Nicola Upson - An Expert in Murder

‘And the boy?’ Penrose asked, although he knew there could only be one outcome.

‘When they got the air circulating again, they found him about a hundred yards from the face, obviously on his way back. What a terrible death it must have been – all that blackness and nothing to breathe, and the sheer terror of being down there alone and knowing you’re doomed. He was face down, Bernard said, with his mouth full of soil. They may as well have buried him alive.’ She shuddered, and added with a wry bitterness, ‘The charge was perfectly laid, however. They used it that evening and I gather it was rather successful.’

‘It’s impossible for anyone who wasn’t there to understand how that must have affected him and I’m sorry if this sounds naive –

but I don’t quite see why he felt that to be a sin for which he had to be punished. Guilty for not being able to help, perhaps – but not responsible. It was an accident, surely? What more could he have done?’

‘Yes, it was an accident, but the boy who died wasn’t just anyone: he was Bernard’s nephew, Arthur, his sister’s only child, and Bernard had made a promise to look after him. That in itself is ridiculous, of course – you can’t make promises in war, it doesn’t work that way – but he made it all the same and never forgave himself for being unable to keep it, even though his sister certainly never laid the blame at his door.’

For Penrose, a piece of the jigsaw fell at last into place. He had no idea how it got him any closer to finding Aubrey’s killer, but 170

somehow he knew it was important. ‘Do you happen to have a photograph of her?’ he asked.

‘Of Nora? Yes, of course. I’ve got one of her with Arthur, taken not long before his death. Do you want to see it?’

‘Yes please, if you don’t mind.’ She was gone only a couple of minutes and, when she returned, handed him a small photograph in a plain gold frame. The boy in the picture was, he guessed, little more than twenty, and he smiled broadly out from behind the glass, handsome in his new uniform and with a warmth in his eyes which would have made him attractive even if the rest of his features had been less appealing. He had his arm round his mother, who looked up at him proudly but with an apprehension which had been justified all too soon. Her face was in profile and she was older here than when Penrose had last seen her, but it was unmistakably the same woman whose picture looked down from the bookshelf in Aubrey’s office, the woman to whom he imagined the bayonet and flower had been pointing. Without really knowing why, he asked: ‘The irises – here and in Bernard’s office – are they connected at all to his sister?’

She looked at him, completely taken aback. ‘I suppose in a way they are, although how you know so much about my husband puzzles me.’

It puzzled Penrose, too, although he had no intention of discussing the scenes – and they were, he realised now, very much like theatrical scenes – which had been created for him both on the train and in Aubrey’s office. In truth, almost everything he knew about Aubrey was based on what the killer had told him, so who else, he wondered, was so familiar with the man’s past?

Too polite to question him more, Grace Aubrey continued with her explanation. ‘Actually, the irises are more linked with Arthur.

He was a brilliant young man, you know. When he enlisted, he was two years into an engineering degree at Cambridge, but what he loved most was gardening and he spent virtually all his time in the Botanic Gardens. It was always his intention to go back there after the war. There was a job waiting for him as soon as he graduated.’

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Penrose remembered the Gardens; he’d visited them once or twice himself during his university days and, although they lay just on the edge of the town, within easy walking distance of his col-lege, their contrasting landscapes offered a seductive other world.

He and Aubrey’s nephew must have been in Cambridge at the same time, he realised.

‘Arthur got his love of flowers from his mother, although she was a botanical illustrator, not a gardener. He transformed their own garden when he was still just a boy, and their neighbours’, then he earned money doing it in his spare time at university. The iris was his favourite flower. After he died, when Bernard came back from the war, he had twenty-one different varieties planted here in the garden, one for each year of Arthur’s life. Part of the penance, I think, although he hardly needed flowers to remind him.’ She stood, and walked over to the vase below the painting.

‘Bernard chose the species to have flowers all year round, so it’s just as well I’ve grown to love them too. See how beautiful they are when you look at them closely.’

He joined her and saw what she meant. The flowers which he had believed to be of a uniform deep lilac with a single splash of yellow were, in fact, a complex blend of tones and colours, each slightly different to the next. ‘Did you know it’s supposed to be the flower of chivalry?’ she asked. ‘Three petals – one for faith, one for wisdom, and one for valour. Bernard laid an iris on the Cenotaph for Arthur every week, almost without fail. I shall do the same now for both of them – there’s no one else left to remember. Nora died five years ago – she had cancer – and Arthur’s father was already long dead when he went to France.’

‘Did Arthur have a lover?’

‘Not that I know of. Certainly there was no girlfriend at the memorial service we held for him.’

Having believed at first that he would get nothing from Grace Aubrey, Penrose now sensed that the time spent with her had hinted at everything of significance in the case. At a loss for the moment as to how it related back to the theatre and to Elspeth Simmons, he fell back on a more conventional line of enquiry.

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‘Can I have the name of your husband’s solicitor, Mrs Aubrey? I’ll need to see the details of his will.’

‘It’s John Maudelyn at Maudelyn & De Vere. They’re in Lan-caster Place, but I think I can save you some time. If there was one thing that Bernard and I did discuss, it was our financial affairs.’

She left the room, again only briefly. ‘This is a copy of his will,’ she said, handing Penrose a large ivory-coloured envelope. ‘You’ll want to check with John, but you certainly won’t find him at work on a Sunday so this might help in the meantime. I’d be very surprised if he’d changed it without telling me, and there are none of those startling revelations in here that make things so much easier for detective writers.’ She smiled wryly. ‘And theatre producers, for that matter. Put simply, the houses, Bernard’s stocks and shares and a significant amount of capital go to Joseph and to me; neither of us will ever want for anything, as you’ll see.’

‘And the theatres?’

‘Ownership of the bricks and mortar goes to Joseph, but no executive powers in their management. That falls to John Terry, together with a sizeable share of the profits. Or, I suppose, the losses, although he’d have to be very stupid to whittle away assets of the scale that Bernard has built up over the years. A lump sum has been left to Lydia Beaumont; they were good friends, and he could always fancy himself a little in love with her without the fear of having to do anything about it – I’m sure you know what I mean. The most unusual clause concerns Hedley White – I knew I’d seen the name somewhere. He is to have a job – and a well-paid one – at the New and Wyndham’s theatres for as long as he wants one or, should he choose to leave, he will receive a sum of money that should set him up for life.’

Penrose thanked her and held out his hand, ready to leave her in peace, but she walked with him down to the hallway, stopping at the door to another room on the way to point out a second vase of flowers. ‘These don’t strictly belong to the iris family but I liked them so much that Bernard planted them for me. Ironic, isn’t it?’