and she knew what he was thinking; the person who would have known—Bridget—was no longer here to ask.
“You didn’t know Whittaker, I don’t suppose? He was convalescing at Summerdown, even though he spent most of his time at the farmhouse.”
“No, but there were thousands of soldiers passing through that place.” He returned the sketchbook and said, “I’m glad you told me about this, and I’ll do my best to help—but Josephine certainly shouldn’t go and see anyone on her own. Why do you think she’s so set on it?”
Marta shrugged. “I know she liked George and Harriet, but I think the fact that they were so badly hounded makes her more sympathetic to them than she might otherwise be. There was a lot of prejudice against them, apparently, and she can’t help putting herself in their position and wondering what people will find out about her.”
“Yes, I suppose she must have been terrified.”
Marta looked at him, confused. “I meant now—with our relationship. She’s frightened that someone will make that public.”
“Of course.”
He had backtracked quickly, but not very convincingly. “You didn’t mean that, though, did you?” Marta persisted. “You said she must have been terrified, and you meant at the time. Is there something she’s told you and not me about that summer?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Archie.”
“I’m not lying. Josephine hasn’t told me anything.”
“But …?” His silence gave Marta time to think, and she remembered how awkwardly Josephine had behaved at the theater, how she had kept Jeannie’s letter to herself and how emotionally charged—in hindsight—some of Jeannie’s comments had been. “It’s Jeanette Sellwood, isn’t it?” she said. “They were more than friends.”
“I don’t know that.”
“But you suspect it. That’s why you asked me what Josephine had said about her. You thought she’d have told me.”
“Yes, and the fact that she hasn’t probably means I’m wrong.” He surprised her by taking her hand. “Look, Marta, I’ve probably misled you, and I shouldn’t have. It was very clear to me at the time that Jeannie had no interest in me, despite Jack’s best efforts, but she obviously cared a great deal about Josephine.” Coming from some men, Marta might have seen Archie’s reasoning as a way of protecting his ego from a woman who simply wasn’t attracted to him, but Archie wasn’t like that, and she believed him. “She was upset and angry about Josephine and Jack,” he added, “but that doesn’t mean that her feelings for Josephine were reciprocated.”
“No, I don’t suppose it does,” Marta said, relieved to think that an unrequited love would also explain everything that had worried her, “and I honestly think she’d have told me if there was more to it. There’s no reason not to, for God’s sake. It was years ago, and we’ve always talked about the people in our past without any jealousies.”
“Exactly, and if you still have doubts, just ask her. Josephine would never do anything to jeopardize what you have—you’ve both fought too hard for it.” He looked at his watch. “We’d better leave for Bodmin soon if you’re to get your train. Shall we go and look for Phyllis?” She nodded and followed him to the door. “Is there anything else you want to say about the case before you go? We were rather sidetracked just now.”
“I can’t think of anything except perhaps to ask you what it would take to reopen it. Do you think, from what you’ve read, that there’s any chance of another investigation? An official one, I mean—not trial by the press or amateurs like us shuffling round in the dark.”
“I doubt it, and certainly not without at least one piece of tangible new evidence.”
“Like?”
“A witness coming forward who saw
what happened—but even that would be circumstantial. There’s no chance of any new medical evidence now, and anyway, there’s no confusion over how Dorothy died. Did anyone check for fingerprints on the glass, by the way?”
“I’ve no idea. I don’t think it was mentioned at the inquest, so probably not.”
“I can have a look at the file for you and find out exactly what was said. But short of a confession—which seems unlikely after all these years—I really don’t think we’ll ever know.”
CHAPTER 3
There was silence in the auditorium as the final scene of The Laughing Woman drew to a close in front of a rapt full house. Josephine sat in one of the boxes, her attention equally divided between the audience’s response and the action on stage, where her character, Ingrid—now fallen on hard times—sat in an art gallery by the sculpture that gave the play its title, forced to listen as a party of school children talked casually about the bust of her younger self and René’s death on active service. She had feared during rehearsals that the ending might prove too sentimental, but the shadow of the war was still strong, particularly in the current climate, and as the curtain fell, the audience was visibly moved. Keynes was first to his feet to applaud his wife, but the rest of the stalls soon followed, and the cast enjoyed three enthusiastic curtain calls before the lights came up in the auditorium, and a satisfied crowd filed out into the crisp night air.
Marta squeezed Josephine’s hand. “Absolutely brilliant,” she said. “Congratulations. Are you pleased?”
“I’m just relieved at the moment, but I will be when I’ve had a chance to take it in. The cast was wonderful—every single one of them worked so hard. I just hope the critics agree.”
“Bugger the critics, darling.” Ronnie leaned forward from the seat behind to give Josephine a hug. “What do they know?”
“At least you won’t have to wait until you’re dead to get the recognition,” Lettice said bitterly, still emotional from the sculptor’s fate in the closing scenes. “Poor René. All that talent and passion, and what does he get? A cursory glance and a cardboard label.”
“Yes, well, that’s life for you,” muttered her sister, ever the more philosophical of the two. “And I bet they even spelt his name wrong, but at least we can still have a drink in his honor. Come on. Two solid hours of clay and angst has made me thirsty.”
The Motleys headed upstairs to the theater’s restaurant for the first night party, and Josephine rolled her eyes at Marta. “Well, that’s the best review of the night so far. I’m going downstairs to thank the cast. Come with me.”
“No, tonight’s for you and them, so go and make the most of it. I’ll join Ronnie and Lettice and see you up there.”
Josephine watched her go, concerned by how preoccupied she had seemed since her trip to Cornwall. She knew that Marta was worried about the work she would lose when the Hitchcocks went to Hollywood, and it was typically unselfish of her not to want to dampen the celebrations around the opening night by raising the subject, but Josephine was glad to have the play up and running so that they would have more time to talk.
“Congratulations, Miss Tey. A tour de force, if I may say so.” Josephine glanced automatically toward the voice at stage door, but her smile froze when she saw whom it belonged to. “Or should I be calling you Miss Daviot tonight?” the woman continued. “That’s your stage pseudonym, isn’t it? So many names, so many masks. If I had a suspicious mind, I might wonder what you were hiding.”
“When it comes to false identities, you make beginners of us all,” Josephine said with a deadly civility. “How are you, Charity? I had a feeling we might be bumping into each other.”
“Very well, thank you, and yes—this meeting is long overdue.” Charity looked her up and down, and Josephine was ashamed of how relieved she felt that her former pupil had sought her out on a night when she could at least begin to compete with the exquisite Schiaparelli dress and expensively styled hair that Charity wore so well. As Faith Hope, Charity might have sunk to the gutter with her work, but the social advantages which had made her stand out so awkwardly at Charleston had obviously not deserted her in later life; Josephine found herself wondering if Miss Ingham had ever had the dubious pleasure of educating the younger members of the family. “Betty was right,” Charity said. “You have changed—although not in all respects, I gather. How is your friend? Is she here tonight—or far too busy with the Hitchcocks?”
It couldn’t have been more than a stab in the dark, but Josephine silently cursed herself for how many details of her life she had already given away. She obviously should have thought more carefully about having that conversation with Betty Norwood, but it was too late now, and she was determined not to let her concern show. She walked up to Charity, conscious that several other people were milling around by the stage door, waiting to speak to her. “It’s ironic how life turns out, isn’t it?” she said, paraphrasing Jeannie’s observation from the other night. “There was a time when you’d do anything you could to avoid spreading the muck. Now you make a living out of it. It was nice to see you again, but I must go and speak to my cast.”
Charity put a hand on her arm. “Just a minute—I thought we might have a little chat first. I’ve come a long way.”
“Have you? From where I’m standing, you’ve hardly moved at all, and the only thing I’ve got to say to you is this: if you publish one damned thing about me, I’ll sue you.”
“That’s really not very friendly, Josephine. And you’ll want to hear this, I think—it’s about you and Mrs. Priestley.”
“Who?”
In her panic, Josephine didn’t even think about Jeannie’s married name, but Charity took great pleasure in clarifying what she meant. “I’ve got my version of what you and Jeanette Sellwood were doing on the night that Dorothy Norwood was killed. This is your chance to give me yours.”
“You’ve already spoken to Mrs. Priestley,” Josephine said, gambling on Jeannie’s discretion. The name fell awkwardly from her lips, utterly disconnected from the person to whom it belonged, but she tried to put her feelings about that to one side. “I’ve got nothing more to add.”
“So you’re still in touch? How nice, after all these years, but then you always were very close.”
Josephine longed to wipe the knowing smirk off Charity’s face and give her a genuine grievance to write about, but she knew when she was beaten. “All right,” she said. “I’ll give you five minutes, but not in here.” She led the way out to St. Edward’s Passage and walked past the church, lighting a cigarette to buy herself some time to think. “What do you want to know?” she asked, turning to face Charity.
“If you can give Mrs. Priestley an alibi for that night. She very nobly refused to commit you to one, but I thought—as you obviously once cared about her—that you might want to help.”
“An alibi?” Josephine stared at her in astonishment, beginning to feel as if she had walked straight out of one theater and into another. “Why on earth would she need an alibi?”
“Well now, let’s see. What she might or might not have told you is that several of us knew exactly what was going on between the two of you. Girls pick up on things, don’t they, especially at that age, and you surely don’t think that we stayed dutifully in those shepherd huts on a beautiful summer’s night? No, you weren’t the only people sneaking out into the garden under the cover of darkness, and we’d see you having heart-to-heart conversations and God knows what else.”
“But we weren’t doing anything—”
Charity held up her hand to interrupt. “Betty and I weren’t terribly pleased about the way we were treated, at the college and at Moira House.”
“Jeannie stuck up for you.”
“She humiliated us in front of Peter, and—”
Now it was Josephine’s turn to interject. “Is that what this is really all about? Some adolescent grudge because you found out that Peter Whittaker had made a play for Jeannie and you were jealous?”
The news stunned Josephine. “And making her think it was from Dorothy, I suppose.”
Charity smiled, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. “We even said that we might pop into the Ram Inn and tell her parents. I imagine that made her quite angry.”
Josephine was about to insist again that there was nothing to tell at that time, but of course it wasn’t true; their affair might have begun on the day of Dorothy’s death, but the attraction and the intimacy—even the love—were there long before that, and there was no point in trying to deny it. She remembered how hurt and upset Jeannie had been in the bar that afternoon, as her father so innocently deflected the gossip, and wondered why she had never said anything about the threat from the girls that hung over them both. The obvious answer was that she didn’t want to frighten Josephine away, and it hurt her now to realize how predictably she had justified Jeannie’s lack of faith in her. “Get to the point, Charity,” she said, more defiantly than she felt. “Your time’s running out.”
“Very well. Let’s talk about the night of the murder. Betty heard you and Jeannie coming back in the van together, and you told her the other day that Jeannie had gone to the house to fetch some coats.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Was she a long time fetching those oilskins?” Josephine hesitated, knowing that Charity was right. “Did she even have them when she eventually got back to the greenhouse? Betty says that she didn’t. So what was she doing in between leaving you and coming back?”
To her dismay, Josephine realized that Jeannie was damned either way; she knew too that she could save herself simply by telling the truth and saying what Charity wanted to hear—that Jeannie had been missing at the time of Dorothy’s death—but the words would have choked her. “Let me make this very clear,” she said, scarcely daring to think of what the consequences might be. “Jeannie did leave me to go and fetch some coats, but she came back almost immediately because the rain was torrential. We sheltered together, and you can read into that what you like, but I doubt that many people would find anything shameful in two women taking refuge from a storm. Then we heard the screams coming from the greenhouse, and I went to see what was wrong while Jeannie went to find Miss Barker or Miss Hartford-Wroe. So you have your alibi. Jeannie was with me.”