He shrugs. “Derby’s a rabid dog. It seemed better for everybody to let him sleep for a few hours. Now, come along. We’re short of time.”
Shuddering, I kneel beside the body. This is no way for a man to die, even one such as Stanwin. His chest is mincemeat and blood has soaked through his clothing. It oozes around my fingers when I delve inside his trouser pockets.
I work slowly, barely able to look.
Daniel has no such qualms, patting down Stanwin’s shirt and jacket, seemingly impervious to the tattered flesh showing through. By the time we’re finished, we’ve uncovered a cigarette case, pocketknife, and lighter, but no codebook.
We glance at each other.
“We have to roll him over,” says Daniel, voicing my thoughts.
Stanwin was a large man, and it takes a great deal of effort to push him onto his front. It’s worth it. I’m much more comfortable searching a body that isn’t looking up at me.
As Daniel runs his hands along Stanwin’s trouser legs, I lift his jacket, spotting a bulge in the lining surrounded by haphazard stitching.
A ripple of excitement shames me. The last thing I want is to justify Daniel’s methods, but now we’re on the verge of a discovery, I’m growing more elated.
Using the dead man’s pocketknife, I slice the stitches, letting the codebook slide into my palm. No sooner has it come free when I notice there’s something else in there. Reaching inside, I pull out a small silver locket, its chain removed. There’s a painting inside, and though it’s old and cracked, it’s obviously of a little girl, around seven or eight with red hair.
I hold it out to Daniel, but’s he too busy flipping through the codebook to pay attention.
“This is it,” he says excitedly. “This is our way out.”
“I certainly hope so,” I say. “We paid a high price for it.”
He looks up from the book a different man to the one who started reading it. This is neither Bell’s Daniel, nor Ravencourt’s. It’s not even the man of a few minutes ago, arguing the necessity of his actions. This is a man victorious, one foot already out the door.
“I’m not proud of what I did,” he says. “But we couldn’t have done this any other way. You must believe that.”
He may not be proud, but he’s not ashamed either. That much is evident, and I’m reminded of the Plague Doctor’s warning.
The Aiden Bishop who first entered Blackheath…the things he wanted and his way of getting them were unyielding. That man could never have escaped Blackheath.
In his desperation, Daniel’s making the same mistakes I always have, exactly as the Plague Doctor warned me I would. Whatever happens, I can’t let myself become this.
“Are you ready to go?” says Daniel.
“Do you know the way home?” I say, searching the forest and realizing I have no idea how we arrived here.
“It’s east,” he says.
“And which way is that?”
Thrusting a hand into his pocket, he brings out Bell’s compass.
“I borrowed it from him this morning,” he says, laying it flat in his palm. “Funny how things repeat, isn’t it?”
41
We come upon the house rather unexpectedly, the trees giving way to the muddy lawn, its windows burning bright with candlelight. I must admit I’m glad to see it. Despite the shotgun, I’ve spent the entire journey glancing over my shoulder for the footman. If the codebook is as valuable as Daniel believes, I must assume our enemy is also in pursuit of it.
He’ll be coming for us soon.
Silhouettes are passing back and forth in the upper windows, hunters trudging up the steps into the golden glow of the entrance hall where caps and jackets are wrenched loose and discarded, filthy water pooling on the marble. A maid moves among us with a tray of sherry, from which Daniel plucks two glasses, handing me one.
Clinking my glass, he throws his drink down his throat as Michael arrives at our side. As with the rest of us, he looks to have crawled off the ark, his dark hair plastered to his pale face by the rain. Glancing at his watch, I discover it’s 6:07 p.m.
“I’ve sent a couple of trustworthy servants to collect Stanwin’s body,” he whispers. “I told them I stumbled on his body coming back from the hunt and instructed them to inter him in one of the old potting sheds. Nobody will find him, and I won’t summon the police until early tomorrow morning. I’m sorry, but I won’t leave him to rot in the forest any longer than I have to.”
He clutches a half-empty glass of sherry, and though the drink has put a little color in his cheeks, it’s not nearly enough.
The crowd in the hall is thinning out now. A couple of maids have already appeared with buckets of sudsy water and are waiting in the wings with their mops and their frowns, trying to shame us into leaving so they can get to work.
Rubbing his eyes, Michael looks at us directly for the first time.
“I’m going to honor my father’s promise,” he says. “But I don’t like it.”
“Michael—” says Daniel, reaching out a hand, but Michael steps away.
“No, please,” he says, his sense of betrayal palpable. “We’ll speak another day, but not now, not tonight.”
He turns his back on us, heading up the stairs toward his bedroom.
“Never mind him,” says Daniel. “He thinks I acted from greed. He doesn’t understand how important this is. The answers are in the ledger, I know it!”
He’s excited, like a boy with a new slingshot.
“We’re almost there, Dance,” he says. “We’re almost free.”
“And then what happens?” I say. “Do you walk out of here? Do I? We can’t both escape; we’re the same man.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Presumably Aiden Bishop wakes up again, his memories intact. Hopefully he won’t remember either of us. We’re bad dreams, best forgotten.” He checks his watch. “Let’s not think about that now. Anna has arranged to meet Bell in the graveyard this evening. If she’s right, the footman’s heard about it and is sure to show. She’ll need us to help capture him. That gives us about four hours to dig what we need out of this book. Why don’t you get changed and come up to my room? We’ll do it together.”
“I’ll be right along,” I say.
His giddiness is a rare fillip. Tonight we’ll deal with the footman and deliver the Plague Doctor’s answer. Somewhere in the house, my other hosts are surely refining their plan to save Evelyn’s life, which means I simply need to work out how to save Anna as well. I cannot believe she’s been lying to me this whole time, and I cannot imagine leaving this place without her by my side, not after everything she’s done to help me.
Floorboards echo as I return to my room, the house grumbling under the weight of the returned. Everybody will be getting ready for dinner.
I envy them their evening, for a darker purpose lies ahead of me.
Much darker, the footman will not go quietly.
“There you are,” I say, glancing around to make sure nobody’s listening. “Is it true you’re what’s left of the original Aiden Bishop?”
Silence greets my question, and somewhere within I can feel Dance sneering at me. I can only imagine what the stiff old solicitor would say about a man talking to himself in this fashion.
Aside from the dim light of the fire, my bedroom is shrouded, the servants having forgotten to light the candles ahead of my arrival. Suspicion pricks me. I raise the shotgun to my shoulder. A gamekeeper tried to collect it when we came inside, but I brushed him off, insisting it was part of my personal collection.
Sparking the lantern beside the door, I see Anna standing in the corner of the room, arms by her sides, expression blank.
“Anna,” I say, surprised, lowering the shotgun. “What’s the—”
Wood creaks behind me, pain flares in my side. A rough hand yanks me backward, coveri
ng my mouth. I’m spun around, bringing me face-to-face with the footman. There’s a smirk on his lips, his eyes scratching at my face, as though digging for something buried beneath.
Those eyes.
I try to scream, but he clamps my jaw shut.
He holds his knife up. Very slowly he runs the point down my chest, before ramming it into my stomach, the pain of each blow eclipsing the one before until pain is all there is.
I’ve never been so cold, never felt so quiet.
My legs buckle, his arms taking my weight, lowering me carefully to the floor. He keeps his eyes on mine, soaking up the life slipping out of them.
I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.
“Run, rabbit,” he says, his face close to mine. “Run.”
42
DAY TWO (CONTINUED)
I scream, lurching up from the butler’s bed only to be pressed back down by the footman.
“This him?” he says, looking over his shoulder at Anna, who’s standing by the window.
“Yes,” she says, a tremor in her voice.
The footman leans close, his voice hoarse, ale-thick breath warm on my cheek.
“Didn’t leap far enough, rabbit,” he says.
The blade slips into my side, my blood spilling onto the sheets, taking my life with it.
43
DAY SEVEN
I scream into suffocating darkness, my back against a wall, my knees tucked under my chin. Instinctively I grab the spot where the butler was stabbed, cursing my stupidity. The Plague Doctor was telling the truth. Anna betrayed me.
I feel sick, my mind scrambling for a reasonable explanation, but I saw her myself. She’s been lying to me this whole time.
She isn’t the only one guilty of that.
“Shut up,” I say angrily.
My heart is racing, my breathing shallow. I need to calm down, or I’ll be no use to anybody. Taking a minute, I try to think of anything but Anna, but it’s surprisingly difficult. I hadn’t realized how often my mind has reached for her in the quiet.
She was safety, and comfort.
She was my friend.
Shifting position, I try to work out where I’ve woken up and whether I’m in any immediate danger. At first blush, it doesn’t appear so. My shoulders are touching walls on either side of me, a sliver of light piercing a crack near my right ear, dusting cardboard boxes on my left and bottles down by my feet.
I move my wristwatch to the light, discovering that it’s 10:13 a.m. Bell hasn’t even reached the house yet.
“It’s still morning,” I say to myself, relieved. “I still have time.”
My lips are dry, my tongue cracked, the air so thick with mildew it feels like a dirty rag’s been stuffed down my throat. A drink would be nice, something cold, anything with ice. It seems a long time since I’ve woken up beneath cotton sheets, the day’s torments queuing patiently on the other side of a warm bath.
I didn’t know when I was well off.
My host must have slept in this position all night because it’s agony to move. Thankfully, the panel to the right of me is loose and pushes open without too much effort, my eyes watering as they’re exposed to the harsh brightness of the room beyond.
I’m in a long gallery stretching the length of the house, cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. The walls are dark wood, the floor littered with dozens of pieces of old furniture that are thick with dust and almost hollowed out by woodworm. Brushing myself off, I get to my feet, shaking some life into my iron limbs. Turns out my host spent the night in a storage cupboard beneath a small flight of stairs leading up to a stage. Yellowed sheet music sits open in front of a dusty cello, and looking at it, I feel like I’ve slept through some great calamity, judgment having come and gone while I was stuffed in that cupboard.
What the hell was I doing under there?
Aching, I stagger over to one of the windows lining the gallery. It’s shrouded with grime, but wiping a spot clear with my sleeve reveals Blackheath’s gardens below. I’m on the top floor of the house.
Out of habit, I begin searching my pockets for some clue as to my identity, but realize I don’t need it. I’m Jim Rashton. I’m twenty-seven, a constable in the police force, and my parents Margaret and Henry beam with pride whenever they tell anybody. I have a sister, I have a dog, and I’m in love with a woman called Grace Davies, who’s the reason I’m at this party.
Whatever barrier used to exist between myself and my hosts is almost completely knocked through. I can barely tell Rashton’s life from my own. Unfortunately, my recollection of how I came to end up in the cupboard is clouded by the bottle of scotch Rashton was drinking last night. I remember telling old stories, laughing and dancing, barreling recklessly through an evening that had no other purpose than pleasure.
Was the footman there? Did he do this?
I strain for the memory, but last night’s a drunken smear. Agitation instinctively sends my hand to the leather cigarette case Rashton keeps in his pocket, but there’s only one cigarette left inside. I’m tempted to light it to calm my nerves, but given the circumstances, a frayed temper might serve me better, especially if I have to fight my way out of here. The footman tracked me from Dance into the butler, so it’s doubtful I’ll find safe harbor in Rashton.
Caution will be my truest friend now.
Casting around for a weapon, I find a bronze statue of Atlas. I creep forward with it held above my head, picking my way through walls of armoires and giant webs of interlocking chairs until I arrive at a faded black curtain stretching the length of the room. Cardboard trees are propped against the walls, near clothes racks stuffed with costumes. Among them are six or seven plague doctor outfits, the hats and masks piled in a box on the floor. It appears the family used to put on plays up here.
A floorboard creaks, the curtain twitching. Somebody’s shuffling around back there.
I tense. Raising Atlas above my head, I—
Anna bursts through, her cheeks red.
“Oh, thank God,” she says, catching sight of me.
She’s out of breath, dark circles surrounding bloodshot brown eyes. Her blond hair is loose and tangled, her cap scrunched up in her hand. The artist’s sketchbook chronicling each of my hosts bulges in her apron.
“You’re Rashton, right? Come on, we only have half an hour to save the others,” she says, lunging forward to take hold of my hand.
I step back, the statue still raised, but the breathlessness of the introduction has knocked me off balance, as has the lack of guilt in her voice.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, gripping Atlas a little tighter.
Confusion paints her face, followed by a dawning realization.
“Is this because of what happened to Dance and the butler?” she asks. “I don’t know anything about that, about anything really. I’ve haven’t been up long. I just know you’re in eight different people and a footman’s killing them, and we need to go save the ones that are left.”
“You expect me to trust you?” I say, stunned. “You distracted Dance while the footman murdered him. You were standing in the room when he killed the butler. You’ve been helping him. I’ve seen you!”
She shakes her head.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she cries. “I haven’t done any of that yet, and even when I do, it won’t be because I’m betraying you. If I wanted you dead, I’d pick off your hosts before they ever woke up. You wouldn’t see me, and I certainly wouldn’t work with a man guaranteed to turn on me once we’d finished.”
“Then what were you doing there?” I demand.
“I don’t know. I haven’t lived that part yet,” she snaps back. “You—another you, I mean—was waiting for me when I woke up. He gave me a book that told me to find Derby in the forest, then come here and save you. That’s my day. That’s everything I know.”<
br />
“It’s not enough,” I say bluntly. “I haven’t done any of that, so I don’t know if you’re telling the truth.” Putting the statue down, I walk past her, heading for the black curtain she emerged through. “I can’t trust you, Anna.”
“Why not?” she says, catching my trailing hand. “I’m trusting you.”
“That’s not—”
“Do you remember anything from our previous loops?”
“Only your name,” I say, looking down at her fingers intertwined with mine, my resistance already crumbling. I want to believe her so badly.
“But you don’t remember how any of them ended?”
“No,” I say impatiently. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because I do,” she says. “The reason I know your name is because I remember calling for you in the gatehouse. We’d arranged to meet there. You were late, and I was worried. I was so happy to see you, and then I saw the look on your face.”
Her eyes find mine, the pupils wide and dark and daring. They’re guileless. Surely, she couldn’t have…
Everybody in this house is wearing a mask.
“You murdered me right where I stood,” she says, touching my cheek, studying the face I still haven’t seen. “When you found me this morning, I was so scared I almost ran away, but you were so broken…so scared. It was like all your lives had crashed down on top of you. You couldn’t tell one from another, you didn’t even know who you were. You pushed this book into my hands and said you were sorry. You kept repeating it. You told me you weren’t that man anymore and that we couldn’t get out of this by making the same mistakes all over again. It was the last lucid thing you said.”
Memories are stirring slowly and so far away that I feel like a man reaching across a river to trap a butterfly between his fingers.
She presses the chess piece into my palm, curling my fingers around it.
“This might help,” she says. “We used these pieces in the last loop to identify ourselves. A bishop for you, Aiden Bishop, and a knight for me. The protector, like now.”
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Page 29