Nicola Upson - Angel with Two Faces

If he had had any doubt that the visit was official, it would have been dispelled when a uniformed police constable got out of the passenger seat. Motley met them halfway up the path, reluctant to talk in the vestry in case the sordid nature of his encounter with Beth Jacks remained somehow tangible there. Penrose came straight to the point, refusing to acknowledge any family connection between them. ‘We need to talk to you about Nathaniel’s death,’ he said, with the easy politeness of a man talking to a stranger. ‘I presume you’ve heard what happened?’

Motley nodded. ‘I’d left the theatre by then, as I’m sure you know, but my wife told me this morning. Everyone was talking about it in the village, she said, and I telephoned William to get the details. He said it wasn’t an accident.’

‘We’re treating it as murder, so I’d like to know more about the incident between you and Nathaniel just before he died.’ He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. ‘To eliminate you from our inquiries, as they say.’

‘You’d better come up to the house,’ Motley said, realising that he was not going to be able to get this over with as quickly as he would have liked. Penrose looked again at the church and, for a second, Motley thought he was going to argue, but he nodded his agreement and stood aside to let his uncle lead the way. ‘You can’t bring that thing in with you, though,’ the vicar added. ‘Edwina hates dogs.’

Apparently unoffended, the constable smiled good-naturedly and left the terrier in the car. As Motley opened the door to Bar Lodge, he heard his wife coming down the stairs. She stopped on the first landing, deciding against whatever she had been about to say as soon as she saw that he was not alone; for a moment, she looked curiously at the small group in the hallway, then turned and went back upstairs without a word, but not before he noticed satisfaction in her eyes. It would amuse her to stand by while he lost everything; more than ever, he was determined not to let it happen.

He led the policemen through to the drawing room and stood by the fireplace, determined to maintain some sort of authority in his own home, even though his legs ached and he desperately needed to sit down. Penrose looked around with interest, and Motley realised that this was unfamiliar territory to his nephew, who had never set foot in the house before. His manner was relaxed and unhurried, and he glanced leisurely around the room before speaking, taking in the French-style walnut settee and the fine mahogany longcase clock, and noting, no doubt, the discrepancy between the luxury of the vicar’s domestic space and the neglected professional arena which was supposed to be his first concern. ‘Some of my men will be conducting a search of the churchyard and the church itself,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sure they can rely on your co-operation.’

‘Is that absolutely necessary?’ Motley asked, genuinely surprised. ‘Surely it can have no bearing on Shoebridge’s death?’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Penrose said, and Motley detected the first note of irritation in an otherwise faultless performance. ‘Christopher Snipe is missing, but he was last seen in the graveyard on Sunday night. Did you notice him there? Or anybody else?’

‘No. Sunday was a busy day, and I was tired. We had an early supper after Pinching’s funeral, and I went to bed. I certainly wasn’t in the mood to wander round the churchyard in the dark.’

‘I’m not suggesting you were, but there’s a perfectly good view of at least half of it from here. You might have noticed something from the window.’

Motley shook his head. ‘I was asleep from eight o’clock, or just after. Edwina will confirm that.’

‘Nathaniel kept his original costume for the play in the vestry, ready to bring to the Minack for me to wear on Tuesday night, but it was already missing when he went to fetch it. When was the last time you noticed it there? It was one of the brown habits.’

‘I remember seeing it on Monday afternoon.’

‘What time?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Well, I went to the church after lunch and stayed there for a couple of hours. The cricket match was just finishing when I left, and the costume was still there then. Listen, I hope your men are going to be careful,’ he added, still thrown by the idea of a search. ‘Make sure they show some respect – there are people at rest there.’ He knew how hollow his concern for the souls of his dead parishioners must sound after all these years. Penrose laughed – a sarcastic, dismissive gesture which reminded Motley so much of his sister that he had to turn away for a second to keep his composure. He remembered how often Lizzie had laughed at him like that when they were children. She and William were always caught up in their rituals and their private jokes, and for years the only acknowledgement he ever received from them was rejection – until he realised that there was a way to make Lizzie notice him, late at night, when she was alone in her room with no one else to turn to. The first time he crept along that long corridor at Loe House, he had only intended to frighten her. Her room was in darkness, but she was sleeping so soundly that he was able to walk softly over to the bed without any risk of discovery. He listened to her slow, regular breathing for a moment, then put his hand roughly over her mouth, meaning to give her the shock of her life and bring this smug, untroubled rest to an abrupt end. She awoke in fear, which turned to anger when she saw who it was, but he was older and stronger and her small body was no match for his; he felt her struggle beneath him, and the excitement which he experienced for the first time in that moment was fleeting but so intense that he knew he could not leave it there. What surprised him most was how easy it had been to make his sister believe that his nightly visits were all her fault, to crush her vitality and independence under the weight of a secret shame. In the end, his pleasure was psychological as much as it was physical: isolating her from the rest of the family, making her fear her parents and even William, was a triumph, and he was amused to notice that she soon began to get herself into trouble deliberately, as if being punished for other sins would somehow assuage the deeper sense of guilt which festered inside her. Jasper knew it could not last for ever, but he had desperately needed someone to belong to him and, for a while, Lizzie did. Nothing else in his life had ever quite lived up to the potency of those three brief years.

With a start, Motley realised that Penrose was waiting for him to speak, but he had been too caught up in his own thoughts to hear the question. ‘What did you say?’ he asked, pulling himself together and trying to look at his nephew as a policeman rather than a dangerous reincarnation of his past.

Impatiently, Penrose repeated himself. ‘I just wondered where you got your passion for theatre from?’

‘What? I don’t have a passion for theatre. I’ve left that to your side of the family.’

‘That’s what I thought. And yet you made sure of a front-row seat on Tuesday night.’

‘They’re the Winwaloe Players and I’m the vicar of St Winwaloe’s – what’s so suspicious about that? Aren’t I allowed to support my own community?’

Penrose smiled again. ‘There’s a first time for everything, I suppose,’ he said, and Motley felt a violence rise within him which, had he been ten years younger, he doubted he would have been able to control. Instead, he said nothing, but noticed with interest that even the constable seemed surprised by his superior’s approach. ‘You left the auditorium immediately after the incident with Nathaniel,’ the inspector continued. ‘Did you leave the theatre altogether?’