The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

  ‘I don’t. Must have mistook me for somebody else, sir.’

  The ‘sir’ isn’t my doing, it’s an old habit of the butler’s, and I’m surprised by how easily it arrived on my tongue.

  The doctor’s shrewd gaze holds my explanation up to the light, poking a dozen different holes in it. The tight smile he flashes me is one of complicity, both reassuring and a touch threatening. Whatever happened in that hallway, the seemingly benign Doctor Dickie knows more about it than he’s letting on.

  There’s a click as he opens his bag, withdrawing a brown bottle and a hypodermic syringe. Keeping his eyes on me, he pokes the needle through the bottle’s wax seal, filling the hypodermic with a clear liquid.

  My hand clutches the sheets.

  ‘I’m fine, Doctor, honestly,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, that’s rather my concern,’ he says, jabbing the needle into my neck before I have a chance to argue.

  A warm liquid floods my veins, drowning my thoughts. The doctor melts, colours blossoming and fading into darkness.

  ‘Sleep, Roger,’ he says. ‘I’ll deal with Mr Gold.’

  22

  Day Five

  Coughing up a lungful of cigar smoke, I open a new pair of eyes to find myself almost fully clothed on wooden floorboards, one hand lying victorious on an untouched bed. My trousers are around my ankles, a bottle of brandy clutched to my stomach. Clearly an attempt was made at undressing last night, but such a course appears to have been beyond my new host, whose breath stinks like an old beer mat.

  Groaning, I claw my way up the side of the bed, dislodging a throbbing headache that nearly knocks me to the floor again.

  I’m in a similar bedroom to the one Bell was given, the embers of last night’s fire winking at me from the grate. The curtains are open, the sky sagging with early morning light.

  Evelyn’s in the forest, you need to find her.

  Hoisting my trousers up to my waist, I stumble over to the mirror to better inspect this fool I now inhabit.

  I nearly run straight into it.

  After being shackled to Ravencourt for so long, this new chap feels weightless, a leaf being blown about by a breeze. It’s not too surprising when I see him in the glass. He’s short and slight, somewhere in his late twenties, with longish brown hair and bloodshot blue eyes above a neatly trimmed beard. I try out his smile, discovering a row of slightly awkward white teeth.

  It’s the face of a rascal.

  My possessions are sitting in a pile on the bedside table, an invitation addressed to Jonathan Derby on top. At least I know who to curse for this hangover. I sift through the items with a fingertip, uncovering a pocketknife, a weathered hip flask, a wristwatch showing 8:43 a.m. and three brown vials with cork stoppers and no labels. Yanking a cork loose, I sniff the liquid within, my stomach twisting at the sickly sweet scent that drifts out.

  This must be the laudanum Bell was selling.

  I can see why it’s so popular. Simply sniffing the stuff has filled my mind with bright lights.

  There’s a jug of cold water beside a small sink in the corner and, stripping naked, I wash off last night’s sweat and grime, digging out the person beneath. What’s left of the water I tip to my mouth, drinking until my belly sloshes. Unfortunately, my attempts to drown the hangover only dilute it, aches seeping into every bone and muscle.

  It’s a foul morning, so I dress in the thickest clothes I can find: hunting tweeds and a heavy black coat that trails along the floor as I leave the bedroom.

  Despite the early hour, a drunken couple is squabbling at the top of the stairs. They’re in last night’s evening wear, drinks still clutched in their hands, accusations passed back and forth in escalating voices, and I give their flailing arms a wide berth as I walk by. Their bickering chases me into the entrance hall, which has been upended by the previous evening’s escapades. Bow ties are dangling from the chandelier, leaves and shards of a smashed decanter littering the marble floor. Two maids are cleaning it up, leaving me to wonder what it must have looked like before they started.

  I try asking them where Charlie Carver’s cottage is located, but they’re mute as sheep, lowering their eyes and shaking their heads in response to my questions.

  Their silence is maddening.

  If Lucy Harper’s gossip isn’t too far from the mark, Evelyn’s going to be somewhere near the cottage with her lady’s maid when she’s attacked. If I can discover who’s threatening her, perhaps I can save her life and escape this house all at the same time – though I have no clue as to how I’m going to help free Anna as well. She’s put aside her own schemes to aid me, believing I have some plan that will free us both. For the moment, I can’t see how that’s anything other than a hollow promise, and judging by her worried frown when we talked in the gatehouse, she’s beginning to suspect as much.

  My only hope is that my future hosts are a great deal cleverer than my previous ones.

  Further questioning of the maids drives them deeper into their silence, forcing me to look around for help. The rooms either side of the entrance hall are deathly quiet, the house still knee-deep in last night, and, seeing no other option, I pick my way through the broken glass and head below stairs towards the kitchen.

  The passage to the kitchen is grimier than I remember, the clatter of dishes and smell of roasting meat making me sick. Servants eye me as they pass, turning their heads away whenever I open my mouth to ask a question. It’s clear they think I shouldn’t be here and just as clear they don’t know how to get rid of me. This is their place, a river of unguarded conversations and giggling gossip flowing beneath the house. I sully it with my presence.

  Agitation rubs me up and down, blood thumping in my ears. I feel tired and raw, the air made of sandpaper.

  ‘Can I help you?’ says a voice behind me.

  The words are rolled up and flung at my back.

  I turn to find the cook, Mrs Drudge, staring up at me, ample hands on ample hips. Through these eyes she looks like something a child might make out of clay, a small head on a misshapen body, her features pressed into her face by clumsy thumbs. She’s stern, no trace of the woman who’s going to give the butler a warm scone in a couple of hours’ time.

  ‘I’m looking for Evelyn Hardcastle,’ I say, meeting her fierce gaze. ‘She went for a walk in the forest with Madeline Aubert, her lady’s maid.’

  ‘And what’s that to you?’

  Her tone is so abrupt I almost recoil. Clenching my hands, I try to keep hold of my rising temper. The servants crane their necks as they scurry by, desperate for theatre, but terrified of the star.

  ‘Somebody means her harm,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘If you’ll point me towards Charlie Carver’s old cottage, I’ll be able to warn her.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing with Madeline last night? Warning her? Is that how her blouse got torn, is that why she was crying?’

  A vein pulses in her forehead, indignation bubbling beneath every word. She takes a step forwards, jabbing a finger into my chest as she speaks.

  ‘I know what—’ she says.

  White-hot anger explodes out of me. Without thinking, I slap her across the face and shove her backwards, advancing on her with the devil’s own wrath.

  ‘Tell me where she’s gone!’ I scream, spittle flying out of my mouth.

  Squeezing her bloody lips together, Mrs Drudge glowers at me.

  My hands ball into fists.

  Walk away.

  Walk away now.

  Summoning my will, I turn my back on Mrs Drudge, stalking up the suddenly silent passage. Servants leap aside as I pass, but my rage can’t make sense of anything but itself.

  Turning a corner, I slump against a wall and let out a long breath. My hands are trembling, the fog in my mind clearing. For those few terrifying seconds, Derby was utterly beyond my control. That was his poison spilling out of my mouth, his bile coursing through my veins. I can feel it still. Oil on my skin, needles in my bones, a yearning to do som
ething dreadful. Whatever happens today, I need to keep tight hold of my temper or this creature is going to slip loose again and goodness knows what he’ll do.

  And that’s the truly scary part.

  My hosts can fight back.

  23

  Mud sucks at my boots as I hurry into the gloom of the trees, desperation tugging me along by a leash. After my failure to glean any information in the kitchen, I’m striking out into the forest in hopes of stumbling upon Evelyn along one of the marked trails. I’m counting on endeavour succeeding where calculation has failed. Even if it doesn’t, I need to put some distance between Derby and the temptations of Blackheath.

  I’ve not gone far when the red flags bring me to a stream, water surging around a large rock. A smashed wine bottle is half-encased in sludge, beside a thick black overcoat, Bell’s silver compass having fallen out of the pocket. Plucking it from the mud, I turn it over in my palm just as I did that first morning, my fingers tracing the initials SB engraved on the underside of the lid. Sebastian Bell’s initials. What a fool I felt when Daniel pointed that out to me. Half a dozen cigarette butts lie discarded on the ground, suggesting Bell stood here for a little while, probably waiting for somebody. This must have been where he came after receiving the note at the dinner table, though what could have driven him into the rain and cold at such an hour I cannot fathom. Searching his discarded coat offers no clues, his pockets turning up nothing but a lonely silver key, probably to his trunk.

  Wary of losing more time to my former host, I drop the key and compass into my pocket and set out in search of the next red flag, keeping my eyes open for any hint of the footman at my heels. This would be the perfect place for him to strike.

  God only knows how long I walk before I finally stumble upon the ruins of what must be Charlie Carver’s old cottage. Fire has hollowed it out, consuming most of the roof, leaving only the four blackened walls. Debris crunches underfoot as I step inside, startling some rabbits who flee into the woods, their fur stained with wet ash. The skeletal remnants of an old bed are slumped in the corner, a solitary table leg on the floor, the detritus of a life interrupted. Evelyn told me the cottage burst into flames the day the police hanged Carver.

  More likely Lord and Lady Hardcastle threw their memories onto the pyre and lit it themselves.

  Who could blame them? Carver stole their son’s life by a lake. It seems only fitting they should rid themselves of him with fire.

  A rotten fence marks out the garden around the back of the cottage, most of the slats having collapsed after years of neglect. Great piles of purple and yellow flowers run wild in every direction, red berries dangling from stems winding up the fence posts.

  A maid emerges from the trees as I kneel to tie my shoelace.

  Such terror I hope never to see again.

  Colour drains from her face, her basket dropping on the floor, spilling mushrooms in every direction.

  ‘Are you Madeline?’ I begin, but she’s already backing away, looking around for help. ‘I’m not here to hurt you, I’m trying to—’

  She’s gone before I can utter another word, bolting into the forest. Snared by weeds I stagger after her, half falling over the fence.

  Picking myself up, I catch sight of her through the trees, glimpses of a black dress moving far more quickly than I would have reckoned. I call out, but if anything my voice is the whip at her back, driving her forward. Even so, I’m faster and stronger and though I don’t wish to frighten the girl, I cannot lose sight of her for fear of what will happen to Evelyn.

  ‘Anna!’ Bell calls out from somewhere nearby.

  ‘Help me!’ Madeline screams back, panicked and sobbing.

  She’s so close now. I reach out, hoping to tug her back, but my fingers can only brush the material of her dress, and off-balance I lose ground.

  She ducks to avoid a branch, stumbling ever so slightly. I catch hold of her dress, causing her to scream again, before a shot whistles by my face, cracking into a tree behind me.

  Surprise loosens my grip on Madeline, who stumbles towards Evelyn as she emerges from the forest. The black revolver she will take to the graveyard is in her hands, but it’s not nearly as terrifying as the fury on her face. One wrong step and she’ll shoot me dead, I’m certain of it.

  ‘It’s not what... I can explain,’ I pant, hands on my knees.

  ‘Men like you always can,’ says Evelyn, sweeping the terrified girl behind her with one arm.

  Madeline’s sobbing, her entire body shaking violently. God help me, but Derby enjoys this. He’s aroused by the fear. He’s done this before.

  ‘All this... please... it’s a misunderstanding,’ I gasp, taking an imploring step forwards.

  ‘Stay back, Jonathan,’ says Evelyn fiercely, gripping the revolver with both hands. ‘Stay away from this girl, stay away from all of them.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Your mother’s a friend of the family, that’s the only reason I’m letting you walk away,’ interrupts Evelyn. ‘But if I see you near another woman, if I even hear about it, I swear I’ll put a bullet in you.’

  Taking care to keep the gun trained on me, she removes her coat and wraps it around Madeline’s heaving shoulders.

  ‘You’re going to stay by my side today,’ she whispers to the terrified maid. ‘I’ll see no harm comes to you.’

  They stumble off through the trees, leaving me alone in the forest. Tipping my head to the sky, I suck in cold air, hoping the rain on my face will cool my frustration. I came here to prevent somebody attacking Evelyn, believing I’d unearth a murderer in the process. Instead, I caused the very thing I was trying to stop. I’m chasing my own tail, terrifying an innocent woman in the process. Maybe Daniel was right, maybe the future isn’t a promise we can break.

  ‘You’re dawdling again,’ says the Plague Doctor from behind me.

  He’s standing on the far side of the clearing, little more than a shadow. As always, he seems to have picked the perfect position. Far enough away that I can’t possibly reach him, but close enough that we can talk with relative ease.

  ‘I thought I was helping,’ I say bitterly, still stung by what happened.

  ‘You still can,’ he says. ‘Sebastian Bell is lost in the woods.’

  Of course. I’m not here for Evelyn, I’m here for Bell. I’m here to make sure the loop begins again. Fate’s leading me around by the nose.

  Removing the compass from my pocket, I hold it in the palm of my hand, remembering the uncertainty I felt as I followed its quivering needle that first morning. Without this, Bell will almost certainly remain lost.

  I toss it into the mud at the Plague Doctor’s feet.

  ‘This is how I change things,’ I say, walking away. ‘Fetch him yourself.’

  ‘You misunderstand my purpose here,’ he says, the sharpness of his tone bringing me up short. ‘If you leave Sebastian Bell to wander that forest alone, he’ll never meet Evelyn Hardcastle, he’ll never form the friendship you prize so highly. Abandon him and you won’t care about saving her.’

  ‘Are you saying I’ll forget her?’ I ask, alarmed.

  ‘I’m saying you should be careful which knots you unpick,’ he says. ‘If you abandon Bell, you’ll also be abandoning Evelyn. It will be cruelty without purpose, and nothing I’ve seen of you so far suggests you’re a cruel man.’

  Perhaps I imagine it, but for the first time there’s a touch of warmth in his tone. It’s enough to unbalance me, and I turn to face him once more.

  ‘I need to see this day changed,’ I say, hearing the desperation in my voice. ‘I need to see that it can be done.’

  ‘Your frustration is understandable, but what use is rearranging the furniture if you burn the house down doing it?’

  Bending over, he retrieves the compass from the ground, wiping the mud from its surface with his fingers. The way he groans, and the heaviness of his limbs as he rises, suggests an older man beneath the costume. Satisfied with his work, he
tosses the compass to me, the damn thing nearly slipping from my hands, so wet is its surface.

  ‘Take this, and solve Evelyn’s murder.’

  ‘She committed suicide, I watched her with my own eyes.’

  ‘If you think it’s that simple, you’re much further behind than I thought.’

  ‘And you’re much crueller than I thought,’ I growl. ‘If you know what’s happening here, why not stop it? Why play these games? Hang the murderer before he harms her.’

  ‘An interesting idea, except I don’t know who the murderer is.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ I say, incredulously. ‘You know every step I’m going to take before I think to take it. How could you be blind to the most important fact in this house?’

  ‘Because it’s not my place to know. I watch you, and you watch Evelyn Hardcastle. We both have our roles to play.’

  ‘Then I could blame anybody for the crime,’ I cry, throwing my hands in the air. ‘Helena Hardcastle did it. There, you see! Free me!’

  ‘You forget that I need proof. Not merely your good word.’

  ‘And what if I save her, what then?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s possible, and I think you’ll hamper your investigation trying, but my offer stands regardless. Evelyn was murdered last night and every night prior. Even if you could save her tonight, it doesn’t change that. Bring me the name of the person who kills, or is planning to kill, Evelyn Hardcastle, and I’ll free you.’

  For the second time since arriving in Blackheath, I find myself holding a compass and contemplating the instructions of somebody I can’t trust. To do as the Plague Doctor asks is to give myself to a day determined to kill Evelyn, but there seems no way to change things without making them worse. Assuming he’s telling the truth, I either save my first host, or I abandon Evelyn.

  ‘You doubt my intentions?’ he says, prickling at my hesitation.

  ‘Of course I doubt your intentions,’ I say. ‘You wear a mask and you talk in riddles, and I don’t for a minute believe you brought me here just to solve a mystery. You’re hiding something.’