‘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.
‘Wondered how you’d take it,’ grunts Stanwin, putting his boot down on the newspaper and wiping his hands clean with a rag.
When he speaks again it’s low and soft, the voice of somebody telling stories. ‘Seems to me this sudden lust for justice probably has one of two causes,’ he says, digging at the dirt beneath his fingernails with a penknife. ‘Either Ravencourt’s caught the whiff of scandal and he’s paying you to look into it for him, or you think there’s a big case waiting to be solved that will put you in the papers and make your name.’
He sneers at my silence.
‘Look, Rashton, you don’t know me or my business, but it knows men like you. You’re a working-class plod walking out with a rich woman you can’t afford. Nothing wrong with climbing, done it myself, but you’re going to need money to get on the ladder and I can help. Information is valuable, which means we can help each other.’
He’s holding my gaze, but not comfortably. A pulse throbs violently in his neck, sweat gathering on his forehead. There’s danger in this approach, and he knows it. Even so, I can feel the lure of his offer. Rashton would love nothing more than to pay his way with Grace. He’d like to buy finer clothes, and pay for dinner more than once a month.
Thing is, he loves being a copper more.
‘How many people know that Lucy Harper is your daughter?’ I say blandly.
Now it’s my turn to watch his face fall.
My suspicions were raised when I watched him bully Lucy at the lunch table, all because she had the temerity to use his first name when asking him to move out of the way. I didn’t think much of it when I saw it through Bell’s eyes. Stanwin is a brute and a blackmailer, so it seemed only natural. It was only when I witnessed it again as Dance that I caught the affection in Lucy’s voice, and the fear on his face. A roomful of men who’d happily stick a knife in his ribs and there she is, all but telling them that she cares about him. She might as well have painted a target on her back. No wonder he lashed out. He needed her out of that room as quickly as possible.
‘Lucy who?’ he says, the rag twisting tight in his hands.
‘Don’t insult me by denying it, Stanwin,’ I interrupt. ‘She has your red hair and you keep a locket with her picture in your jacket, along with a codebook detailing your blackmailing business. Odd things to keep together, except they’re the only things you care about. You should have heard how she defended you to Ravencourt.’
Each fact out of my mouth is a hammer blow.
‘It isn’t hard to figure out,’ I say. ‘Not for a man with two eyes and a brain behind them.’
‘What do you want?’ he asks quietly.
‘I need to know what really happened the morning Thomas Hardcastle was murdered.’
His tongue roams his lips as his mind gets to work, cogs and gears lubricated by lies.
‘Charlie Carver and another man took Thomas out to the lake, then stabbed him to death,’ he says, picking up the boot once again. ‘I stopped Carver, but the other one got away. Any other old stories you want to hear?’
‘If I was interested in lies, I’d have asked Helena Hardcastle,’ I say, leaning forward with my hands clasped between my knees. ‘She was there, wasn’t she? Like Alf Miller said. Everybody believes the family gave you a plantation for trying to save the little boy, but I know that’s not what happened. You’ve been blackmailing Helena Hardcastle for nineteen years, ever since the boy died. You saw something that morning, something you’ve held over her all this time. She told her husband the money was to keep Cunningham’s real parentage secret, but that’s not it, is it? It’s something bigger.’
‘And if I don’t tell you what I saw, what then?’ he snarls, throwing the boot aside. ‘You spread word that Lucy Harper’s old man is the infamous Ted Stanwin and wait to see who kills her first?’
I open my mouth to respond, only to be confounded when no words come out. Of course that was my plan, but sitting here, I’m reminded of that moment on the staircase when Lucy led a confused butler back into the kitchen, so he wouldn’t get into trouble. Unlike her father she’s got a good heart, knotted with tenderness and doubt – perfect for men like me to step on. No wonder Stanwin stayed out of sight, letting her mother raise her. He probably funnelled his family a little money over the years, intending to make them comfortable until he could put them permanently beyond the reach of his powerful enemies.
‘No,’ I say, as much to myself as Stanwin, ‘Lucy was kind to me when I needed kindness, I won’t put her in danger, even for this.’
He surprises me with a smile, and the regret lurking behind it.
‘You won’t get far in this house with sentiment,’ he says.
‘Then what about common sense?’ I ask. ‘Evelyn Hardcastle is going to be murdered tonight and I think it’s because of something that happened nineteen years ago. Seems to me it’s in your interest to keep Evelyn alive so she can marry Ravencourt, and you can keep getting paid.’
He whistles. ‘If that’s true, there’s better coin to be made in knowing who was responsible, but you’re coming at this crooked,’ he says emphatically. ‘I don’t need to keep getting paid. This is it for me. I’ve got a big payout coming, then I’m selling the business and getting out. That’s why I came to Blackheath in the first place, to pick up Lucy and finish the deal. She’s coming with me.’
‘Who are you selling it to?’
‘Daniel Coleridge.’
‘Coleridge is planning to murder you during the hunt in a few hours. How much information is that worth?’
Stanwin is looking at me with a bright suspicion.