‘Except Mrs Carmichael got held up in the blizzards and missed her connection, so she had to spend the night at the hotel in Marazion.’

‘You were at the Godolphin Hotel all the time I was there?’ he asked, and Phyllis nodded. ‘Why didn’t you let me know?’

‘Because you were obviously busy! I heard about what was going on from the staff, so I thought I’d better wait until things were more peaceful. Anyway, I wanted it to be special – we’ve never spent Christmas Day together before.’ Phyllis had been born during the war, but Archie and her mother had drifted apart and Archie had been oblivious to her existence until very recently. Missing her childhood had angered and saddened him, but now, as Phyllis smiled at him and gave him another hug, he couldn’t imagine loving his daughter more, even if he had been part of her life all along. ‘Please tell me that Marlene Dietrich really is here?’ she said. ‘I’ve been dying to meet her.’

‘You’re just in time. She’s leaving in the morning, but I’ll introduce you later.’

‘What’s she like?’ 290

‘Fabulous,’ Marta said, ‘and she likes your father very much. In fact …’

They walked ahead, chatting about Marlene, while Josephine hung back with Archie. ‘I’ll never forget the look on your face just now,’ she said, taking his arm. ‘It made Christmas what it’s supposed to be.’

‘Thank you, Josephine,’ he said. ‘This would have been a wonderful surprise at any time, but after everything that’s happened since we got here …’

‘You couldn’t have done more, Archie.’ He was about to brush her concern away, but she had always been able to read his thoughts, and there was something precious in the fact that she cared enough to know him better than he knew himself. ‘I’m sure you’re looking back now, thinking that you could have asked different questions and Jack Naylor’s life would miraculously have been a bed of roses from that day onwards, but you couldn’t. Life doesn’t work like that. If it did, Marta and I would have arrived early yesterday and been chatting to Emily Soper when Mrs Pendean came in to collect the nativity figure. These deaths aren’t your fault.’

‘Perhaps not, but—’

‘Do you know the first thing that Phyllis said when she got here, after she’d asked how you were?’

‘No.’

‘She told us that she’d watched you from the window of the hotel while you were going about your work and getting ready to come back to the island. You spent a long time talking to a young man by the boats. I’m assuming it was Jonathan Soper?’

Archie nodded. ‘That’s right. I was explaining that Jack hadn’t killed his mother, and promising to find out who did.’ 291

‘Phyllis said how kind you were to him. Obviously, she didn’t know the circumstances, but she could see how much you cared and what a difference it made to him. She told us how proud she was that you were her father.’