Peter Hardcastle has fallen into a drunken sulk, gripping his glass as though worried somebody will take it from him. Judging his usefulness at an end, I grab an apple from the fruit bowl and slip out of the room on the end of a hollow apology, closing the sitting-room door that I might ascend the stairs without his noticing. I need to speak with Gold and I’d rather not wade through a cloud of questions to do so.
A draught greets me at the top of the staircase, twisting and curling in the air, sneaking through the cracked windows and beneath the doors to stir the leaves littering the floor. I’m reminded of walking these corridors as Sebastian Bell, searching for the butler with Evelyn at my side. It’s odd to think of them here, odder still to remember that Bell and I are the same man. His cowardice makes me cringe, but there’s enough distance between us now that it sits apart from me. He feels like an embarrassing story I once overheard at a party. Somebody else’s shame.
Dance despises men such as Bell, but I can’t be so judgemental. I have no idea who I am beyond Blackheath, or how I think when I’m not wedged inside somebody else’s mind. For all I know, I’m exactly like Bell... and would that truly be so bad? I envy him his compassion, as I envy Ravencourt’s intelligence, and Dance’s ability to see through the shroud to the heart of things. If I carry any of these qualities out of Blackheath, I’ll be proud to have them.
Making certain I’m alone in the corridor, I enter the room where Gregory Gold is hanging from the ceiling by his bound wrists. He’s murmuring, jerking in pain, trying to outrun some untiring nightmare. Compassion compels me to cut him down, but Anna wouldn’t have left him strung up like this without a very good reason.
Even so, I still need to speak with him, so I shake him gently, then more firmly.
Nothing.
I slap his face, then splash him with water from the nearby jug, but he doesn’t stir. This is horrendous. Doctor Dickie’s sedative is unyielding and no matter how hard Gold writhes he can’t free himself of it. My stomach turns, a chill settling on my bones. Until now, the horrors in my future had always been vague, insubstantial things, dark shapes lurking in a fog. But this is me, my fate. Reaching up on my tiptoes, I pull his sleeves down to reveal the slashes on his arms he showed me last night.
‘Don’t get out of the carriage,’ I murmur, recalling his warning.
‘Step away from him,’ says Anna from behind me. ‘And turn around nice and slow. I won’t ask twice.’
I do as she bids.
She is standing in the doorway with a shotgun pointed at me. Blonde hair spills from her cap, her expression fierce. Her aim is steady, her finger pressing against the trigger. One wrong move and I have no doubt she’d kill me to protect Gold. No matter the odds arrayed against me, knowing somebody cares this deeply is enough to make even Dance’s cold heart swell.
‘It’s me, Anna,’ I say. ‘It’s Aiden.’
‘Aiden?’
The shotgun lowers a little as she steps close, her face breathing distance from my own as she inspects my newly acquired crags and lines.
‘The book mentioned you’d get old,’ she says, holding the gun in one hand. ‘Didn’t mention you’d end up with a face like a headstone, though.’
She nods at Gold.
‘Admiring the slashes, are you?’ she says. ‘Doctor reckons he did that to himself. Poor man cut his own arms to ribbons.’
‘Why?’ I ask horrified, trying to imagine any circumstance in which I’d turn a knife on myself.
‘You’d know better than me,’ she sniffs. ‘Let’s talk where it’s warm.’
I follow her into the room across the corridor, where the butler’s sleeping peacefully beneath white cotton sheets. Light is pouring through a high window, and a small fire is crackling in the grate. Dried blood mars the pillow, but otherwise it’s a serene scene, affectionate and intimate.
‘Has he woken up yet?’ I say, nodding to the butler.
‘Briefly, in the carriage. We haven’t long arrived. Poor sod could barely breathe. What about Dance? What’s he like?’ asks Anna, hiding the shotgun under the bed.
‘Humourless, hates his son, otherwise he’s fine. Anything’s better than Jonathan Derby,’ I say, pouring myself a glass of water from the jug on the table.
‘I met him this morning,’ she says distantly. ‘Can’t imagine it’s pleasant being trapped in that head.’
It wasn’t.
I say, tossing her the apple I took from the sitting room, ‘You told him you were hungry, so I brought you this. I wasn’t sure if you’d had a chance to eat yet.’
‘I haven’t,’ she says, polishing it on her apron. ‘Ta.’
I walk over to the window, clearing a spot of grime away with my sleeve. It looks out over the road, where I’m surprised to see the Plague Doctor pointing at the gatehouse. Daniel’s standing beside him, the two of them conferring.
The scene unsettles me. Thus far my interlocutor has taken great care to keep a barrier between us. This closeness I see now feels like collaboration, as though I’ve bowed to Blackheath in some way, accepting Evelyn’s death and the Plague Doctor’s assertion that only one of us can leave. Nothing could be further from the truth. Knowing I can change this day has given me the belief to keep fighting... so, what on earth are they talking about down there?
‘What can you see?’ says Anna.
‘The Plague Doctor talking with Daniel,’ I say.
‘I haven’t met him,’ she says, taking a bite out of her apple. ‘And what the bloody hell is a Plague Doctor?’
I blink at her. ‘Meeting you in the wrong order’s becoming problematic.’
‘At least there’s only one of me,’ she says. ‘Tell me about this doctor of yours.’