FEAR IN THE SUNLIGHT  EXTRACT

EXTRACT

PART ONE

Rear Window
24 July 1954, London

‘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 – 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
– the woman in the film – 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 – nothing like that. She died a couple of years
ago, after an illness. But that’s why we were at Portmeirion –
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 Hitchcock’s party?’

‘Not officially, no. Another friend of Josephine’s – Marta
Fox – had done some script work for his wife, and she was
there for the weekend. But none of us was in Hitchcock’s circle,
although he and Josephine had things to discuss. He wanted
to film one of her books – a crime novel called A Shilling 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
Hitchcock 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 Hitchcock had finished with it, her story
was no more recognisable than the title,’ 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 Pen-
rose. ‘Tell me about this Portmeirion – 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 – and for those with the
means to enjoy them – 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 – 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 – if a little
optimistic.’ He smiled, but Doyle seemed unconvinced. ‘And
it’s not a museum – 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 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 –
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 – it seems to me that your architect
created a playground for a killer.’

‘That was hardly his intention,’ Penrose said evenly. ‘And Mr
Hitchcock’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 – in the process of getting to the
truth – 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 – 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 – 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?’

‘Hitchcock. Well, Hitchcock’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 – 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 – 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 Hitchcock’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 – 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 – 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 assumed 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 information‚
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 – 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 – 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 – let alone lie about it –
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 – even a celluloid version – 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 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 –
they came from Mr Hitchcock, 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 – the women on Hitchcock’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 shirt 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 – he had always hated offices that
bore no trace of the human being who worked in them – 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
title 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 – 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
– 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 – 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 – after eighteen years – 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 – 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 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 longdead
pine trees – scattered along the shoreline, and slowly drained
of their colour by the wind and sea – shone white and brilliant
in the sunlight. The year had come of age, you might say – 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 – 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 – when I was
forced to leave – 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 weedchoked
and overgrown, a place where sunlight was a stranger,
warmth an impossibility. There were only one or two graves there
then, of course – 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 – 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 friendship. 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 – 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 – 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.’

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