'The horse hit the water at a gallop, fracturing the early
morning peace which hung about the lake. Still breathless
from the race across the sand and the shock of what had
happened, Harry ran his hand the length of Shilling’s neck,
trying to calm him down, but the horse was already beyond
reassurance. Suddenly, the bed of the lake fell away beneath
them and water swirled up to Harry’s waist. Shilling twisted
his head round in fear, and Harry could see the panic in his
eyes and feel the tension in the powerful muscles of his
back. He leaned forward in the saddle, noticing how the
smell of horse sweat mixed with the dank odour of the water,
and spoke gentle words of encouragement, but Shilling seemed
to sense the uncertainty in his voice and grew more
frightened than ever. The spirit and defiance were entirely
gone from him, and the fierce joy which Harry had always
found in his bond with the horse was replaced by an intense
sadness: the moment to let go had come. Knowing that
Shilling would stand more chance without any weight on his
back, Harry loosened his feet from the stirrups and slid
from the saddle for the last time.
The water was ice-cold but the shock of it brought confusion
rather than clarity. Disoriented, Harry felt himself pulled
downwards, separated from the dawn by a dark mass of water.
The strengthening light of the day disappeared entirely, and
the water stabbed at his eyes and rushed in his ears, making
it impossible to see or even to think. The pressure in his
throat and chest told him to breathe but made it impossible
to do so, and he tried to fight a choking sensation which
threatened to overwhelm him. His whole body was a magnet for
unimaginable pain and he knew that he was dying, but where
was the euphoria that people spoke about? Where was the
peace? He wanted to stay calm, to accept his fate, but his
feet struggled desperately for a surface to kick against and
the frantic search for something to hold on to became more
than a physical need: without Shilling, he felt so alone.
Time expanded, turning seconds into hours, but at last he
felt the bed of the lake beneath him. He thrashed wildly
with his legs, but only succeeded in making the water solid
with mud and tangling himself in a mass of dead branches and
weed. His limbs were impossibly heavy now, and slime clung
to his face. Unable to bear the suffocation any longer,
Harry opened his mouth and screamed against a silent wall of
water.'
Chapter One
The sun beat down on Harry Pinching’s coffin, and Archie
Penrose shifted the weight on his shoulder in a vain attempt
to alleviate his discomfort. Instead, the oak seemed to
press harder against his neck, and every time he breathed in
he caught a faint whiff of polish from the wood, its sweet,
houseproud scent jarring sharply with the mood of the day.
The heat was extreme for the time of year, and that alone
would have been oppressive; combined with the other demands
on his senses, it was almost unbearable and he was glad when
he heard the stable clock strike noon, a signal for the
small group of men to move towards the waiting hearse.
A funeral was not how he had intended to spend the first day
of his holiday: this fortnight on his family’s Cornish
estate was supposed to be a much-needed break from the
professional interest which he took in death. More
importantly, he had made a promise to himself that these few
days would mark a fresh start to his long, difficult and
precious friendship with Josephine Tey. They had known each
other now for twenty years, but eighteen of those had been
clouded by secrets and guilt, and only the tragic events of
the previous year had allowed them to clear the air once and
for all. Since then, they had seen each other a few times in
London, but this would be the first chance they had had to
spend any length of time together, and to enjoy a new ease
and honesty in their friendship. Admittedly, they were
supposed to have travelled down together and the fact that a
corpse had already changed their plans could be seen as an
ill omen but, with summer here early and Josephine due on
the afternoon train, Archie was optimistic that death and
sadness would soon be behind them. It wasn’t possible to
forget the past – and neither of them would have wanted to –
but perhaps from now on it would strengthen their bond
instead of creating an awkwardness that both of them had
tried to avoid.
The wooden hearse which stood just a few feet away was an
open, no-nonsense affair, appropriate to the young man whose
body it was to carry and – in a gesture of remarkable
forgiveness, Archie thought – drawn by the horse which had
killed him. It had been painstakingly decorated in the
glorious assortment of flowers that Cornwall offered up at
this time of year, all gathered from local gardens by
friends who were glad of a simple way to express their
sorrow. The bearers walked slowly forward, careful to keep
in step, and Archie was close enough to the man in front to
see the muscles in his neck tighten with the strain of
weight and responsibility. As they lowered the coffin gently
onto the cart, he could see his own relief reflected in the
faces of the others. They had stood for just a short time
with Harry’s body on their shoulders, but it had been long
enough for the midday sun to soak their funeral clothes with
sweat. Archie’s shirt stuck uncomfortably to his back and
the dark, well-cut suit felt awkward and restrictive, as
alien to him as it was to those around him whose daily lives
required less fastidious tailoring. There ought to be a law
against burying someone in temperatures like these, he
thought.When his turn came, he hoped for rain, or at least
for weather which was less of an affront to grief.
The coffin was fixed securely in place, and Archie glanced
round at the other bearers – five men of varying ages and
professions but all, to some degree, familiar to him. He had
grown up on this estate, sixteen hundred acres of stunning
wood and farmland on the south coast, but he returned home
rarely now that his parents were dead. His uncle, William
Motley, had inherited Loe just before the war and Archie
admired the resourceful and spirited way in which he had
kept the land and house going ever since, but that life was
not for him and, like his cousins, Lettice and Ronnie, who
had quite literally fashioned themselves a successful career
in theatre design, he preferred to call London his home.
Holidays were one thing, but he hated these public occasions
which required him to play a more formal part in his
family’s life. Everyone was always polite and seemed
genuinely pleased to see him, but no one at Loe had any use
for an inspector from Scotland Yard, and he found it hard to
relinquish that role – a matter of behaviour, rather than
uniform. Being out of place was not something he experienced
very often, and it made him irrationally annoyed that he
should feel it most strongly amongst the men and women he
had known since his childhood.
Today, though, formality could not be avoided. It was a
long-standing tradition at Loe that whenever a member of the
estate’s community died, a representative from each of the
families resident there would be chosen to carry the coffin.
As they took their positions, ready to escort the body to
the clifftop church, it seemed to Archie that there could
hardly have been a more appropriate expression of respect:
among those present, it was possible to build a picture of
daily life in this part of Cornwall which had probably not
changed very much in three hundred years. For a few hours,
these men were symbols of the Cornish landscape as much as
they were individuals and friends, and each brought his own
testament to the contribution that the dead man had made
towards that whole. Archie was moved to be a part of it,
whilst always questioning his right to belong.
They were ready to move off now, and the undertaker, Jago
Snipe – a well-built, pleasant-looking man in his fifties,
whose only stereotypical trait was a reassuring certainty in
the face of grief – walked over to two young women who
waited by the door of Loe House, hanging back from the scene
as if reluctant to engage. Archie recognised Harry’s sisters
– his twin, Morwenna, and a much younger girl, Loveday, whom
he supposed must be thirteen or fourteen by now. Both seemed
at a loss to know what to do, Morwenna even more so than her
little sister, and they were obviously grateful when Jago
put an arm comfortingly around each of them and led them
over to the hearse.Archie watched as Harry’s only remaining
family added their personal tributes to the flowers:
Morwenna held his best riding boots, which she laid
carefully on top of the coffin; Loveday’s offering was a
horseshoe – not a real one, but a replica carved from wood
and beautifully decorated with long braids and
flowers.Neither would have been obvious gifts for a man who
had died in a riding accident, but Harry had worked with
horses all his life and Archie was not surprised that these
should be regarded as the things he would wish to take with
him. Loveday struggled to reach the top of the coffin and
Archie – standing close by – automatically stepped forward
to help. As he lifted the girl up, he caught Morwenna’s eye
and was shocked at how pale and tired she looked, even for
someone in mourning. Then he considered how long she had
been living a nightmare: the lake in which Harry had drowned
had been slow to give up his body, and several weeks had
passed between his death and his funeral. The relentless
coupling of hope and fear must have been exhausting,
particularly as the inevitable outcome would make her head
of the family and responsible for a sister who was generally
acknowledged to be ‘difficult’. It was little wonder that
Morwenna Pinching bore scant resemblance to the young woman
he remembered with such affection.
The funeral party headed slowly away from the house, through
thick walls of rhododendron and towards the track which
would take them to the small church on the cliff. Rounding
the bend of the drive, they got their first glimpse of the
lake which had brought them all together, a two-mile stretch
of water separated from the sea by a narrow bar of sand. On
a day like this, when the sun was high and there was barely
a trace of wind, it looked serene and harmless, but anyone
who had lived here long enough to be familiar with its
history knew to treat it with respect. Unlike many of the
legends surrounding Loe Pool, the myth that it took a life
every seven years had its basis in fact, and Harry’s death
was the latest testimony. Archie had yet to hear all the
details, but it seemed that Harry had been riding his horse,
Shilling, full pelt along the bar when the animal was
startled by something and veered wildly into the lake.He had
hung on as long as he could, but eventually horse and rider
were separated: while Shilling swam to the opposite bank,
traumatised but unhurt, Harry was lost in the deepest part
of the water, where thick weed and darkness defied all
attempts to retrieve his body until it eventually floated to
the surface of its own accord. Archie had been saddened by
the death of someone he had very much liked – and surprised,
as well: he had always regarded Harry as a born horseman. In
years to come, strangers would no doubt put such an accident
down to the lake’s determination to have its way but today,
as they were about to bury Harry, it seemed to Archie that
the young man’s memory demanded more from his friends than
superstition.
Several days without rain had left the single-track lane
that led to the sea hard and dry underfoot, and Archie –
eyes down against the sun – noticed how quickly the dust
took the shine off each carefully polished pair of shoes,
how it covered the hem of Morwenna’s skirt in a stubborn,
powdery film, dulling the severity of the black.When he
reached the thick stretch of woodland that draped the lake
on two sides, he was glad of the shade. The woods were
carpeted with bluebells in a profusion which seemed almost
indecent, particularly today, but the estate was unusually
quiet and the only noise came from the steady rhythm of the
cart wheels. Even the rooks, which normally made such a
cacophony in the trees overhead, were silent, and Archie was
reminded of a story his father had told him as they roamed
these woods together, an ancient belief that when the birds
abandoned their rookery it was a sign that bereavement lay
ahead. After that, every time he had taken the path round
the lake, he had slowed his step when approaching that
particular section, dreading the silence which might signal
some disruption to an idyllic childhood; many years later,
when his father was ill, he found himself avoiding that
stretch of woodland altogether.
He had always marvelled at how close you could get to the
sea on this path without being aware of its existence.
Today, the transformation from stillness to the sea’s
relentless sound and motion was as sudden and miraculous as
ever and, when the party left the cushioning of the trees
behind, the noise of the waves reached them so abruptly that
it could easily have been a sound effect cued by their
appearance. Here, at last, was the church. There were surely
few more dramatic settings for worship than the precarious
position held by this otherwise modest building, now sited
less than fifty yards from the cliff edge and looking out to
the Lizard in the east and Land’s End to the west. Founded
well over a millennium ago by a Breton missionary, the
existing church belonged to the fifteenth century, but its
three low-roofed chapels were made more striking by the
presence of a detached bell tower, older than the rest of
the building and – according to legend – built on the site
of an ancient hermit’s cell. It was known as the church of
storms, a name which tended to add a somewhat Old Testament
feel to the services held there. At high tide, in bad
weather, when the waves threatened to engulf the whole
building and claim it as their own, it did not require much
of a performance from the pulpit to convince those inside of
their mortality.
He had quite forgotten it was Sunday until he saw a few
people leaving the church by the north side, dressed in
their best clothes and with a relaxed, carefree air that
could not have been more different from the mood of the
party about to enter via the other door. Anyone from outside
Cornwall might have found it strange that the dead should be
buried on the Sabbath, but here it was common practice,
Sunday being the only day that fishermen were back from the
sea and able to pay their last respects to friends and
colleagues. Funerals were fitted in pragmatically around the
other services and, as the two congregations mingled briefly
at the gate, Archie noticed that sympathy was mixed with
embarrassment in the faces of those whose church business
was concluded for the day, almost as if they felt the need
to apologise for being excused from grief. Dealing as often
as he did with death, he knew what that conflict of emotions
felt like, and he would not have blamed anyone for adding a
silent amen to those that had already been said inside.
After exchanging one surplice for another, the vicar of St
Winwaloe’s emerged from the south porch, ready to lead the
coffin into the church. Jasper Motley would not have been
anyone’s first choice for the link between sorrow and hope
which most people look for in a minister presiding over a
funeral. In fact, he seemed utterly devoid of qualities that
would enable him to deliver any of the Church’s teachings;
humility and compassion, joy and sorrow, were entirely
absent from his heart and had no place in his sermons. The
fact that Jasper was his uncle could not persuade Archie to
feel anything other than contempt for him. It was a
sentiment which had been instilled in him from an early age.
His mother had been the only girl in a family of three; her
elder brother – William – she adored, and they had remained
close until her death; the middle child, Jasper, had always
been the odd one out in an otherwise happy family, resentful
of the bond between his brother and sister and even less
forgiving of parents who had been too selfish to bear him
first. The only time that Archie had ever heard his mother
express hatred for anyone was when she spoke of Jasper, and
she did so with a spite and a bitterness which was
completely out of character; he didn’t doubt that her
feelings were justified, but he had never really understood
the depth of her resentment.
As the six men prepared to lift the coffin from the cart,
Archie noticed how much older his uncle seemed to have grown
in recent months. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith
the Lord,’ he began, his once strident voice now cracked and
weakened with age. ‘He that believeth in Me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth
in Me shall never die.’ No chance for Harry, then, Archie
thought drily; he had never been known for his Christian
living. Like many men who had been raised on the land and
who believed in their own mastery of it, Harry Pinching had
worked hard, played hard and thought himself invincible. His
arrogance had seemed harmless, but it would exact a high
price – not from the dead man, whose troubles were over, but
from those who had been left behind to carry on.What would
Morwenna and Loveday do now? Archie wondered. Their grief
was just the beginning.
Clean-living Harry might not have been, but popular he most
certainly was. The small church was packed with mourners –
people who had worked alongside him, fishermen he had shared
a drink with, and young women who had fancied their chances
with his charm and good looks. Harry was an estate worker
like his father before him, but his warmth and affability
had ensured him a welcome in the village that usually kept
itself quite separate from Loe, and he had managed to bridge
the gap between land and sea in a way that was rare. That
his death should touch a whole community was perhaps no
surprise, but Archie sensed Morwenna falter as she entered
the church and he guessed that she had been taken aback by
the size of the crowd and the strength of feeling for her
brother.He heard someone encourage her gently to move on,
and the procession passed down the central aisle towards the
chancel. As they reached the altar, Christopher Snipe – a
boy of sixteen or seventeen and the youngest of the bearers
– missed his footing on the top step and the coffin dipped
perilously at the back, shooting one of Harry’s riding boots
on to the floor. Archie steadied the weight while
Christopher recovered himself, and the body was delivered on
to the bier without further mishap, but the mistake earned
the boy a glare of reproach from his father, who clearly
believed that someone born into the undertaking trade should
have known better. Still frowning, the undertaker returned
the boot to the top of the coffin and melted away into the
congregation as only those of his profession knew how.
Christopher sat down next to his father, flushed and
embarrassed.
The other bearers found seats that had been saved for them,
and Archie slipped into the front pew next to his cousins
and his uncle William. ‘Nice catch,’ whispered Ronnie, while
her elder sister, Lettice, leaned over to give his arm a
reassuring squeeze. By now, the Reverend Motley was in full
flow from the pulpit, and the words of the thirty-ninth
psalm drifted over Archie’s head as he glanced round the
church. It must have been two years or more since he had
last been in here, but he was sure it had not seemed as
neglected and depressing back then. Heat made everything
look tired, but the shabbiness of the interior was not just
down to the wilting flowers.Many of the windows had been
boarded against the storms, which gave the building a
permanent air of abandonment; even those which remained
uncovered were damaged and dirty, and the ledges were
covered with sand which a probing wind had blown through
cracks in the glass. Constant exposure to the weather had
removed several slates from the roof, and a bucket –
incongruously placed at the back of the altar, amid more
familiar receptacles of worship – testified to the need for
repair. The wood of the pews was dull and unnourished, and
even the service books were faded and torn. It seemed that
Jasper’s constant whining was justified: the church did
require more money, although Archie couldn’t help thinking
that the vicar’s appeals for generosity might be better
heeded if he and his wife moderated their own standard of
living and led more by example.
The lesson was over at last, and Nathaniel Shoebridge,
curate of St Winwaloe’s, stood to give the eulogy.
Shoebridge was due to take over the living of the parish
when Jasper Motley retired at the end of the year; judging
by the state of the church, that was something of a poisoned
chalice, but Archie had heard good reports of the young
man’s dedication, and his appointment was generally looked
on as a welcome change to the current regime. As one of
Harry’s oldest friends, and part of a family which had
farmed on the Loe estate for generations, there was no
disputing Nathaniel’s right to carry the coffin, although
the friendship between the two men had apparently cooled of
late. Archie wondered if they had settled their differences
before the accident, and watched with interest as the curate
walked nervously up to the lectern.
For Shoebridge, the pulpit was usually as reassuring as a
desk to an office worker, but today he felt confined by it;
the familiar, hexagonal space seemed somehow narrower, and
its polished, heavily carved wood closed in on him like the
sides of a coffin, making it difficult to breathe and
threatening to stifle his words. Nervously, he glanced up
from the lectern and saw a church full of disparate people
with disparate memories turned as one towards him. The
shyness of his youth came flooding back, and he felt
strangely suffocated and exposed at the same time.
His first words were barely audible. ‘Like most of us here,
I’ve known Harry for many years,’ he said, aware that his
audience was relying on him for an eloquent expression of
sorrow which they could share in and claim as their own.
‘His loss has been difficult for us all to come to terms
with.’ He paused, trying to control the anxiety in his voice
and speak normally, but the speech ahead of him – even
though it had been carefully prepared to mask his emotions –
seemed an impossible mountain and he wondered how he was
ever to get through it. There was some muttering from the
back of the church and he pressed on, concentrating on one
sentence at a time and trying to blot out the silent
presence of the dead man at his side. ‘Harry had an
important place at the heart of our community,’ he said,
rushing his words but no longer caring if they were a
disappointment. ‘He was honest and hardworking, a loving
brother to Morwenna and Loveday, and a good friend to many
of us.’ Even to his own ears, the tribute seemed oddly
impersonal, as if he were conducting the funeral of a
parishioner he had never met. The adjectives he used were
inadequate, second-hand accolades for a man whose vitality
had dominated a room, and, rather than making things easier
for him, the banality of Nathaniel’s respect stuck in his
throat. As he faltered at the simplest of phrases, he could
see the congregation growing increasingly bewildered at his
failure to dispel the stark reality of the coffin and
replace it with an image of Harry as he had been in life –
warm, generous and fiercely loyal; memorable from the most
casual of meetings, and impossible to forget after a
lifetime of friendship.
Flicking his pale blond hair back from his eyes, Nathaniel
turned gratefully to the book he had brought with him, glad
to be able to take refuge in someone else’s words and hoping
that he might be able to give them the strength and
conviction which his own had lacked. He had chosen a passage
from Tennyson to read, a section from Idylls of the King
which he loved because it brought together everything he
valued most: the stories and legends he had grown up with;
the sense of community that drove him on; and the
spirituality which now gave him his greatest solace. ‘And
slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge,’ he began tentatively.
‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God
fulfils himself in many ways. Lest one good custom should
corrupt the world.’
The familiar lines gave him confidence and, for a second, he
dared to hope that he might redeem himself after all, but
his optimism was short-lived: he made the mistake of looking
away from the page, long enough to see that Morwenna was
staring up at him from the front row – accusing,
disappointed, unforgiving. He continued hurriedly,
‘Comfort thyself; what comfort is in me? I have lived my
life, and that which I have done May He within himself make
pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul.More things are wrought by prayer Than this
world dreams of.’
At last, it was over.Nathaniel left the pulpit quickly,
making no effort to hide his relief.He glanced
apologetically at Morwenna and Loveday as he walked back to
his seat, acknowledging that they – and Harry – had deserved
better from him.
Loveday giggled and slipped from the church, breaking the
silence that followed the concluding prayers, and Archie
noted how intently Christopher Snipe watched her leave. The
girl’s laughter was unsettling in such close proximity to
death, and the mourners – embarrassed and unsure of how to
react – looked at each other across the aisle or smiled
awkwardly at Morwenna. The tension that had begun with
Nathaniel’s eulogy was infectious, and everyone seemed
thankful to follow the coffin outside, knowing that the end
of the service was in sight.
Small-leaved Cornish elms clustered round the churchyard,
revealing flickering glimpses of the sea beyond. The funeral
party followed the line of trees round to the rear of the
church, where a pile of freshly dug earth marked a new
burial place. Loveday was already at the graveside.As they
drew near,Archie heard a gasp from one or two of the
mourners and had to hide his own surprise when he saw that
Harry’s grave was lined throughout with bluebells and
primroses,woven carefully into moss and netting to create a
living wall of colour where only darkness and soil should
have been. The gesture was obviously Loveday’s last gift to
an elder brother who, since their parents’ untimely death,
had been the most important person in her world; it was an
act of love, and it should have been touching – beautiful,
almost – but Archie could only think of how many hours the
girl must have spent in the grave to do it. Its aesthetic
impact could not dispel the image in his mind of a child’s
hands working obsessively so close to the dead. A brief look
round was enough to tell him that he was not the only one to
be disturbed by it, and it was left to Morwenna to embrace
her young sister and acknowledge her pride.
As the mourners gathered by the grave, Archie noticed
several of them glance instinctively towards their own dead
in different parts of the churchyard, remembering other
funerals and other losses. Christopher and his father
threaded strips of webbing efficiently under the coffin,
ready to lower it gently into the grave. ‘Forasmuch as it
hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto
Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed,’ Jasper
Motley continued half-heartedly, ‘we therefore commit his
body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to
eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Archie
wondered how many of the people gathered here actually took
any comfort from those familiar words. For him, there was a
much greater resonance in the sound of a handful of earth
hitting the coffin of a man who would never see thirty. With
heads bowed for the final prayer, Archie looked at his watch
and realised that Josephine’s train was due to arrive in
less than an hour. Because he was expected at the wake,
Ronnie had volunteered to collect her from Penzance station
and, if she left now, she would be almost on time. As the
mourners dispersed, he caught his cousin’s eye through the
crowd and signalled to her to get a move on.
‘Do you have time to come back to the cottage?’ Archie had
not seen Morwenna come up behind him, and the urgency of her
voice took him by surprise.
‘Of course,’ he said. He leant forward to kiss her and offer
what futile words of comfort he could find, but she brushed
them quickly aside and turned away from approaching
wellwishers so that only Archie could hear her. ‘Good,
because there’s something I need to say to you in private –
something I could never tell anyone else.’With no further
explanation, she took Loveday’s hand and led her firmly away
from their brother’s grave.