Pain stirs me, every breath painful. Blinking away the tatters of sleep, I see a white wall, white sheets and a blossom of crusted blood on the pillow. My cheek is resting on my hand, saliva sticking my top lip to my knuckles.
I know this moment, I saw it through Bell’s eyes.
I’m in the butler again, after he was moved to the gatehouse.
Somebody’s pacing beside my bed, a maid judging by the black dress and white apron. There’s a large book held open in her arms, which she’s flipping through furiously. My head’s too heavy to see anything above her waist, so I groan to call her over.
‘Oh, good, you’re awake,’ she says, halting her pacing. ‘When’s Ravencourt going to be alone? You didn’t write it down, but the bloody idiot has his valet nosing around the kitchen—’
‘Who are—’ My throat is clogged with blood and phlegm.
There’s a jug of water on the sideboard and the maid hurries over to pour me some, placing her book on the counter, while she tips a glass to my lips. I move my head a fraction, trying to look up at her face, but the world immediately starts to spin.
‘You shouldn’t talk,’ she says, using her apron to wipe a stray drop of water from my chin.
She pauses.
‘I mean you can talk, but only when you’re ready.’
She pauses again.
‘Actually, I really need you to answer my question about Ravencourt, before he gets me killed.’
‘Who are you?’ I croak.
‘How hard did that ape... wait—’ She lowers her face to my own, her brown eyes searching for something. She’s puffy-cheeked and pale with strands of tangled blonde hair straying free from her cap. With a start, I realise this is the maid Bell and Evelyn met, the one who was keeping watch on the butler.
‘How may hosts have you had?’ she asks.
‘I don’t—’
‘How many hosts?’ she insists, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘How many bodies have you been in?’
‘You’re Anna,’ I say, twisting my neck to get a better look at her, the pain setting fire to my bones. Very gently she presses me back down onto the mattress.
‘Yes, I’m Anna,’ she says patiently. ‘How many hosts?’
Tears of joy prod my eyes, affection washing through me like warm water. Even though I can’t remember this woman, I can feel the years of friendship between us, a trust that borders on instinct. More than that, I’m overcome by the simple joy of this reunion. As strange as it is to say about somebody I can’t remember, I now realise I’ve missed her.
Seeing the emotion on my face, answering tears form in Anna’s eyes, and leaning down, she hugs me gently.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ she says, voicing my feeling.
We stay like that for a while, before she clears her throat and wipes the tears away.
‘Well, that’s enough of that,’ she sniffs. ‘Crying on each other isn’t going to help. I need you to tell me about your hosts or crying’s all we’ll do.’
‘I... I...’ I’m struggling to speak through the lump in my throat. ‘I woke up as Bell, then the butler, then Donald Davies, the butler again, Ravencourt and now—’
‘The butler again,’ she says thoughtfully. ‘Third time’s a charm, ain’t it?’
Stroking a lock of disturbed hair from my forehead, she leans closer.
‘I take it we haven’t been introduced yet, or at least you haven’t been introduced to me,’ she says. ‘My name’s Anna and you’re Aiden Bishop, or have we done that part already? You keep arriving in the wrong order, I never know where we’re up to.’
‘You’ve met my other selves?’
‘They pop in and out,’ she says, glancing at the door as voices sound somewhere in the house. ‘Usually with a favour to ask.’
‘What about your hosts, are they—’
‘I don’t have other hosts, it’s just me,’ she says. ‘No visits from a Plague Doctor, no other days neither. I won’t remember any of this tomorrow, which seems a bit of luck given how today’s going so far.’
‘But you know what’s happening, you know about Evelyn’s suicide?’
‘It’s murder, and I woke up knowing,’ she says, straightening my sheets. ‘Couldn’t remember my own name, but I knew yours and I knew there was no escaping until we took the killer’s name, and proof of their guilt, to the lake at 11 p.m. They’re like rules, I think. Words scraped onto my brain so I don’t forget.’
‘I didn’t remember anything when I woke up,’ I respond, trying to understand why our torments would be different. ‘Aside from your name, the Plague Doctor had to tell me everything.’
‘Course he did, you’re his special project,’ she says, adjusting my pillow. ‘Doesn’t give a rat’s fart about what I’m doing. Haven’t heard a peep out of him all day. Won’t leave you alone though. Surprised he’s not waiting under that bed.’
‘He told me only one of us can escape,’ I say.
‘Yeah, and it’s pretty bloody obvious he wants it to be you,’ she says, the anger draining from her voice as quickly as it came. She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be taking any of this out on you, but I can’t shift the feeling he’s up to something, and I don’t like it.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say. ‘But if only one of us can escape—’
‘Why are we helping each other?’ she interrupts. ‘Because you’ve got a plan to get us both out.’
‘I have?’
‘Well, you said you did.’
For the first time, her confidence falters, a worried frown appearing on her face, but before I can press the issue, wood creaks in the corridor, steps thumping up the stairs. It feels like the entire house is shaking with their ascent.
‘Just a tick,’ she says, collecting the book from the counter. Only now do I realise it’s actually an artist’s sketchbook, the brown leather covers filled with sheets of loose-leaf paper, untidily bound by string. Hiding the book under the bed, she comes up instead with a shotgun. Pressing the butt against her shoulder, she stalks over to the door, opening it a crack to better hear the commotion outside.
‘Oh, hell,’ says Anna, kicking the door closed with her foot. ‘It’s the doctor with your sedative. Quick, when’s Ravencourt going to be alone? I need to tell him to stop searching for me.’
‘Why, who’s—’
‘We don’t have time, Aiden,’ she says, sliding the shotgun back under the bed out of sight. ‘I’ll be here next time you wake up and we can have a proper talk then I promise, but for now tell me about Ravencourt, every detail you can remember.’
She’s leaning over me, clutching my hand, her eyes pleading.
‘He’ll be in his parlour at 1:15 p.m.,’ I say. ‘You hand him a whisky, have a chat, and then Millicent Derby arrives. You leave him a card introducing her.’
She squeezes her eyes shut, mouthing the time and name over and over again, carving them into her memory. Only now, her features smoothed by concentration, do I realise how young she is; no more than nineteen I’d guess, though hard labour’s added a few years to the pile.
‘One more thing,’ she hisses, cupping my cheek, her face so close to mine I can see the amber flecks in her brown eyes. ‘If you see me out there, pretend you don’t know me. Don’t even come near me if you can help it. There’s this footman... I’ll tell you about him later, or earlier. Point is, it’s dangerous for us to be seen together. Any talking needs doing, we’ll do it in here.’
She kisses me on the forehead quickly, offering the room a last glance to make sure everything’s in order.
The steps have reached the hall, two sets of voices jumbled up and rolling on ahead. I recognise Dickie, but not the second one. It’s deep, urgent, though I can’t quite make out what’s being said.
‘Who’s with Dickie?’ I ask.
‘Lord Hardcastle most like,’ she says. ‘He’s been popping in and out all morning to check on you.’
That makes sense. Evelyn told me the butler was Lord Hardcastle’s batman during the war. Their closeness is the reason Gregory Gold is strung up in the room opposite.
‘Are things always like this?’ I ask. ‘The explanations arriving before the questions?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ she says, standing up and smoothing her apron. ‘Two hours, I’ve been at this, and all I’ve had are orders.’
Doctor Dickie opens the door, his moustache just as preposterous as the first time I saw it. His gaze passes from Anna to myself and back again as he tries to stitch together the torn edges of our hastily severed conversation. No answers forthcoming, he places his black medical bag on the sideboard and comes to stand over me.
‘Awake I see,’ he says, rocking back and forth on his heels, fingers thrust into the watch pockets of his waistcoat.
‘Leave us, girl,’ he says to Anna, who curtsies before exiting the room, casting me a quick glance on her way out.
‘So, how are you feeling?’ he asks. ‘No worse for wear from the carriage journey, I hope.’
‘Not bad—’ I begin to say, but he lifts the covers, raising my arm to take my pulse. Even this gentle action is enough to cause spasms of pain, the rest of my response mangled by a wince.
‘Little sore, hmmm,’ he says, lowering my arm once more. ‘Hardly surprising given the beating you took. Any notion what this fellow Gregory Gold wanted from you?’
‘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.’