Penrose knew how devastated Jago had been when his wife died giving birth to Christopher, and it was only natural that the joy of the child they had both longed for should be tinged with guilt. ‘Sarah wouldn’t want you to feel like that, though,’ he said gently, hiding his disappointment that Jago’s confession had such an innocent explanation. ‘You’ve brought him up well and it’s nobody’s fault that you’ve had to do it on your own. It’s certainly not something that anyone could say you needed to be punished for.’
‘What?’ Jago looked at him, confused. ‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ he said, nervously brushing some crumbs from the table as he tried to find the words to explain. ‘It’s not Sarah I feel guilty about, although God knows I should. It’s someone else. You see, she didn’t die giving birth to Christopher.’
It was Penrose’s turn to look bewildered. ‘Then how did she die?’
‘In childbirth, but not with Christopher. Christopher’s not our son. Our child – a little girl, she was – died at the same time. There was nothing Morveth could do for either of them.’
‘Then where did Christopher come from?’ Penrose asked, but he knew the answer as soon as he had asked the question. ‘He’s Joseph Caplin’s son, isn’t he? The child he gave up after his daughter died.’ Jago’s head was in his hands and the nod was barely perceptible. ‘What happened, Jago?’ he asked quietly.
‘We always knew it was risky – Sarah’s pregnancy, I mean. It was late for her to have her first, but we’d wanted a child for so long that we ignored all the advice and kept trying for one. When we found out she was expecting, it was like a miracle. I’ve never seen anyone as happy as she was during those first few months, and the longer she carried the baby safely, the more confident we were that it would all be fine. Stupid of us, of course, because it wasn’t. Sarah was so brave, but it was torture to her. Hour after hour that labour went on, and all for nothing. The baby was dead when she was born, and Sarah died a little while after her. Thank God she was too weak to know much about it. Morveth told her she could hold her daughter when she was a bit stronger, so at least she never knew that pain as well.’
‘And this was around the time that Joseph Caplin decided he couldn’t cope with his own baby?’
‘Yes. He’d taken the child to the Union just a day or two before. Morveth knew about it. She thought she was helping, I know that – she meant well.’
‘So it was her idea?’
‘At first, but I went along with it – don’t think she forced me into anything. I didn’t know what I was doing with Sarah and the baby gone, and she took care of it all. She did the last for both of them, then brought me in to sit with them while she went out for a bit. She told me not to leave the house or talk to anyone until she came back.’
‘And she brought you a son.’
‘Yes. Beautiful little thing, he was – barely a month old and already abandoned twice by his own parents. I was terrified at first, but Morveth talked me round and persuaded me that I was his best chance of a decent start in life.’ He looked at Penrose for the first time since making his confession. ‘I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t need much persuading. Loneliness drives you to things you wouldn’t normally consider.’
‘What happened to your little girl?’
‘I’m an undertaker,’ Jago said. ‘Do you really need to ask? My God, how could I do that to Sarah? I loved her, but I shut her soul in with the dead and took the living for my own – and denied that poor baby a decent Christian burial.’
‘Did Joseph suspect what had happened?’
‘No. He started drinking badly around then, and anyway, I kept the child to myself for a while. Morveth told everyone that I needed to be left alone with my grief for a bit – which was true, but that’s not why she said it. We didn’t want people putting two and two together, you see, and Morveth helped me at first, took care of everything I couldn’t do for the child. And then, as the months went by, it seemed that Christopher grew bonnier while his father – his real father, I mean – grew more wretched. I’ve watched him slowly destroy himself these last few years, while I’ve gained from his grief like a bloody parasite.’
‘He gave the child up, though. You didn’t force him into anything.’
‘No, but he regretted it. I remember him coming to me once, when the boy was about five. He told me he’d always thought that a man on his own shouldn’t be bringing up children, but if he could have seen me with Christopher earlier, he might not have been so hasty about giving up his own son. Can you imagine how that made me feel? So don’t try and tell me I don’t deserve some kind of punishment.’
‘But punishment from whom, Jago? If Joseph had found out the truth, surely he wouldn’t hurt his own son just to get back at you?’ Jago just shook his head, as if he had lost the ability to make sense of anything. ‘Did anyone else know about this?’ Penrose asked. ‘Apart from Morveth, I mean.’
‘Some of the people at the Union knew, of course, but they turned a blind eye – partly out of loyalty to Morveth and partly because they could be sure that the boy would have a good home with me. Nobody from around here knew, at least not at first. Then a couple of months back, Nathaniel started doing some pastoral care at the Union.’
‘Did he find out what had happened?’ asked Penrose, relieved at last to find some sort of link between Nathaniel and Christopher.
‘I’m not sure. Morveth told me not to worry, but I could see she was afraid. You’d be a fool to trust people to keep their mouths shut for ever, and it would only take a loose word from someone for the whole thing to come out.’
Penrose could imagine the fear that Morveth must unwittingly have put into the undertaker’s head. He remembered the way in which Jago had brushed Caplin away from him backstage at the Minack on Tuesday night; he had thought at the time it was because Caplin’s drunkenness disgusted him, but he knew now that it must have felt like retribution staring him in the face. There were many ways to break a man, and Penrose guessed that Jago and Caplin were not as far apart emotionally at the moment as they seemed from the outside. It was easy to believe that desperation would be enough to make Jago panic and do something drastic, but that didn’t explain Christopher’s absence. Unless, of course, the boy had found out the truth and been angry or confused enough to run away. In that case, Jago would understandably feel bitter towards the person who had brought it about. ‘Did Christopher suspect he wasn’t your son?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Yes. I would have known. We didn’t have secrets from each other.’
He realised the ridiculousness of the statement as soon as it was out, but Penrose let it pass. ‘You must have been worried that he’d find out, though?’
‘What are you getting at, Archie?’ Jago asked suspiciously.
Penrose spoke softly, but his words were frank and unmistakeable. ‘Did you kill Nathaniel, Jago?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’
Penrose said nothing, knowing from experience that such a flat denial was often followed by an expansion of detail which exposed the lie. It was an old trick, but – unlike most people – Jago felt no need to fill in the silence, so Penrose went on. ‘Where were you when he went over the cliff? I know you weren’t on the stage because you were seen coming back into the auditorium shortly afterwards. Did you push Nathaniel over, then leave by one of the hidden paths?’
‘No! Archie, for Christ’s sake – what are you thinking?’ He stood up from the table and went to walk away, then thought better of it and looked straight at Penrose. ‘Look, I know I’ve done wrong, but I could never, ever take a man’s life – not for anything. I’ve seen too much, and I know how easily people leave this world. You can’t do my job without respecting life – you have to believe that.’
On the whole, Penrose did believe it but he had no intention of backing off until he’d learned everything he could. ‘Then where were you when Nathaniel died?’
Jago sighed and sat down again. ‘It’ll sound like I’m losing my mind, and maybe I am. I keep thinking I see him – Christopher, I mean. Since he disappeared, I’ve hardly had a moment’s peace. He’s everywhere and nowhere. I made a fool of myself at the fair the other night – there was a lad walking away from one of the stalls, same sort of age as Christopher and looked exactly like him in the dark. Stared at me as though I was mad when I ran after him. Then last night, at the theatre, I thought I saw him at the back of the auditorium, but when I got there, it was just my imagination playing tricks again. I went out to look round the cars, though, just in case, and that’s when I noticed my van was missing. Then I saw people starting to leave and went back to find out what was happening. By that time, Nathaniel was dead.’
