Reaching into my pocket, I hand her the piece of paper. Unfolding it, she reads it aloud.
‘All of them,’ she says, wrinkling her forehead. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s the answer to a question I had Cunningham ask Mrs Drudge.’
‘What question?’
‘Were any of the other Hardcastle children Charlie Carver’s. I wanted to know who he’d give his life for.’
‘But they’re all dead now.’
The mysterious lantern bobs in the air, coming closer and closer. The person holding it is hurrying, making no attempt at stealth. The time for subterfuge has passed.
‘Who is that?’ asks Anna, shielding her eyes and squinting at the approaching light.
‘Yes, who am I?’ says Madeline Aubert, lowering the lantern to reveal the gun pointed directly at us.
She’s discarded her maid’s uniform in favour of trousers and a loose linen shirt, a beige cardigan thrown over her shoulders. Her dark hair’s wet, her pockmarked skin thick with powder. The mask of servitude removed, she has the look of her mother, the same oval eyes and freckles swirling into a milky white complexion. I can only hope Anna sees it.
Anna looks from me to Madeline and back again, confusion giving way to panic on her face.
‘Aiden, help me,’ she pleads.
‘It has to be you,’ I say, searching out her cold hand in the darkness. ‘All the pieces are in front of you. Who was in a position to kill Thomas Hardcastle and Lady Hardcastle in exactly the same way, nineteen years apart? Why did Evelyn say “I’m not” and “Millicent murder” after I saved her? Why did she have a signet ring she’d given to Felicity Maddox? What did Millicent Derby know that got her killed? Why was Gregory Gold hired to paint new portraits of the family when the rest of the house was crumbling? Who would Helena Hardcastle and Charlie Carver have lied to protect?’
Clarity arrives on Anna’s face like a sunrise, her eyes widening as she looks from the note to Madeline’s expectant expression.
‘Evelyn Hardcastle,’ she says quietly. Then louder, ‘You’re Evelyn Hardcastle.’
59
Quite what reaction I’d expected from Evelyn I’m not sure, but she surprises me by clapping her hands in delight, jumping up and down as though we’re pets performing a new trick.
‘I knew it would be worth following you two,’ she says, placing her lantern on the ground, stitching its glow to ours. ‘People don’t trek all the way into the darkness without a little knowledge to light the way. Though I must confess, I’m at a loss as to how this is any of your concern.’
She’s shed her French accent and with it any trace of the dutiful maid she was hiding behind. Shoulders that once slouched straighten immediately, her neck stiffening, pushing her chin into the air so that she seems to survey us from atop some lofty cliff.
Her questioning gaze passes between us, but my attention is fixed on the forest. This will all be for nothing if the Plague Doctor isn’t here to hear it, but beyond the puddle of light cast by our two lanterns, it’s pitch-black. He could be standing ten yards away and I’d never know.
Mistaking my silence for obstinacy, Evelyn offers me a wide smile. She’s enjoying us. She’s going to savour us.
We have to keep her entertained until the Plague Doctor arrives.
‘This was what you had planned for Thomas all those years ago, wasn’t it?’ I say, pointing towards Helena’s body in the boathouse. ‘I questioned the stablemaster who told me you’d gone out riding on the morning of his death, but that was just an alibi. You’d arranged to meet Thomas here, so all you had to do was ride past the gatehouse, tie up the horse and cut directly through the forest. I timed it myself. You could have arrived in under half an hour without anybody seeing, giving you plenty of time to murder Thomas quietly in the boathouse, wash in the water, change clothes and be back on your horse before anybody knew he was missing. You’d stolen the murder weapon from the stablemaster, and the blanket you were going to cover the body in. He was supposed to take the blame once Thomas was found, only the plan went wrong, didn’t it?’
‘Everything went wrong,’ she says, clicking her tongue. ‘The boathouse was a backup, in case my first idea went awry. I intended to daze Thomas with a rock and then drown him, leaving him floating in the lake for somebody to find. A tragic accident, and we’d all go about our lives. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to use either plan. I hit Thomas over the head, but not nearly hard enough. He started screaming and I panicked, stabbing him out here in the open.’
She sounds irritated, though not unduly so. It’s as though she’s describing nothing more serious than a picnic spoiled by bad weather, and I catch myself staring at her. I’d deduced most of the story before coming here, but to hear it relayed so callously, without regret of any sort, is horrifying. She’s soulless, conscienceless. I can barely believe she’s a person.
Noticing me floundering, Anna takes up the conversation.
‘And that’s when Lady Hardcastle and Charlie Carver stumbled upon you.’ She’s considering every word, laying them ahead of her onrushing thoughts. ‘Somehow you managed to convince them Thomas’s death was an accident.’
‘They did most of the work themselves,’ muses Evelyn. ‘I thought it was all over when they appeared on that path. I got halfway through telling them I was trying to get the knife away from Thomas, when Carver filled in the rest for me. Accident, children playing, that sort of thing. He handed me a story gift-wrapped.’
‘Did you know Carver was your father?’ I ask, regaining my composure.
‘No, but I was a child. I simply accepted my good fortune and went riding, as I was told. It wasn’t until I’d been shipped off to Paris that Mother told me the truth. I think she wanted me to be proud of him.’
‘So Carver sees his daughter covered in blood on the lake bank,’ continues Anna, speaking slowly, trying to put everything in order. ‘He realises you’re going to need some clean clothes, and he goes to the house to fetch them while Helena stays with Thomas. That’s what Stanwin saw when he followed Carver to the lake, that’s why he believed Helena killed her own son. It’s why he let his friend take the blame.’
‘That and a great deal of money,’ says Evelyn, her lip curling, revealing the tips of her teeth. Her green eyes are glassy, blank. Utterly without empathy, intolerant of remorse. ‘Mother paid him handsomely over the years.’
‘Charlie Carver didn’t know you’d planned the murder beforehand and already had a change of clothes waiting in the boathouse,’ I say, struggling not to look for the Plague Doctor among the trees. ‘The clothes stayed there, hidden, for eighteen years until your mother found them when she visited Blackheath last year. She knew what they meant immediately. She even told Michael about them, probably to test his reaction.’
‘She must have thought he knew about the murder,’ says Anna pityingly. ‘Can you imagine... she couldn’t trust either of her children.’
A breeze is stirring, rain plinking against our lanterns. There’s a noise from the forest, indistinct and distant but enough to draw Evelyn’s attention for an instant.
‘Stall her,’ I mouth to Anna, as I remove my coat and lay it across her thin shoulders, earning a grateful smile.