‘I need to go and see Charles about something,’ she says abruptly, kissing me on the lips before darting into the corridor.
She’s gone before I can respond, the door hanging open in her wake.
I stand up to close it, hot, bothered and not a little confused. On the whole, things were simpler when I was in that cupboard.
46
Step by slow step, I proceed down the corridor, poking my head into every bedroom before allowing myself to walk past it. I’m wearing the brass knuckles, and jumping at every noise and shadow, wary of the assault I’m certain is coming; knowing I can’t beat the footman should he catch me unawares.
Pushing aside the velvet curtain blocking the corridor, I pass into Blackheath’s abandoned east wing, a sharp wind stirring drapes that slap the wall like slabs of meat hitting a butcher’s counter.
I don’t stop until I reach the nursery.
Derby’s unconscious body isn’t immediately obvious, as it’s been dragged into the corner of the room, out of sight of the door and behind the rocking horse. His head is a mess of congealed blood and broken pottery, but he’s alive and well hidden. Considering he was attacked coming out of Stanwin’s bedroom, whoever was responsible obviously had enough of a conscience to keep the blackmailer from finding and killing him, but not enough time to take him anywhere safer.
I quickly rifle through his pockets, but everything he took from Stanwin has been stolen. I didn’t expect otherwise, but as he is the architect of so many of the house’s mysteries, it was worth a try.
Leaving him sleeping, I continue on to Stanwin’s rooms at the end of the passage. Surely only fear could have pushed him into this misbegotten corner of the house, so far from the meagre comforts afforded by the rest of Blackheath. By that criterion though, he’s chosen well. The floorboards are his spies, screaming my approach with every step, and the long corridor offers only one way in and out. The blackmailer clearly believes himself surrounded by enemies, a fact which I may be able to exploit.
Passing through the reception room, I knock on Stanwin’s bedroom door. A strange silence greets me, the din of somebody trying to be quiet.
‘It’s Constable Jim Rashton,’ I call through the wood, putting the brass knuckles away. ‘I need to speak with you.’
The declaration is met with a flurry of sounds. Steps go lightly across the room, a drawer scrapes, something is lifted and moved, before finally a voice creeps around the doorframe.
‘Come in,’ says Ted Stanwin.
He’s sitting on a chair, a hand stuck inside his left boot, which he’s brushing with a soldier’s vigour. I shiver a little, rocked by a powerful sense of the uncanny. The last time I saw this man, he was dead on a forest floor and I was going through his pockets. Blackheath’s picked him up and dusted him off, winding his key so he can do it all again. If this isn’t hell, the devil is surely taking notes.
I look past him. His bodyguard is sleeping deeply on the bed, breathing noisily through his bandaged nose. I’m surprised Stanwin hasn’t moved him, and more surprised to see how the blackmailer’s angled his chair to face the bed, much as Anna has done with the butler. Clearly, Stanwin feels some affection for this chap.
I wonder how he’d react knowing Derby’s been next door this whole time.
‘Ah, the man at the centre of it all,’ says Stanwin, the brush pausing while he regards me.
‘I’m afraid you have me at a loss,’ I say, confused.
‘I wouldn’t be a very good blackmailer if I didn’t,’ he says, gesturing towards a rickety wooden chair by the fire. Accepting his invitation, I drag the chair closer to the bed, making sure to avoid the dirty newspaper and boot polish strewn on the floor.
Stanwin’s wearing a rich man’s approximation of a stable hand’s livery, which is to say the white cotton shirt is pressed and the black trousers are spotless. Looking at him now, dressed plainly, scrubbing his own boots and squatting in a crumbling corner of a once-grand house, I fail to see what nineteen years of blackmail have bought him. Burst blood vessels riddle his cheeks and nose, while sunken eyes, red raw and hungry for sleep, keep watch for the monsters at his door.
Monsters he invited there.
Behind all his bluster is a soul turned to ash, the fire that once drove him long extinguished. These are the ragged edges of a man defeated, his secrets the only warmth left to him. At this point, he’s as much afraid of his victims as they are of him.
Pity pricks me. Something about Stanwin’s situation feels terribly familiar, and deep down, beneath my hosts, where the real Aiden Bishop resides, I can feel a memory stirring. I came here because of a woman. I wanted to save her, and I couldn’t. Blackheath was my chance to... what... try again?
What did I come here to do?
Leave it alone.
‘Let’s state facts plainly,’ says Stanwin, looking at me steadily. ‘You’re in league with Cecil Ravencourt, Charles Cunningham, Daniel Coleridge and a few others; the lot of you fishing around a murder that happened nineteen years ago.’
My prior thoughts scatter.
‘Oh, don’t look so shocked,’ he says, inspecting a dull spot on his boot. ‘Cunningham came asking questions early this morning on behalf of that fat master of his, and Daniel Coleridge was sniffing around a few minutes after that. Both of them wanted to know about the man I shot when I chased Master Hardcastle’s murderer off. Now here you are. Ain’t hard to see what you’re up to, not if you’ve two eyes and a brain behind them.’
He glances at me, the fa?ade of nonchalance slipping to reveal the calculation at its foundation. Aware of his eyes upon me, I dig for the right words, anything to repudiate his suspicion, but the silence stretches, growing taut.