‘Because I don’t like hunting very much,’ he says, kicking at some leaves in his path. ‘All that blood and thrashing, it makes me feel damn queer. I wasn’t even supposed to be out here, but between the search and Father’s absence, I didn’t have a great deal of choice. I was in a dreadful state about it, but Evelyn’s a clever old stick. She gave me this’ – he taps the gun – ‘said it was impossible to hit anything, but I’d look very dashing trying.’
Daniel’s trying to suppress laughter, drawing a good-natured smile from Michael.
‘Where are your parents, Michael?’ I say, ignoring the teasing. ‘I thought this was their party, but the burden of it seems to have fallen solely on your shoulders.’
He scratches the back of his neck, looking gloomy.
‘Father’s locked himself in the gatehouse, Uncle Edward. He’s brooding as usual.’
Uncle?
Snatches of Dance’s memory surface, fleeting glimpses of a lifelong friendship with Peter Hardcastle that made me an honorary part of the family. Whatever we had has long since faded, but I’m surprised by the affection I still feel for this boy. I’ve known him his entire life. I’m proud of him. Prouder than of my own son.
‘As for Mother,’ continues Michael, oblivious to my momentary confusion. ‘To tell you the truth, she’s been acting strangely since we got here. Actually, I was hoping you’d speak with her privately. I think she’s avoiding me.’
‘And me,’ I counter. ‘I haven’t managed to catch hold of her all day.’
He pauses, making his mind up on something. Lowering his voice, he continues confidentially, ‘I’m worried she’s gone off the deep end.’
‘Deep end?’
‘It’s like she’s somebody else entirely,’ he says, worried. ‘Happy one minute, angry the next. It’s impossible to keep track, and the way she looks at us now, it’s as if she doesn’t recognise us.’
Another rival?
The Plague Doctor said there were three of us: the footman, Anna and myself. I can’t see what purpose would be served by lying. I steal a glance at Daniel, trying to gauge whether he knows anything more about this, but his attention is riveted on Michael.
‘When did this behaviour start?’ I ask casually.
‘I couldn’t tell you, feels like forever.’
‘But when was the first time you noticed it?’
He chews his lip, cycling back in his memories.
‘The clothes!’ he says suddenly. ‘That would be it. Did I tell you about the clothes?’ He’s looking at Daniel, who shakes his head blankly. ‘Come now, I must have? Happened about a year ago?’
Daniel shakes his head again.
‘Mother had come up to Blackheath for her annual morbid pilgrimage, but when she got back to London, she burst into my place in Mayfair and started ranting about finding the clothes,’ says Michael, telling the story as though expecting Daniel to leap in at any moment. ‘That’s all she’d say, that she’d found the clothes, and did I know anything about them.’
‘Whose clothes were they?’ I say, humouring him.
I’d been excited to hear about Helena’s altered personality, but if she changed a year ago, it’s unlikely she’s another rival. And while there’s certainly something strange about her, I don’t see how laundry can help me decipher what it is.
‘Damned if I know,’ he says, throwing his hands up. ‘I couldn’t get a sensible thing out of her. In the end, I managed to calm her down, but she wouldn’t keep quiet about the clothes. Kept saying everybody would know.’
‘Know what?’ I say.
‘She never did say, and she left shortly after, but she was adamant.’
Our group is thinning out as the dogs draw the hunters in a different direction, Herrington, Sutcliffe and Pettigrew waiting for us a little further ahead. They’re obviously hanging back for further directions, and after saying his goodbyes, Michael jogs ahead to point the way.
‘What did you make of that?’ I ask Daniel.
‘I haven’t yet,’ he says vaguely.
He’s preoccupied, his gaze dragging behind Michael. We continue in silence until we reach an abandoned village at the bottom of a cliff. Eight stone cottages are arranged around a dirt junction, the thatched roofs rotted away, the logs that once supported them collapsed. Echoes of old lives linger still; a bucket among the rubble, an anvil tipped over by the side of the road. Some might find them charming, but I see only relics of former hardships, happily deserted.
‘Nearly time,’ Daniel mutters, staring at the village.
There’s a look on his face I can’t quite place, married to a tone that’s impatient, excited and a little afraid. It makes my skin prickle. Something of note is about to happen here, but for the life of me I can’t see what it could be. Michael’s showing Sutcliffe and Pettigrew one of the old stone houses, while Stanwin leans against a tree, his thoughts far afield.
‘Be ready,’ Daniel says enigmatically, disappearing into the trees before I have the chance to question him further. Any other host would follow him, but I’m exhausted. I need to sit down somewhere.
Settling myself on a crumbling wall, I rest while the others talk, my eyelids drooping. Age is coiling around me, its fangs in my neck, drawing my strength when I need it most. It’s an unpleasant sensation, perhaps even worse than the burden of Ravencourt’s bulk. At least the initial shock of being Ravencourt waned, allowing me to become accustomed to his physical limitations. Not so with Dance, who still thinks of himself as a vigorous young man, waking up to his age only when he catches sight of his wrinkled hands. Even now, I can feel him frowning at my decision to sit down, to give in to my tiredness.
I pinch my arm, struggling to stay awake, irritated at my vanishing energy.
It makes me wonder how old I am outside of Blackheath. It’s not something I’ve allowed myself to dwell on before, time being short enough without indulging in pointless musing, but here and now I pray for youth, for strength, good health and a sound mind. To escape all this only to find myself permanently trapped in—
39
Day Two (continued)
I wake abruptly, stirring the Plague Doctor who’s staring at a gold pocket watch, his mask painted a sickly yellow colour by the candle in his hand. I’m back in the butler, swaddled in cotton sheets.
‘Right on time,’ says the Plague Doctor, snapping the watch shut.
It looks to be dusk, the room mired in a gloom only partially beaten back by our small flame. Anna’s shotgun is lying on the bed beside me.
‘What happened?’ I say, my voice hoarse.
‘Dance is dozing on his wall.’ The Plague Doctor chuckles, placing his candle on the floor and dropping into the small chair by the bed. It’s far too small for him, his greatcoat swallowing the wood completely.
‘No, I meant, the shotgun. Why do I have it?’
‘One of your hosts left it for you. Don’t bother calling for Anna,’ he says, noticing that I’m eyeing the door. ‘She’s not in the gatehouse. I came to warn you that your rival has almost solved the murder. I’m expecting him to find me at the lake tonight. You must work quickly from this point onwards.’
I try to straighten out, but the pain in my ribs immediately puts an end to my efforts.
‘Why are you so interested in me?’ I ask, letting the agony settle into its familiar spots.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Why do you keep coming here for these talks? I know you don’t bother with Anna, and I’d wager you don’t see much of the footman either.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Why does—’
‘Answer the question,’ he says, rapping the floor with his cane.
‘Edward Da... no, Derby. I...’ I flounder for a moment. ‘Aiden... something.’
‘You’re losing yourself to them, Mr Bishop,’ he says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. ‘It’s been happening for a while now. That’s why we only allow you eight hosts. Any more than that and you
r personality wouldn’t be able to rise above theirs.’
He’s right. My hosts are getting stronger and I’m getting weaker. It’s been happening incrementally, insidiously. It’s as though I fell asleep on a beach, and now find myself cast out to sea.
‘What do I do?’ I say, feeling a surge of panic.
‘Hold on,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It’s all you can do. There’s a voice in your mind, you must have heard it by now. Dry, slightly distant? It’s calm when you’re panicked, fearless when you’re afraid.’
‘I’ve heard it.’
‘That’s what’s left of the original Aiden Bishop, the man who first entered Blackheath. It’s not much more than a fragment any more, a little piece of his personality clinging on between loops, but if you begin to lose yourself, heed that voice. It’s your lighthouse. Everything that remains of the man you once were.’
With a great rustling of clothing, he gets to his feet, the candle flame snapping in the breeze. Stooping down, he lifts the candle from the floor and heads to the door.
‘Wait,’ I say.
He pauses, his back to me. The candlelight forms a warm halo around his body.
‘How many times have we done all of this?’ I ask.
‘Thousands, I suspect. More than I could possibly count.’
‘So why do I keep failing?’
He sighs, looking over his shoulder at me. There’s a sense of weariness in his bearing, as though every loop is sediment, pressing down on him.
‘It’s a question I’ve pondered myself from time to time,’ he says, melting wax running down the side to stain his glove. ‘Chance has played its part, stumbling when being sure footed would have saved you. Mostly though, I think it’s your nature.’
‘My nature?’ I ask. ‘You think I’m destined to fail?’
‘Destined? No. That would be an excuse, and Blackheath is intolerant of excuses,’ he says. ‘Nothing that’s happening here is inevitable, much as it may appear otherwise. Events keep happening the same way day after day, because your fellow guests keep making the same decisions day after day. They decide to go hunting, they decide to betray each other; one of them drinks too much and skips breakfast, missing a meeting that would change his life forever. They cannot see another way, so they never change. You are different, Mr Bishop. Loop after loop, I’ve watched you react to moments of kindness and cruelty, random acts of chance. You make different decisions, and yet repeat the same mistakes at crucial junctures. It’s as though some part of you is perpetually pulled towards the pit.’
‘Are you saying I have to become somebody else to escape?’
‘I’m saying every man is in a cage of his own making,’ he says. ‘The Aiden Bishop who first entered Blackheath’ – he sighs, as if the memory troubles him – ‘the things he wanted and his way of getting them were... unyielding. That man could never have escaped Blackheath. This Aiden Bishop before me is different. I think you’re closer than you’ve ever been, but I’ve thought that before and been fooled. The truth is you’ve yet to be tested, but that’s coming, and if you’ve changed, truly changed, then who knows, there may be hope for you.’
Ducking under the doorframe, he moves into the corridor with the candle.
‘You have four hosts after Edward Dance, including what’s left of the days of the butler and Donald Davies. Be cautious, Mr Bishop, the footman isn’t going to rest until they’re all dead, and I’m not sure you can afford to lose a single one of them.’
With that he closes the door.
40
Day Six (continued)
Dance’s years fall on me like a thousand small weights.
Michael and Stanwin are speaking behind me, Sutcliffe and Pettigrew laughing uproariously with drinks in their hands.
Rebecca hovers over me with a silver tray, one last glass of brandy for the taking.
‘Rebecca,’ I say fondly, almost reaching out a hand to touch my wife’s cheek.
‘No, sir, it’s Lucy, sir, Lucy Harper,’ says the maid, concerned. ‘Sorry to wake you, I was worried you were going to fall off the wall.’
I blink away the memory of Dance’s dead wife, cursing myself for a fool. What a ridiculous mistake to make. Thankfully, the remembrance of Lucy’s kindness towards the butler tempers my irritation at being caught in a moment of such sentiment.
‘Would you like a drink, sir?’ she asks. ‘Something to warm you up?’
I look past her to see Evelyn’s lady’s maid, Madeline Aubert, packing dirty glasses and half-empty brandy bottles into a hamper. The two of them must have carried it over from Blackheath, arriving while I slept. I seem to have dozed for longer than I suspected, as they’re already readying themselves to leave.
‘I think I’m unsteady enough,’ I say.
Her gaze flickers over my shoulder towards Ted Stanwin, whose hand is gripping Michael Hardcastle’s shoulder. Uncertainty writes itself in large letters across her face, which is little wonder considering his treatment of her at lunchtime.
‘Don’t worry, Lucy, I’ll take it over to him,’ I say, rising and removing the glass of brandy from the tray. ‘I need to speak with him anyway.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ she says with a wide smile, departing before I can change my mind.
Stanwin and Michael are quiet when I come upon them, but I can hear the things not being said and the unease that stands in its place.
‘Michael, may I have a private word with Mr Stanwin?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ says Michael, inclining his head and withdrawing.
I hand Stanwin the drink, ignoring the suspicion with which he glances at the glass.
‘Rare that you’d lower yourself to come and talk with me, Dance,’ says Stanwin, sizing me up the way a boxer might an opponent in the ring.
‘I thought we could help each other,’ I say.
‘I’m always interested in making new friends.’
‘I need to know what you saw on the morning of Thomas Hardcastle’s murder.’
‘It’s an old story,’ he says, tracing the edge of his glass with a fingertip.
‘But worth hearing from the horse’s mouth, surely,’ I say.
He’s looking over my shoulder, watching Madeline and Lucy depart with their hamper. I have the sense he’s searching for a distraction. Something about Dance puts him on edge.
‘No harm in it, I suppose,’ he says with a grunt, returning his attention to me. ‘I was Blackheath’s gamekeeper back then. I was on my rounds around the lake, same as every morning, when I saw Carver and another devil with his back to me stabbing the little boy. I took a shot at him, but he escaped into the woods while I was wrestling with Carver.’
‘And for that Lord and Lady Hardcastle gave you a plantation?’ I say.
‘They did, not that I asked,’ he sniffs.
‘Alf Miller, the stablemaster, says Helena Hardcastle was with Carver that morning, a few minutes before the attack. What do you say to that?’
‘That he’s a drunk and a damned liar,’ says Stanwin smoothly.
I search for some tremor, some hint of unease, but he’s an accomplished deceiver this one, his fidgeting put away now he knows what I want. I can feel the scales tipping in his direction, his confidence growing.
I’ve misjudged this.
I believed I could bully him as I did the stablemaster and Dickie, but Stanwin’s nervousness wasn’t a symptom of fear, it was the unease of a man finding a lone question in his pile of answers.
‘Tell me, Mr Dance,’ he says, leaning close enough to whisper into my ear. ‘Who’s the mother of your son? I know it wasn’t your dearly departed Rebecca. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a few ideas, but it would save me the cost of confirming them if you’d tell me up front. I might even discount your monthly payment afterwards, for services rendered.’
My blood freezes. This secret sits at the core of Dance’s being. It’s his greatest shame, his only weakness, and Stanwin’s just closed his fist around it.
I couldn’t respond even if I wanted to.
Stepping away from me, Stanwin tosses the untouched brandy into the bushes with a flick of his wrist.
‘Next time you come to trade, make sure you have something—’
A shotgun explodes behind me.
Something splashes my face, Stanwin’s body jolting backwards before hitting the ground in a mangled heap. My ears are ringing and, touching my cheek, I find blood on my fingertips.
Stanwin’s blood.
Someone shrieks, others gasp and cry out.
Nobody moves, then everybody does.
Michael and Clifford Herrington race towards the body, hollering for somebody to fetch Doctor Dickie, but it’s obvious the blackmailer’s dead. His chest is broken open, the malice that drove him flown the coop. One good eye is pointed in my direction, an accusation held within. I want to tell him this wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t do this. Suddenly, that seems like the most important thing in the world.
It’s shock.
Bushes rustle, Daniel stepping out, smoke rising from the barrel of his shotgun. He’s looking down at the body with so little emotion I could almost believe him innocent of the crime.
‘What did you do, Coleridge?’ cries Michael, checking Stanwin for a pulse.
‘Exactly what I promised your father I would do,’ he says flatly. ‘I’ve made sure Ted Stanwin will never blackmail any of you again.’
‘You murdered him!’
‘Yes,’ says Daniel, meeting his shocked gaze. ‘I did.’
Reaching into his pocket, Daniel hands me a silk handkerchief.
‘Clean yourself up, old man,’ he says.
I take it unthinkingly, even thanking him. I’m dazed, bewildered. Nothing about this feels real. Wiping Stanwin’s blood off my face, I stare at the crimson smear on the handkerchief, as if it can somehow explain what’s happening. I was speaking with Stanwin, and then he was dead, and I don’t understand how that could be. Surely there should be more? A chase, fear, a warning of some sort. We shouldn’t simply die. It feels like a swindle. So much paid, too much asked.
‘We’re ruined,’ wails Sutcliffe, slumping against a tree. ‘Stanwin always said that if anything happened to him, our secrets would be made common knowledge.’
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Page 27