‘Murder me?’ he says. ‘We’ve got a square deal, him and me. We’re going to finish our business out in the forest.’
‘The business is in two books, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘All the names, crimes and payments in one, written in code, of course. And the cypher to decrypt it in another. You keep them separate and think that keeps you safe but it doesn’t and, square deal or not, you’ll be dead in’ – I pull up my sleeve to check my watch – ‘four hours, at which point Coleridge will have both of the books without parting with a shilling.’
For the first time, Stanwin looks uncertain.
Reaching over to the drawer in his bedside table, he removes a pipe and a small pouch of tobacco, which he packs into the pipe’s bowl. Scraping away the excess, he circles the burning match across the leaves, taking a few puffs to draw the flame. By the time his attention returns to me, the tobacco is burning, smoke forming a halo above his ill-deserving head.
‘How’s he going to do it?’ asks Stanwin, out of the corner of his mouth, his pipe gripped between his yellow teeth.
‘What did you see the morning of Thomas Hardcastle’s death?’ I ask.
‘That’s it, is it? A murder for a murder?’
‘Square deal,’ I say.
He spits on his hand.
‘Shake then,’ he says.
I do as he asks, then light my last cigarette. The need for tobacco has come upon me slowly, the way the tide nudges up a riverbank, and I let the smoke fill my throat, my eyes watering in pleasure.
Scratching his stubble, Stanwin begins speaking, his voice thoughtful.
‘It was a funny day that, strange from the off,’ he says, adjusting the pipe in his mouth. ‘The guests had arrived for the party, but there was already a bad atmosphere around the place. Arguments in the kitchen, fights in the stables, even the guests were at it; couldn’t walk past a closed door without hearing raised voices behind it.’
There’s a wariness to him now, the sense of a man unpacking a trunk filled with sharp objects.
‘It weren’t much of a surprise when Charlie got fired,’ he says. ‘He’d been carrying on with Lady Hardcastle long as anybody could remember. Secret at first. Obvious later, too obvious if you ask me. They wanted to be caught, I reckon. Don’t know what got ’em in the end, but news went around the kitchen like a pox when Charlie was dismissed by Lord Hardcastle. We thought he’d come downstairs, say goodbye, but we didn’t hear a peep, then a couple of hours later, one of the maids fetches me, tells me she’s just seen Charlie drunk as a lord, wandering around the children’s bedrooms.’
‘The children’s bedrooms, you’re sure?’
‘That’s what she said. Poking his head in the doors one after another, like he was looking for something.’
‘Any idea what?’
‘She thought he was trying to say goodbye, but they were all out playing. Either way, he left with a big leather bag over his shoulder.’
‘And she didn’t know what was in it?’
‘Not a clue. Whatever it was, nobody begrudged him. He was popular, Charlie, we all liked him.’
Stanwin sighs, tipping his face to the ceiling.
‘What happened next?’ I prod, sensing his reluctance to continue.
‘Charlie was my friend,’ he says heavily. ‘So I went looking for him, to say goodbye more than anything else. Last anybody saw he was heading to the lake so that’s where I went, only he wasn’t there. Nobody was, at least that’s what it looked like at first. I would have left except I saw the blood in the dirt.’
‘You followed the blood?’ I say.
‘Aye, to the edge of the lake... that’s when I saw the boy.’
He gulps, drawing his hand across his face. The memory’s lurked in the darkness of his mind for so long I’m not surprised he’s having trouble dragging it into the light. Everything he’s become has grown out of this poisonous seed.
‘What did you see, Stanwin?’ I ask.
Dropping his hand from his face, he looks at me as though I’m a priest demanding confession.
‘At first, just Lady Hardcastle,’ he says. ‘She was kneeling in the mud, sobbing her heart out. There was blood everywhere. I didn’t see the boy, she was cradling him so tight... but she turned when she heard me. She’d stabbed him through the throat, almost taken his head off, she had.’
‘She confessed?’ I say.
I can hear the excitement in my voice. Looking down, I notice that my hands are clenched, my body tense. I’m on the edge of my seat, my breath held in my throat.
I’m immediately ashamed of myself.
‘More or less,’ says Stanwin. ‘Just kept saying it was an accident. That was it, over and over again. It was an accident.’
‘So where does Carver come into this?’ I ask.
‘He arrived later.’
‘How much later?’
‘I don’t know...’
‘Five minutes, twenty minutes?’ I ask. ‘It’s important, Stanwin.’
‘Not twenty, ten maybe, can’t have been too long.’
‘Did he have the bag?’
‘The bag?’
‘The brown leather bag the maid saw him take from the house? Did he have it with him?’
‘No, no bag.’ He points the pipe at me. ‘You know something, don’t you?’
‘I think so, yes. Finish your story, please.’
‘Carver came, took me to one side. He was sober, dead sober, the way a man is when he’s had a shock. He asked me to forget everything I’d seen, to tell everybody he’d done it. I said I wouldn’t, not for her, not for the Hardcastles, but he said he loved her, that it’d been an accident and it was the only thing he could do for her, the only thing he could give her. He reckoned he had no future anyway, not after being dismissed from Blackheath and having to move away from Helena. He made me swear to keep her secret.’
‘Which you did, except you made her pay for it,’ I say.
‘And you’d have done different, would you, copper?’ he says, furiously. ‘Clapped her in irons then and there, betraying a promise to your friend. Or would you have let her get away with it, scot-free?’
I shake my head. I don’t have an answer for him, but I’m not interested in his pitying self-justification. There’s only two victims in this story: Thomas Hardcastle and Charlie Carver, a murdered child and a man who walked to the gallows to protect the woman he loved. It’s too late for me to help either of them, but I’m not going to let the truth stay buried any longer.
It’s done enough damage already.
47
Bushes rustle, twigs cracking underfoot. Daniel’s moving through the forest quickly, making no attempt at stealth. He has no need. My other hosts are all occupied, and nearly everybody else is either on the hunt, or in the Sun Room.
My heart is racing. He slipped out of the house after speaking with Bell and Michael in the study, and I’ve been following him for the last fifteen minutes, picking my way silently through the trees. I remember him missing the start of the hunt and having to catch up with Dance, and I’m curious what kept him. Hopefully, this errand will shed more light on his plans.
The trees break suddenly, giving way to an ugly clearing. We’re not far from the lake, and I can just about see the water away to my right. The footman’s pacing in circles like a caged animal, and I have to duck behind a bush to keep from being seen.
‘Make it quick,’ says Daniel, approaching him.
The footman punches him on the chin.
Staggering backwards, Daniel straightens, inviting a second blow with a nod of his head. This one crunches into his stomach, and is followed by a cross that knocks him to the ground.
‘More?’ asks the footman, looming over him.
‘That’s enough,’ says Daniel, dabbing his split lip. ‘Dance needs to believe we fought, not that you nearly killed me.’
They’re working together.
‘Can you catch them?’ says the footman, helping Daniel off the ground. ‘The hunters have a good head start.’
‘Lot of old legs. They won’t have gone far. Any luck snatching Anna?’
‘Not yet, I’ve been busy.’
‘Well hurry up, our friend’s getting impatient.’