Here was the kiln room, with the massive old doors firmly closed. George said, ‘You know, I really don’t think we need look in there.’
‘I think we do,’ said Cormac. ‘And we’ll get to it at once.’ He grasped the edge of the left-hand door as he spoke. It moved reluctantly, and its hinges shrieked painfully in the enclosed space, but it slid slowly open.
‘God Almighty, it’s like the gates guarding the entrance to hell,’ said Cormac ‘But I think we’ve got it now. Give me something to wedge it in place, would you? That’s better. Now hold up the lamp.’
As the light fell across the floor, Cormac swore softly and George felt as if he had been punched in the ribs.
Thomasina Forrester was huddled against the brick chimney at the far end of the room where once the fires had burned. Her face was turned towards them; it was hideously distorted and covered in livid crimson blotches–for a moment George was not even sure it was Thomasina. Her tongue, black and swollen, stuck out of her mouth. A few feet away, as if he had tried to crawl to the door, was her cousin Simon, his face, mercifully, turned away from them.
‘Jesus God,’ said Cormac softly, ‘that would be a terrible way to die. Down here in the dark, all alone.’ He bent over the dreadful thing that had been Simon Forrester, and then moved to Thomasina, in case, George supposed, there might be a faint flicker of life left in either of them.
After a moment he straightened up. ‘They’re both dead. God knows how they became trapped down here, but it looks as if they tried to find the door to get out. It’d be pitch dark though, so they’d have no way of knowing where they were. Would they have suffocated, do you suppose?’
‘I don’t know. No, I don’t think so. There ought to be some air down here–the drying floor’s directly above.’
‘I suppose they died from shock and exhaustion,’ said Cormac. ‘Daniel Glass will be able to tell us.’
George said, ‘Thomasina must have thought she had reached the door, but it was the wrong door. It was the ovens.’ He held the lamp up again, and they both saw the long scratches on the oven surface.
‘You’re right,’ said Cormac. ‘Look at her hands. The fingernails are all broken and bloodied. Lincoln, if you’re going to be sick, go and do it somewhere else, because we don’t want any more mess on the floor than we can help.’
For the second time that night, George and Cormac Sullivan sat together in the drawing room of Toft House.
George was still reeling from what they had found, and even Sullivan–who must presumably have seen a few strange things in his time–looked stunned. He had offered George his flask down there in Twygrist’s darkness–it was brandy and George was grateful for it–but it was not until they were back at Toft House that Cormac spoke again.
‘Lincoln, did Maud kill Thomasina and Simon Forrester?’
George said, as sharply as he could, ‘No, of course not.’
‘You do know it’s a question that will be asked, though?’
‘Will it? Why would anyone think Maud would do such a thing? A young girl–she’s barely eighteen.’
‘George, did it never occur to you to wonder why Thomasina Forrester invited Maud to Quire in the first place?’
‘No,’ said George. ‘Miss Thomasina has always been very kind to the young ladies of the neighbourhood. Interested in them. I was pleased for Maud.’
‘Jesus God,’ said Cormac, making it sound like an invocation. ‘All right then, we’ll look at it in a different way. Why did Maud go out to Twygrist tonight? She knew they were in there, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, but—Does it have to become common knowledge?’
‘Minching up at Quire knows at least half of it,’ said Cormac. ‘If you think she won’t gossip about it, you don’t know much about women. The story–or a version of it–will be halfway round Cheshire before the week’s out.’