‘Elizabeth. James’s wife?’
Tara nodded. ‘It was amongst her papers, diaries. Things her son kept untouched after her death and his son in turn left undisturbed. She obviously wanted it kept safe, undisclosed.’
‘What does it say?’
‘That we drew a lot of the wrong conclusions from what we found. And that if we’d found it earlier, some of this could perhaps have been avoided.’ She made a sweeping gesture towards Ophelia and me. ‘Still, after I’d read it and I couldn’t get hold of you on the phone, I came to the factory. If I hadn’t, things might have turned out very differently.’ She shivered. ‘Anyway, read it Johnny, when you’re ready. It explains a lot.’
I nodded. But the pounding in my head was starting to intensify.
‘Are you okay?’ Tara said. ‘You’re looking a little pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘You’ve got a great right hook, by the way.’
She grimaced. ‘I think it’s time for me to get out of here. But when you’re better let’s go out for a drink. The three of us. When I said to you that I thought we should hang out, I didn’t mean in these sorts of circumstances.’ She smiled at me, then leaned over and kissed my forehead. ‘I’m sorry about your temple,’ I heard her whisper.
‘I’m sorry about everything,’ I whispered back. I stared at her and for a moment worried that I might cry. ‘Thank you.’
She shrugged. ‘You know, of course, that you owe me at least a few pairs of shoes for this. But in the meantime rest and get better.’ Then she turned, said goodbye to Ophelia and left.
As silence fell after Tara’s departure, Ophelia came to sit beside me on the bed. ‘You look tired, Johnny.’
I nodded. I was exhausted. But I wanted to fight sleep a little longer. I looked at Ophelia, at her beautiful eyes, her lips, her skin and I noticed that she wasn’t wearing the locket that held the photograph of her parents.
‘Where’s your necklace?’ I asked.
‘Oh. I took it off. After the fire.’ Then she paused. ‘I thought it was about time.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
‘I’m sure,’ she replied, smiling at me. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I said.
And as sleep descended upon me I felt Ophelia take my hand in hers.
‘Talk to me,’ I said. ‘I want to hear your voice.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let me tell you a story.’
49
23 September 1899
Rose Cottage
St Just
Cornwall
Mrs Brimley,
I have spent a year deliberating whether to write this letter, whether it is better to disclose things which have been hidden or to leave the past in the past. I confess that still I do not know. But I find myself, perhaps out of conscience, putting pen to paper nonetheless. Please forgive me if it transpires that I am disclosing things you would rather not have known. Many of them will be painful to you.
My name is Amelia Holmes. I know that it will be familiar and no doubt a shock to read it now. As you will recall, both from the fact that I worked at your husband’s factory and from the newspaper reports at the time, I disappeared a year ago on the evening of 23 September 1898. But I had not, as was suspected at the time, been abducted and killed. Rather, my disappearance was connected to the events of that night, events which I feel, after much reflection, I must recount to you now.
It was a Friday evening. I, and the rest of the girls of the assembling department, left the factory as usual at around six p.m. We chatted outside, giggling and laughing over the gossip of the week, and then we dispersed to begin our respective journeys home. As I began my usual walk, everything appeared as normal. Except that everything, for me at least, was far from so. After a while, after I was sure that no one would see me, I retraced my steps and made my way back to the factory.
I apologise for what I am about to tell you now. I was returning to meet your husband. He had shown care and concern for me since I began work at the factory the year before. And for a long time it remained just that: pure solicitude and kindness. But I am ashamed to say that from this grew something more. By the summer of 1898 there had been a shift in emotions. We each knew the other’s feelings plainly and James had, a number of times, asked me to meet him after hours at the factory. I, terrified by what might happen, had always refused, always sought to fight what I felt. After all, it was wrong, sinful. But that night I could contain my emotions no longer.
I returned to the factory determined to surprise him. I waited, watching from the bandstand in the park, hidden and out of view, until it was dark. I knew, as always, that Mr Laver – the manager – and James would be the last people on the premises. And that when Mr Laver left he would lock the outer doors even though James was still inside. It had been the same routine since I arrived. What no one else knew, besides James and myself, was that James had given me a key to the doors.
After I saw Mr Laver leave I allowed some time to pass. Perhaps even then I was suffering a crisis of conscience, still in two minds about what to do next: about what would happen if I crossed the park, if I let myself in, if I allowed myself to be alone with James. I don’t remember exactly what was running through my mind. What I do know is that even in my wildest imaginings I could never have anticipated what came next.
I remember unlocking the factory doors and making my way into the dispatch room. It was quiet and empty, only partially lit. I crossed the ground floor and climbed the stairs. But both the first and second floors were in total darkness. As I retraced my steps, I began to have doubts. The darkened factory was eerie, strangely unfamiliar. Perhaps it would be better if I simply went home. James, after all, was not expecting me and did not appear to be there. But as I turned to leave I heard the sound of voices. They were muffled, obscured and for a while I simply listened, trying to place them. Finally it dawned upon me. They were coming from the underground room. I remembered then that James had told me about this place; a private space that only he used, that only he really knew of. I moved to the top of the cellar stairs and, looking down, saw the flicker of candle flames. In that instant, as I looked down into the darkness, my heart flickered too. It told me to leave, to leave that darkness well alone. But the sound of the voices pulled at me. One belonged to James. But who was the person he was talking to? Before I knew what I was doing I found myself descending the stairs.
As I moved deeper into the darkness James’s voice became clearer. He was arguing with a woman and her voice sounded animated, upset. I knew that I should turn around and go home – every instinct told me so. Yet something else pulled me towards that room, towards the darkness. I tried to imagine the scene beyond the threshold of the doorway, but when I reached it I was totally unprepared for what I saw.
James was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, in a dishevelled state of semi-undress. On a narrow bed, across from where he sat, lay Minnie Perkins. Miss Perkins, the bookkeeper. A white slip was all that covered her and even this exposed her thighs and calves. Around her neck, and cascading down over her breasts, was a piece of green velvet ribbon. For a moment or two I simply stared at them, stunned, disbelieving. But as I began to realise what I was seeing, what I was witnessing, I noticed something else. In his hands, James held a green shoe which he was rocking back and forth. The sight made my eyes fill with tears. It was one of a pair that he had had made for me.
For I don’t know how long, I stared at James, in the armchair, playing with the green shoe. I could not bear to look at Minnie’s face, so instead I gazed at her bare legs on the bed. These images will haunt me for ever. In my distraction I caught only snippets of their argument, only phrases and recriminations. She was upset, chastising him for holding the shoe, for thinking of someone else when he was there with her. I heard her shouting about letters that he had sent to her, letters filled with love and longing. What had happened to that feeling now? He retorted that their affair had long been ove
r, that she should leave him alone, stop taunting and tempting him. I looked away then, embarrassed, as the words circled dreamlike, unreal around me. It was only when they stopped, when silence descended, that I looked back at them and saw that my presence had been discovered. Horrified to find myself in the middle of this scene, I was nonetheless frozen to the spot. I couldn’t move. I noticed that James, now standing, had dropped the shoe onto the floor and was moving towards me. His face betrayed his guilt and devastation, his fear and regret. And, in spite of myself, I felt tears spring to my eyes. He began to apologise, to say he was so sorry for this discovery. How disappointed in him I must be. But he had given up hope that I would ever be with him. His tirade against himself continued. But I could not utter a word. I stood stock-still, silent. And with every second that passed, with every word that I failed to utter in response, he grew more agitated. I was only vaguely aware of Minnie rising from the bed behind him, arguing still. But I didn’t hear what she said. All I knew was that suddenly he began to grow angry. And as I watched him, watched his face grow harder, I could have sworn that his eyes grew blacker too. All of a sudden he advanced upon me, demanding to know what I was doing there, what I had seen. In that moment I grew scared. I felt my blood run cold as he towered over me, so much taller, so much stronger than me, his large hands suddenly threatening, moving towards me, driving me backwards until my body hit the wall. Fear pulsed through me. Minnie must have felt the same because I heard her shouting to him to stop. But I do not think he caught her words, do not think he recognised either her or me. And at that moment I felt terror for the first time.
What happened next passed in a series of broken images, lost, caught out of time. I saw him turn upon Minnie, shout at her that this was all her fault and that she would pay. He advanced upon her but she was quick, agile and she darted behind him, the green ribbon suddenly in her hands. Then it was around his neck, tightening in her grip, pulling him backwards and down to the floor. There was a struggle and for a few moments the writhing and twisting of fighting bodies. But Minnie was no match for him, even though he was severely weakened, winded. He pushed her away, and she struck her head against the wall. And I knew, in that moment, that if I did nothing, if I did not intercede, she would die.
Before James could recover, before he could stand, I grabbed the mattress from the bed. It was the only thing in the room that I, in my panic, could see to use. I pressed it down upon the full length of him, leant the weight of my whole body upon his face, starving him of air, slowly suffocating him. At one point I thought that he might overpower me, but with my legs pinning his arms to his body I managed to restrain him. I felt him kicking, squirming beneath me, but I held fast for as long as I could. Eventually, exhausted and breathless, I let go. For a long moment there was nothing. I stared down at the mattress beneath me, unmoving and then I realised. He was dead. And I had killed him.
As if in the slow unfolding of a dream, I became aware of Minnie standing beside me, talking. She was dazed from the blow to her head and I could hear an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. I told her to be quiet, to get dressed and to let me think.
I put the mattress back on the bed and tied the green shoes, my green shoes, together with her ribbon, hanging them from the left-hand corner of a mirror on the wall. The mirror was black, discoloured and I remember Minnie shouting that it had started all of this, that it was evil. I put her words down to delirium and tried to silence her. But still she talked. She picked up some letters from the floor, letters, it seemed, from James to her. I have to get rid of them, she repeated over and over. I cannot have anything that ties him to me now. In her agitation I had no hope that she would dispose of them properly. So I took them from her and put them in my pocket.
Finally we turned to James. What were we to do with him? Minnie wanted to leave his body in the cellar. But something in me baulked at that. I couldn’t abandon him to that darkness or to the risk that a long time might pass before someone discovered his body, by then rotting and unrecognisable. So between us, heaven knows how, and with much struggle, we carried his body up the stairs and into the dispatch room.
And there, in the shadow light, with James’s body lying on the floor beside us, we came up with a plan. No one, it seemed, knew of his and Minnie’s affair. They had concealed the indiscretion well. So I told Minnie that she should go home and try to calm herself. When the factory reopened after the discovery of the body, she must return to work as if nothing had happened. It was the best way, I thought, for her to escape any suspicion. I, on the other hand, would flee. I had been the one who had occasioned James’s death. So if the conclusions of the police were that James had been murdered, it seemed only fair that they should come after me.
Minnie argued with me for some time. She said that we were both responsible, that we should both remain and stay silent. Who knew what conclusions the police would draw? And, after all, it had been self-defence. But in my heart I did not see it that way. I had killed the man I loved and if anyone should be punished for that crime it was me. If I managed to evade the punishment of prison then a heavy sentence would be imposed upon me by separation from my family.
After much debate and persuasion, Minnie finally agreed and left. Then I finished my business in the factory. I hid the letters that James had sent to her behind a photograph in which he and I were clearly visible, looking at one another. If they were ever found they would point to an affair between him and me and would implicate me, rather than Minnie, in respect of the murder.
I went back to the underground room, checked everything there, then climbed the stairs and sealed the door. In my heart, I hoped it would never be opened again. Then I looked properly, for the first time since his death, at James. My eyes filled with tears as I saw the marks around his neck already beginning to show, the unforeseen brutality of the green ribbon. I straightened his disordered clothes, kissed his lips, held his grazed and dirty hands in mine one last time. Then I left the factory for ever. I locked the door and left everything behind me in darkness.
With a little money in my pocket, I fled London straight away. For weeks, I feared my discovery or the unveiling of our plot. So much depended on Minnie, on what conclusions the police drew. But as time went on, it appeared that we would not be discovered. Minnie must have played her part well and we were assisted by the coroner who, beyond the superficial marks of the ribbon, found that there were no indicators of violence done to James. The cardiac arrest, no doubt the result of the suffocation, looked natural. And as the door to the factory was locked, and James alone and in possession of his keys, there was no reason to suspect that there had been a third party at the scene. And rather than appearing incriminating as I had supposed, my disappearance was taken for something else entirely – that I had been the victim of murder myself.
To avoid discovery I had to change the way I looked, the colour and cut of my hair. But avoid it I have. Over time I have made my way here, far away from London, from the people I love and cherish. But that is a small price to pay for what I did.
Since that night my life has been filled with regret, and the knowledge of what happened weighs very heavily upon me. I am punished every day by the remembrance of it. And I feel that part of me, the soul of the nineteen-year-old girl I was that night, has been lost, will be trapped for ever, in the darkness of the factory, unable to escape what was done that night.
And so it is no coincidence that this letter comes to you on the anniversary of your husband’s death. If, when you have read it, you wish to hand me over to the police, so be it. They will be able to find me at this address.
But I ask you one last thing. If you send them for me and the events of that night are exposed, the underground room opened up for evidence and exploration, I beg you not to allow the blackened mirror there to be released into the world. Both Minnie and James spoke to me of it, words that I put down to her hysteria and James’s tiredness and distraction in the final months of his life. But before I l
eft that room for the last time that night a year ago, something compelled me to look into that mirror, to gaze into its tainted blackened silver, to watch and wait until something emerged from the darkness. I will not tell you what I saw. But I began to understand that perhaps there was foundation in their anxiety that the mirror had perhaps played a part in the events of that night.
I know that these words themselves sound hysterical, defy belief. But I do not ask you to believe me. I only ask you, beg of you, that you leave it closed up, sealed off for ever.
Amelia Holmes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everyone who has read drafts of this novel and, in particular, Sarah Masarachia, Sini Downing, Sophia Martelli and Blaise Hesselgren for their honesty and encouragement. Your comments were invaluable.
Thanks to my agent, Luigi Bonomi of LBA, always inspiring and full of ideas, and to everyone at LBA and ILA for their hard work. Many thanks to Rosie de Courcy without whose passion and insight (and plentiful yellow stickers!) this book would not be what it is. And much appreciation to my fantastic editor Jenny Geras – who took up the reins with energy and enthusiasm – for her keen eye and light editorial touch.
Big thanks to Angela and Rachel, who buoyed me up when I needed it. Most of all, thanks to my Mum and Dad for their unwavering faith and support and to Parvais, who held my hand every step of the way.
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