by Nicola Upson
‘Right-o, sir. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Telephone Claridge’s and ask someone to go and look at Marlene Dietrich’s Christmas tree.’
‘Her Christmas tree?’
‘That’s right. I haven’t got time to explain, but I need to know if it’s still got a snowman on top.’
‘Of course you do, sir.’
Penrose smiled. It was a relief to talk to someone who could not only help, but who also understood the pressure that he was under, and he felt better simply for giving the instructions. ‘I’m going to call the local force down here now and get reinforcements over to the Mount as soon as possible, together with some forensic help. I’ll also try to track down Hartley’s sister-in-law and break the news – she might be able to tell me something useful – but I want any information as soon as you have it. If the line is engaged, just keep trying – there’s only one bloody telephone here.’
Fallowfield rang off, and Penrose noticed Jonathan’s fiancée waiting to speak to him. ‘Can I help you, Miss …’
‘Carter. Violet Carter. I can see you’re busy, so I won’t keep you, but I just had to ask if what you said to Johnny about last night being too late to help was right, or if you were just being kind?’
‘No, I wasn’t being kind. We’ll have to wait for an expert to confirm a more precise time of death, but I’m as sure as I can be that Mrs Soper died much earlier in the day.’
‘Thank God,’ she said, looking relieved. ‘It was me that held us up, you see. Johnny would have been hell-bent on getting there last night, but I talked him into booking us in here. We didn’t always get on, me and his mother, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get over there. Now I feel awful about it, but you know what it’s like. Families at Christmas …’
He smiled. ‘How well did you know Mrs Soper?’
‘Not very well at all. We’d only met a couple of times, but that was enough to remind me that no girl will ever be good enough for a boy’s mother.’ She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t personal, but Johnny meant the world to her. He wasn’t as close to his father – always said his dad never really wanted to take him in.’
‘Take him in?’
‘Yes. Johnny was farmed out when he was a baby.’
‘And his real family?’
‘He doesn’t know, and he’s never wanted to. I’d be curious, but perhaps that’s a woman’s thing. He’s not bothered.’
‘Do you know Mrs Soper’s maiden name?’ Penrose asked, wondering if it had been an informal adoption within the family or something more official.
‘No, sorry.’ She glanced back to the bar, where her fiancé was sitting silently with Trannack and Mathews. ‘He wants to go back to the Mount with you. Will that be all right?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘They look after each other over there, don’t they?’ she said, and he couldn’t tell from her tone if she meant it as a blessing or a curse. ‘What an awful thing to happen. I bet that other woman’s pleased she missed it now.’ She noticed his bemused expression, and added: ‘One of the guests who was booked in at the Mount. She was here last night when we arrived.’
‘Mrs Carmichael?’ Penrose asked, remembering Hilaria’s missing guest.
‘I don’t remember her name, but she signed in just before we did. She said she was here as a surprise for someone.’
That was strange, Penrose thought; Hilaria hadn’t said anything about a surprise. He wondered which guest the late arrival was connected with, and looked round for the hotelier to see if there was any information he could add, but he was far too busy in the dining room with a Christmas pudding and a bottle of brandy. Violet thanked him again and returned to the bar, and Penrose went back to the telephone but it rang before he got there. ‘What have you got for me, Bill?’ he demanded, much to the surprise of the woman on the other end who was calling about a last-minute room for the night. ‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to call back later,’ he said, replacing the receiver. It rang again immediately. ‘We’re fully booked,’ he barked down the telephone.
‘Moonlighting again, sir?’
‘Bill, thank goodness. Anything useful?’
‘I tracked Dick Robertson down over his Christmas dinner,’ Bill said, and Penrose recognised the animated tone of voice that the sergeant always used when he had something important to report. ‘I thought you’d want to hear this straight away.’
‘Go on. Have you got a description?’
‘I have, but I don’t think you’ll need it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because whatever your bloke looks like, I’m sure he doesn’t answer to the name of Alexandra.’
‘Alexandra?’
‘That’s right, sir. Alex Fielding – the one who works for The Times, at any rate – is a woman.’
Penrose was quiet for a moment, trying to take in the news. ‘So where is she?’ he said, as much to himself as to Bill. He looked at the man who called himself Fielding, now sitting with the rest of the islanders and engrossed in conversation. ‘And who the hell is he?’
‘I can’t help you on the second one, but I’ve got Miss Fielding’s address. It’s in Southwark. Do you want me to send someone round to have a look while I carry on here?’
‘No. Give the phone calls to someone else and go yourself. I need every scrap of help from that house, and you’re the best pair of eyes I know. What do we know about her?’
‘Young, ambitious and very talented, apparently. She’s put a few people’s backs up to get where she is, and she doesn’t always play by the rules.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The first thing Robertson said when he knew who I was calling about was “What’s she done now?”‘
‘But as far as he was concerned, she was at St Michael’s Mount? There wasn’t a last-minute change of plan?’
‘No. Miss Fielding had a train ticket for Thursday, but he hasn’t heard from her since she left the office late on Tuesday night. She was supposed to telephone him on Christmas Eve with an update, but he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t. He told me that she pretty much pleases herself once she’s on a job, and he puts up with it because she’s good enough to get away with it. As tough as any of the boys, apparently.’
‘What about her personal life?’
‘That was interesting. Robertson said he knows nothing about her at all, even though he’s been her editor for five years. He’s asked to be kept informed – in confidence, obviously.’
‘All right, thanks. And you say he’s at home?’
‘That’s right, sir, and he’ll be there all day. I’ve told him you might want to speak to him.’
Penrose took down the number. ‘Good. You’d better get going, Bill, while I decide what to do. If I leave it too long, we won’t be able to get back across to the Mount, but I’d rather not take Fielding back there until I’ve heard from you. Telephone me here as soon as there’s some news.’
8
Their house felt safe after the confusion of the day, but Nora knew it couldn’t last. For now, though, she let Tom fuss around her without criticism, using the wrong tea and forgetting to warm the pot – all the things that usually drove her to distraction, but which suddenly felt like the small acts of love that might just save her. She watched him in silence, afraid to open her mouth in case she said something that destroyed the closeness between them. Now that she had had the peace and time to think about it, she knew what he had done for her in Emily’s house: nothing else made sense.
He put the pot down on the table and took her hand. ‘Tell me what happened, Nora. It’ll be all right, I’ll make sure of that, but you’ve got to trust me. I need to know everything, or I can’t help you.’
She touched his face, wondering why it had taken something so dreadful to bring them together again after the strain of recent months, why one grief could only be repaired by another. ‘You can’t help me, Tom – no one can. Not after what I’ve done, but I love you for trying.’
There were tears in his eyes now, and she was ashamed of what she had done to him and their life together. ‘Don’t give up, Nora,’ he begged. ‘Promise me you’ll do as I say. I’m not losing you. I can’t. We just have to make sure they can’t prove anything.’ He didn’t understand, because his faith had never been as strong as hers, but she would be punished, whether or not the police discovered the truth. ‘Promise me,’ he urged again, and she nodded.
‘All right. I’ll do whatever you want me to.’
‘Start by telling me what happened.’
She forced herself to relive the previous morning, stopping only to answer his queries, grateful that he offered no judgement on anything she said. ‘How did you know?’ she asked when he was satisfied. ‘How could you possibly know what needed doing?’
‘I saw you go in while I was working down in the harbour,’ he said, ‘and I watched for you to come out, because I’d been so worried about you, what with not hearing anything from Jenna and how upset you’d been. When you left, you went home, not up to the castle like I thought you would, and I wondered if something was wrong.’
‘So you checked on Emily?’
‘Not exactly. I went to ask her advice. Anything I did, anything I said just seemed to make things worse between us recently, and she was always so wise. I thought if anybody could help us come to terms with Jenna, she could.’
And he was right, Nora thought; in the most tragic of ways, Emily had helped. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her, Tom. Really I didn’t. I’d do anything to change what I’ve done – anything.’
‘Of course you didn’t mean to do it, and it’s my fault as much as yours. I should have talked to you instead of bottling everything up. That way, you might not have felt so alone. But it’s done now, love, and there’s no undoing it. We just have to stay calm and decide what to do. Which of the nativity figures was it? I’ll go up and get it tonight, when everyone’s gone to bed, just in case you didn’t clean it properly. We’ll need to get your keys back from Penrose.’
Nora could have wept with shame to think of it there, in the church – a thing of evil now, hiding so innocently in the crib. ‘You can’t, Tom. Even if you had my keys, the policeman’s said no one’s to go in there. They’re probably watching it for all I know.’
‘All right, it doesn’t matter. He won’t think to look there, and anyway – who’s to say he’ll be looking for anything? As far as he’s concerned, it was an accident.’
There was a knock at the door, and Nora froze. ‘Don’t answer it,’ she pleaded, clutching at his hand, but he stood up and pulled away. ‘Just ignore it, Tom.’
‘I can’t. We’ve got to behave normally, and hiding ourselves away is the worst thing we could do.’ He must have seen the fear in her face, because he turned back and kissed the top of her head. ‘Stay here. You’re grieving for a friend, and no one can blame you for that. I’ll deal with it.’
She did as she was told, waiting urgently for the voice to see how much she should fear it. Tom showed their visitor through to the kitchen, and Nora was relieved to see that it was only one of her neighbours.
‘Mary’s just come to see how you are, love,’ he said. ‘Miss St Aubyn asked her to call in, just to be on the safe side.’
Mary put her nurse’s bag down on the table. ‘That’s right. She thought you might need something for the shock. It’s quite an ordeal, what you’ve been through today. Poor Emily, God rest her soul.’ She shook her head, and Nora wondered how many times she would have to go through this conversation. ‘She fell down the stairs, I hear?’
‘That’s right,’ Tom said, and answered the subsequent questions so patiently that Nora scarcely knew where he got his strength from.
‘Do you want something to help you sleep?’ Mary asked, when she had finished her examination.
Nora shook her head; she craved nothing more than a merciful oblivion, but she didn’t trust it. ‘No, thank you. I’ll be going back to work in a bit. Keeping busy will help me more than anything else.’
‘All right, but let me know if you change your mind. And you take it easy, Nora. Miss St Aubyn was concerned about you, and Emily wouldn’t want you making yourself ill over her.’ Nora choked back a sob, willing Mary to leave and give her the freedom to cry, but she turned back at the kitchen door. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. I’ve been meaning to give you this for days. I accidentally picked it up with my post at the Change House, and it’s been knocking round in my bag ever since.’ She laid an envelope on the kitchen table, and Nora stared in horror at Jenna’s handwriting. The Christmas card had been posted on the fifteenth of December.
‘How long have you had this?’ she asked, not caring if it sounded like an accusation.
‘Best part of a week, probably.’ Mary laughed, and shrugged her shoulders. ‘You know how it is at Christmas – you get busy and things are forgotten. Makes you wonder why we worry, though, doesn’t it, the news we’ve had today? Emily’s death puts things in perspective.’ She sighed, oblivious to the effect her words were having. ‘I hope the card wasn’t important.’
‘Important? Do you have any idea—’
‘All right, love, don’t get yourself worked up.’ Tom glanced apologetically at Mary, and showed her to the door. ‘You’ve got to be more careful,’ he insisted, when they were on their own again. ‘Think about what you’re saying.’
‘I can’t do this, Tom,’ she said quietly, knowing as soon as she had spoken the words that there was no going back on them. ‘It’s all been for nothing, and I can’t keep lying, not even for you. This is so wrong.’
He took her face in his hands and she began to resent the despair in his eyes, the only thing now that was stopping her from ridding herself once and for all of this crippling guilt. ‘Please Nora, just trust me,’ he begged. ‘If we hold our nerve, we can get through this. It was an accident, for God’s sake. You didn’t mean to hurt her. I’ve only made it look like what it was.’
‘But what if they find out what you’ve done? Penrose isn’t stupid. They might be able to prove that Emily didn’t fall down the stairs.’
‘Even if they can, they won’t suspect you. Sooner or later, they’ll find out who killed the vicar, and the chances are they’ll lay Emily’s death at the same door.’
He had thought it all through, she realised, and the knowledge that he was prepared to sacrifice someone else to save her filled her with a bewildering mixture of horror and gratitude. Then another thought struck her. ‘But Penrose knows I was in the church,’ she said, with panic in her voice. ‘What if he thinks that I killed them both?’
9
The address in Southwark wasn’t a house but a basement flat, part of a tired-looking building in a terrace of similar properties, all skulking in a maze of narrow streets off the Blackfriars Road. Kids were playing up and down the street as Fallowfield arrived, full of energy in the joy of their release from family duties, and he smiled as a volley of snowballs hit the car on its way past. It seemed that the children were the only ones left standing in this cold, mid-afternoon lull, the footnote to Christmas morning and still far too early for the evening revelries to begin. As he parked outside the address he had been given, it seemed to Fallowfield that most of the city had retreated behind drawn curtains to its fireside.
He got out and stood at the top of the basement steps, noticing that the chaste white snow – undisturbed as far as the door – seemed out of place in this run-down part of London. There were no lights on that he could see, here or in any other room of the house, and he guessed that the flats above were empty or deserted for the Christmas holidays; either way, Alex Fielding’s most immediate neighbours would be of no use to his inquiries. The one window at basement level had its curtains tightly drawn, so he went straight past and knocked firmly on the front door. As he had expected it to, the house frustrated him with its silence.
There was no question that he had to get inside, through fair means or foul. He could waste time looking for a back entrance
to try, or he could go with an instinct that the woman he was looking for was in no position to complain about forced entry. A second knock, and then a third, brought no response, so he went back to the car to fetch a jemmy. The wood gave easily, and he found himself in a dark hallway with three doors leading off it and a rear exit to a yard. ‘Miss Fielding?’ he called, his voice unnaturally loud in the silence. ‘Miss Fielding, are you all right?’ His breath fogged the air and he shivered; there was barely a noticeable difference between the temperatures inside and out, and the flat reeked with the earthy smell of damp. A man’s overcoat, scruffy and frayed at the sleeves, hung on a hook inside the door, and he wondered if it belonged to the photographer.
The room on his right – the one with the window to the street – was a bedsit, sparsely furnished with a couple of shabby armchairs pulled up to a gas fire and a metal army bed in the corner, unmade and covered in a couple of thin grey blankets, woefully inadequate for the time of year. Old copies of The Times were piled high at the head of the bed and used as a makeshift side table; a half-drunk cup of tea and an empty cigarette packet had been left on top of them, and there was a gas ring and kettle on the floor, but no evidence of other home comforts, and he guessed that Fielding lived for her work. Even so, after the festive atmosphere of the last few days it was strange to walk into a home so devoid of Christmas; the hardest of hearts and the busiest of lives usually succumbed to some grudging acknowledgement of the season, but here there was nothing – no decoration or card, no treat or luxury, no sentimentality of any sort. Perhaps she had simply been too busy, he thought, or had decided that any preparations were a waste of time when she was going away.
The smell in the flat changed unmistakeably as he walked further down the hallway, and he knew then what he was going to find when he opened the second door. Alex Fielding’s body was on the floor beside her bed. Her blood had drenched the threadbare rug where she lay, and the spray marks on the sheets and walls testified to how viciously her throat had been cut. The assailant seemed to have taken her by surprise because there were no signs of a struggle in the room; on the contrary, a half-packed suitcase sat neatly on the bed, filled with clothes that seemed at a glance much smarter than the pullover and trousers she was dressed in, and a new, emerald green evening dress – still with its price tag – hung on the wardrobe; something in its hopefulness saddened him. Reluctantly, Fallowfield covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief and bent over the dead woman. Decomposition had been slowed down considerably by the freezing cold temperatures in the flat, but the body was beginning to look bloated and discoloured. Outside, the sound of children playing in the street seemed suddenly absurd and out of kilter.