Blood spreads across her dress.
She watches it, bemused, then topples forward into the pool.
Anguish paralyses me, some combination of the gunshot and Evelyn’s expression before she fell nudging an old memory loose.
You don’t have time for this.
It’s so close. I can almost see another face, hear another plea. Another woman I failed to save, who I came to Blackheath to... what?
‘Why did I come here?’ I gasp out loud, struggling to pull the memory up from the darkness.
Save Evelyn, she’s drowning!
Blinking, I look at the reflecting pool, where Evelyn’s floating face down. Panic washes away the pain, and I scramble to my feet, leaping through the bushes and into the icy water. Her dress has spread across the surface, as heavy as a sodden sack, and the base of the reflecting pool is covered in slippery moss.
I can’t get any purchase on her.
There’s a commotion by the ballroom. Derby is fighting with Michael Hardcastle, drawing almost as much attention as the dying woman in the pool.
Fireworks explode overhead, staining everything in red and purple, yellow and orange light.
I hook my arms around Evelyn’s midriff, wrestling her out of the water and onto the grass.
Slumped in the mud, I catch my breath, checking to make sure Cunningham’s taken firm hold of Michael as I asked him to.
He has.
The plan’s working. No thanks to me. The old memory the gunshot stirred almost paralysed me. Another woman, and another death. It was the fear on Evelyn’s face. That’s what did it. I recognised that fear. It’s what brought me to Blackheath, I’m certain of it.
Doctor Dickie runs up to me. He’s flushed, panting, a fortune going up in flames behind his eyes. Evelyn told me he’d been paid to fake the death certificate. The jovial old soldier’s got quite the criminal empire up and running.
‘What happened?’ he says.
‘She shot herself,’ I respond, watching the hope blossom on his face. ‘I saw the entire thing, but I couldn’t do anything.’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself.’ He clasps me by the shoulder. ‘Listen here, why don’t you go and get a brandy while I look her over. Leave it to me, eh?’
As he kneels beside the body, I scoop the silver pistol off the ground and make my way to Michael, who’s still being held fast by Cunningham. Looking at the two of them, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Michael’s short and stocky, a bull ensnared by Cunningham’s rope-like arms. Even so, Michael’s writhing is only tightening Cunningham’s grip. A pry bar and a chisel couldn’t free him at this point.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Hardcastle,’ I say, placing a sympathetic hand on the struggling man’s arm. ‘Your sister took her own life.’
The fight goes out of him immediately, tears building in his eyes as his anguished gaze goes out towards the pool.
‘You can’t know that,’ he says, straining to see past me. ‘She might still be—’
‘The doctor has confirmed it, I’m so sorry,’ I say, taking the silver pistol from my pocket and pressing it into his palm. ‘She used this gun, do you recognise it?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you should keep hold of it for the moment,’ I suggest. ‘I’ve asked a couple of footmen to carry her body into the Sun Room, away from’ – I gesture towards the gathered crowds – ‘well, everybody. If you’d like a few minutes alone with your sister, I can arrange it.’
He’s staring at the pistol dumbly, as though he’s been delivered some object from the far future.
‘Mr Hardcastle?’
Shaking his head, his empty eyes find me.
‘What... yes, of course,’ he says, his fingers closing around the gun. ‘Thank you, Inspector.’
‘Just a constable, sir,’ I say, waving Cunningham over. ‘Charles, would you mind escorting Mr Hardcastle to the Sun Room? Keep him away from the crowds, would you?’
Cunningham meets my request with a curt nod, placing a hand on Michael’s lower back and gently guiding him towards the house. Not for the first time I’m glad the valet is on my side. Watching him depart, I feel a pang of sadness that this will probably be the last time we meet. For all the mistrust and lies, I’ve grown fond of him this last week.
Dickie’s finished his examination, the old man getting slowly to his feet. Under his watchful eye, the footmen drag Evelyn’s body onto a stretcher. He wears his sadness like a second-hand suit. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. This is murder as pantomime and everywhere I look the curtain is rustling.
As Evelyn is lifted off the ground, I race through the rain towards the Sun Room, on the far side of the house, slipping inside through the French doors I unlocked earlier, and concealing myself behind an Oriental screen. Evelyn’s grandmother watches me from the painting above the fireplace. In the flickering candlelight, I could swear she’s smiling. Perhaps she knows what I know. Maybe she’s always known and has been forced to watch day after day as the rest of us blundered through here oblivious to the truth.
No wonder she was scowling before.
Rain raps the windows as the footmen arrive with their stretcher. They move slowly, trying not to jostle the body, which is now draped in Dickie’s jacket. In no time at all they’re inside, transferring the body onto the sideboard, pressing their flat caps to their chests in respect before departing, closing the French doors behind them.
I watch them go, catching sight of myself in the glass, my hands stuffed into my pockets, Rashton’s quietly competent face suggesting nothing but certainty.
Even my reflection is lying to me.
Certainty was the first thing Blackheath took from me.
The door swings open, the draught from the corridor swiping at the candle flames. In the gaps between the screen’s panels, I can see Michael, pale and shaking, gripping the doorframe for support, tears in his eyes. Cunningham’s behind him, and after flashing a covert glance towards the screen where I’m hiding, he closes the door on us.
The instant he’s alone, Michael springs out of his grief, his shoulders straightening and eyes hardening, his sorrow transformed into something altogether more feral. Hurrying over to Evelyn’s body, he searches her bloodied stomach for a bullet hole, murmuring to himself when he doesn’t find one.
Frowning, he removes the magazine from the gun I gave him outside, finding it loaded. Evelyn was supposed to take a black revolver to the pool, not this silver pistol. He must be wondering what caused her to change the plan, and whether she’s actually carried through on the plot.
Satisfied she’s still alive, he backs away, fingers drumming his lips as he weighs the pistol. He appears to be in communion with it, frowning and biting his lip as though navigating a series of tricky questions. I lose sight of him momentarily when he strides off into the corner of the room, forcing me to lean out a little from my hiding place to get a better look. He’s picked up an embroidered pillow from one of the chairs and he brings it to Evelyn, pressing it against her stomach, presumably to muffle the sound of the pistol jammed up against it.
There isn’t even a pause, any sort of goodbye. Turning his face away, he pulls the trigger.
The pistol clicks impotently. He tries again and again, until I step out from behind the screen, putting an end to this charade.
‘It won’t work,’ I say. ‘I filed down the firing pin.’
He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even let go of the pistol.
‘I’ll make you a rich man if you let me kill her, Inspector,’ he says, a quiver in his voice.
‘I can’t do that, and as I told you outside, I’m a constable.’
‘Oh, not for very much longer with a mind like yours, I’m sure.’
He’s trembling, the pistol still held firm against Evelyn’s body. Sweat is trickling down my spine, the tension in the room thick enough to scoop up in handfuls.
‘Drop the weapon and turn around, Mr Hardcastle. Slowly, if you please.’