Nicola Upson - Angel with Two Faces

ANGEL WITH TWO FACES

Nicola Upson

For Hettie, with love from us both

Death is an angel with two faces

To us he turns

A face of terrors, blighting all things fair.

The other burns

With glory of the stars, a love is there.

T. C. Williams

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 Shillings 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 Harrys 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 Pinchings 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, house-proud 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 familys 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 wasnt 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 Harrys body on their shoulders, but it had been long enough for the midday sun to soak their funeral clothes with sweat. Archies 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 familys 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 estates 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 cliff-top 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.