The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

44

Wood creaks, the narrow, twisting staircase darkening the further down we get, until finally we sink beneath the gloom.

‘Do you know why I was in that cupboard?’ I ask Anna, who’s ahead of me and moving fast enough to outrun a falling sky.

‘No idea, but it saved your life,’ she says, glancing back at me over her shoulder. ‘The book said the footman would be coming for Rashton around this time. If he’d slept in his bedroom last night, the footman would have found him.’

‘Maybe we should let him find me,’ I say, feeling a rush of excitement. ‘Come on, I’ve got an idea.’

I push past Anna, and begin leaping down the steps two at a time.

If the footman’s coming for Rashton this morning, there’s every chance he’ll still be lurking around the corridors. He’ll be expecting a man asleep in his bed, which means I’ve got the upper hand for once. With a little luck, I can put an end to this here and now.

The steps end abruptly at a whitewashed wall, Anna still halfway up and calling for me to slow down. A police officer of considerable skill – as he’d freely admit himself – Rashton’s no stranger to hidden things. My fingers expertly locate a disguised catch allowing me to tumble into the dark hallway outside. Candles flicker behind sconces, the Sun Room standing empty on my left. I’ve emerged on the ground floor, the door I came through already blending into the wall.

The footman is less than twenty yards away. He’s on his knees, jimmying the lock to what I instinctively know is my bedroom.

‘Looking for me, you bastard,’ I spit, hurling myself at him before he has a chance to grab his knife.

He’s on his feet quicker than I could have imagined, leaping backwards and kicking out to catch me in the chest, knocking the wind from me. I land awkwardly, clutching my ribs, but he doesn’t move. He’s standing there waiting, wiping saliva from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Brave rabbit,’ he says, grinning. ‘I’m going to gut you slow.’

Rising and dusting myself off, I raise my fists in a boxer’s stance, suddenly aware of how heavy my arms feel. That night in the cupboard’s done me no favours, and my confidence is ebbing away by the second. This time I approach him slowly, feinting left and right, working an opening that never comes. A jab catches my chin, rocking my head back. I don’t even see the second punch that smashes into my stomach, or the third that puts me on the floor.

I’m disorientated, dizzy, struggling for breath as the footman looms over me, dragging me up by my hair and stretching for his knife.

‘Hey!’ shouts Anna.

It’s the slightest of distractions, but it’s enough. Slipping free of the footman’s hold, I kick his knee, then launch my shoulder up into his face, breaking his nose, blood splattering my shirt. Reeling backwards down the corridor, he grabs hold of a bust and hurls it at me one-handed, forcing me to leap aside as he flees around the corner.

I want to go after him, but I don’t have the strength. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, clutching my aching ribs. I’m shaken and unnerved. He was too fast, too strong. If that fight had gone on any longer, I’d be dead, I’m certain of it.

‘You bloody idiot!’ yells Anna, glowering at me. ‘You almost got yourself killed.’

‘Did he catch sight of you?’ I say, spitting out the blood in my mouth.

‘I don’t think so,’ she says, reaching out a hand to help me up. ‘I kept to the shadows, and I doubt he was seeing much after you broke his nose.’

‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ I say. ‘I honestly thought we could catch hold of him.’

‘You damn well should be,’ she says, surprising me with a fierce hug, her body trembling. ‘You have to be careful, Aiden. Thanks to that bastard, you’ve only got a few hosts left. If you make a mistake, we’re going to be stuck here.’

Realisation hits me like a rock.

‘I only have three hosts left,’ I repeat, stunned.

Sebastian Bell fainted after seeing the dead rabbit in the box. The butler, Dance and Derby were slain, and Ravencourt fell asleep in the ballroom after watching Evelyn commit suicide. That leaves Rashton, Davies and Gregory Gold. Between the split days and leaping back and forth, I lost count.

I should have seen it immediately.

Daniel claimed he was the last of my hosts, but that can’t be true.

A warm blanket of shame pulls itself over my body. I can’t believe I was so easily deceived. So willingly deceived.

It wasn’t entirely your fault.

The Plague Doctor warned me Anna would betray me. Why would he do that when it was Daniel who was lying to me? And why would he tell me there were only three people trying to escape this house, when there are four? He’s gone out of his way to conceal Daniel’s duplicity.

‘I’ve been so blind,’ I say, hollowly.

‘What’s wrong?’ says Anna, pulling away and looking at me with concern.

I falter, my mind clicking into gear as embarrassment gives way to cold calculation. Daniel’s lies were elaborate, but their purpose remains obscure. I could understand him trying to earn my trust if he wanted to profit from my investigation, but that’s not the case. He’s barely asked about it. Quite the contrary; he gave me a head start by telling me it was Evelyn who would be murdered at the ball, and he warned me about the footman.

I can no longer call him a friend, but I can’t be certain he’s an enemy either. I need to know where he stands, and the best way of doing that is to maintain the illusion of ignorance until he reveals his true intentions.

I have to begin with Anna.

God help us if she let anything slip to Derby, or Dance. Their first reaction to a problem is to run at it, even if it’s wrapped in thorns.

Anna’s watching me, waiting for an answer.

‘I know something,’ I say, meeting her eyes. ‘Something that matters to both of us, but I can’t tell you what it is.’

‘You’re worried about changing the day,’ she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Don’t worry, this book’s full of things I’m not allowed to tell you.’ She smiles, her concern washing away. ‘I trust you, Aiden. I wouldn’t be here, if I didn’t.’

Holding out a hand, she helps me off the floor.

‘We can’t stay in this corridor,’ she says. ‘I’m only alive because he doesn’t know who I am. If he sees us together, I won’t live long enough to help you.’ She smooths her apron and straightens her cap, dropping her chin enough to appear diffident. ‘I’ll go ahead. Meet me outside Bell’s bedroom in ten minutes and keep your eyes open. Once the footman’s healed up, he’ll be looking for you.’

I agree, but I have no intention of waiting in this draughty corridor. Everything that’s happening today has Helena Hardcastle’s fingerprints on it. I need to speak with her and this might be my last chance.

Still nursing my injured pride and ribs, I look for her in the drawing room, finding only a few early risers gossiping about how Derby was hauled off by Stanwin’s thug. Sure enough, his plate of eggs and kidneys is sitting on the table, where he discarded it. It’s still warm, he can’t have long departed. Nodding to them, I make my way to Helena’s bedroom, but knocking on her door brings only silence. Running short of time, I kick it open, shattering the lock.

That’s the mystery of who broke in solved.

The curtains are drawn, the tangled sheets on the four-poster bed trailing off the mattress onto the floor. The room has the soiled atmosphere of a troubled sleep, the sweat of nightmares as yet unwashed by fresh air. The wardrobe is open, a vanity table covered in spilled powder from a large tin, cosmetics torn open and pushed aside, suggesting Lady Hardcastle attended her toilet in something of a hurry. Laying my hand on the bed, I find it cold. She’s already been gone some time.

Just as when I visited this room with Millicent Derby, the roll-down bureau stands open, today’s page torn from Helena’s day-planner and the lacquered gun case emptied of the two revolvers it should contain. Evelyn must have taken them very early this morning, probably after receiving the note compelling her to commit suicide. She would have had no trouble slipping through the connecting door from her bedroom after her mother left.

But if she intends on shooting herself with the revolver, why does she end up using the silver pistol Derby stole from Doctor Dickie instead? And why would she take both revolvers from the case? I know she gives one to Michael to use on the hunt, but I can’t imagine that was foremost in her mind after discovering her own life, and that of her friend, was being threatened.

My eyes drift towards the day-planner and its torn-out page. Is this also Evelyn’s work, or is somebody else responsible? Millicent suspected Helena Hardcastle.

Running my fingertip along the torn edge, I let myself worry.

I’ve seen Helena’s appointments in Lord Hardcastle’s planner, so I know the missing page refers to her meetings with Cunningham, Evelyn, Millicent Derby, the stablemaster and Ravencourt. The only one of those I can be certain Helena Hardcastle kept is with Cunningham. He admitted it to Dance, and his ink-smudged fingerprints are all over the pages.

I slam the book closed in agitation. There’s still so much I don’t understand and I’m running short of time.

Ideas gnaw at me as I head upstairs to Anna who’s pacing back and forth outside Bell’s bedroom, examining the sketchbook in her hands. I can hear muffled voices on the other side of the door. Daniel must be talking to Bell in there, which means the butler is down in the kitchen with Mrs Drudge. He’ll be along shortly.

‘Have you seen Gold? He should already be here,’ says Anna, staring into the shadows, perhaps hoping to carve him out of the gloom with the sharpness of her glare.

‘I haven’t,’ I say, looking around nervously. ‘Why are we here?’

‘The footman will kill the butler and Gold this morning, unless we get them somewhere safe, where I can protect them,’ she says.

‘Like the gatehouse.’

‘Exactly. Only it can’t look like that’s what we’re doing. If it does, the footman will know who I am and kill me, as well. If he thinks I’m just a nursemaid, and they’re too injured to be a threat, he’ll leave us be for a little while, and that’s what we want. The book reckons they’ve still got a role to play in all this, assuming we can keep them alive.’

‘So what do you need me for?’

‘Damned if I know. I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to be doing. The book says to bring you here at this time, but’ – she sighs, shaking her head – ‘that was the only clear instruction, everything else is gibberish. It’s like I said, you weren’t exactly lucid when you gave it to me. I’ve spent most of the last hour trying to decipher the pages, knowing if I read them wrong, or arrive too late, you’ll die.’

I shiver, unnerved by this brief glimpse at my future.

The book must have been given to Anna by Gregory Gold, my final host. I can still remember him raving at Dance’s door about the carriage. I remember thinking how pitiable he was, how frightening. Those dark eyes wild and lost.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

Folding my arms, I lean against the wall next to her, our shoulders touching. Knowing you’ve killed somebody in a previous life tends to narrow possible avenues of affection.

‘You’ve done a better job than I did,’ I say. ‘The first time somebody handed me the future, I ended up chasing a maid called Madeline Aubert halfway across the forest thinking I was saving her life. I nearly frightened the poor girl to death.’

‘This day should come with instructions,’ she says glumly.

‘Do whatever comes naturally.’

‘I’m not sure running and hiding would help us,’ she says, her frustration punctured by the sound of hurried steps on the staircase.

Without a word we scatter out of sight, Anna disappearing around the corner, while I duck into an open bedroom. Curiosity compels me to keep the door open a crack, allowing me to see the butler limping down the corridor towards us, his burnt body even more wretched in motion. He looks balled up and tossed away, a collection of sharp angles under a ratty brown dressing gown and pyjamas.

Having relived so many of these moments since that first morning, I would have thought I’d become numb, but I can feel the butler’s frustration and fear as he races to confront Bell about this new body he’s trapped within.

Gregory Gold is stepping out of a bedroom, the butler too preoccupied to notice. At this distance, with his back to me, the artist seems oddly shapeless, less a man, more a long shadow thrown up the wall. There’s a poker in his hand and, without any warning, he begins striking the butler with it.

I remember this attack, this pain.

Pity takes me, a sickening sense of helplessness as blood is sent flying by the poker, freckling the walls.

I’m with the butler as he shrivels up on the floor, begging for mercy and reaching for help that isn’t coming.

And that’s when reason washes its hands of me.

Snatching a vase from the sideboard, I burst out into the corridor, advancing on Gold with hell’s own wrath, and smashing it over his head, shards of porcelain falling around him as he collapses to the floor.

Silence congeals in the air as I clutch the broken rim of the vase while staring at the two unconscious men at my feet.

Anna appears behind me.

‘What happened?’ she says, feigning surprise.

‘I—’

There’s a crowd gathering at the end of the corridor, half-dressed men and startled women, roused from their beds by the commotion. Their eyes travel from the blood on the walls to the bodies on the floor, latching onto me with an unbecoming curiosity. If the footman’s among them, he’s ducked out of sight.

It’s probably for the best.

I’m angry enough to try something reckless again.

Doctor Dickie is rushing up the stairs and unlike the other guests, he’s already dressed, that huge moustache expertly oiled, his balding head gleaming with some lotion.

‘What the devil happened here?’ he exclaims.

‘Gold went mad,’ I say, bringing a tremor of emotion to my voice. ‘He started attacking the butler with the poker, so I—’

I wave the rim of the vase at him.

‘Fetch my medical bag, girl,’ says Dickie to Anna, who’s positioned herself in his eyeline. ‘It’s near my bed.’

Doing as she’s bid, Anna begins deftly sliding pieces of the future into place without ever appearing to take control. The doctor requires somewhere warm and quiet to tend the butler, so Anna recommends the gatehouse while volunteering to administer his medications. By simple expedient of having nowhere else to lock him up, it’s decided Gold should be taken over to the gatehouse as well, with sedatives to be administered regularly until a servant can bring a policeman back from the village – a servant Anna volunteers to find.

They descend the staircase with the butler on a makeshift stretcher, Anna offering me a relieved smile as she goes. I meet it with a perplexed frown. All this effort, and I’m still not certain what we’ve accomplished. The butler will be consigned to bed, making him easy pickings for the footman this evening. Gregory Gold is going to be sedated and strung up. He’ll live, but his mind is broken.

That’s hardly a reassuring thought considering it’s his instructions we’re following. Gold gave Anna that book, and while he’s the last of my hosts, I have no idea what he’s trying to accomplish. I can’t even be certain he knows. Not after everything he’s suffered.

I dig through my memories, searching for the pieces of the future I’ve glimpsed, but not yet lived. I still need to know what the ‘all of them’ message Cunningham delivers to Derby means, and why he tells him he’s gathered some people together. I don’t know why Evelyn takes the silver pistol from Derby when she already has the black revolver from her mother’s room, or why he ends up guarding a rock while she takes her own life.

It’s frustrating. I can see the breadcrumbs laid out ahead of me, but, for all I know, they’re leading me towards a cliff edge.

Unfortunately, there’s no other path to follow.