The cotton sack clinks as we walk, its weight conspiring with the uneven ground to continually trip me up, Grace wincing in sympathy at each stumble.
Cunningham’s run off to do my favour, Grace meeting his sudden departure with puzzled silence. I feel the urge to explain, but Rashton knows this woman well enough to know it’s not expected. Ten minutes after Donald Davies introduced his grateful family to the man who’d saved his life during the war, it was clear to anybody with eyes and a heart that Jim Rashton and Grace Davies would one day be married. Undaunted by their different backgrounds, they spent that first dinner building a bridge out of affectionate barbs and probing questions, love blossoming across a table littered with cutlery Rashton couldn’t identify. What was born that day has only grown since, the two of them coming to inhabit a world of their own making. Grace knows I’ll tell the story when it’s finished, when it’s shored up with facts strong enough to support the telling. In the meantime, we walk together in a companionable silence, happy just to be in each other’s company.
I’m wearing my brass knuckles, having vaguely mentioned a threat from Bell and Doctor Dickie’s confederates. It’s a weak lie, but it’s enough to keep Grace on her toes, the young woman glaring suspiciously at every dripping leaf. So it is that we come upon the well, Grace pushing aside a tree branch that I might emerge into the clearing without becoming snagged. I immediately drop the sack into the well, where it hits the bottom with a tremendous crash.
Waggling my arms, I try to shake the ache from my muscles, while Grace peers into the well’s darkness.
‘Any wishes?’ she asks.
‘That I don’t have to carry the sack back,’ I say.
‘Oh, my heavens, it really works,’ she says. ‘Do you think I can wish for more wishes?’
‘Sounds like cheating to me.’
‘Well, nobody’s used it for years, there’s probably a few going spare.’
‘May I ask you a question?’ I reply.
‘Never known you to be shy about them,’ she says, leaning so far into the well her feet are in the air.
‘The morning of Thomas’s murder, when you went on the scavenger hunt, who was with you?’
‘Come on, Jim, it was nineteen years ago,’ she says, her voice muffled by the stone.
‘Was Charles there?’
‘Charles?’ She removes her head from the well. ‘Yes, probably.’
‘Probably, or actually? It’s important, Grace.’
‘I can see that,’ she says, pulling herself clear and wiping her hands. ‘Has he done something wrong?’
‘I really hope not.’
‘So do I,’ she says, mirroring my concern. ‘Let me think? Wait a tick, yes, he was there! He stole an entire fruitcake from the kitchen, I remember him giving me and Donald some. Must have driven Mrs Drudge wild.’
‘What about Michael Hardcastle, was he there?’
‘Michael? Why, I don’t know...’
A hand goes to a curl of hair, twisting it around her finger while she thinks. It’s a familiar gesture, one that fills Rashton with such an overpowering love it’s almost enough to push me aside completely.
‘He was in bed, I think,’ she says eventually. ‘Sick with something or other, one of those childish things.’
She takes my hand in both of her own, holding me fast in those beautiful blue eyes.
‘Are you doing something dangerous, Jim?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you doing it for Charles?’
‘Partly.’
‘Will you ever tell me about it?’
‘Yes, when I know what needs to be said.’
Standing on her tiptoes, she kisses me on the nose.
‘Then you’d better get going,’ she says, rubbing her lipstick off my skin. ‘I know what you’re like when you’ve got a bone to dig up, and you won’t be happy until you have it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Say it with the story, and say it soon.’
‘I will,’ I say.
It’s Rashton who kisses her now. When I do wrestle this body back from him, I’m flushed and embarrassed, Grace grinning at me with a wicked glint in her eye. It’s all I can do to leave her there, but for the first time since this began, I have my hands around the truth and unless I dig my fingers in, I’m worried it’ll slip free. I need to talk to Anna.
I make my way along the cobbled path around the rear of the gatehouse, shaking the rain from my trench coat before hanging it on the rack in the kitchen. Footsteps echo through the floor, heartbeats in the wood. A commotion’s coming from the sitting room on my right, the place where Dance and his cronies met Peter Hardcastle this morning. My first assumption is that one of them has returned, but, opening the door, I find Anna standing over Peter Hardcastle, who’s slumped in the same chair I found him in earlier.
He’s dead.
‘Anna,’ I say quietly.
She turns to greet me, shock on her face.
‘I heard a noise and came down...’ she says, gesturing at the body. Unlike myself, she’s not spent the day wading through blood, and finding a body has hit her hard.
‘Why don’t you go splash some water on your face?’ I say, touching her lightly on the arm. ‘I’ll have a nose around.’
She nods at me gratefully, offering the body one last lingering look before hurrying out of the room. I can’t say I blame her. His once handsome features are frightfully twisted, his right eye barely open, his left eye fully exposed. His hands are gripping the arms of the chair, his back arched in pain. Whatever happened here took his dignity and his life at the same time.
My first thought would be heart attack, but Rashton’s instincts make me cautious.
I reach out to close his eyes, but can’t bring myself to touch him. With so few hosts left, I’d rather not tempt death’s gaze back towards me.
There’s a folded letter sticking out of his top pocket and, plucking it free, I read the message inside.
I couldn’t marry Ravencourt and I couldn’t forgive my family for making me do so. They brought this on themselves.
Evelyn Hardcastle
A draught is blowing in through an open window. Mud smears the frame, suggesting somebody made their escape through it. About the only note of disturbance I can see is a drawer that’s been left hanging open. It’s the one I rifled through as Dance, and sure enough, Peter’s organiser is missing. First somebody tore a page out of Helena’s planner and now they’ve taken Peter’s. Something Helena did today is worth killing to cover up. That’s useful information. Horrific, but useful.
Putting the letter in my pocket, I poke my head out of the window, looking for some evidence of the murderer’s identity. There’s not much to see, aside from a few footsteps in the dirt, already washing away in the rain. From their shape and size, whoever fled the gatehouse was a woman in pointed boots, which might give the note some credence except that I know Evelyn is with Bell.
She couldn’t have done this.
I take a seat opposite Peter Hardcastle, as Dance did this morning. Despite the late hour, the memory of that gathering is still about the room. The glasses we drank from haven’t been removed from the table and the cigar smoke still hangs in the air. Hardcastle’s wearing the same clothes I last saw him in, meaning he never got changed for the hunt, so it’s likely he’s been dead for a couple of hours. One by one I dab my finger into the dregs of the drinks, tasting each of them with the tip of my tongue. They’re all fine, except for Lord Hardcastle’s. Behind the charred whisky lies a subtle bitter taste.
Rashton recognises it immediately.
‘Strychnine,’ I say, staring into the victim’s twisted, smiling face. He looks delighted by the news, as though he’s sat here all this time waiting for somebody to tell him how he died. He’d probably also want to know who killed him. I have an idea about that, but for the moment an idea’s all it is.
‘Is he telling you anything?’ asks Anna, passing me a towel.
She’s still a little pale, but her voice is stronger, suggesting she’s recovered from her initial shock. Even so, she keeps her distance from the body, arms wrapped tight around herself.
‘Somebody poisoned him with strychnine,’ I say. ‘Bell supplied it.’
‘Bell? Your first host? You think he’s tied up in all of this?’
‘Not willingly,’ I say, drying my hair. ‘He’s too much of a coward to tangle himself up in murder. Strychnine is often sold in small quantities as rat poison. If the killer was part of the household, they could have requested a significant amount under the guise of getting Blackheath up and running. Bell would have no reason to be suspicious until the bodies started appearing. That probably explains why somebody tried to kill him.’
‘How do you know all of this?’ says Anna, astonished.
‘Rashton knows it,’ I say, tapping my forehead. ‘He worked on a strychnine case a few years back. Nasty business. Matter of inheritance.’
‘And you can just... remember it?’
I nod, still thinking through the implications of the poisoning.
‘Somebody lured Bell out to the forest last night, intending to silence him,’ I say to myself. ‘But the good doctor managed to escape with only the injuries to his arms, losing his pursuer in the darkness. Lucky fellow.’
Anna’s looking at me strangely.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say, frowning.
‘It’s the way you were speaking’ – she falters – ‘it wasn’t... I didn’t recognise you. Aiden, how much of you is still in there?’
‘Enough,’ I say impatiently, handing her the letter I found in Hardcastle’s pocket. ‘You should see this. Somebody wants us to believe this is Evelyn’s doing. The murderer’s trying to wrap it all up in a nice little bow.’
She drags her gaze away from me, and reads the letter.
‘What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong?’ she says, after she’s finished. ‘What if somebody means to knock off the entire Hardcastle family, and Evelyn is just the first?’
‘You think Helena’s hiding?’
‘If she’s got any sense, that’s exactly what she’s doing.’
I let my mind bat the idea around for a while, trying to see it from every angle. Or at least, I try. It’s too heavy. Too ponderous. I can’t see what could be on the other side.
‘What do we next?’ she asks.
‘I need you to tell Evelyn that the butler’s awake and that he needs to speak with her, privately,’ I say, getting to my feet.
‘But the butler isn’t awake, and he doesn’t want to speak with her.’
‘No, but I do, and I’d rather stay out of the footman’s crosshairs if I can.’
‘Of course I’ll go, but you need to watch the butler and Gold in my place,’ she says.
‘I will.’
‘And what are you going to say to Evelyn when she gets here?’
‘I’m going to tell her how she dies.’