‘Yes.’
We stepped inside, past Vowell. The door to the parlour was open. I walked in quietly, Nicholas just behind. There, with her back to me, stood Isabel. She wore one of her fine satin dresses, light brown today, but had cast her hood on the floor. It left her head bare, long silvery-grey tresses cascading down her shoulders. She was staring at the wall painting, quite motionless, and as Vowell had said, a broad, long-bladed knife was clutched in her right hand, so tightly that each bony white knuckle stood out. The image of her mother and father, of little Edward and her own young self, stared back at her, appearing more real than ever to me at that terrifying moment.
She did not even seem to be aware that we had come in. Vowell stayed outside; I heard him breathing hard in the corridor.
Nicholas stepped quietly forward, but I put up a hand to restrain him. I said softly, ‘Mistress Slanning.’ Strange, even in that extremity, I could not allow myself the presumption of calling her by her first name.
I would not have thought her body could have tensed any further but it did, becoming quite rigid. Then, slowly, she turned her head to look at me. Those blue eyes, so like her brother’s, were wild and staring. Her brows drew together in a frown.
‘Master Shardlake?’ she said in a quiet, puzzled voice. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I came to speak to Vowell. To tell him your brother is dead.’ I moved my right hand a little. ‘Mistress Slanning, please let me have that knife.’ She did not reply; her breath came in short pants, as though she were trying to hold it in, to stop breathing. ‘Please,’ I implored. ‘I wish only to help you.’
‘Why would you help me? I tried to destroy you, and Edward and that lawyer Coleswyn. I called you heretics. As you are.’ Her grip on the knife tightened, and she lifted the blade slightly.
‘I think you were not yourself. Please, mistress, give me the knife.’ I took half a step forward, stretching out my hand.
She slowly lifted the knife towards her throat.
‘No!’ Nicholas cried out, with such force and passion that Isabel paused, the blade almost at her neck, where the arteries pulsed under the wrinkled white skin.
‘It’s not worth it!’ he said passionately. ‘Whatever you did, madam, whatever your family did, it’s not worth that!’
She stared at him for a moment. Then she lowered the knife, but held it pointing outwards. I raised my arm to protect myself, fearing she would attack: Isabel was a thin, ageing woman, but desperation gives strength to the weakest. But it was not us she attacked; instead she turned round again and thrust the knife into her beloved picture, stabbing at it with long, powerful slashes, so hard that a piece of plaster broke off beside the crack in the wall that the experts had noticed. She went on and on, making desperate grunting sounds, as more of the paint and plaster crumbled. Then her hand slipped and the knife gashed her other arm, blood spurting through the fabric of her dress. She winced at the unexpected pain and dropped the knife. Clutching her arm, Isabel crumpled in a heap on the floor, and began to cry. She lay there, sobbing desperately with the grief and guilt of a lifetime.
Nicholas stepped forward quickly, picked up the knife and took it outside to Vowell. The old servant stared at Isabel in horror through the doorway. The painting was now scored with innumerable slashes, spaces where pieces of plaster had fallen revealing the lath behind. A tiny stream of plaster dust trickled down. I saw that the section of the painting she had attacked most fiercely, now almost entirely obliterated, was her mother’s face.
I looked at Nicholas, who was pale and breathing hard. Then I knelt beside Isabel. ‘Mistress Slanning?’ I touched her shoulder lightly. She flinched, huddling further away from me, as though she would squeeze herself into the floor, clutching at her injured arm.
‘Mistress Slanning,’ I said gently. ‘You have cut yourself, your arm needs binding.’
The sobbing ceased and she turned her head to look at her arm. Her expression was bereft, her hair wild. She looked utterly pitiful. Lifting her eyes, she met mine briefly before shuddering and turning her face away. ‘Do not look at me, please.’ She spoke in an imploring whisper. ‘No one should look at me now.’ She took a deep, sobbing breath. ‘He was innocent, our stepfather, a good man. But we did not see it, Edward and I, till it was too late. Our mother was cruel, she left that Will so we would quarrel, I understand it now. It was because both Edward and I loved the painting so. Mother never wanted us to visit her, but I would come sometimes, to see the painting. To see our father again.’