She put a hand to her mouth.
And the blood. It was lavish almost, how much there was to be expelled. It had reached even the ceiling, leaving great looping flourishes on the walls and windows. So much had pooled on the floor that they had put down sand, covering it in turn with sacking so as to make the corridor passable.
Octavia supported herself against a bulkhead, refusing an offer of tea. Certain practical matters were discussed. The railwaymen had formed the view that the police could be called only when the whole of the body could be produced. It wouldn’t reflect well, Mr Downes maintained. Another porter remarked that head office wouldn’t like it.
Head office, he repeated, until his joke was understood. He was sent out to rejoin the search. Even the driver was out on the tracks, they were told, and the boilerman was beating up and down the banks.
The question of identifying the remains was mentioned, though it seemed somehow ludicrous. Mr Brown had left the compartment and had not returned. There could be no mistaking that glum, dun-coloured suit; or those ungainly brogues, upturned now beneath his contorted bulk. Even so, Elf seemed anxious to retrieve some documentary proof, lowering himself to a crouch and straining to keep his feet on the sacking while he searched those pockets he could reach.
He rose at last with a small packet of papers, which he examined with a look of dissatisfaction. ‘There are items missing,’ he said, addressing the boyish guard. ‘Has someone else searched him?’
‘Missing? No, sir. Which we was all to touch nothing till the peelers come.’
At this another uniformed railwayman climbed up from the tracks, stamping against the cold and letting out a great cloud of agitated breath. He was ponderously stout, with greying whiskers halfway to his chin, and when he had surveyed the scene he turned sharply to the younger guard.
‘What’s all this, Parrish? What are you about, letting these two in here rooting and pilfering?’
‘You will mind your manners, sir,’ said Elf, rising to confront him. ‘I am Charles Elphinstone of Her Majesty’s Home office, and this man was my associate. We were on official business. Official business of a confidential nature.’
The elder guard squinted in appraisal. ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘that’s fine and well for you to say, sir, but how are we to be sure of it? The driver means to call for the constables as soon as – as soon as what’s missing is found.’
‘Do you mean the missing papers?’
The guard gave him a look of sour pity, then glanced at Octavia. ‘I mean the missing head, sir – saving your presence, madam.’
‘Miss,’ said Octavia. ‘And your meaning was perfectly clear to me.’
‘There was a clergyman aboard,’ Elf said. ‘He came into our compartment a short while ago, and I have reason to believe that – well, that he may have seen something.’
‘You must be mistaken, sir,’ said the guard. ‘Ain’t no clergyman on board.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Which, I check the tickets, sir. Every passenger on the train. I looked at yours, as you might recall.’
‘I will speak to the driver,’ Elf replied. His impatience was evident, but he tried to smooth it from his voice, to summon his customary assurance. ‘I have papers about me, of course, and it will be a simple matter to have a satisfactory telegram sent when we reach Deal. Then I will see to it myself that the proper authorities are notified. This is not a matter for some flat-footed country constable, do you hear?’
The railwaymen exchanged looks, but no one else spoke against him for now. When it was recovered at last, Brown’s head was returned to the train, thickly bundled in sacking. It was deposited with great solemnity by his body, as if it were an item he might want upon waking. Elf spoke in turn then to every man who ventured an opinion, measuring his tone and choosing his words so that each was persuaded by slightly altered means. Octavia had witnessed this before, at grand receptions and occasions of state; the way he had of gliding without effort between guises, his gift for seeming. It had been charming then.
Afterwards, when they had returned to their compartment, their own conversation faltered. He became distant, seeming for once to have exhausted his capacity for performance. He gave terse or elliptical answers to her questions, or simply pretended not to hear.
‘I’m terribly sorry, old thing,’ he said, noticing her scrutiny after a long silence. ‘Bit of a shock, you know.’
Perhaps it was true. She’d suffered rather a shock herself, which seemed to occur to him after a time. He tried once or twice to restore some semblance of ease. He made small remarks about the discomfort of travelling by train in winter, and offered to see the porter about a blanket. Octavia hardly answered. She kept her eyes fixed on the window, though it was now entirely dark and she could see nothing but their own ghostly inversions. When that grew tedious, she simply pretended to sleep.
When they arrived at last at Deal, Elf had much to occupy him. Word had been sent from Woolwich, in spite of his objections, and the stationmaster was waiting with two local policemen. He called to her on the platform, as she looked for a porter. He would not be detained long, he said. He had taken rooms at the Swan, and would join her as soon as he could.
‘Are you all right, old thing? It’s been a grim sort of day, I know.’ His composure was returning as he readied himself once more to face the public. ‘I shall make it up to you, I promise. We could take some sort of rustic supper, perhaps, if the hotel isn’t too dismal?’
The platform was busy, and she was spared the necessity of answering when a porter’s trolley obscured her for a moment from his sight. She slipped away to see about a cab, and when her driver appeared she toyed with the thought of deserting Elf entirely, of finding another hotel and shutting herself away. It was not only weariness she felt, but a kind of saturation. She wanted solitude, to empty herself of all she had seen.
But no, that would not do either. They had come to an arrangement, however uneasily, and she could not simply withdraw from it without a word. She had suffered a shock, that was all, and was not thinking clearly. She would feel differently when she had rested. In the morning, her surroundings would not seem quite so strange and unfamiliar. She would no longer feel so very far from home.
XXIII
She was gone. Angie was gone.
Gideon stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs and looked about him in bewilderment. The flagstones were smooth and unmarked. Outside the wind and the rain were gathering force, but the grand entrance hall was otherwise silent. There was no sign of disturbance, or that anyone had been here at all. He looked up to make sure of his bearings. The strange bluish light was gone from the landing above – it had vanished when Angie did – but he could pick out the balusters of the parapet. He stared dazedly into the empty air, as if he might find her suspended there.
He turned again, supporting himself on the stair post as he recovered his breath. He tried, as the violence of his panic subsided, to bring some order to his thoughts. Angie was not lying dead on the floor. She had come to no harm – could come to no harm, perhaps – but the thought gave him no comfort. What comfort could he hope for, after all? Wasn’t it senseless even to have feared for her in the first place; to care for her still in the common way, given what he now knew?
A half-shade. A ghost, almost.
She was passing from the world, Cutter had said. She was already elsewhere. And yet, had she not recognised him, if only fleetingly? Were there not vestiges of her that might be saved, even now? If she was a half-shade, whatever that might truly mean, then surely she was half human too. What remained was altered, he could not pretend otherwise. She was not as he remembered her, and in truth he was not even certain of what he remembered. It had been unfinished, whatever had passed between them. Almost nothing had been said.
And yet.
He turned slowly, conscious of a drift of cold air. The front door stood open, lurching gently in the rising wind. He crossed towards it, absently
at first, but an urgency gathered in him. Angie had left the house, and Cutter had charged him with keeping her from wandering. Nor was that his only duty. It fell to him now to protect her as his uncle had.
He stepped outside, recalling that he was barefoot only when he felt the bite of the gravel. And the cold. The brute shock of it. He ought to go back and dress, he knew. But he had glimpsed her in the distance, or thought he had, and feared he would lose her altogether. He looked back at the house, the wind beating open the flaps of his nightshirt and scouring his chest. Cutter would think him entirely mad if he were to find him in this state, but then Cutter had no great opinion of him as it was.
He pressed on, breaking into a stumbling run as he sought to kindle some warmth in his limbs. When he sighted her again, he was sure of it. Lightning revealed her for an instant, crossing the rough lawn some way ahead, her nightgown whipping about her in the thickening wind. She was perhaps a hundred yards off, her steps quick and purposeful as she approached the massed darkness of the trees. The thunder came, solemn and violent.
‘Angie!’ He ran now at full pelt. ‘Angie! Miss Tatton! Wait!’
An answering cry came, but from the direction of the house. ‘Bliss!’ It was Cutter, his voice formidable even in the midst of a storm. ‘Bliss! Stand where you are, you witless pup! Stand there till I reach you.’
Even now, Gideon could not defy him. He waited, though he did so in an agony of anxiety. As he searched the darkness for the inspector, he cursed himself for letting these moments slip by.
‘Look at you,’ Cutter barked as he came into sight, his resolute stride hardly checked by the wind. ‘You are like a ravaged convent girl, God help us. Was that you screaming back at the house? Here, put on this overcoat. The boots belong to the housekeeper’s boy. He is nearly twice your size, and built like a side of beef, but perhaps you will grow into them.’
Gideon followed Cutter towards the trees, still struggling with the second boot. ‘I know how foolish I must appear, sir, but I was concerned that Miss Tatton might slip away. I woke to find her acting in a most peculiar way. She saw something, sir, though she was only staring into empty space. And now, well, it is as if she is sleepwalking, but she is intent on some purpose I cannot guess at.’
Cutter gave him a sidelong look. ‘Did I not tell you, Bliss? She sees things that we cannot. As for her purpose, she has only one now. Which way did she go, have you any notion?’
Gideon raised an awkward arm. The coat was cumbersome, being several sizes too large. ‘That way,’ he said. ‘Towards the woods. And she is moving quickly, sir. We must hurry.’
But Cutter was already striding away, his gait as firm and purposeful as ever. Gideon pulled his coat about him as he followed, and managed at last to work his right heel into its boot. He was glad of the warmth, even if his appearance was not much improved.
‘It was very good of you, sir, to think of bringing me a coat. I am most grateful to you.’
Cutter grunted, but not unkindly. ‘It is as well that one of us is in possession of his faculties. Did your little match girl say anything intelligible, tell me, before she took herself off?’
‘I do wish you would not refer to her in that way, sir. She was an innocent in all of this, who fell victim to wickedness we can scarcely imagine. I feel a very grave duty towards her, and the proper fondness of a protector. Surely even you, Inspector, have felt such an attachment at one time. Surely you are capable of that tenderness.’
Gideon’s thoughtlessness struck him even as he spoke, and he clamped a hand to his mouth in dread. Cutter halted mid-stride, his back heaving visibly with exertion. He turned a little, as if he were about to speak, but seemed to think better of it. He let out a plume of breath, and squinted into the darkness.
‘Forgive me, sir,’ said Gideon. ‘I spoke without thinking.’
But Cutter had set off again, just as abruptly as he had stopped, and now resumed his questioning in an easier tone.
‘Did she say anything of use, your little – your young miss? And while you are about your answer, you might explain what it was you were doing in her company in the dead of night. Was it your proper fondness that had you out of bed? She is a pretty little thing, whatever else she may be. Did that escape your notice, when you first found her in your uncle’s keeping?’
Gideon swabbed at his streaming face with one coarse sleeve, casting a fierce look at the inspector’s unheeding back. ‘Something has disturbed her, sir. She is given to distraction, I know, but this was different. She is acting with some purpose, I believe.’
‘But did she say anything, Bliss?’
‘Nothing that I could fathom, sir. She spoke in riddles and rhymes, yet she did so with the utmost gravity. And then—’
Cutter plunged into the woods, thrusting aside a hazel branch that whipped back as he passed. Gideon leapt clear, only to stumble into a patch of briars. He spat out a coarse oath, surprising even himself. It was a word he had never spoken aloud.
‘Forgive me, sir,’ he said, trotting to make up the ground he had lost. ‘I injured myself on a bramble.’
Cutter gave a snort of amusement. ‘It is rubbing off on you, Bliss. We will make a copper of you yet. And then?’
‘Sir?’ He sucked a thorn from his palm, tasting a rich dribble of blood.
‘And then, you said, before you broke off. You were about to tell me what your – what Miss Tatton did next.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gideon hesitated. ‘Only, I fear you will doubt me when I do. I can scarcely credit it myself, even after all we have seen.’
‘I have been knocking around a long while, Bliss, and I have seen a good deal.’
‘Well, sir. We were standing in the passageway when the storm began. Miss Tatton was overtaken by some urge, and before I could prevent her she had climbed onto the stone rail – leapt onto it, really. It was astonishing, sir, the swiftness of it. Like a finch flitting to a branch. I pleaded with her to come down, but she paid no heed. She seemed to have no notion of any danger. She became perfectly still, and then—’
‘And then she jumped. I have the gist of it now, Sergeant, you need not make a saga of it. She jumped, and alighted two floors below without a scratch.’
‘I confess it seems fantastical, sir.’
‘Then she made at once for the front door. Wait.’ He halted abruptly again, planting one foot on a stump and pivoting towards the house. ‘Which way did she face, from the landing?’
‘I’m afraid I lack your easy command of the compass. If I were put to it, I would say that—’
‘Towards the front or the back of the house will do, or to the left or the right.’
‘Towards the front, sir.’
‘North-west, then, or near enough.’ He peered through the trees, searching for the lights of the house, and swung his arm in a careful arc, his eye trained as if along the sight of a rifle. ‘There, that is our mark. Follow me, Bliss.’
Cutter lunged ahead with renewed vigour. The way he had chosen was through the thickest part of the woods, yet the trees gave him no more trouble than the throngs of Piccadilly. He equipped himself with a sturdy willow cane, and where the growth was dense he used it to beat a path, swinging it before him like a marauding Mongol.
The inspector was as puzzling as he was fearsome, Gideon reflected, and no less of an enigma than he had been from the moment they met. He was given to wrathful outbursts, and had a very small capacity for levity even when he was unprovoked. Yet for all his expressions of impatience, and for all his professed indifference in the matter of Miss Tatton, here he was doing just as he had done in Soho, flinging himself into her pursuit with all the astonishing energy he possessed.
Cutter paused at the brow of a bank to check his bearings, peering away to the left at something Gideon could not discern. ‘There, look,’ he said at length. ‘We are closing with the boundary, do you see? We will come to the gate shortly, and we must hope we have not let her elude us. Ho now, what is that?’
&n
bsp; He whipped a finger to his lips for silence. Gideon heard nothing at first, but presently he made out the ragged percussion of hooves, and with it the lurch and clatter of a carriage.
‘That is hard driving for this time of night,’ the inspector said.
‘A coach, perhaps?’ Gideon said.
‘A coach would keep to the high road. And it would show lights – but there is no sign of those, and we are near enough to the lane to see them.’ Cutter lifted his hat to tip the rain from it, shaking his head as he did so. ‘Whatever it was, it was drawn away by a good strong pair, and at a fair clip, too, for a poor and unlit lane. What business was so pressing, I wonder? Come, this makes me no easier in my mind.’
Restoring his hat, he surged from the bank. The trees had thinned now, and he broke into a trot wherever a clear run of ground presented itself. When he slowed, at last, it was not for any obstruction. Gideon had seen it too.
‘The light, Bliss.’
‘Yes, sir. I see it.’
Cutter moved warily. They were nearing the edge of the woods. Shafts of pale light pierced the cage of the elms, making wraiths of his rising breath. At the snap of a twig, a body of crows rose and scattered. The inspector put his hand inside his coat.
‘I am drawing out my revolver, Bliss. I have not produced it in your presence, I believe, so I mention it to keep you from taking fright. It is only out of caution.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gideon peered through the rain. There was a careful tension in the set of Cutter’s elbow, but he could make out nothing of the weapon itself. ‘You will take care with it, I trust. You will think of Miss Tatton.’
In reply, the inspector only turned his head, raising his free hand and putting a finger to his lips. He lowered his head for a moment, letting the rain spill from the lip of his hat, then shook himself and strode out into the light.
The House on Vesper Sands Page 25