the nets into nearby fields to dry. It was merely a glimpse of ordinariness, which echoed what had happened yesterday and would no doubt be repeated tomorrow, but it reassured and cheered her nonetheless.
Archie seemed to feel a similar respite from matters of life and death. He spoke very little on their way up the hill, but nodded warmly to several people, often using a nickname which was utterly incomprehensible to Josephine. ‘That’s Morveth’s house,’ he said, pointing ahead to a beautiful thatched cottage, separated from the sea by nothing more than the narrow road and a single-storey net loft. ‘It’s the oldest house in the village – the houses either side were built on much later – and it used to belong to the estate. Veronique – William’s wife – absolutely adored it. They’d come here together, just the two of them, before they had the children, and he left it to her in his will – he knew she wouldn’t want to stay in the big house after his death. Of course, it was never an issue. As soon as Veronique died, he sold it to Morveth – he couldn’t even bear to have the responsibility of it any more.’
‘It’s glorious,’ said Josephine, and meant it. ‘I can see why Veronique was so captivated by it.’ The cottage, though smaller than Morwenna’s, was not dissimilar except that it was immaculately kept, with gleaming white walls and a neat straw roof. It could scarcely have changed at all since the day it was built, but she could imagine how different it must have looked – how proud and aloof – when there were fewer buildings on this particular stretch of cliff. Even now, with its ridges raised slightly higher than the rooftops around it, the cottage still maintained something of its former superiority, as if years and pedigree counted for more than square footage.
Archie knocked firmly on the dark-blue door but the only response it brought was from the neighbouring house, which doubled as a small shop – one of those sitting-room affairs where wives added to the household income by selling things from their front rooms. The face of a woman in her sixties appeared at the window and hovered over a pair of brass scales which shone like a dollar through the glass; she looked curiously at Morveth’s visitors for a moment, then nodded to Archie and moved back into the house. Frustrated by the possibility that Morveth herself might be out, Archie peered through one of the sash windows, then raised his hand to someone inside. ‘It’s all right – she’s coming through from the back,’ he said, and a moment later the door opened. Morveth’s expression changed when she saw Josephine, but she stood aside politely to let them both in.
The front door opened straight into one of the most chaotic sitting rooms that Josephine had ever seen. The room had a stone-flagged floor and whitewashed walls, but very little of either was visible beneath the detritus of a long life, lived in contact with many rather than devoted to one. There were photographs everywhere – some showed successive groups of smiling children, lined up outside a small school building; others were less formal images of Morveth with boys and girls of varying ages – and the surfaces were cluttered with trinkets and mementos which she guessed were presents from former pupils. Taken together, the collection was a meaningless jumble, but Josephine had no doubt that each individual item carried a memory and a significance for Morveth.
A large oak dresser stood against the only straight wall; its shelves and cupboards were crammed with bottles, jars and books, and Josephine recognised some of the titles from the Lodge, together with a selection of classic novels and poetry and an old prayer book, so well thumbed that even to remove it from the shelf seemed to threaten its existence. She was interested to see how easily Morveth’s loyalties blended Christianity with folklore, and wondered cynically where the woman’s belief in her own powers sat in relation to either. What was more fascinating still, though, was the fact that – in spite of the disorder – Josephine instantly recognised the peace that Archie had described to her from his past visits. The air was scented with herbs, bunches of which were nailed to the beams, and the fresh, sweet smell of rosemary drifted across from the adjoining kitchen, where a range gently infused the herb with its heat. It was curious, but the room offered a sense of calm found rarely even in spaces which were much less muddled.
There were only two chairs, so Josephine sat on the stairs, keen to distance herself from the conversation that Archie needed to have with his friend. Morveth’s first words, however, were addressed to her, and they were blunt and accusing. ‘You’ve told him, then?’
‘No – did you want me to? Was that why you singled me out for your confidences?’
Archie interrupted. ‘Josephine hasn’t told me anything,’ he reiterated, ‘although I don’t understand why you chose to put her in that position. I’m afraid that I had to hear it from the horse’s mouth.’ Succinctly, he explained what had happened during his visit to the rectory, and his tone was gentle but professional. ‘So now I hope you might be able to tell me yourself what happened to my mother. We can’t deny it any more, not even to ourselves.’
Morveth was silent for a long time, although she did have the grace to glance apologetically at Josephine. ‘What good would it do, Archie? What good does raking up the past ever do? I could sit here and tell you everything that Lizzie told me in confidence, but how do all those shameful, miserable details help you or serve her memory?’
‘That’s too easy, Morveth, and it’s not your decision to make.’
‘But I know how desperately she wanted to save you from it – I won’t betray her like that. You’re right – I should never have said anything, and I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the shock of what happened to Nathaniel. But I did it because I care about you, Archie. I can’t look out for you any more – you’ve moved away from us now and you have a different life, and that’s how it should be – so I told the one person you might take help from if you ever needed it.’ She looked at Josephine, who wondered again how Morveth knew so much about her friendship with Archie. ‘Anyway, your mother had the last word on the subject of Jasper Motley in her will.’
‘Taking his piety with a pinch of salt, you mean.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it, yes. Or it could simply stand for nature’s way of healing a wound. Whatever she meant, it sounds as though someone has done her work for her at last – and someone with a much higher authority than you.’ She smiled at Archie with genuine compassion, and Josephine guessed that he was beginning to see the sense of what Morveth was saying: there really was no need for him to know anything more about his mother’s pain. Morveth picked up a photograph in a plain wooden frame from where it stood on the small table next to her chair, and passed it to Archie. ‘That’s the relationship you should be remembering,’ she said. ‘It’s the one that made her strong enough to face her demons – no matter what form they took. Leave it there.’
He stared at the picture for a long time before speaking. ‘All right,’ he said at last, handing the image of his mother and father over to Josephine to look at, ‘but we are going to have to talk about some aspects of the past, Morveth. When Nathaniel died, he took everybody’s right to secrecy with him – and I mean everybody’s. You’ve held lots of those secrets safe for years, but it’s time to let go. Right now, I do need some help, but it’s not the sort that Josephine can give. Can you?’
‘I don’t know anything about Nathaniel’s death.’
‘Not directly, perhaps, but don’t fool yourself that his murderer is a stranger. He or she is somewhere on the Loe estate, I’m convinced of that much, and you know more about that community than any of us. Let’s start with the Snipe family, shall we? Jago told me about what happened to his baby daughter and what you did to get him another child – did Nathaniel find out from the records at the Union what had happened, and who Christopher’s real father is?’
Morveth was clearly unsettled by Archie’s question, but she was not stupid enough to deny the truth of what he was saying. ‘Why did Jago tell you that? We swore to each other we’d never tell a soul.’
‘He’s worried sick about Christopher, and rightly so. The boy’s been missing since Sunday night, and that’s too much of a coincidence coming so shortly before Nathaniel’s murder. Perhaps he’s been hurt himself, perhaps he’s got something to hide – either way, he’s in trouble. So did Nathaniel know that Christopher was Joseph Caplin’s son?’
‘Not to my knowledge, but Nathaniel had begun to keep a lot of things to himself lately. He didn’t talk to me as readily as he used to.’ Wise man, Josephine thought, but said nothing. ‘The information’s there at the Union if you know where to look,’ Morveth admitted, ‘but I don’t know if he found it.’
‘And you haven’t mentioned it to someone who might have told Christopher? Morwenna, for example – could Loveday have overheard something that she thought Christopher should know?’
‘I’ve never broken that promise to Jago,’ Morveth said indignantly. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you casually “mention”.’
‘Of course, there is one more thing that might have made Christopher run away,’ Archie said. ‘Am I right in thinking that Loveday was pregnant?’ Suddenly, Morveth looked genuinely frightened. ‘We’ve been friends a long time,’ he continued, ‘and, because of that, I’m not going to ask you if you did anything to ensure that she would lose the baby. But I will ask you this: why were you so against her having a child?’
‘You obviously know a great deal more than I thought, Archie,’ Morveth said, recovering a little of her composure. ‘And if that’s the case, I don’t know how you can even ask why I’d be against that girl’s
