Apologising to Michael, I run after the doctor, my dread growing with every step, until finally he ushers me into her bedroom.
The window’s open, a cold gust snatching at the candle flames lighting the room. It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dimness, but finally I find her. Millicent’s lying on her side in bed, eyes closed and chest still, as though she crawled under the covers for a quick nap. She’d begun dressing for dinner and has combed her usually wild grey hair straight, tying it up away from her face.
‘I’m sorry, Jonathan, I know how close you were,’ he says.
Grief squeezes me. No matter how much I tell myself that this woman isn’t my mother, I can’t make it let go.
My tears arrive suddenly and silently. Trembling, I sit down in the wooden chair beside her bed, taking her still-warm hand in mine.
‘It was a heart attack,’ says Doctor Dickie in a pained voice. ‘It would have happened very suddenly.’
He’s standing on the other side of the bed, the emotion as raw on his face as my own. Wiping away a tear, he pulls the window shut, cutting off the cold breeze. The candles stand to attention, the light in the room solidifying into a warm, golden glow.
‘Can I warn her?’ I say, thinking of the things I can put right tomorrow.
He looks puzzled for a second, but clearly ascribes the question to grief, and answers me in a kind voice.
‘No,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘You couldn’t have warned her.’
‘What if—’
‘It was just her time, Jonathan,’ he says softly.
I nod, it’s all I can manage. He stays a little longer, wrapping me in words I neither hear, nor feel. My grief is a bottomless well. All I can do is fall and hope to hit the bottom. Yet the deeper I go, the more I realise I’m not weeping solely for Millicent Derby. There’s something else down here, something deeper than my host’s grief, something that belongs to Aiden Bishop. It’s raw and desperate, sad and angry, beating at the core of me. Derby’s grief has revealed it, but hard as I try I can’t quite pull it up, out of the dark.
Leave it buried.
‘What is it?’
A piece of you, now leave it alone.
A knock at the door distracts me, and looking at the clock I realise over an hour’s passed. There’s no sign of the doctor. He must have left without me noticing.
Evelyn pokes her head into the room. Her face is pale, cheeks red with cold. She’s still dressed in the blue ball gown, though it’s picked up a few creases since I last saw her. The tiara is poking from the pocket of her long beige coat, Wellington boots leaving a trail of mud and leaves on the floor. She must have only just returned from the graveyard with Bell.
‘Evelyn...’
I intend to say more, but I choke on my sorrow.
Evelyn gathers the shards of the moment together, then tuts and enters the room, heading straight for a bottle of whisky on the sideboard. The glass has barely touched my lips when she tips it upwards, forcing me to drink it down in one swallow.
Gagging, I push the glass away, whisky running down my chin.
‘Why would you—’
‘Well, you can hardly help me in your current state,’ she says.
‘Help you?’
She’s studying me, turning me over in her mind.
She hands me a handkerchief.
‘Wipe your chin, you look atrocious,’ she says. ‘I’m afraid sorrow doesn’t suit that arrogant face at all well.’
‘How—’
‘It’s a very long story,’ she says. ‘And I’m afraid we’re somewhat pressed for time.’
I sit dumbly, struggling to take everything in, wishing for the clarity of Ravencourt’s mind. So much has happened, so much I can’t quite piece together. I already felt as if I was staring at the clues through a foggy magnifying glass, and now Evelyn’s here, tugging a bedsheet over Millicent’s face, calm as a summer day. Try as I might, I can’t keep up.
Quite clearly, that little tantrum at dinner regarding her engagement was an act, because there’s no trace of that crippling sadness about her now. Her eyes are clear, her tone contemplative.
‘So I’m not the only one dying tonight,’ she says, stroking the old lady’s hair. ‘What a miserable thing.’
The glass falls from my hand in shock.
‘You know about—’
‘The reflecting pool, yes. Curious affair, isn’t it?’
She has a dreamy tone, as though describing something she once heard and now only half remembers. I’d suspect her mind of having buckled in some way, if it weren’t for the hard edge to her words.
‘You seem to be taking the news rather well,’ I say cautiously.
‘You should have seen me this morning, I was so angry I was kicking holes in the walls.’
Evelyn’s running her hand along the edge of the dressing table, opening Millicent’s jewellery box, touching the pearl-handled brush. I’d describe her actions as covetous, if there didn’t appear to be an equal amount of reverence.
‘Who wants you dead, Evelyn?’ I ask, unnerved by this curious display.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘There was a letter pushed under my door when I woke up. The instructions were quite specific.’
‘But you don’t know who sent it?’
‘Constable Rashton has a theory, but he’s kept it rather close to his chest.’
‘Rashton?’
‘Your friend? He told me you were helping him investigate.’ Doubt and distaste seep out of every word, but I’m too intrigued to take it personally. Could this Rashton be another host? Maybe even the same man who asked Cunningham to deliver that ‘all of them’ message, and gather some people together. Either way, he seems to have swept me up into his plan. Whether I can trust it is another matter.
‘Where did Rashton approach you?’ I ask.
‘Mr Derby,’ she says firmly. ‘I’d love nothing more than to sit down and answer all your questions, but we don’t really have time. I’m expected at the reflecting pool in ten minutes and I can’t be late. In fact, that’s why I’m here, I need the silver pistol you took from the doctor.’
‘You can’t mean to go through with this,’ I say, jumping up from my seat in alarm.
‘As I understand it, your friends are close to unmasking my would-be killer. They simply need a little more time. If I don’t go, the killer will know something is wrong, and I can’t risk that.’
I’m beside her in two steps, my pulse racing.
‘Are you saying they know who’s behind all of this?’ I say excitedly. ‘Did they give you any indication who it might be?’
Evelyn’s holding one of Millicent Derby’s cameos up to the light, an ivory face on blue lace. Her hand is shaking. It’s the first sign of fear I’ve seen from her.
‘They didn’t, but I hope they find out soon. I’m trusting your friends to save me before I’m forced to do something... final.’
‘Final?’ I say.
‘The note was specific, either I take my life out by the reflecting pool at 11 p.m. or somebody I care about very deeply dies in my stead.’
‘Felicity?’ I ask. ‘I know you collected a note from her at the well, and that you asked her for her assistance with your mother. Michael said she was an old friend. Is she in danger? Is somebody holding her against her will?’
That would explain why I haven’t been able to find her.
The jewellery box clatters shut. Evelyn turns to face me, hands now pressed flat against the dressing table.
‘I don’t mean to sound impatient, but don’t you have somewhere to be?’ she says. ‘I was asked to remind you about a rock that needs watching. Does that make any sense to you?’
I nod, remembering the favour Anna asked of me earlier this afternoon. I’m to be standing by it when Evelyn kills herself. I wasn’t to move. Not an inch, she’d said.
‘In that case my work here is done and I should go,’ says Evelyn. ‘Where’s the silver pistol?’
Even in her small fingers, it seems an inconsequential thing, more decoration than weapon, an embarrassing way to end a life. I wonder if that’s the point, if there’s not some quiet rebuke in the instrument of death, as there is in the method. Evelyn isn’t merely being murdered, she’s being embarrassed, dominated.