Fear In The Sunlight Part 1

Fear in the Sunlight.

Nicola Upson.

For my parentsa with love.

PART ONE.

Rear Window.

24 July 1954, London.

1.

'Do you mind if we stop for a moment?'

'Sure.' The detective sounded impatient, but he did as he was asked and the staccato whirr of the projector gradually subsided. Archie Penrose closed his eyes, but the image of Josephine refused to go away. She sat on the hotel terrace in the afternoon sunlight, a little self-conscious in front of the camera but laughing nonetheless at something he had just said to her. He couldn't remember what they had been talking about, and that annoyed him a irrationally, because the moment was eighteen years ago now and the conversation had been nothing more than easy holiday banter; but, since Josephine's death, the gradual fragmentation of all she had been in his memory disturbed him, and any elusive detail stung him like a personal rebuke. He stood and lifted the blinds on the windows, aware that the American was watching him, waiting for an explanation. 'I didn't mean to upset you, sir,' he said hesitantly, and the lazy drawl of his Californian accent gave the words an insolence which might or might not have been intentional. 'There's worse to come in the later footage. Much worse.'

'Not for me,' Penrose said curtly, and sat down at his desk to claw back some authority from the meeting. 'A friend of mine a the woman in the film a she died.' The words sounded cold and impersonal, but he knew from experience that there was no phrase that could adequately express his sense of loss, and he had long given up trying to find one. 'So it's hard for me to look back, Detective Doyle, no matter how harmless the images seem to you.'

'You knew one of the victims personally? I'm sorry. I didn't realise.'

This time the apology was genuine, and Penrose was quick to clarify. 'No, no a nothing like that. She died a couple of years ago, after an illness. But that's why we were at Portmeirion a it was Josephine's fortieth birthday. She loved it there and we went with some friends to celebrate.'

'So you weren't part of Mr Hitchc.o.c.k's party?'

'Not officially, no. Another friend of Josephine's a Marta Fox a had done some script work for his wife, and she was there for the weekend. But none of us was in Hitchc.o.c.k's circle, although he and Josephine had things to discuss. He wanted to film one of her books a a crime novel called A s.h.i.+lling for Candles which was just about to be published. She had reservations about it, but she agreed to talk to him while they were both at Portmeirion.'

'I don't remember a film of that name. Presumably it never happened, if your friend was so concerned about it?'

'Oh yes, it happened. It came out the following year, but Hitchc.o.c.k called it Young and Innocent. It was quite a success.'

The detective shook his head. 'I still don't know it. I suppose I've only seen the ones he made since he came over to our side. Was she pleased? Your friend, I mean.'

'By the time Mr Hitchc.o.c.k had finished with it, her story was no more recognisable than the t.i.tle,' Penrose said wryly. 'I can recall some of the words Josephine used when she saw it, but "pleased" wasn't one of them.'

Doyle smiled. 'Then I hope they paid her well.' He took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to Penrose. 'Tell me about this Portmeirion a it's not really a proper place, is it?'

'It's whatever you want it to be. That's its beauty.'

'But a private village created entirely by one man? Isn't that a little strange?'

The genuine incredulity in the detective's voice amused Penrose, but he knew what Doyle meant: for anyone who had never been there, the idea of a resort designed entirely for pleasure and architectural beauty a and for those with the means to enjoy them a was difficult to grasp; for an American with, he suspected, socialist leanings, it must seem absurdly self-indulgent. 'It's remarkable, certainly,' he said, 'but strong visions often are. The village might have been created by one man, but it's founded entirely on the belief that beauty can make people's lives better. In Portmeirion, Clough Williams-Ellis found a landscape that was beautiful already and used his imagination to improve it; that's a tremendous achievement, so no a I don't think it's strange. In fact, after what the world's been through, it seems to me to be saner than ever a if a little optimistic.' He smiled, but Doyle seemed unconvinced. 'And it's not a museum a he's still adding to it. Now that the building restrictions have finally been lifted after the war, there's no stopping him. I went back recently with my wife, and he'd just started on the plans for a new gatehouse. So Portmeirion lives and breathes and changes,' he added, unable to keep a faint trace of sarcasm out of his voice, 'just like a proper place.'

'I'm surprised you wanted to go back after everything that happened there. It can't have been much of a celebration.'

'If a policeman starts avoiding places that have been tainted by violent crime, there'll come a point when he can't leave the house,' Penrose said. 'Surely you know that from your own experience?' It was an evasive answer, but rooted in truth: ironically, Portmeirion was scarred for him not by the murders that had taken place there, but by the happiness he had known during that summer a a happiness made all the more poignant by the shock of Josephine's death. He knew better, though, than to try to dull his sadness by staying away from places in which they'd spent time together: there was no logic to grief, and he felt her absence everywhere. 'At the risk of sounding callous, I wasn't personally involved in the deaths at Portmeirion, so the good memories outweigh the bad.'

Doyle shook a sheaf of photographs from a file, and unfolded a map of the village on Penrose's desk. 'Even so, something like this must be hard to forget, no matter how many cases you've dealt with in your career.' He pointed to one location after another, matching each one with its black-and-white counterpart. 'A body found up in the woods by that weird cemetery place, slashed so badly that the face was barely recognisable. Another murder on the headland, just a stone's throw from the hotel, the victim raped, strangled and strung up like an animal. These garages, right at the heart of the village a covered in blood.' He placed the last photograph in the centre of the map and Penrose looked down at the bruised and broken body, remembering the confusion and disbelief he had felt when he arrived at the scene. 'And the final death,' Doyle added. 'A very persuasive confession of guilt, which seemed to solve everything. So many locations, and so much blood. I don't know about beauty, sir a it seems to me that your architect created a playground for a killer.'

'That was hardly his intention,' Penrose said evenly. 'And Mr Hitchc.o.c.k's little games didn't help. They made things much more difficult for the police.'

'You weren't the investigating officer, were you?'

'No, it was never my case. I had to stand by and watch someone else take charge. For a moment, I was a suspect, just like everybody else.'

'That must have been quite a new experience.'

Penrose nodded. Throughout his career, he had always prided himself on a sensitivity towards those affected by murder, an awareness that a in the process of getting to the truth a many innocent lives were torn apart, but nothing could have prepared him for the ease with which people turned on each other when their own character was under question. 'Fortunately, it didn't last long. Events came to a natural conclusion, and the case seemed to be wrapped up very efficiently.'

'"Seemed to be"?'

'Suicide is an eloquent form of confession, as you say, but it makes cross-interrogation very difficult.'

'They tell me you were never entirely satisfied with the outcome.'

Wondering who 'they' were, Penrose said, 'It wasn't my place to comment on another force's findings. It still isn't. If you have information which calls into question the results of an earlier investigation, there are systems in place which will deal with that a but I refuse to speculate on something that was never my business. As I said, everything seemed to be resolved satisfactorily.'

The sly smile came again. 'That's the famous British diplomacy which got you here, I suppose.' Doyle looked round the office and his gaze took in the half-packed boxes and empty shelves, the striking drawing of a female nude which Penrose had removed carefully from the wall. 'Retirement's a busy time,' he said. 'The last thing you need is a stranger opening doors that were closed nearly twenty years ago.'

Penrose didn't argue. 'Detective Doyle, this is all taking longer than I expected and I'm not sure I really understand why you're here in the first place. You asked to see me in connection with some recent murders in Los Angeles, which you believe to be linked to what happened in Portmeirion in 1936, and I'm happy to tell you anything I can.' He looked at his watch. 'But you're right a it is a busy time. So perhaps we could skip the film show and get to the point. What exactly is this link you're talking about?'

'Hitchc.o.c.k. Well, Hitchc.o.c.k's movies. The latest one's released any minute, and that's the connection.' Penrose started to say something, but Doyle held up his hand. 'Let me explain first. The new film a it's about a photographer who breaks his leg and is confined to a wheelchair in his apartment. Because he can't do his job, he spends his time looking at people in the block opposite, imagining their lives from what he sees . . .'

'Sounds familiar,' Penrose said, thinking about one of Josephine's novels, 'but yes a I've read about it. Grace Kelly and James Stewart?'

'That's right. It's set in Greenwich Village, but filmed entirely on one huge set, built specially under Hitchc.o.c.k's supervision. There were more than thirty apartments on that set, with trees and gardens down below, an alleyway leading out to the street, traffic going past, even a bar. You'd think you were looking at the real Manhattan skyline.'

'A whole borough created entirely by one man?' Penrose said, but Doyle was engrossed in his own story and the irony was lost on him.

'Yes a amazing, isn't it? They finished shooting earlier this year, but on the morning they were due to start taking the set down, three bodies were found in one of the apartments a all of them women, all brutally murdered.'

Penrose looked at him in astonishment. 'Why haven't I heard about this?' he asked. 'It must have been all over the papers.'

'We thought it best to be discreet in the information we gave to the press.'

'And this was your investigation?'

'In a manner of speaking, but to be honest there really wasn't much investigating to claim any credit for. Someone was caught at the scene, someone who later confessed to a series of similar killings and to the three murders at Portmeirion . . .'

Penrose knew that Doyle was trying to rouse his curiosity by withholding any specific details about the person he had in custody, but he refused to rise to the bait. 'Three murders at Portmeirion? You're saying that what we a.s.sumed to be the killer's suicide was actually another murder?'

'That's what it looks like. But I'm not entirely satisfied. There's obviously a lot more to what went on all those years ago, and something about it makes me uneasy. I'd like a second opinion.'

'Why mine?'

'Because you were there. Because you know the people involved. Because I've heard that the truth is important to you.'

Again, Penrose wondered who had supplied the informationa but he said nothing; if necessary, there would be time to find out more about Detective Tom Doyle when the interview had finished. 'You have a confession, though a for all the murders. I really don't see what more I can add.'

'Your colleagues had what amounted to a confession, and now someone's come along to contradict that. Look, sir, if this didn't interest you, you'd never have agreed to see me a and you're interested because, in your heart, you think you only know half a story. I want to know if what I've got to show you is that other half, or if we're both still missing something.' He pushed a second manila file across the desk. 'In hindsight, could you believe this was your killer?'

Penrose glanced quickly at the name typed across the top. 'But that's impossible,' he said, losing his detachment for a moment. 'The suicide . . . everyone was together on the terrace when it happened.'

'And yet we have a confession for that murder from someone you say was several hundred yards away at the time. If that part of the story is suspect, why should I believe anything else I'm told? About any of the crimes?'

'You must have challenged this, if you have such doubts about it?'

'Of course, but I get the same response every time. What you said just now is the first real evidence I've had to support a hunch.'

'It makes no sense, though. Why would anybody bother to confess to an eighteen-year-old crime a let alone lie about it a when the case is closed and no one's asking questions?'

Doyle shrugged. 'That's what I hoped you might be able to help me with. To be honest, sir, I've no idea what I'm looking for, but anything you can tell me about those few days might be useful.' He seemed to sense Penrose's interest and gestured to the file. 'Would you like to read through what I've brought you?'

Penrose nodded, grateful for anything that would delay the moment when he had to look again at the film of his younger self, of Josephine alive and well. He had been shocked to see how different the real person a even a celluloid version a was from the image he carried in his mind; he had always taken it for granted that he remembered Josephine's face clearly, but he realised now that it was just a memory a a poor imitation, a composite of so many years and moments that none of them was quite truthful. Slowly, imperceptibly, during the months since her death, he had begun to filter her more and more through his own imagination, and that was perhaps the biggest lie of all: her image did as it was asked, whereas Josephine never had. 'I need time to study it properly, though,' he said. 'Are you staying in town?'

'Yes, at the Adelphi in Villiers Street.'

'Then come and see me tomorrow at noon. I'll answer any questions you have then.' The American stood to leave, but Penrose held him back. 'The earlier film reels from Portmeirion a they came from Mr Hitchc.o.c.k, presumably?'

'From his office, yes. I thought they might help jog your memory.'

'And you said there was worse to come later in the footage. What did you mean?'

'The most recent murders a the women on Hitchc.o.c.k's set. One of them was filmed as she died.' He left the room without another word and closed the door softly behind him. Penrose walked over to the window and looked down into the street, waiting for the detective to emerge. The morning was oppressive; bland, grey cloud hung low in the sky as it did so often in July, daring the summer to show itself, offering heat but drawing the line at sun. Doyle loosened his tie and opened his s.h.i.+rt as he ran down the steps and out onto the Embankment, his jacket slung casually over his shoulder. He waited for a gap in the traffic, then crossed the road and sauntered off towards Hungerford Bridge, looking at the river with the unhurried eyes of a visitor. Penrose watched until he was no longer distinguishable in a crowd, then turned back to the room, where the rest of his professional life was waiting to be dismantled.

Half-heartedly, he stacked a few more papers and put some photographs in a box, unable to decide whether it was the warmth of the room or a more personal lethargy that made everything seem such an effort. There was a small pile of novels on a shelf next to his desk a he had always hated offices that bore no trace of the human being who worked in them a and he started to pack them away, but stopped when he got to a copy of Josephine's final mystery, published after her death, its t.i.tle page blank and impersonal. The book was barely touched, its pages as neat and new as the day he had bought it, and he still couldn't bring himself to look inside. For Penrose, reading Josephine's work had always been the next best thing to enjoying her company; it was like hearing her speak, so naturally did her voice come through in her prose. While The Singing Sands remained unread, it was as if there were one more conversation still to be had, one new thing to discover about her a and he wasn't ready to run out of surprises yet where Josephine was concerned. He didn't know if he ever would be.

Impatiently, he piled the rest of the books into a box with some other bits and pieces, abandoning any pretence at a system, and threw the box onto the floor by the door, then picked up the telephone and dialled another department. 'Devlin? I want you to check all the information you gave me on Detective Tom Doyle. Find out how long he's been in England and when he's due back in Los Angeles. Talk to the Adelphi Hotel and see if he's met anyone while he's been staying there, or if he's talked to anyone else here. And give North Wales a call a find out if he's been asking questions about Portmeirion in 1936. If he has any connections at all with this country, I want to know about them.' Penrose replaced the receiver and sat down at his desk, where the only items left now were Doyle's files and a cup of coffee a cold and bitter, the only way he ever seemed to drink it. He opened the file and scanned the summary at the beginning of the report, then began to read the first few pages, astonished that a after eighteen years a he could still recall a voice that had been so brief a part of his life.

'They say you always remember your first, but I wonder if that's really true? You want me to tell you what happened, where it all began a and I'll do as you ask, because it costs me nothing. But please don't think it's a burden I've carried all these years, or that confessing it now will be some sort of relief. It hasn't kept me awake at night, and it doesn't haunt my dreams. I can bring it to mind, of course I can, but it's not forever with me in the way you seem to think it should be. Always remember. Never forget. It's not quite the same thing.

'It was summer, certainly; the air was sweet and warm and hopeful a a South of France sort of day. The headland was covered in trees, much as it is now, and they seemed to flaunt their own extravagance in a rich tangle of greens, unfolding for acres, all the way back to the old ferryman's cottage. Even the trunks of long-dead pine trees a scattered along the sh.o.r.eline, and slowly drained of their colour by the wind and sea a shone white and brilliant in the sunlight. The year had come of age, you might say a everywhere you looked, there was a tiny celebration of its beauty. We walked together along one of the paths that led up from the terrace, past the back of the old mansion house a faded and neglected then, a far cry from the rich man's toy it is now. In those days, a long snarl of depressing laurel bushes lined that path, making any view of the sea impossible, but sheltering you from the eyes of the house long before you left the grounds. It was like a tunnel between two worlds, one restrictive and suffocating, the other exotic and adventurous. "Y Gwyllt", they called it. "The Wild Place". But for me, it was the safest place on earth. When I left it a when I was forced to leave a I carried it with me in my mind, a small pocket of silence and darkness to retreat to whenever I might need it. That interests you, I suppose. I wonder what you think it proves?

'Anyway, it was a route we'd taken many times before. We both knew it by heart, and turned instinctively towards the densest part of the wilderness, deeper and deeper into the tight knot of woodland, he always a few steps ahead of me. There were some old hides in the woods, built originally for pheasant shoots, and I stopped by one for a moment to take a stone out of my boot; he looked back impatiently, and I felt a sense of power that was both daunting and exhilarating. The path grew narrower still as we moved forward, but eventually we reached the small circle of ground which they now call the cemetery. Everything was weed-choked and overgrown, a place where sunlight was a stranger, warmth an impossibility. There were only one or two graves there then, of course a or perhaps I should say only one or two that were marked. Still, the ground was covered with a carpet of fallen rhododendron petals, blood red and sinking slowly into the earth; a rehearsal, almost, for what was to come.

'Did I know what I was going to do? That's harder to answer truthfully after all these years, but yes, I think I knew. Not because I'd planned it, but because it had always been there a the violence, I mean. Let me make it easy for you: I wanted to hurt something; it didn't much matter what or whom.

'At first, he thought I was playing. I pushed him to the ground, but he twisted away and came back for more, eager to please and confident in our friends.h.i.+p. Then I kicked him, and I saw the first hint of confusion in his eyes, the first flicker of genuine fear. A second blow, harder this time, and he cowered in front of me, scarcely able to believe the betrayal. Looking back now, I think it was his refusal to struggle that made me so angry a somehow, it was all too easy. I grabbed his throat and slowly tightened my grip, breathing in the scent of damp leaves as I held him against the ground, scanning his face for an acknowledgement of the pain. It was over in seconds, and if the excitement had been more intense than anything I'd ever known, the disappointment was even greater. You see, it wasn't just about the killing. It never has been. It was about the fear a the fear and the pain, and later the humiliation. And you know, they never last long enough. I suppose that's what makes them precious.

'Afterwards, his body disgusted me. I just wanted it out of my sight, and I looked round for the best place to get rid of it. Then, and only then, did I realise that she was watching me. She smiled. Actually, that's what I remember most clearly of all. She smiled.'

PART TWO.

The Pleasure Garden.

25 July 1936, Portmeirion.

1.

Josephine laughed, and lifted her sungla.s.ses for a moment to look at him. 'If that's really what you think, I'm amazed they promoted you at all.'

'It's all right a they'll never know.' Archie smiled and poured them both another drink, and Josephine glanced beyond him to the end of the terrace. The lawns a dry and brittle with the heat, despite the gardener's best efforts to defy the weather a culminated in a formal cascade, where water trickled lazily over rock-cut steps, exotically draped in mimosa, azalea and ferns; at the top, poised between two ornamental pillars, a man was operating an unwieldy-looking camera, and she watched him warily as he panned left to right, back from the estuary to the hotel and sh.o.r.eline.

'If I'd known we were going to be filmed all weekend, I'd have gone to Bournemouth,' she said. 'Aren't there laws against that sort of thing, Chief Inspector?'

He lay back in his deckchair and closed his eyes. 'He's only doing location shots, apparently; they're not for public consumption. Anyway, don't knock it: most people would move heaven and earth to have their fortieth birthday immortalised by Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k.'

'Only a man would say that,' she replied, a little tetchily. 'No woman would want forty immortalised at all a we all hope to glide quietly through it while everyone's looking the other way. But what have I got? The director of the moment closing in on every grey hair.'

'It doesn't really bother you, does it?' Archie asked, surprised. 'You barely look a day over thirty-nine.'

She laughed again, and moved her deckchair back so that Archie blocked her from the camera's view. 'No, I don't suppose it does, but I'd rather not have to talk to the man and I'm certainly not in a negotiating mood. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder what Marta's got me into.'

'How is it her fault? I thought Hitchc.o.c.k approached you through your publisher?'

'He did, but only because Marta gave Mrs. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k a proof copy of the book. Otherwise, A s.h.i.+lling for Candles could have pa.s.sed beautifully into oblivion like ninety-five per cent of the other crime novels published this year.'

'You must be excited, though? He wants to put your novel on every cinema screen in the country.' He lit a cigarette and looked at her in disbelief. 'Even you can't be immune to that, surely? You love films.'

'I am excited about walking into the Playhouse in Inverness and seeing something I've written come to life on the screen. What worries me is everything that the book and I will have to go through to get there. The 39 Steps was barely recognisable by the time he'd finished with it.'

'Good film, though, and I read somewhere that Buchan said Hitchc.o.c.k's was a better story.' He grinned, unapologetic for being provocative. 'I know it's daunting: new opportunities always are. You've every reason to be scared.' She glared at him, but didn't argue. 'Seriously, Josephine a everything Hitchc.o.c.k touches at the moment is a triumph and it won't be long before Hollywood lures him away. Think of what that could open up for you. You don't have to get involved in the nonsense a just take the money and run if you like. But this could be a wonderful adventure. Grab it while you can and enjoy every minute. It doesn't happen very often and it might never come your way again.'

'You're not working undercover for my agent, are you?' she asked. 'He's terrified I'm going to be difficult about it. I can hear the panic in his voice every time I speak to him.' She paused for a moment, absent-mindedly watching as a flock of wildfowl flew low over the water. 'You're right, though a about the adventure, and about my being scared. It just feels so alien. At least theatre is familiar.'

'It is now, perhaps, but it wasn't always like that. When Richard of Bordeaux went into rehearsals, you sat in the stalls and trembled every time Johnny looked at you. Eighteen months later, he was virtually begging you for a role and you gave it to someone else. It'll be the same with this. G.o.d help Hitchc.o.c.k or any other director once you've found your feet. I don't think you'll be seeing the film in Inverness, though,' he teased, knowing how much she hated any hint of publicity. 'It'll be a London premiere with the great and the good.'