I try to straighten out, but the pain in my ribs immediately puts an end to my efforts.
‘Why are you so interested in me?’ I ask, letting the agony settle into its familiar spots.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Why do you keep coming here for these talks? I know you don’t bother with Anna, and I’d wager you don’t see much of the footman either.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Why does—’
‘Answer the question,’ he says, rapping the floor with his cane.
‘Edward Da... no, Derby. I...’ I flounder for a moment. ‘Aiden... something.’
‘You’re losing yourself to them, Mr Bishop,’ he says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. ‘It’s been happening for a while now. That’s why we only allow you eight hosts. Any more than that and your personality wouldn’t be able to rise above theirs.’
He’s right. My hosts are getting stronger and I’m getting weaker. It’s been happening incrementally, insidiously. It’s as though I fell asleep on a beach, and now find myself cast out to sea.
‘What do I do?’ I say, feeling a surge of panic.
‘Hold on,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It’s all you can do. There’s a voice in your mind, you must have heard it by now. Dry, slightly distant? It’s calm when you’re panicked, fearless when you’re afraid.’
‘I’ve heard it.’
‘That’s what’s left of the original Aiden Bishop, the man who first entered Blackheath. It’s not much more than a fragment any more, a little piece of his personality clinging on between loops, but if you begin to lose yourself, heed that voice. It’s your lighthouse. Everything that remains of the man you once were.’
With a great rustling of clothing, he gets to his feet, the candle flame snapping in the breeze. Stooping down, he lifts the candle from the floor and heads to the door.
‘Wait,’ I say.
He pauses, his back to me. The candlelight forms a warm halo around his body.
‘How many times have we done all of this?’ I ask.
‘Thousands, I suspect. More than I could possibly count.’
‘So why do I keep failing?’
He sighs, looking over his shoulder at me. There’s a sense of weariness in his bearing, as though every loop is sediment, pressing down on him.
‘It’s a question I’ve pondered myself from time to time,’ he says, melting wax running down the side to stain his glove. ‘Chance has played its part, stumbling when being sure footed would have saved you. Mostly though, I think it’s your nature.’
‘My nature?’ I ask. ‘You think I’m destined to fail?’
‘Destined? No. That would be an excuse, and Blackheath is intolerant of excuses,’ he says. ‘Nothing that’s happening here is inevitable, much as it may appear otherwise. Events keep happening the same way day after day, because your fellow guests keep making the same decisions day after day. They decide to go hunting, they decide to betray each other; one of them drinks too much and skips breakfast, missing a meeting that would change his life forever. They cannot see another way, so they never change. You are different, Mr Bishop. Loop after loop, I’ve watched you react to moments of kindness and cruelty, random acts of chance. You make different decisions, and yet repeat the same mistakes at crucial junctures. It’s as though some part of you is perpetually pulled towards the pit.’
‘Are you saying I have to become somebody else to escape?’
‘I’m saying every man is in a cage of his own making,’ he says. ‘The Aiden Bishop who first entered Blackheath’ – he sighs, as if the memory troubles him – ‘the things he wanted and his way of getting them were... unyielding. That man could never have escaped Blackheath. This Aiden Bishop before me is different. I think you’re closer than you’ve ever been, but I’ve thought that before and been fooled. The truth is you’ve yet to be tested, but that’s coming, and if you’ve changed, truly changed, then who knows, there may be hope for you.’
Ducking under the doorframe, he moves into the corridor with the candle.
‘You have four hosts after Edward Dance, including what’s left of the days of the butler and Donald Davies. Be cautious, Mr Bishop, the footman isn’t going to rest until they’re all dead, and I’m not sure you can afford to lose a single one of them.’
With that he closes the door.
40
Day Six (continued)
Dance’s years fall on me like a thousand small weights.
Michael and Stanwin are speaking behind me, Sutcliffe and Pettigrew laughing uproariously with drinks in their hands.
Rebecca hovers over me with a silver tray, one last glass of brandy for the taking.
‘Rebecca,’ I say fondly, almost reaching out a hand to touch my wife’s cheek.
‘No, sir, it’s Lucy, sir, Lucy Harper,’ says the maid, concerned. ‘Sorry to wake you, I was worried you were going to fall off the wall.’
I blink away the memory of Dance’s dead wife, cursing myself for a fool. What a ridiculous mistake to make. Thankfully, the remembrance of Lucy’s kindness towards the butler tempers my irritation at being caught in a moment of such sentiment.
‘Would you like a drink, sir?’ she asks. ‘Something to warm you up?’
I look past her to see Evelyn’s lady’s maid, Madeline Aubert, packing dirty glasses and half-empty brandy bottles into a hamper. The two of them must have carried it over from Blackheath, arriving while I slept. I seem to have dozed for longer than I suspected, as they’re already readying themselves to leave.
‘I think I’m unsteady enough,’ I say.
Her gaze flickers over my shoulder towards Ted Stanwin, whose hand is gripping Michael Hardcastle’s shoulder. Uncertainty writes itself in large letters across her face, which is little wonder considering his treatment of her at lunchtime.
‘Don’t worry, Lucy, I’ll take it over to him,’ I say, rising and removing the glass of brandy from the tray. ‘I need to speak with him anyway.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ she says with a wide smile, departing before I can change my mind.
Stanwin and Michael are quiet when I come upon them, but I can hear the things not being said and the unease that stands in its place.
‘Michael, may I have a private word with Mr Stanwin?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ says Michael, inclining his head and withdrawing.
I hand Stanwin the drink, ignoring the suspicion with which he glances at the glass.
‘Rare that you’d lower yourself to come and talk with me, Dance,’ says Stanwin, sizing me up the way a boxer might an opponent in the ring.
‘I thought we could help each other,’ I say.
‘I’m always interested in making new friends.’
‘I need to know what you saw on the morning of Thomas Hardcastle’s murder.’
‘It’s an old story,’ he says, tracing the edge of his glass with a fingertip.
‘But worth hearing from the horse’s mouth, surely,’ I say.
He’s looking over my shoulder, watching Madeline and Lucy depart with their hamper. I have the sense he’s searching for a distraction. Something about Dance puts him on edge.
‘No harm in it, I suppose,’ he says with a grunt, returning his attention to me. ‘I was Blackheath’s gamekeeper back then. I was on my rounds around the lake, same as every morning, when I saw Carver and another devil with his back to me stabbing the little boy. I took a shot at him, but he escaped into the woods while I was wrestling with Carver.’
‘And for that Lord and Lady Hardcastle gave you a plantation?’ I say.
‘They did, not that I asked,’ he sniffs.
‘Alf Miller, the stablemaster, says Helena Hardcastle was with Carver that morning, a few minutes before the attack. What do you say to that?’
‘That he’s a drunk and a damned liar,’ says Stanwin smoothly.
I search for some tremor, some hint of unease, but he’s an accomplished deceiver this one, his fidgeting put away now he knows what I want. I can feel the scales tipping in his direction, his confidence growing.
I’ve misjudged this.