‘She’s probably spent the evening with a friend and been stranded by the weather,’ Violet suggested. ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’

Johnny looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps I should have tried harder to get across there tonight,’ he said. ‘Something doesn’t feel right. I’m sure one of the lads with a boat would risk it if the price was right.’

‘You are joking?’ Violet stared at him in astonishment. ‘Try anything like that, and I’ll be going across there tomorrow to tell your mother to get her black out again.’ She took the binoculars out of his hands and pulled him away from the window, then turned back to draw the curtains. ‘There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow,’ she said firmly, ‘and anyway, like I said, I’m sure she’s fine.’

135

9

Rachel Lancaster hung back as the rest of the women made their way to the drawing room for coffee. Even though she would have welcomed something to counteract the effects of all the wine she had drunk, she couldn’t bear the thought of yet more conversation, their voices drilling into her as she tried to hide in plain sight at the dinner table. With the exception of Angela Hartley, who seemed as vulnerable as Rachel felt, she had nothing to say to any of them.

Suddenly she craved some air. There was a door to the terrace from the Long Passage, and she was relieved to find it unlocked. Her head started to spin as soon as she was outside, but the shock of a cold night was better than coffee, and she breathed the air in gratefully, feeling instantly better. The snow had finally stopped, except for a few flakes drifting down as an afterthought, and the clouds had moved on, leaving the moon in charge of a clear sky. Swathed in winter, this part of the castle was overwhelmingly beautiful – pure and bright, like a world without a past. She envied its unsullied perfection, even if the peculiar stillness which always followed snow was strangely absent: down below, the churning, restless sea sounded angrier than ever, and she wondered if there was a time when the island felt truly at rest.

She was freezing cold, but it was preferable to being inside, and the area of the terrace where she stood was sheltered 136from the wind by two long stretches of the castle’s walls. The smoking room where the men had lingered after dinner was immediately next to Chevy Chase, and she could see her husband through the leaded windows, drinking his port and trying to fit in. Had she been a stranger, she would still have known that Gerry was uncomfortable in this sort of company. The policeman and the photographer sat together on a wooden bench in the alcove, listening as the vicar talked, apparently at ease with themselves and with each other, although the photographer never quite lost that watchful quality which she supposed was integral to his work, but which made her uneasy nonetheless. Gerry stood at the other end of the room, a child waiting to be invited to the game but unsure of the rules; as she watched, he drained his glass and helped himself to more from a decanter, then went over to study a painting which was out of sight of the rest of the group. Casually, as she had known he would, he took something small from a side table and slipped it quickly into his pocket; she couldn’t see what it was, but she knew what it meant, and the shame made her turn away.