by Nicola Upson
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Josephine, grow up. This isn’t a scrap in the playground. There aren’t any “sides”, and people’s lives are at stake. There’s no going back once it’s out in the open. And anyway, if we’re talking about ulterior motives, are you absolutely sure that some of your attitude towards Bridget isn’t more selfish than you care to admit? Let’s face it, it would have been so much easier for you if she’d marched him up the aisle there and then.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because it would have spared you all those years of feeling guilty for not loving Archie the way he loves you.’
The comment stopped Josephine in her tracks, but she was too upset to address the truth of it. ‘You’re confusing two different things,’ she said, determined not to let Marta lead them into areas that might be even harder to recover from. ‘Of course it’s Bridget’s right not to marry, and if she was strong enough to raise a child on her own then good for her. But not even to tell him? To give him no rights whatsoever over his own daughter? The joy of seeing her grow up, even from a distance?’ She was going to add that Marta, of all people, should understand that, but stopped herself just in time; using Marta’s grief over the loss of her own daughter was something that she would never do, and the fleeting look of pain in Marta’s eyes as the unspoken words hung in the air between them dissolved Josephine’s anger in an instant. She moved forward to hold her, and they stood together for a long time, allowing silence to heal the rift.
‘You’re right,’ Marta said eventually. ‘Archie would have been a wonderful father. Like I said, the whole thing is a mess and I can’t see a way out of it.’ She shivered and took Josephine’s hand. ‘Come on, it’s getting cold. Let’s finish this at home.’
They walked back the way they had come, their footsteps echoing on the narrow cobbled street. ‘That must be what Bridget was talking about in Portmeirion,’ Josephine said, still trying to make sense of what Marta had told her. ‘I’ve often wondered. We had a strange conversation just after she and Archie met up again, and she asked me if he was still as understanding as he used to be. I told her she’d be surprised by how forgiving he was, and that whatever she was keeping from him would destroy them if she didn’t tell him. I think I was wrong, though. It will destroy them either way.’
‘Could he forgive her, do you think? You know him better than anyone.’
‘Perhaps I do, but I still can’t answer that. Archie is the most compassionate person I know, but he has a deep sense of right and wrong, and it’s got nothing to do with being a policeman.’ She thought about it, trying to put herself in Archie’s position, but it was impossible to guess at those emotions. ‘One of the things that makes him so good at his job is his empathy,’ she said. ‘He has this knack of understanding why people do what they do, even in the most violent of circumstances. But this is different. Every moment they’ve spent together has been a lie.’
‘Yes, I suppose it has. And I’m guilty of that, too. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you as soon as I found out.’
‘You were in an impossible position, and you were right not to trust me.’ She stopped and took Marta’s hand. ‘I do have to tell Archie. You gave Bridget a chance, but she’s had months to do something about it.’
‘There was the shooting, though. She couldn’t possibly have told him when he was so ill.’
‘But he’s well now, and she’s still avoiding him.’
Marta nodded. ‘I know she is. Give her one more chance to do the right thing, though. She can’t undo this, Josephine. She can’t just apologise and promise not to do it again, so at least try to understand why she’s holding back. Perhaps she’s hoping that the longer they’re together, the stronger they’ll be and the harder it will be for Archie to walk away. This is going to tear them apart, but there’s more chance of their getting through it if she tells him. And if there’s the faintest hope of Archie making up for all those lost years, you can’t jeopardise that.’ Josephine hesitated, knowing that Marta was right. ‘At least go and see her before you say anything. She might listen to you.’
‘I don’t know about that, but I’ll try—and sooner rather than later if you’ve invited him to come and see us.’
‘He told me she’s away in Devon at the moment.’
‘Then I’ll leave a note. That way, I won’t be able to lose my nerve.’
‘I’m sorry I won’t be here for moral support.’
‘I’m sorry you won’t be here for lots of reasons.’
They turned into St Clement’s Passage, and Josephine was astonished by how quickly it had come to feel like home. She smiled to herself, understanding now how foolish she had been to consider even for a moment that Marta would sacrifice so much only to abandon it all. Marta looked at her curiously. ‘What’s that for?’ she asked, unlocking the front door.
‘Nothing really. I’m just laughing at my own stupidity.’ The harsh electric light flooded the hallway, showing no mercy to the ugly, scuffed floorboards and tired wallpaper, but to Josephine it looked like a palace. ‘For a moment back there, I thought you were going to tell me that this American trip was to test the water for something more permanent. I know how much the Hitchcocks rely on you, and I thought they might have made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.’
‘Oh they did, weeks ago.’
‘But you did refuse it.’ Marta nodded, and Josephine pulled her close. ‘That’s why I’m smiling,’ she said.
4
Penrose had always assumed that his first visit to Cambridge in more than a decade would be to see Bridget, but the invitation, when it came, was extended by a dead man—or rather, by his killer. Faced with numerous gazetteers and county guides, Bill Fallowfield had taken a shortcut and put in a call to the editor of Country Life, who offered him three Jacobean priories to choose from: Shorebridge in Yorkshire; Tivendale in Pembrokeshire; or Angerhale in Cambridgeshire. A comparison with the photographic fragment found on Stephen Laxborough’s body confirmed that it was the nearest of the three which concerned them, and so, on a beautiful October morning which could easily have belonged to the month before, Penrose took his car and headed north out of London, wishing that Bridget was in town but contenting himself with the thought that at least he could call in on Josephine if he had time.
He considered Stephen Laxborough’s murder as he drove, trying to remember an occasion when he had been quite so devoid of ideas. So far, they had spoken to his nephew in South Africa, to various members of the church and musical communities in Hampstead, and to every piano pupil whose name appeared in his diary, but the conversations had been even less enlightening than his own with Hilda Pryce. Laxborough’s health must have been good during his lifetime because his doctor was all but a stranger to him, and his solicitor had met him only twice. The will that supplied the business of both meetings surprised Penrose: among the predictable financial bequests to his only surviving relative and the gift of his piano to charity, Laxborough had made one final declaration of gratitude, touching in its lack of sentimentality. Hilda Pryce, the woman who had served him so loyally for nearly twenty years, would never again have to ask for permission to stay in the house on Mount Vernon; it had been left to her, a thank you for an ‘act of great kindness’, and if Penrose had momentarily considered the legacy as a motive, the housekeeper’s obvious shock and disbelief at the news had dispelled any possibility of her involvement in Laxborough’s murder. In short, the investigation was no further on now than it had been on the day of that horrific discovery. Even the lurid press coverage and a widely publicised appeal for information had fallen on deaf ears; the only people to come forward so far were a tramp seeking a cell bed on a cold night and a religious fanatic who saw Laxborough’s death as a punishment for the growing and pernicious liberalism within the ranks of the Church of England.
He parked at his old college, resisting the temptation to take a nostalgic stroll across the wide lawns and open, neoclassical courtyard, uniquely spacious among the
Cambridge colleges and still maintaining something of the edge-of-town feel which it must have had when first built. Out of courtesy rather than necessity, he had made an appointment at the local police station before travelling on to the Priory; it was never politic to turn up unannounced on another force’s patch, and, in any case, he was keen to find out as much as he could about the house and the family before arriving on the doorstep. All that Fallowfield’s Country Life source had been able to tell him was that the property was built in the twelfth century as a religious house dedicated to St Augustine, and that it was currently propped up by the American money into which its owner, Robert Moorcroft, had married. There was no obvious connection to Stephen Laxborough’s life or to his death, but given that Penrose had absolutely nothing else to go on, and with pressure from his superiors to come up with some sort of lead before the public started asking awkward questions, he was willing to chance his arm.
Cambridgeshire Police had its headquarters in a handsome building on Regent Street which looked older than it was. He announced himself at the front desk and waited to be called, eavesdropping on the conversations that passed him by as the station went about its business. It was strange, he thought, but no matter where you went in the country, from the bustle and magnitude of Scotland Yard to the smallest of rural outposts, very little changed in the atmosphere of a police station: there was the same shuffling of egos, the same protective camaraderie, the same urgent energy. He stared out into the street, thinking of the countless times he had walked past this building as a student, never once imagining that his life would give him a role inside it. Back then, in the days just before the war, he had been studying medicine, intent on pursuing a career as a doctor, but those years in France—the darkness and the violence and the deaths—had changed all that. Some things could never be healed and he had lost the heart to try, so he abandoned his degree, returning to Cambridge only as a convalescent soldier, nursed in the makeshift hospitals that sprang up in the college cloisters. When peace eventually came, he chose a very different career, one much better served by the sense of injustice that infected him long after the dirt and blood of the trenches were washed away. War had schooled him in human nature at its bleakest and its most brutal, but he saw it still, every day of his working life, and he had never once regretted his decision to treat the sickness rather than the sick.
‘DCI Penrose—very good to meet you.’ The voice filled the lobby with such self-assurance that Penrose could have described its owner even before he turned round. Detective Superintendent George Clough was a tall, thick-set man in his fifties, with receding grey hair and heavy jowls, and a tight-fitting suit which harked back to younger, less desk-bound days. ‘I was interested to get your call. We can talk in my office.’ Penrose followed him up a narrow staircase to a small, first-floor room which overlooked the station’s back yard. The desk was covered in police reports and various editions of the local newspaper, all opened to articles on the same subject. ‘It’s a bloody nightmare, I don’t mind admitting,’ Clough said, noticing his interest. ‘Five attacks in three months, and we’re as clueless now as we were at the beginning. This time the bastard’s used a knife, so we’ve got no choice but to take it seriously.’
Penrose picked up one of the older papers and scanned the story, a sanitised account of an attack on a young shop worker in her own home. The suggestion was that a burglary had got out of hand, and to Penrose’s mind it seemed serious enough to justify police attention, but he was used to the casual way in which some of his colleagues viewed sexual assault and it wasn’t his place to argue here. ‘I see this one was in August,’ he said, looking at the date on the newspaper, ‘so you’re obviously after a town man and not a student.’
‘Yes, but we haven’t much more than that to go on.’
‘No other patterns?’
Clough shook his head and emptied an overflowing ashtray into the bin, ready to start again. ‘No. They’re all over the town, at different times of the night, and with no obvious connection between the victims. A couple of them are shop girls but they work in different stores, and then we’ve had a typist, a hairdresser and a waitress. Some are blonde, some are brunette, some are fat, some are thin. The only thing they’ve got in common is that they’ve been on their own in the house when he’s struck, even when they share the place with other girls.’
‘So he watches them first until he’s familiar with the habits of the household?’
‘Obviously. I only wish they’d been a bit more attentive in return. Christ, Penrose, they can’t even agree on a description, other than to say that he covers his face. His age, his build, his voice—we’ve had something different from every one of them.’
How unreasonable of a terrified young woman not to take more notice while she was being raped, Penrose thought, but he kept his opinions to himself. ‘I won’t take up much of your time,’ he promised instead. ‘I can see you’re busy.’
If he had hoped to move on with the business that concerned him, he had chosen the wrong tack. Clough seized on his sympathy and launched into a long list of the various inconveniences associated with the crimes. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but it’s given carte blanche to the timewasters,’ he said. ‘We’ve had false alarms all over town—colleges, parks, even the library. Now every time a gas man knocks on a door, the woman phones us in case he’s the bloody rapist.’
‘People are bound to be frightened until—’
‘Frightened? I’ll tell you what’s bloody frightening—trying to find the manpower to deal with this nonsense as well as all the proper police work. There’s a few here who think they could do my job better than me—you’ll know what that’s like. Much more of this and they’re welcome to it.’
He paused to look for his lighter, and Penrose took advantage of the silence. ‘You said you were interested to get my call . . .’
‘Yes. Quite a coincidence, really.’
‘In what way?’
‘Angerhale Priory’s come up twice now in the last week. I’ve never had much to do with the place before—never any reason to. Moorcroft, the chap who owns it, is in the papers now and again—mostly sporting stuff. He’s an ex-Cambridge man—used to be a cricketing blue, and I’ve met him a couple of times at Fenner’s, but that’s all. Then last week we had a call from the Priory to report an intruder.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. One of the servants came down in the morning and there was a window wide open to the front lawn. I sent someone over right away to check through the house, but there was no one there and nothing had been taken, so there wasn’t much more we could do.’
‘Could the window have been left open by mistake?’ Penrose asked, cynically noting that false alarms didn’t seem to count as ‘time wasting’ when class and money were involved.
‘No. It had been forced, but that’s as much as we know. When your call came through, I wondered if the two things were connected. What’s your interest in Angerhale?’
Penrose hesitated, wondering how much to confide. He had intended to be as vague as possible in his enquiries, but he hadn’t reckoned on there being anything out of the ordinary in the Priory’s recent history; if there was a connection between Stephen Laxborough’s murder and the reported intruder, he had no right to hold back information. ‘I’m currently investigating the death of a man in Hampstead last week,’ he began.
‘The musician?’
Penrose nodded. ‘Dr Stephen Laxborough.’
‘Yes, I read about it. What’s that got to do with Angerhale? Did he and Moorcroft know each other?’
‘That’s what I’m hoping to find out. There was a picture of the Priory with the body, and I need to establish why.’
‘With the body?’ He paused, and Penrose heard the wheezing in his chest as he inhaled the cigarette smoke. ‘Were the newspapers exaggerating? It sounded bloody awful.’
‘No, I’m afraid for once they weren’t. If anything, they didn’t quite do it justice.’
&nb
sp; Clough shook his head, listening in disbelief as Penrose outlined what had been found at the crime scene. ‘Some of them stay with you, don’t they?’ he said with feeling. ‘This Laxborough—what do you know about him?’
‘Very little. He kept himself to himself—no family and no close friends, and his past seems to be something of a mystery, although whether that’s deliberate or not remains to be seen.’
‘And was he up at Cambridge? Could he and Moorcroft have met here?’
‘I don’t know, but that’s easily checked. How old is Moorcroft?’
‘Early to mid-forties, I’d say. His wife’s younger, but I believe it’s a second marriage.’
‘Then it’s possible that he and Laxborough were here at the same time,’ Penrose said. And if it turned out to be true, he thought, then his own college years would also have overlapped; the idea that he might have crossed paths with the dead man, on the playing fields or in the narrow streets, made him more determined than ever to unlock the secrets of his life.
‘Are you treating Moorcroft as a suspect?’ Clough asked cautiously.
Penrose gave a non-committal smile. ‘I wish I could say I’d got that far. At the moment, I’m simply following up one line of enquiry in the absence of any other, but I’ll obviously keep you informed of any significant developments.’
‘Yes, please do.’ Clough stood up and walked to the door with such a sense of purpose that Penrose wondered if he was about to collect his hat from the stand and offer to come with him; instead, he opened the door and boomed down the passageway. ‘Webster! Get in here for a minute.’ The words echoed down the highly polished corridor, drawing a response before they had even died away. A plain clothes officer appeared in the doorway, broad-shouldered if not particularly tall, with dark blonde hair and a face that was unremarkable except for eyes which were the palest of blues; their youthfulness made his age hard to gauge—early thirties, Penrose guessed, although he could have been wrong by five years either way. He was wearing a trench coat, and an air of suppressed impatience about him suggested that he had been on his way out. ‘Webster, this is DCI Penrose from Scotland Yard. He’s interested in that business at Angerhale the other day.’