Josephine lit it for her and waited as she used the distraction to rein in her emotions. ‘I was lucky, I suppose,’ she continued at last.

‘Some people spent decades there, detained for life. You could always tell which ones they were because they were obsessed with sin and religion; it didn’t matter if they were prostitutes, victims of incest or rape, or just feeble-minded – they’d all been taught to despise themselves.’

‘And you were there until Rafe came to find you? You must have been desperate to get out for years.’

‘Yes and no. Arthur had died and both my children had been taken away from me, so there didn’t seem much to get out for.

Depression is the cruellest of things, you know. It deadens everything – there’s no pleasure left in life, no colour or sensual enjoyment. Just an absence. I don’t think I’d have felt any different if I’d been in a place I loved, seeing things that used to bring me joy every day. In fact, that probably would have been worse, so I welcomed being somewhere that turned me into no one.’ The cigarette had been smoked quickly, and she threw the end down onto the track. ‘Elliott took everything from me – my children, my book, my creativity in every sense of the word.’

‘And your talent for happiness.’

Marta nodded. ‘Exactly. It’s hard to put into words how that felt. I remember being with Arthur in Cambridge just after Elliott had gone to war. He took me to a museum, just along the road from where he worked at the Botanic Gardens, because it had a collection of paintings that he loved. There was a whole wall of Impressionists and we stood for ages looking at an extraordinary 267

Renoir landscape – it was so sensual that I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Next to it were two smaller paintings of women, one dancing and one playing a guitar. I was surprised at how awful they were by comparison – you could hardly believe they were by the same artist – but Arthur said that, if anything, he liked them better because they’d been painted late in Renoir’s life when his hands were crippled with arthritis, and he thought there was something very noble about someone being so determined to create beauty in spite of the pain. I’ve never forgotten that, and I suppose it’s how I felt, emotionally. I knew there was still so much that was beautiful in the world and I wanted so badly to write about it but, after Arthur died and I lost everything, I just couldn’t. Books and art –

they should all have a beauty about them, even if they begin with a scream, but it was as though someone had put a pen in my hand and frozen it. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes, it does,’ Josephine said. ‘More than you could know.’

Marta looked questioningly at her but there was no time to go into her own darkness as well as Marta’s; even from this distance, she imagined she could feel Archie’s growing impatience.

‘Then Rafe turned up and suddenly there was a glimmer of hope,’ Marta continued. ‘How does that speech of Lydia’s go in your play? “When joy is killed it dies forever, but happiness one can grow again.” I always loved that line because it’s exactly how I felt.

I knew the joy had gone with Arthur, but I thought if I could get my children back, I might at least be able to rediscover the happiness. I would have done anything to make up for those lost years.’ She fell silent and Josephine resisted the temptation to prompt her, sensing there was more to come. ‘I knew that what he was suggesting was evil, of course I did, but at the time I didn’t care. And yes, I did hate you but never because I thought you’d stolen my work. It was more complicated than that. You see, the only thing that kept me alive in that place was the thought that I might one day be able to have revenge on Elliott, to hurt him so badly for what he’d done to me.

But you beat me to it. You won that court case and drove him to take his own life before I could make him suffer, and you’ve no idea how much I resented you for that.’

268

Josephine did not contradict her, but asked instead, ‘Did you really intend to kill Aubrey?’

‘Yes, at first. I had no idea he was related to Arthur, of course.

I was in such a state on Friday. When you turned up at the taxi with Lydia, I realised what a mistake I’d made in pointing out the wrong person. I went to see Rafe at Wyndham’s as soon as Lydia was on stage, and when he told me he’d gone through with it I was horrified. Then he said that Aubrey suspected something and was on to us, and I panicked. I knew I’d never be with my children again if we were caught, and that was all I wanted. Rafe assured me that we could salvage things if we acted quickly, and at first I went along with what he suggested. But when the moment came I just couldn’t go through with it. Aubrey didn’t know anything, though, did he? Rafe just used that to get me to do his dirty work.’

‘He knew something, Marta,’ Josephine said quietly. ‘But not who you were or what you’d done.’ Marta listened in disbelief as she repeated Alice Simmons’s account of Arthur’s murder and Walter’s pact with Vintner, and Josephine wished that it had not fallen to her to shatter this woman’s world all over again. ‘So Vintner’s suicide had nothing to do with Richard of Bordeauxor the court case,’ she added. ‘He killed himself because he was about to be exposed as a murderer. Arthur’s murderer.’

Marta was silent for a long time, then said, ‘So that’s what Lydia was talking about last night. I sat there listening to her discuss a murder and had no idea it was Arthur. Did Rafe know his father was a killer?’

‘I think so, yes. Archie’s convinced that this has all been about protecting his father’s reputation. Bernard Aubrey had been looking for proof for nearly twenty years to get justice for his nephew and he finally had what he needed. It was all to come out on Elspeth’s eighteenth birthday.’

The platform was beginning to fill with passengers waiting to board the two departing trains, some bound for the Midlands, others further north, but Marta seemed oblivious to everyone but the dead. ‘So many lies,’ she said at last, so softly that Josephine 269

had to lean closer to hear her above the bustle. ‘So many people who just couldn’t let the dust settle and turn their back on the evil.

Arthur would have been horrified to know what he and I set in motion all those years ago. We’ve all magnified Elliott’s violence in our own way. If I’d refused to help Rafe or if Aubrey had been strong enough to let it go, Elspeth would still be alive.’

‘He couldn’t let it go – he wasn’t that sort of man. Bernard had a very clear sense of right and wrong, and it wouldn’t have occurred to him that bringing Elliott Vintner to justice would open more wounds than it healed. He always felt responsible for Arthur’s death, and he loved his sister and her son. According to his wife, Bernard planted irises in his memory all year round.’

Marta had, Josephine thought, remained remarkably composed throughout the exchange but this simple act of homage broke her in a way that more shocking revelations had failed to do. Josephine waited, unable to do anything but hold her until the tears had sub-sided. ‘It was the first flower he planted for me,’ Marta explained, turning her face away in embarrassment as she noticed a porter further down the platform staring at the two women in astonishment.

‘He put it all round the summer house because its name meant “eye of heaven” and it was supposed to be the Egyptian symbol of elo-quence; it was to help me with my writing, he said. And he made me promise to include a flower with the letter whenever I wrote to him in France, because Iris was Zeus’ messenger and he was sure she’d get it there safely.’ She smiled sadly. ‘She failed me with The White Heart, though. It was my love letter to him, and I don’t even know if he read it or not. It’s silly, but sometimes that makes me more miserable than anything.’