Angel with Two Faces

Chapter Thirteen

Penrose knocked at the door of Loe Cottage and waited, but there was no answer. Just as he was raising his hand to try again, he heard footsteps inside and the heavy curtain which had been drawn across the entrance was pulled roughly back. Even through the glass, Archie could see that Morwenna looked exhausted; there was no colour in her face, and the dark rings around her eyes which had shocked him at the funeral were even more pronounced now. He had expected her to be surprised to see him but, if she was, she showed no sign of it. ‘Archie,’ she said, with a trace of impatience, ‘I thought it was only a matter of time before you’d show up. I hear the play didn’t exactly go off as planned.’

‘You know about Nathaniel’s death?’

‘Yes. Morveth came over early this morning. She had to bring some things back that I left at the Minack, and she told me then. I suppose you’re here to find out why I left in such a hurry.’

‘Amongst other things, yes. Can I come in?’

‘All right, but you’ll have to be quiet. Loveday’s not well, and I don’t want her disturbed.’

She stood aside to let him through into the kitchen. ‘Sit down. I’ll make some tea.’ He took a seat, and looked with interest at the picnic rug and familiar copy of Tennyson’s poetry which had been left on the table – presumably the items which Morveth had returned during her early-morning visit. Inside, the cottage showed no sign of the neglect which had puzzled him in the garden on Sunday: the blue slate slabs of the kitchen floor had been swept clean and the furniture was scrubbed and tidy; all that was left of the wake was a pair of empty whisky bottles on the floor in the corner.

‘I’m sorry to hear about Loveday,’ he said, conscious of how formal and strained his words sounded. His relationship with Morwenna had always been relaxed and straightforward; even their brief exchange at the funeral – although dominated by her anxieties – had felt natural and warm, but today he was uncomfortable around her, knowing that he was about to stretch the limits of their friendship. ‘What’s the matter with her?’

‘Stomach cramps,’ she said, bringing the pot over to the table. ‘Girls’ problems, in other words. They came on suddenly last night and she was in agony. I had to get her home, and Jago had been obliging enough to leave his keys in the ignition, so I borrowed his van.’

At least that was one search which could be called off, he thought. ‘Where’s the van now?’

‘Morveth took it back with my apologies,’ she said, and pushed a cup across the table towards him. ‘So you can arrest me for theft, if you like, but not for murder. There have been times recently when I could happily have killed Nathaniel, but I didn’t.’

He was inclined to believe her, but had no intention of leaving the matter there. ‘So how do you feel about the fact that someone else has?’

‘It’s another thing that will hurt Loveday when she comes to understand it properly, and I’m sorry about that, but I’ve used up all my grief lately. I don’t have any left for Nathaniel, as callous as that might sound. He has a community to mourn him, and a God to save him. He doesn’t need me.’

Archie realised that he was going to get very little out of Morwenna if she continued in this mood. He had years of experience in breaking down the barriers that people put up against his questioning, but he sensed that this was different: Morwenna wasn’t being evasive; she was simply past caring, about herself or anyone else, and it was almost impossible to get someone in that state of mind to co-operate. There seemed little point in being anything other than direct with her. ‘It seems to me that Nathaniel knew a lot about this estate,’ he said, ‘and he wasn’t particularly wise about who he shared his information with. Was he right to think that Harry deliberately started the fire that killed your parents?’

She looked at him, and he was ashamed of the satisfaction he took from having managed to surprise her. ‘How should I know?’ she said, recovering quickly. ‘I wasn’t here.’

‘No, but you’ve had eight years to think about it. Surely you don’t expect me to believe you didn’t confront Harry after what Nathaniel said to you, even if that was the first time you suspected anything other than an accident?’ Her defiance was irritating him, and he saw no reason to hide his impatience. ‘Harry’s dead, Morwenna – I can’t hurt him, and neither can you. But other people are going to get hurt if someone doesn’t start telling the truth. This estate will be torn apart by lies and secrets, and I’m not just talking about reputations and loyalties. Nathaniel was murdered. Right now, while we’re sitting here drinking tea, his parents are at the mortuary viewing a body that has been smashed to pieces. His God didn’t save him, and neither will He save the next person who opens their mouth at the wrong time. And there will be more killings, I promise you, because none of you are as careful as you should be with your secrets and your threats – it might be you, it might be me, it might even be Loveday, but someone else will die if I don’t get some help.’

‘That’s quite a speech, Archie,’ she said flippantly, but he could see that she was unsettled. ‘How do you know that the fire had anything to do with Nathaniel’s death?’

‘I don’t,’ he said frankly, ‘but I’ve got to start somewhere. Would you rather I went upstairs and got the truth from Loveday? I’m happy to do that, and I’m sure she’d give it to me.’

‘All right,’ she said, and then, more to herself, ‘what harm can it do now, anyway? Nathaniel was right – Harry did start the fire, and he did it deliberately. I didn’t know at the time, but he told me afterwards. Neither of us knew that Loveday had seen anything, but Nathaniel was only confirming what I knew already and thought I could leave in the past.’

‘Did Harry threaten to hurt you if you told anyone about it?’

‘He didn’t need to threaten me. I wouldn’t have betrayed him.’

‘Not even for killing your parents and – for all he knew – Loveday as well? It’s hardly betrayal. He must have forced you to keep quiet somehow.’ She stayed silent and, convinced now that Josephine was right, Archie searched for the best way to ask the question. ‘If he was violent towards you, it’s understandable that you should be too frightened to say anything. Anyone in your position would have done the same.’

‘What?’ She looked at him in confusion, then seemed to realise what he was getting at. To his astonishment, she started to laugh, but it was a hollow sound, close to hysteria, and it filled him with an unaccountable sadness. ‘You’ve got it so wrong, Archie,’ she said eventually. ‘Is that really how you see me? As another Beth Jacks? I loved Harry.’

‘Of course you did, he was your brother.’

‘Oh, what’s the use any more? It’s all falling apart. I didn’t love him as a brother, Archie. We were lovers, and we had been for years. That’s why I would never have said anything. My loyalty has always been to him, not to my parents, and it will always be to his memory, not to theirs.’

Suddenly it all fell into place – the secrecy, the shame, as Josephine had put it; that was the darkness at the heart of this family. How odd that she should be so close to the truth, and yet so far away. Archie could only imagine the strain of keeping such a secret, and the way in which it must have influenced all of Harry and Morwenna’s relationships – their every meeting with another person, in fact. The split between the mask and the reality must have been unbearable for Morwenna since Harry’s death; she must have longed for someone to listen without judgement – or was that simply his own arrogance speaking, his need to do something constructive when he really felt hopelessly inadequate to deal with the strength of Morwenna’s emotions? ‘When did it start?’ he asked gently.

‘In the way you mean, when we were twelve. Loveday had just been born, and she was the centre of attention, so you could say we made our own amusement.’

‘And in the way I don’t mean?’

She smiled, genuinely this time. ‘Years before, I suppose. Harry and I were always together – we had no choice. Everyone thought we made a perfect family, but we’d been two separate couples – mum and dad, Harry and me – for as long as I can remember. Our parents never treated us as individuals – it was always “the twins this” or “the twins that”. We were told to play together, put to bed together, punished and rewarded together. They rationalised it by saying they were determined never to have a favourite, but that’s not how it felt to us – it felt like we had no identity except as a pair. There was nothing intentional about it, no hostility – I don’t think they even realised they were doing it, and they’d probably have been horrified if they knew how isolated we felt emotionally. But they were always more interested in each other than in us, and there’s a limit to how long you can push and shove for attention.’

Her words reminded Archie of Josephine’s concerns for Loveday, and he wondered if Morwenna knew she was behaving in the very same way towards her little sister. ‘But they did pay more attention to Loveday,’ he said.

‘Yes. They’d been trying for another child for years, and my mother had had several miscarriages by that time. When Loveday came along, all the focus was on her and it was as if they suddenly realised how to be parents. They talked to her all the time, and played with her so naturally and spontaneously. We’d have had to be saints not to resent all that individual care – and we certainly weren’t saints, either of us. We got so tired of hearing that Loveday was special, and we just retreated into each other even further. It was a dangerous age to do that, of course – we were curious about sex, and our parents weren’t about to take us to one side and explain everything, so we decided to find out for ourselves.’ She drank her tea, hardly seeming to notice that it was long cold. ‘Harry was my reference point for everything,’ she continued. ‘I don’t mean that he forced me to do anything – it was entirely mutual; I just mean that I depended on him, and he on me. One minute we were brother and sister, fighting and playing together, and the next, we’d crossed a line. It all seemed to start so naturally – we had this game where we’d throw stones into the lake or skim them across the sea, and compete for kisses. One thing just led to another.’ She looked down, embarrassed, and Archie waited for her to go on. ‘I think it was the safety of it all that we loved as much as anything,’ she said, and he sensed that she was desperate for him to understand. ‘It meant that we didn’t have to break out of our cocoon and establish our own identities with anybody else. We’d never had to do that, and I think it terrified both of us. There was an emotional security in what we had, and a safety valve against our feelings for everyone else – by loving each other, we avoided being angry with our parents and jealous of Loveday.’

With no brothers or sisters of his own, Archie had only ever experienced a sibling relationship second-hand, but it did not take much imagination to see that a brother and sister – who already knew each other so intimately – would share an intense private world if they ignored all the taboos.

‘I shouldn’t describe it in such negative terms,’ Morwenna said. ‘It was something precious and uniquely ours, and we both took a great deal of pleasure from it. It seemed so innocent, really. I remember thinking that it was just a childish thing, and one day I was sure to grow up and tire of it. I kept expecting the sheer joy of him to wear off, but it never did.’

‘Weren’t you afraid that someone would find out?’

‘Yes and no. We had no other supervision, really, and I suppose there was an element of rebellion in it. If they were going to treat us as one, then we might as well be one – physically and emotionally. We soon discovered that there’s a remarkable power in being able to deceive everyone.’

‘Even yourselves? You must have known how people would have viewed it if you were discovered.’

‘Yes, but we were each other’s moral guide – and the one great thing about it was the honesty. It’s so rare that you can show your truest self to someone, whether you love it or hate it. How many people have you allowed that close?’ He considered, and was ashamed to admit that there was no one. ‘It was our integrity to ourselves and to each other that mattered,’ she said, ‘not rules that someone else had laid down. Sometimes I think Harry felt guilty because of all the old sexual prejudices – he was the boy, and perhaps he’d taken advantage of me in some way and violated my trust, but it was never like that. I worshipped him. I would have done anything for him, and he for me.’

‘Hence the fire? Is that why he did it? Did your parents find out?’

‘Yes. It was a stupid way to get caught, really, but we thought we were invincible by then.’

‘That’s love for you.’

‘I suppose so. Dad always had to be out of the house early to see to the horses, and he’d take Harry with him to exercise them. Whenever he could, Harry would come back to the cottage after my mother had left for the Union. One day she came back early because she wasn’t well, and she caught us in my bed. It was as simple as that. I don’t know who was more shocked when she opened the door, her or us. She just stood there with her mouth open for what seemed like an age, and eventually Harry laughed. That did it, of course – it was a nervous reaction more than anything, but I’ll never forget the look of disgust on her face, or the things she called us. ‘

‘What did they do about it?’

‘Well, all hell broke loose – behind closed doors, of course. My father ignored me entirely as if he just wanted to gloss over my part in it all, but he beat Harry within an inch of his life. I suppose that was the only response he understood. I was so angry. I’ve never known a rage like the one I felt when I saw what he’d done to Harry – to his son, for God’s sake. After that, the shame set in and it was never mentioned again.’ She ran her fingers round the rim of her cup, apparently absorbed in her own thoughts. ‘How ridiculous that all seems now – we were never given a chance to talk about it or explain how we felt, and neither of them seemed to understand that there might have been a reason for it. Or perhaps they did, and just didn’t want to acknowledge that they’d had anything to do with it. Either way, they just closed down and tried to behave as if nothing had happened.’

‘What about you and Harry? Did you stop?’

‘Of course we didn’t. It just made us more secretive, and more contemptuous of them. We laughed at how impotent they seemed – when of course it was Harry and me who couldn’t control what we were doing. They knew we were carrying on as before, and it didn’t take them long to realise that nothing would stop us except physical separation. I was sent to the Union until they could arrange something more permanent, and that’s why he started the fire – they were going to send him away. My father had a sister who’d married up country, and they asked her if he could go and live there.’ She paused and looked around the kitchen, as if trying to imagine what that night had been like. ‘Harry told me he started the fire here, with the letter our aunt wrote to say yes.’

‘But why wipe out everyone, himself and Loveday included?’ Archie was trying to keep his voice as dispassionate as possible, but it was hard to disguise his anger at the recollection of how William had risked his own life to save Harry and Loveday, and how guilty his uncle had felt for failing to rescue the whole family. ‘Everyone except you, that is.’

‘Yes, that must have looked suspicious. I suppose it crossed your policeman’s mind that I might have started it for some reason?’

‘Yes, or that you knew he was going to do it.’

‘No, I had no idea, and it wasn’t a calculated thing on his part – please believe that. He was in absolute despair – it was a kind of madness, I suppose. I’m not trying to excuse what he did, but he was eighteen and utterly lost. Our relationship was the core of who we were, and the only reality we knew. Without it, there was nothing, and you’re absolutely right to say he wanted to wipe everything out; he didn’t care because the rest of the world simply didn’t exist for him any more. What we had wasn’t just one relationship that existed alongside others – it was the relationship, something that belonged to the past and the future. Nothing could be allowed to stand in the way of it.’

Archie said nothing, but he thought about what it must have been like in that household before the fire. Love amongst members of a family often turned to hate but rarely to indifference, and he could only begin to imagine the trauma involved when the temptation to possess each other sexually became too much.

‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Morwenna said, misreading his silence. ‘I’m not sure we did.’

‘It sounds to me like you have a fairly good understanding.’

She smiled. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.’

‘Did anyone outside the family know?’

‘Morveth – they asked her to look after Loveday for a few days to get her out of the house when things were at their worst. And I think my father must have told Jago – they were good friends, and he always went to him for advice.’

‘Do you think Loveday had any sense of what was going on?’

‘No, she was far too young to understand.’

She wasn’t too young now, though, Archie thought, and there was no way that all the complexities of Harry’s love for Morwenna would have died with his parents. ‘Loveday said you’d argued a lot with Harry recently, and that you even had to lock yourself in your room to keep him away.’

‘She told you that?’

He hesitated. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Ah – she told your friend, then. How useful for you to have a spy in residence.’ Archie started to deny that it was like that, but of course – in effect – it was. ‘You might as well hear it from me, I suppose,’ Morwenna continued. ‘Strangely, no one seemed to suspect that the fire was anything other than an accident, but that left Morveth with a dilemma – if Harry was sent away, who would support Loveday and me? You know how it is – breaking a family up is the last resort and the Union gates are always open, so Morveth allowed him to stay on the condition that we behaved ourselves.’

The flippancy of her words would have annoyed Archie if he didn’t know her well enough to see through it. ‘And you managed to convince her that you could?’

‘We did better than that – we did stop, at least the physical side of our relationship. It went against everything in my heart and you’ve no idea how badly I craved that sort of affection, but it was the only thing to do. We had a responsibility to Loveday, and sometimes I’ve hated her for it.’

‘And Harry accepted that?’

‘Yes, because it was only supposed to be temporary. I let him think that we’d begin again when she was grown up, and I suppose it was easier to tell myself that as well. We started pulling together for us, for some sort of mythical happy ending. It’s funny – everyone admired Harry for taking the disappointment of missing out on his new life so well. As far as most of them were concerned, he’d given up his future to do his duty, when in reality he didn’t have a future that wasn’t here with me.’

‘But you obviously knew in your heart that things would never work out for you.’

‘I didn’t love him any less, but things were different after the fire and after what he’d done – different for both of us, I think. We kidded ourselves that we could simply emerge from behind our secret one day and live a normal life, but our relationship was never going to be a permanent sanctuary. You can’t be responsible for a death and not be affected by it. The beauty of our love was that it was exclusive – there was no one else in the world but Harry and me. Suddenly that changed. There was Loveday to worry about, and the spectre of my parents hanging over us, and all the guilt that we’d kept at bay for so long was with me all the time. When Loveday was older, he started to talk about us again, and tried to pick up where we left off. Don’t think I wasn’t tempted – locking my door was as much about keeping myself back as keeping him out – but I couldn’t do it. It was tainted, somehow, and I think that deep down he knew that.’

‘How did he react?’

‘Badly. He drank, he gambled, he took his frustration out on everyone. And he… well, he looked elsewhere.’

‘That must have hurt.’

‘Yes, but it was my choice. I could have brought him back to me at any time, but I didn’t.’

‘Who did he turn to?’

‘No one you know,’ she said quickly, and he detected the first lie of their conversation but was reluctant to press her. Was it Nathaniel, he wondered? Had the curate – out of loyalty or out of shame – only told him half the truth?

‘Did Nathaniel ever find out that you and Harry were lovers?’ he asked.

‘No, although he may have guessed in time, I suppose. But, as you said, he wasn’t the type to cover up what he knew and I’m sure he would have tackled us about it if he’d known.’

‘How did Harry feel when Nathaniel confronted him about the fire?’

‘Betrayed. Things had been strained between them for some time, and Harry could never work out why. He said he kept going out of his way to be friendly towards Nathaniel, but all it did was drive him further away. He finally understood what had gone wrong between them when Nathaniel came to see him about the fire, but that only made things worse. Harry thought true friendship was strong enough to withstand anything – you were loyal to him or you weren’t, you loved him or you didn’t. He wasn’t unlike Loveday in that respect. It sounds simplistic to you, I suppose, but he expected Nathaniel to be on his side, to know that he’d have had his reasons and to trust him; the fact that he didn’t was unforgivable, but by that time he was mixing in very different company anyway.’

‘The argument you had with Harry on the night before he died – was that about renewing your relationship or Nathaniel’s knowledge of the fire?’

‘Both, I suppose. They were interlinked by then, and there were always new variations on that old theme.’ Morwenna closed her eyes briefly, as though wanting to shut out the image of that final night. ‘We had a terrible row, and I accused him – amongst other things – of never having truly loved me. I said it in the heat of the moment, but if I’d sat down and thought for hours I couldn’t have come up with anything that would have hurt him more. He hit me – just a slap, nothing more, and I deserved it, but it horrified him to realise that he could do such a thing. Anything other than tenderness was alien to him as far as I was concerned. Then he stormed out, and I heard him take Shilling from the stable.’

‘And that was the last time you saw him?’

She hesitated. ‘No. I saw him once more, not long before he died.’

‘Where?’

‘At the boathouse by the Lodge.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I couldn’t take it any more, Archie,’ she said, unable to hold back the tears any longer. ‘The pain of living with Harry and not being with him, of bringing up Loveday in some sick parody of a happy family. And he’d changed towards me – he’d look at me sometimes as if the hopelessness of it all was my fault, as if I’d wantonly destroyed our happiness. You have no idea how claustrophobic I felt in this house. We couldn’t get away from each other. And with everything that Nathaniel had said, it could only be a matter of time before it all came out. I just needed peace – peace for me, without having to bear the responsibility of Loveday and Harry’s feelings, and there was only one way I could think of to make it all go away.’

‘You were going to take your own life?’

‘Yes. I left the house shortly after he did, just to get away from these four walls, and I didn’t even stop to think about Loveday. I walked by the lake for a long time. You know what it’s like at night – there’s nothing as quiet, nothing as close to oblivion as that water when it’s still. I made my way to the boathouse, knowing that there was no one at the Lodge to see me, and I decided to take the boat out to the middle and put an end to the misery – for all of us. I sat on the landing stage for a long time, watching it get light, thinking about what a mess everything had become and how our parents had died for nothing, and trying not to think about what would happen to Harry when he knew what I’d done.’

‘But he found you there?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was he?’

‘He looked terrible. He’d been drinking again and fighting, and his face was cut and bruised, but he was different, somehow – calmer, resigned. I think he guessed immediately what I was going to do, although he didn’t say so; he just talked to me – gently, like the old Harry, convincing me to live. He said nothing could ever take away what we had, but he realised that he had to get away from the estate and everything that had happened. We walked back here together, and he told me he would always love me, no matter where he went. I had no idea what he meant to do, and I didn’t have the strength to argue with him any more. I thought he was going away, just like he was supposed to all those years ago. I didn’t know the selfish bastard was going to ride his horse into the lake.’ She broke down completely now, and Archie got up and went round to the other side of the table, unable to do anything but hold her. ‘How could he let me down like that? He forced me to go on without any hope of him, looking after Loveday in this living hell. Sometimes, when I think of how he’s betrayed me, the hatred sticks in my throat and I can hardly breathe. It should have been him who had to live, but he fooled me, and I’ll never forgive him for that.’

If Morwenna really blamed Nathaniel for Harry’s suicide – and Archie was now convinced that it was suicide – she would have had a powerful motive to kill him, and her grief might easily have driven her to it, but he couldn’t help feeling that he was no nearer to understanding Nathaniel’s murder and Christopher’s disappearance than he had been two hours ago. All the things that had confused him about Morwenna’s behaviour in the past, however, were suddenly explained: her defiance and lack of trust, her reluctance to make friends with other women on the estate, even the ease of their own relationship; he had, he realised now, filled the gap that her love for her real brother had left vacant.

After a while, she pulled away from him, in control once more. She started to tidy away the things on the table, and gave an ironic smile when she got to the Tennyson. ‘At least we’re in good company – Arthur’s sister was his downfall, wasn’t she?’

‘Is that how you see yourself – as Harry’s downfall?’

‘Of course it is. He killed himself because I wouldn’t do the one thing that could have made him want to live. You can be very persuasive, Archie, but even you couldn’t convince me that I’m not to blame for his death.’ In a story, this would no doubt have had some sort of heroic grandeur to it, but all Archie could see was a very human misery. He watched as Morwenna picked the book up and opened it. ‘You gave this to me after my parents died,’ she said. ‘Do you remember?’

He nodded. ‘It was meant to be a comfort, but perhaps it wasn’t the most appropriate present I’ve ever given.’

‘You know, all I could think of then was how envious I was of the way that you’d mourned your parents. I wished more than anything that I could have felt a grief as pure as that, as simple. I’m sure it didn’t feel simple to you,’ she said, as he opened his mouth to disagree, ‘but at least there were no secrets and nothing to hide.’ She flicked through pages which looked well read. ‘It’s turned out to be a very valuable present now. Harry died to me twice, you know – as a lover, and then as a brother. I thought I might feel a sense of freedom somehow, but I don’t. Perhaps if I read this often enough, I might believe in something, though. You never know.’

It would take more than Tennyson to comfort Morwenna, Archie thought. Death ended a life, but not a relationship, and grief was always worse when so much had been left unresolved. He doubted that there was anything cathartic about what Morwenna was feeling; all she had to define herself by now was her dead brother’s ghost. There was a noise from above and Morwenna looked up. ‘I must go and see how Loveday is,’ she said. ‘I suppose the things I said about her sounded terrible to you, didn’t they?’

‘Not terrible, no. It must be difficult to have to step into a parent’s shoes when it’s not your choice.’

She seemed grateful for his answer. ‘Difficult isn’t the word. But I am trying to do the best I can for her.’

‘And helping her deal with Harry’s death must be torture for you. I can see why you didn’t thank Nathaniel for confusing the issue.’

‘I have no idea how to cope with it,’ she admitted. ‘What do you tell a fourteen-year-old about death, let alone a death as complicated as this? And because I can’t bear to talk about it, it makes it all unreal to her, somehow – he’s just gone away, and she can’t understand why I’ve taken his photograph down.’

‘They got on well, from what I can remember.’

‘Yes, and more so as she got older. He showed her an exciting world of freedom while all I ever did was tell her what she couldn’t do. She’s lost that now, and I know she blames me in some way. She stays away from home whenever she can, and doesn’t ask much of me. I blamed Nathaniel for that, but it’s my fault, not his. I am sorry he’s dead, you know,’ she said as Archie stood up, ready to go. ‘Do you have any idea who killed him?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘And you wouldn’t tell me if you did.’

‘Probably not,’ he admitted, ‘but – for what it’s worth – I will tell you to stay safe. When Loveday’s well again, try to keep an eye on her. No one should be wandering around at the moment, and steer clear of Kestrel Jacks.’

‘Why? Do you think he had something to do with it?’

‘There’s no reason to suspect him more than anyone else, but you know how he feels about you and, with Harry gone, he might try and do something about it.’

‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? He beats his wife up and we all turn a blind eye to it, but Harry and I loved each other and that’s the sin. Nothing makes sense – not to me, at least.’ Put like that, Archie thought, it was not surprising that she should feel so bitter. ‘Anyway, I doubt Jacks would want me if he knew Harry had got there first,’ she added, walking him to the door. ‘I’d be damaged goods as far as he was concerned. It’s almost worth telling him just to see the look on his face.’

‘You’re not serious, are you?’ he asked, with an urgency in his voice. Her words reminded him of what Jago had said about Loveday, and suddenly he feared for Morwenna: there was a fragility about her which her defiance had never entirely masked, and he sensed in her now a lack of concern for her own welfare which bordered almost on self-loathing. It would smoulder in her, he knew, if she did not try to get over what had happened, but how on earth was she supposed to do that? ‘If you’re worried that I’ll make this public, then don’t be. You’ve told me in confidence, and it has nothing to do with the investigation as far as I can see.’

She surprised him by lifting a hand tenderly to his cheek. ‘It’s nice that you care, Archie,’ she said, ‘but how can it matter now if someone finds out? I don’t feel anything any more. What can hurt me?’