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?’
‘I went to my car, which was parked at the top of the hill, and waited there for my wife. She arrived about ten minutes later, and we drove straight home.’
‘You knew she’d come after you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did anyone see you while you were waiting?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘And you didn’t meet anyone else by the cars? Jago Snipe or Morveth Wearne, for example?’
‘I saw Snipe as we were driving off. He was standing on the edge of the lawn to Minack House, bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back. I’m not surprised – that place isn’t built for people our age. I doubt he saw us, but he must have heard the car. Morveth Wearne wasn’t there, though.’
‘Let’s go back to the moment when Nathaniel departed from the script. Do you know why he did that, and what he was trying to suggest?’
‘I’ve no idea. He had a vivid imagination, and was prone to grand gestures. Theatricality suited him, particularly in the pulpit, but don’t expect me to be able to tell you what was going on in his head.’
‘He wouldn’t be the first person to accuse you of certain financial irregularities, though, would he?’
‘People talk in any small community. It’s a substitute for something meaningful in their otherwise futile lives. I don’t listen to gossip, and I would have thought that someone in your position would know better than to make accusations which have no substance.’
Penrose glanced around the room again, then continued. ‘It’s not so much the coins that interest me, though, as what Nathaniel chose to do with them. He poured them from a collection bag into your lap, and that struck me as a very sexual gesture. Would you agree?’
Motley shrugged, but he knew that his nervousness must be obvious to the two men looking at him. How much did his nephew know? he wondered. He suspected that his curate had put two and two together, but surely he hadn’t had a chance to tell Penrose? ‘I’d advise you to ask Shoebridge,’ he said defiantly, ‘but of course you can’t.’
‘No, but it seems fairly obvious to me that Nathaniel was making a point about certain excesses of the clergy. The question is – was he talking generally or specifically?’ Motley watched as Penrose walked casually over to the window and looked back along the coastal path in the direction of the Loe. ‘Perhaps I should ask Beth Jacks if she can throw any light on what Nathaniel meant. Of course, if I did that, her husband would want to know what I was talking about. I can only imagine how he’d take the news of his wife’s infidelity, even if it was for the greater good of the Church. He strikes me as a man who values exclusivity.’
The specific threat of Kestrel Jacks’s violence formed a very small part of the humiliation which suddenly faced Jasper Motley, and he took a gamble. ‘There’s no proof…’
‘Now Nathaniel’s dead, you mean?’ Penrose jumped in quickly. ‘I’m afraid these are my conclusions, not his. Beth Jacks doesn’t work for you – well, not in any official capacity. So why would she be walking away from your church, counting money?’
‘Why the hell do you think?’ Motley shouted angrily, clutching at the only straw he could think of. ‘She’s been stealing from the vestry. I’ve had my suspicions for some time, but I’ve never been able to prove it.’
‘So today, while she was in the church right under your nose, you just stood calmly at the door and watched her walk away with the collection?’
Somehow, Penrose’s anger only served to emphasise his authority, while Jasper felt increasingly diminished by his own fury. His heart was racing and he tried hard to concentrate on what he was saying, but he could not clear his head of the fuzziness which had started to cloud his thoughts. ‘You’re surely not going to take her word against mine, are you?’
‘Careful, Reverend – you’re showing your true colours. Would you really stand there and accuse that woman – who has more wretchedness in her life already than you could ever imagine – of something she hasn’t done just to save your own miserable skin? Hasn’t she lowered herself enough for you? My mother was right,’ he added, referring overtly at last to the personal resentment which had run as a subtext to their whole conversation. ‘There isn’t a word to describe the extent of your hypocrisy. No man should wrong his brother – isn’t that what you preach? And yet you can hurt your sister as often as you like.’
The shock of how much Penrose knew left him speechless for a second, but then his rage and his guilt got the better of him. ‘She asked for it,’ he said. ‘Your mother was no better than a common whore, and nothing she said to you about her perfect marriage to your father can change the fact that I had her first.’ Too late, he realised that his nephew had been speaking generally and his words did not, in fact, reveal any knowledge of the sin to which he, Jasper, had inadvertently confessed. He tried to retract what he had said, but he could not get the words out properly and anyway, he had gone too far. Before he knew it, Penrose was across the room and Motley felt strong hands at his throat. As he gasped for breath, he was dimly aware that the constable was telling Penrose to stop and pulling him away. His wife entered the room, too quickly to have come from upstairs, and he realised that she must have been standing outside the door all the time. Her smile was the last thing he noticed before everything went black.
Harry took the strip of cloth from around his neck and soaked it in a small pool of water which the obliging rain had created in the hollow of a sycamore tree. Gently, he removed one of his socks, wincing with pain as the rough wool, matted with blood, clung stubbornly to his foot in the places where the skin was broken. Days of wearing boots which were too small for him had taken their toll, and it would need more than water to repair the damage, but he did what he could. His whole body felt broken, exhausted. Last night, he had been so tired that he literally had had to drag his feet along the ground. The nails in his boots made sparks against the granite, reminding him of the hours he used to spend watching his father shoe the horses. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the steam rising from the metal as it cooled and now, with the boot in his hand, the smell of leather did its best to take him somewhere he could not afford to go. He bent down and put it roughly back on, using the pain to blot out an image of the past which was as unwelcome as it was unreal.
It took every ounce of the willpower he had, not to give in to his tiredness and simply lie down – right here, on the floor of the woods where he and Morwenna had made love for the first time. It was autumn then, and the bluebells which now stretched out in front of him lay hidden and forgotten under the death of summer. He had kissed her once – the usual reward for whatever game they were playing – but this time she turned her face towards him at the last minute, making sure that he found her lips. As she held his shirt and pulled him tentatively down with her on to the leaves, he realised that what he felt for her – what he had always felt for Morwenna – was love. Eager, nervous, disbelieving that this could ever be his, he explored her body, noticing how the leaves tangled in her hair seemed to reflect the shades of red and gold which he had always loved. In the distance, someone had lit a bonfire and, for Harry, the pungent, melancholy smell of wood smoke would always mean Morwenna and home.
