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.’
I quickly fill her in on my history with the Plague Doctor, starting with our meeting in the study when I was Sebastian Bell, and recounting how he stopped my car when I tried to escape and, more recently, upbraided me for chasing Madeline Aubert in the forest as Jonathan Derby. It already seems a lifetime ago.
‘Sounds like you’ve made a friend,’ she says, chewing noisily.
‘He’s using me,’ I say. ‘I just don’t know what for.’
‘Daniel might, they seem chummy enough,’ she says, joining me at the window. ‘Any idea what they’re talking about? Have you solved Evelyn’s murder and forgotten to tell me?’
‘If we do this right, there won’t be a murder to solve,’ I say, my attention fixed on the scene below.
‘So you’re still trying to save her, even after the Plague Doctor said it was almost impossible?’
‘As a rule, I ignore half of everything he tells me,’ I say distantly. ‘Call it a healthy scepticism of any wisdom that comes delivered through a mask. Besides, I know this day can be changed, I’ve seen it.’
‘Christ’s sake, Aiden,’ she says angrily.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, startled.
‘This, all of this!’ she says, spreading her arms exasperatedly. ‘We had a deal, you and me. I’d sit in this little room and keep these two safe, and you’d use your eight lives to solve this murder.’
‘That’s what I’m doing,’ I say, confused by her anger.
‘No, it’s not,’ she says. ‘You’re running around trying to save the person whose death is our best chance of escape.’
‘She’s my friend, Anna.’
‘She’s Bell’s friend,’ Anna counters. ‘She humiliated Ravencourt and she nearly killed Derby. Far as I’ve seen, there’s more warmth in a long winter than in that woman.’
‘She had her reasons.’
It’s a weak response, intended to bat away the question rather than answer it. Anna’s right, Evelyn hasn’t been my friend for a long time now, and though the memory of her kindness still lingers, it’s not my driving impulse. That’s something else, something deeper, something squirming. The idea of leaving her to be slain sickens me. Not Dance, not any of my other hosts. It sickens me, Aiden Bishop.
Unfortunately, Anna’s building up a head of steam and doesn’t give me a chance to dwell on the revelation.
‘I don’t care about her reasons, I care about yours,’ she says, pointing at me. ‘Maybe you don’t feel it, but deep down, I know how long I’ve been in this place. It’s decades, Aiden, I’m sure of it. I need to leave, I have to, and this is my best chance, with you. You’ve got eight lives, you’ll get out of here eventually. I do all this once, and then forget. Without you I’m stuck, and what happens if next time you wake up as Bell, you don’t remember me?’
‘I won’t leave you here, Anna,’ I insist, shaken by the desperation in her voice.
‘Then solve the damn murder like the Plague Doctor asked you to, and believe him when he says that Evelyn can’t be saved!’
‘I can’t trust him,’ I say, losing my temper and turning my back on her.
‘Why not, everything he’s said has happened. He’s—’
‘He said you’d betray me,’ I shout.
‘What?’
‘He told me you’d betray me,’ I repeat, shaken by the admission. Until now I’d never actually voiced the accusation, preferring to dismiss it in the quiet of my thoughts. Now I’ve said it out loud it’s a real possibility, and it worries me. Anna’s right, everything else the Plague Doctor’s said has come true, and as strong as my connection to this woman is, I can’t be completely certain she won’t turn on me.
She reels backwards as if struck, shaking her head.
‘I’d never... Aiden, I’d never do that, I swear.’
‘He said you remembered more about our last loop than you were admitting,’ I say. ‘Is that true? Is there something you’re not telling me?’
She hesitates.
‘Is it true, Anna?’ I demand.
‘No,’ she says forcefully. ‘He’s trying to get between us, Aiden. I don’t know why, but you can’t listen to him.’
‘That’s my point,’ I shoot back. ‘If the Plague Doctor’s telling the truth about Evelyn, he’s telling the truth about you. I don’t believe he is. I think he wants something, something we don’t know about, and I think he’s using us to get it.’
‘Even if that’s the case, I don’t understand why you’re so insistent on saving Evelyn,’ says Anna, still struggling with what I had told her.
‘Because somebody’s going to kill her,’ I say haltingly. ‘And they’re not doing it themselves, they’re twisting her in knots so she’ll do it herself, and they’re making sure everybody sees. It’s cruel and they’re enjoying it, and I can’t... It doesn’t matter whether we like her, or whether the Plague Doctor is right, you don’t get to kill somebody and put them on display. She’s innocent, and we can stop it. And we should.’
I falter, breathless, teetering on the edge of a memory sprung loose by Anna’s questions. It’s as though a curtain’s been pulled back, the man I used to be almost visible through the gap. Guilt and grief, they’re the keys, I’m certain of it. They’re what brought me to Blackheath in the first place. They’ve been driving me to save Evelyn, but that wasn’t my purpose here, not really.
‘There was somebody else,’ I say slowly, clutching at the edges of the memory. ‘A woman, I think. She’s the reason I came here, but I couldn’t save her.’
‘What was her name?’ says Anna, taking my wrinkled old hands and looking up into my face.
‘I can’t remember,’ I say, my head throbbing in concentration.
‘Was it me?’