by Nicola Upson
‘What’s the worst thing Archie’s ever forgiven you for?’ Bridget asked. The question came from nowhere, and Josephine looked at her in surprise. ‘I’m sorry, that was too personal. I wasn’t trying to pry into your life, just to find out if Archie is still as understanding in his old age as he was when I knew him. He was always so kind.’
‘He still is.’ Josephine took a sip of coffee‚ and its temperature reminded her that she had never wanted the drink in the first place. ‘I don’t know that I can really answer your question,’ she said, pushing the cup away. ‘The worst thing I’ve ever done to Archie is to fall in love with someone else, but you’d have to ask him if he’s forgiven me or not.’ She could see from Bridget’s expression that her response had satisfied one of the questions that remained unspoken between them. ‘And it’s not really the sort of thing I’m very good at discussing with him. Not in so many words, anyway.’
‘But you’re still friends.’
‘For want of a better word, yes.’ Of all the qualities Josephine had expected to find in Bridget, uncertainty wasn’t one of them‚ and it intrigued her. ‘What are you worried about?’ she asked more gently. ‘Forgiveness is a very big word.’
Bridget smiled. ‘And don’t I know it?’ She sighed, and reached down to check on the injured Jack Russell who lay quietly in the shade under her chair, diligently licking his paw. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start with that one, Josephine, even if I could trust you not to tell Archie. And you would tell him, wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course I would. Unless I was absolutely sure you’d do it yourself.’ She watched as Alma came out onto the terrace and looked round for her husband. It was obvious from their body language that they had no idea what was going on‚ and, ironically, the suspense seemed to be something that Hitchcock found difficult to bear. Alma put a reassuring hand on his arm as they went back into the hotel, and Josephine wondered if she should seek them out and have a discreet word, but Archie’s instructions had been very clear‚ and he wouldn’t thank her for interfering. In the end, her dilemma was solved for her: Archie and Marta came round the bend of the coastal path, and only then, when they were tempered with relief, did Josephine allow herself to acknowledge her worst fears. She stood to go and meet them, but was stopped by the strange combination of concern and longing in Bridget’s eyes as she watched Archie. ‘You obviously want to see him again,’ she said.
‘Yes, very much.’
‘Then I don’t think you have a choice. Whatever it is will destroy you if you keep it from him. It’s started already.’
‘You make it sound very simple.’
‘Meddling in someone else’s life always is. That’s why so many people do it.’ She smiled, and nodded towards Marta and Archie. ‘For what it’s worth, the odds are in your favour. It’s a long story, but ask Marta how understanding Archie can be. I think you’ll be pleased.’
9
James Wyllie met Penrose at reception and took him discreetly to one side. ‘The local force have sent as many men as they can,’ he said, ‘but the officer in charge will be another half an hour at least. An Inspector Roberts, apparently. He’s coming from Colwyn Bay.’
‘You don’t know him?’
‘No. I can’t say we have much call for the police here as a rule.’
The comment was sober rather than defensive, and Penrose understood what a black day this must be for Wyllie, both personally and professionally: the stain of murder would have serious consequences for Portmeirion, particularly if the killer turned out to be connected with the village, and the manager had been here for several years now, freeing Clough from day-to-day concerns and coming to love the place almost as much as its creator. Wyllie seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Funny, isn’t it, how hell is always so much worse if it’s once been heaven. Is the other body Branwen?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’
‘I’m so sorry. She was only in her twenties, and yet she must have been here longer than anyone.’ He paused, then asked reluctantly‚ ‘Does it suggest that whoever did this is more likely to be one of us?’
‘It’s far too early to say. Did Miss Erley live in?’
‘Yes. There are some staff rooms at the back of the hotel. She had one of those.’
‘Would you make sure it’s locked?’
‘Of course. I’ve secured Miss Hutton’s suite as you requested.’
‘Good. I’ll need to examine both, but I want to talk to everyone first. It’s not fair to keep them in the dark any longer.’
Wyllie gave a knowing smile. ‘I think Mr Hitchcock would agree with you there. They’re all waiting for you in the Mirror Room, but I can’t say they went very gracefully.’
‘I can imagine. I assume you’re all right with my handling this for now until Roberts arrives?’
‘Of course.’ He turned to go‚ but Wyllie called him back. ‘I’ll have to tell Clough,’ he said. ‘He’ll be devastated, but he’d never forgive me if he heard it from someone else.’
‘Fine. Telephone him now but . . .’
‘Ask him to keep it to himself. Don’t worry,’ he said, smiling at Penrose with a hint of his usual charm. ‘Discretion is one thing we do know about here.’
As he walked into the Mirror Room, Penrose couldn’t help feeling that his life had been wound back twelve hours; Hitchcock’s guests had, for the most part, chosen the seats that they had occupied the night before, an instinctive attempt to find order amid chaos. To save time, he had asked Josephine to join them so that she could share her conversation with Bella Hutton; Marta had very sensibly elected to stay outside with Bridget and wait for Lydia and his cousins to return to dry land. The only person who hadn’t yet arrived was Leyton Turnbull. Penrose didn’t blame him for showing a reluctance to come back into the company that had so recently torn him to shreds, but he hoped that there wasn’t a more sinister explanation for his absence. ‘Where is Leyton Turnbull?’ he asked, turning to Hitchcock.
‘We haven’t seen him this morning. I imagine he’s nursing his hangover.’ The director looked anxiously at David Franks‚ and Penrose guessed that a silent instruction had passed between them.
Franks stood up, confirming his suspicions. ‘I’ll go and find him for you. He’s probably still in his room.’
Penrose had no intention of allowing the director to slip into his usual role. ‘No, it’s fine. Please sit down. If he’s not here by the time we’ve finished talking, I’ll go and look for him myself.’ The tone of his voice left no one in any doubt as to who was in charge. Franks did as he was told, glancing apologetically at Hitchcock.
‘Is this about Bella?’ Everyone, including her husband, stared at Alma Reville. ‘It’s just that she’s the only other person who isn’t here‚ and you don’t seem surprised by that, Chief Inspector.’
With a grudging respect for her intelligence, Penrose nodded. ‘There have been two murders overnight in Portmeirion, and I’m afraid that Miss Hutton is one of the victims. Her body was found in the woods this morning.’
David Franks stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re lying. You must be.’ Penrose was used to news of a violent death being met with such ardent denial, but he had not expected that reaction from anyone here‚ and he looked at Franks’s devastated face in surprise. ‘Is this another one of your gags?’ Franks shouted at Hitchcock. ‘Something you’ve dreamt up to keep us on our toes this weekend? Because if it is, you’ve gone too far.’
‘Of course it’s not a joke, David.’ Alma tried to console Franks but he pushed her away. ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you, Hitch?’
Penrose was interested to see that it was more a question than a statement, but he gave Alma the backing of which her husband seemed incapable. ‘Miss Reville is right. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it.’
‘What happened?’
‘She was stabbed in the dog cemetery,’ Penrose said, thinking how little justice his words actually did to the actress’s fate. Even so, out of the corne
r of his eye, he saw Astrid Lake shudder. ‘We’ll know more when the forensics team has had a chance to examine the scene.’
‘I want to see her.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment.’
‘Try and stop me.’ Franks turned away and began to walk out of the room‚ but Spence was too quick for him. ‘Let me go, damn you,’ he yelled, struggling to get past.
‘Not until you’ve calmed down.’ Penrose noticed how gently Spence held Franks until his anger began to subside. When he sensed it was safe to do so, he relaxed his grip and squeezed Franks’s shoulder affectionately. ‘The Inspector’s right,’ he said quietly. ‘You can’t do any good by going up there now. Bella wouldn’t want you to see her like that. You know what she was like.’
‘What was your relationship with Bella Hutton?’ Penrose asked.
Franks sat down and made an effort to pull himself together. ‘She was my mother’s sister,’ he said. ‘My mother died when I was eight; my father followed her six years later. Bella and Max took me to live with them in America. They got me a job on a film set – between them, they knew just about everybody in Hollywood, so it wasn’t hard – and they kept me out of trouble. I was a very angry young man after my father’s death, and they showed me how to channel that into something more creative than I might otherwise have chosen. When their marriage broke up, I came back here with Bella‚ and she vouched for me with the studios until I could prove myself all over again in England.’
The details of Franks’s family connections to Bella Hutton seemed to be news to everyone except the Hitchcocks and Jack Spence. Penrose noticed that Josephine, in particular, was looking at him curiously‚ and he wondered why. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘If I’d known you were so close I’d have handled things rather differently.’
Franks shrugged. ‘How were you to know? Anyway,’ he admitted, ‘we hadn’t been as close recently. I may as well tell you that before someone else does.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Bella was used to guiding my career‚ and she found it hard to accept that I wanted to make my own decisions, even if they turned out to be the wrong ones. I wanted to stand on my own two feet.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I suppose I’ll have plenty of time to do that now.’
Astrid Lake spoke up for the first time. ‘You said two murders. Who else is dead?’
‘One of the hotel’s waiting staff,’ Penrose said. ‘Her name was Branwen Erley. She was the young woman singing with the band last night, and her body was found at the lookout point on the headland this morning.’
The actress looked across at Daniel Lascelles but he refused to meet her eye. ‘Was she stabbed as well?’
‘No.’
She waited for him to expand and, when he didn’t, asked angrily‚ ‘So what does that mean? Is there more than one killer, or is he just versatile?’
‘It’s far too early for me to speculate like that. When both bodies have been thoroughly examined, we’ll have more evidence to go on. In the meantime . . .’
Hitchcock interrupted him, unable to control his temper any longer. ‘Then shouldn’t you be out there gathering that evidence, Chief Inspector, rather than wasting time in here pretending you’re Hercule bloody Poirot in the final chapter?’ He glanced accusingly at Josephine as he delivered the insult, and Penrose found it hard to decide whether her affronted expression was on his behalf or if she simply resented the association. ‘I don’t see what a maniac on the loose in those woods has to do with any of us.’
‘What makes you assume it was a maniac?’
‘What makes you assume it wasn’t?’ It was a reasonable retort, but Penrose wasn’t prepared to admit as much. ‘Surely someone had a grudge against this waitress? Bella probably saw something she shouldn’t have and was killed because of that?’
Anything to deflect attention from your fun and games this weekend, Penrose thought. ‘I can assure you, sir, you’re not getting any special treatment.’ It was an ambivalent phrase, and he scarcely cared whether Hitchcock took it as a warning or a comfort. ‘All the staff and guests will be questioned in due course‚ and I appreciate your theory, but as Miss Erley was almost certainly strangled with the lead from Bella Hutton’s dog, and as her clothing suggests that she was alive later‚ when the night grew cold, it seems logical to me to assume that Miss Hutton was killed first.’ It had the desired effect: Hitchcock’s bluster collapsed like a house of cards‚ and he sat down meekly next to his wife.
‘I think they knew each other, Archie. Bella Hutton and Branwen Erley, I mean.’
Penrose looked at Josephine. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘They were talking on the terrace yesterday afternoon. I don’t know what they were saying, but it didn’t look like a waitress and guest conversation. The girl seemed upset. Then Bella said something to her‚ and she smiled.’
‘Do you know anything about that?’ Penrose asked Franks.
He shook his head. ‘No, but Bella was always a generous tipper. A lot of staff smiled when she was around.’
Penrose turned to Hitchcock. ‘Did you invite Bella Hutton to join you here for the weekend?’
‘No,’ the director said, clearing his throat and looking round for some water. ‘We were friends. I’ve known her for about ten years, but I didn’t realise she was going to be here until yesterday.’
‘And when was the last time you saw her?’
He looked frightened to death by the continued questioning‚ and Alma answered firmly for both of them. ‘At coffee last night. Neither of us set eyes on Bella again after she left this room. We went back to the Watch House at around ten thirty,’ she added, offering Penrose the alibi he hadn’t yet asked for. ‘And we were there until breakfast this morning.’
‘Did anyone else see her after she left here?’ Everyone looked at each other but nobody spoke. ‘What about her parting remark? She said that her greatest fear was to know the manner of her own death; that’s a very peculiar thing to say hours before you’re murdered. Can anyone explain what she meant by that?’
‘I think I can.’ All eyes in the room turned to Josephine again. ‘Bella had cancer. She told me she only had a few weeks to live, but that’s plenty of time when all that’s ahead of you is pain and misery. I imagine that’s what she meant. It must have been terrifying for her.’
‘It was,’ Franks agreed. ‘She kept her illness very private, though. She didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her.’
‘But you knew about it?’
‘She told me most things. At least I thought she did, but perhaps your friend will prove me wrong.’
He looked at Josephine, almost challenging her to do so. ‘I doubt that,’ Josephine said. ‘It was a very brief conversation. But she’d obviously been weighing up her life, which is probably what we’d all do in her position. I caught her at a time when she needed to talk but I’m sure she wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been a stranger.’ She glanced apologetically at David Franks. ‘You don’t burden someone you love with your own fears, do you? But an outsider is different.’
Penrose knew Josephine well enough to understand that she would not have been untouched by her meeting with Bella, no matter how much of a stranger she was. ‘Tell me what she talked about,’ he said gently. ‘Everything you can remember, no matter how insignificant it seemed at the time.’
She hesitated, and he knew that she was reluctant to discuss it in front of an audience, but he wanted to see how the others reacted to what she had to say. ‘She talked about her early career and meeting her husband. From what she said, it was obvious that she still loved him; it seemed to me that he’d hurt her very badly, though.’
‘She didn’t like the way he ran his business,’ Franks explained. ‘For someone who had spent so long at the top of her industry, Bella could be very naive about the deals that were done and the way money was made. She thought he exploited people‚ and I suppose he did, but Max could never understand why that made a differenc
e to her or to their marriage. He loved her every bit as much as she loved him. I remember being caught in the middle when it started to go wrong. God, those two could fight.’
‘And he’s still in America?’
‘I don’t think he was prowling the woods last night, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I mean he’ll need to be informed of her death,’ Penrose said evenly, although the thought had crossed his mind.
‘Oh‚ I see. Yes, he’s still in LA. Sorry.’
‘What else did Bella tell you?’ Penrose asked, turning back to Josephine.
‘She talked a lot about her family and what had happened to them after she moved away from here.’
‘Here? You mean Portmeirion?’ He listened as Josephine explained, furious with himself for dismissing what Constable Powell had been about to say just because the man irritated him. ‘Her older sister created the dog cemetery, and her younger sister died in childbirth.’ She paused and looked at David Franks. ‘That was your mother?’ He nodded. ‘So it was your father . . .’
‘Who was murdered by a pack of dogs, metaphorically speaking? Yes, it was.’ He didn’t give Penrose the chance to ask for an explanation, but described the circumstances of his father’s death with a calm matter-of-factness which was undermined by the anger in his eyes.
‘So what you said last night wasn’t a joke? You really did watch your father burn to death?’ The compassion in Alma’s voice was as strong as it had been the night before, even though she had been lied to.