So that’s what this was all about. They want Anna.
That’s why Daniel told me to find her when I was Ravencourt, and why he asked Derby to bring her to the library, when he laid out his plan to trap the footman. I was supposed to deliver her. A lamb to slaughter.
My head spinning, I watch them exchange a few final words, before the footman makes for the house. Daniel’s wiping the blood from his face, but he doesn’t move, and a second later I see why. The Plague Doctor’s entering the clearing. This must be the ‘friend’ Daniel mentioned.
It’s as I feared. They’re working together. Daniel’s formed a partnership with the footman, and they’re hunting Anna on the Plague Doctor’s behalf. I can’t imagine what’s fuelling this enmity, but it explains why the Plague Doctor’s spent the day trying to turn me against her.
Placing a hand on Daniel’s shoulder, he leads him into the trees, beyond my sight. The intimacy of this gesture throws me. I can’t recall a single time when the Plague Doctor has touched me, or even come close enough for that to happen.
Keeping low, I hurry after them, stopping at the treeline to listen for their voices, but I can’t hear anything. Cursing, I press deeper into the forest, stopping periodically, hoping to catch some sign of them. It’s no use. They’re gone.
Feeling like a man in a dream, I return the way I came.
Everything I saw that day, how much of it was real? Was anybody who they claimed to be? I believed Daniel and Evelyn were my friends, the Plague Doctor was a madman, and that I was a doctor called Sebastian Bell, whose biggest problem was memory loss. How could I know those were merely starting positions in a race nobody had told me I was running?
It’s the finishing line you should be concerned with.
‘The graveyard,’ I say out loud.
Daniel believes he’ll capture Anna there, and I have no doubt he’ll have the footman with him when he tries. That’s where this will end, and I need to be ready.
I’ve arrived at the wishing well, where Evelyn received the note from Felicity that first morning. I’m eager to put my plan into action, but instead of heading for the house, I instead turn left, towards the lake. This is Rashton’s doing. It’s instinct. A copper’s instinct. He wants to see the scene of the crime while Stanwin’s testimony is still fresh in my mind.
The trail is overgrown, trees leaning in on either side, their roots writhing up through the ground. Brambles snag my trench coat, rain spilling off leaves, until finally I emerge on the lake’s muddy banks.
I’ve only ever seen it at a distance, but it’s much bigger up close, with water the colour of mossy stone, and a couple of skeletal rowing boats tethered to a boathouse that’s crumbling to firewood on the far-right bank. A bandstand sits on an island at the centre, the peeling turquoise roof and wooden frame battered by the wind and rain.
No wonder the Hardcastles chose to leave Blackheath. Something evil happened here and it haunts the lake still. Such is my unease I almost turn on my heel, but a greater part of me needs to make sense of what happened here nineteen years ago, and so I walk the length of the lake, circling it twice, much as a coroner might circle a body on his slab.
An hour passes. My eyes are busy, but they stick to nothing.
Stanwin’s story seems cut and dried, but it doesn’t explain why the past is reaching up to claim another Hardcastle child. It doesn’t explain who’s behind it, or what they hope to gain. I thought coming here would bring some clarity, but whatever the lake remembers, it has little interest in sharing. Unlike Stanwin it cannot be bartered with and unlike the stablemaster it cannot be bullied.
Cold and wet, I might be tempted to give up, but Rashton is already tugging me towards the reflecting pool. The policeman’s eyes aren’t soft like my other hosts. They seek the edges, the absences. My memories of this place aren’t enough for him; he needs to see it all afresh. And so, hands deep in my pockets, I arrange myself at the edge of the water, which is high enough to touch the bottom of my shoes. A light rain is rippling the surface, plinking against thick patches of floating moss.
At least the rain is constant. It’s tapping Bell’s face as he walks with Evelyn, and the windows of the gatehouse where the butler sleeps and Gold is strung up. Ravencourt’s listening to it in his parlour, wondering where Cunningham has got to, and Derby... well, Derby’s still unconscious, which is the best thing for him. Davies is collapsed on the road, or maybe walking back. Either way, he’s getting wet. As is Dance, who’s traipsing through the forest, a shotgun slung over his arm, wishing he was anywhere else.
As for me, I’m standing exactly where Evelyn will stand tonight, where she’ll press a silver pistol to her stomach and pull the trigger.
I’m seeing what she’ll see.
Trying to understand.
The murderer found a way to force Evelyn to commit suicide, but why not have her shoot herself in her bedroom out of sight? Why bring her out here during the middle of the party?
So everybody would see.
‘Then why not the middle of the dance floor, or the stage?’ I mutter.
All this, it’s too theatrical.
Rashton’s worked on dozens of murders. They aren’t stage-managed, they’re immediate, impulsive acts. Men crawl into their cups after a hard day’s work, stirring the bitterness settled at the bottom. Fights break out, wives grow tired of their black eyes and pick up the nearest kitchen knife. Death happens in alleys and quiet rooms with doilies on the tables. Trees fall, people are crushed, tools slip. People die the way they’ve always died, quickly, impatiently or unluckily; not here, not in front of a hundred people in ball gowns and dinner jackets.
What kind of mind makes theatre of murder?
Turning back towards the house, I try to recall Evelyn’s route to the reflecting pool, remembering how she drifted from flame to darkness, wobbling as if drunk. I remember the silver pistol glinting in her hand, the shot, the silence and then the fireworks as she tumbled into the water.
Why take two guns when one will do?
A murder that doesn’t look like a murder.
That’s how the Plague Doctor described it... but what if... my mind gropes at the edges of a thought, teasing it forward out of the dimness. An idea emerges, the queerest of ideas.
The only one that makes sense.
I’m startled by a tap on my shoulder, almost sending me stumbling into the reflecting pool. Thankfully, Grace catches hold of me, pulling me back into her arms. It’s not, I must admit, an unpleasant predicament, especially when I turn around to meet those blue eyes, looking up at me with a mixture of love and bemusement.
‘What on earth are you doing out here?’ she asks. ‘I’ve been searching for you all over. You missed lunch.’
There’s concern in her voice. She holds my gaze, searching my eyes, though I have no idea what she’s looking for.
‘I came for a walk,’ I say, trying to slip free of her worry. ‘And I started imagining what this place must have been like in its pomp.’
Doubt flickers on her face, but it vanishes in a blink of her glorious eyes as she slips an arm through mine, the heat of her body warming me up.
‘It’s difficult to remember now,’ she says. ‘Every memory I have of this place, even the happy ones, are stained by what happened to Thomas.’
‘Were you here when it happened?’
‘Have I never told you this?’ she says, resting her head on my shoulder. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t have, I was only young. Yes, I was here, nearly everybody here today was.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘Thank heavens, no,’ she says, aghast. ‘Evelyn had arranged a treasure hunt for the children. I can’t have been more than seven, same for Thomas. Evelyn was ten. She was all grown up, so we were her responsibility for the day.’