A Mortal Likeness

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I’m coming too.” Mick leaves Lottie and runs after me.

  One of the guards chases Hugh while the other heads off Mick and me. Mick is still carrying the lantern we brought, and he swings it at the guard. As the guard dodges, Mick yells, “Go, Sarah! Help Hugh.”

  Mick veers across the lawn. The guard can’t chase both of us; he hesitates, then goes after Mick. I race past the fountain in pursuit of Pierce and Tristan. It’s dark beyond the radius of the glow from the lamps on the terrace, and I bump into a marble urn. Ahead I see a light moving in the direction of the staircase down which I followed Tristan the night he went to the pond. Pierce must be taking the same route out of the estate. Then I’m caught in a glare of light. Ear-splitting whistles accompany my first glimpse of three police constables carrying lanterns.

  “Police! Stop!” they shout.

  I run for the cover of the topiary trees. The constables pound after me. Maybe they don’t know what’s happened, but they saw me fleeing the mansion and probably assume I’m the person who fired the gun. I can’t stop to explain. The moonlight guides me between the dark pools of shadow cast by the conical and spherical trees. Panting, I come up against a brick wall. The police shout at one another, “Did you see where she went?” “Over there!” I feel my way along the wall until I find a gate. On the other side, the path that skirts the wall is deserted, the forested hillside quiet except for the wind rustling the leaves, dark except for the moonlight. I hurry along the path until I find another that leads downhill. Whether Pierce intends to walk out of London or catch a train, he’ll have to get off the hill first. Maybe I can intercept him at the bottom. I hear more whistles, more shouts, as I plunge down the path through the woods. They seem to be coming from every direction. I don’t know how many police or guards are out here. I don’t know whether Hugh is safe or what I’ll do if I find Pierce and Tristan.

  I trip on branches and fall twice before I reach the path’s end. Bruised, sore, and sweating despite the cold, I come out on the road at the bottom of the hill. To my left, perhaps thirty feet away, two figures are crossing the road. Keeping to the edge of the woods, I steal up the road after them. They disappear into the woods on the opposite side, and I experience moments of frantic anxiety before I locate the path they took. At its end, the landscape is as scarred, blighted, and alien as the surface of the moon that casts ghostly light over it. This part of Hampstead Heath was once mined for sand and gravel for building railways. Gusting wind whips tears into my eyes, and I can barely see the flame of Pierce’s lantern as I follow it along bare, sandy slopes that descend to swamp-edged craters filled with glittering black water.

  The calls and whistles are faint now, distant. Much as I don’t want to be alone with Pierce and Tristan, I hope Hugh isn’t also on their trail and about to do something reckless.

  The light vanishes into a grove of stunted trees. I hurry to catch up. Beyond the trees, I cross another road to more woods. The path through them is a dark, windblown tunnel. I’ve lost Pierce and Tristan. If I go for help, they’ll surely be far away by the time I return. I’m not even sure I can find my way back to Mariner House.

  “Stop right there.” Pierce’s voice comes from the darkness ahead of me.

  31

  My heart jumps. I freeze, terrified that Pierce has spotted me. He’ll shoot Tristan, and there will be another death on my hands before he shoots me too.

  “You’re not going to talk me into surrendering to the police, Father Tristan,” Pierce says. “You may as well save your breath.”

  He’s speaking to Tristan. I clutch my chest, faint with relief that he’s unaware of my presence. As I tiptoe toward the men, the forest thins out. Ahead is an open space in a broad, shallow depression where moonlight shines on a carousel and striped tents in a deserted midway. It’s the Hampstead Heath fairground. Instead of carnival music, I hear the wind flapping the flags on the roof of the carousel. A lawn slopes toward stalls that contain the refreshment stands and shooting galleries. Benches are ranged along the top of the slope. A lantern flickers beside the nearest bench. There Pierce and Tristan are slumped with their backs to me; I hear them panting. Exhausted by their flight, they’ve stopped to rest.

  “I’ll help you convince the police that you’re innocent,” Tristan says.

  He’s trying to trick Pierce into turning himself in.

  “Ha. Why would they believe you?”

  “Because it’s a fact. You didn’t kill Robin.” Tristan speaks with such conviction that if I didn’t know better, I would think he was telling the truth.

  “Well, if you really believe that, it makes two of us.”

  “I’ll hire a good solicitor to defend you in court.” Tristan sounds more eager to help Pierce than afraid Pierce will kill him.

  “Thanks.” Sarcasm inflects Pierce’s voice. “We both know it doesn’t matter what the court decides. Sir Gerald thinks I’m guilty, and his opinion is the only one that matters.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Tristan pleads. “I’ll convince him that all you did was steal the ransom money.”

  Pierce chuckles. “I underestimated you. You’re doing exactly what your father would in your position—trying to dupe me.”

  I can’t save Tristan and capture Pierce by myself. I hear the distant calls and whistles and silently urge the police to come.

  “I’m not trying to dupe you. I’m trying to save you.”

  “Sir Gerald could pull it off, but you haven’t his talent for manipulating people. You’re an inferior chip off the old block.”

  “He’ll see reason after he calms down,” Tristan says with dogged persistence. “If you return the ransom money, he’ll forgive you.”

  “Better stick to peddling Christianity to the heathens. Sir Gerald never forgives anyone for anything. I’ll use the money to get out of England.”

  “Where will you go? My father has a long reach.”

  “It’s a big world, and I know of places where even he won’t find me.”

  “By now the police have mounted a search for you. Can’t you hear the whistles?” Tristan says. “You won’t get out of London.”

  “Not with you slowing me down and trying to sabotage me.” Pierce reaches down, picks up the lantern and stands. “This is where we part company.”

  Tristan jumps to his feet. “I’m going too. Without me, you’re dead.”

  I don’t understand why he’s not glad to be released. Alarm catches my breath because Pierce will vanish before the police come.

  “I’ll take my chances.” Pierce walks into the woods toward me, the lantern in his left hand, the gun in his right.

  I hide behind a tree while Tristan hurries after Pierce and stands in front of him. “Either I go with you,” Tristan says, “or you can shoot me now.”

  Without hesitation, Pierce aims and cocks the gun. Tristan lifts his chin and squares his shoulders like a man facing a firing squad. I can’t keep quiet any longer. “They’re over here!” I shout. “Help!”

  The men turn toward the sound of my voice. Then Pierce cries out as if in pain and astonishment. His knees buckle, the gun and lantern drop from his hands, and he falls facedown. Behind him stands Olivia.

  I gasp in shock. Olivia, who must have followed us from Mariner House, is wearing an unbuttoned mackintosh over her white nightdress and galoshes on her feet. With her bare, mud-streaked legs and the leaves caught in her wild hair, she looks like a vagabond. Her eyes sparkle; her exultant smile beams.

  “Olivia?” Tristan says.

  Bewildered by the turn of events, I stumble over to Pierce. He moans, twitching on the ground like a hooked fish. The lantern has rolled a few feet away, and it’s too dark to see what Olivia did to him. Then he goes still and silent.

  “I got him!” Olivia sounds like a child who’s won a game. “He can’t hurt us now. See?” She kicks Pierce in the ribs with her heavy boot. He neither moves nor makes a sound.

  “Olivia, what have you done?” Dread fills T
ristan’s voice. He kneels beside Pierce.

  The pelt of footsteps and the sound of coughing precedes the arrival of Hugh. Mick is with him, carrying the lantern; they’re both winded from running. “Thank heaven,” I cry, relieved that they weren’t shot or arrested.

  “Sarah!” Hugh sees Tristan on the ground, and the relief in his expression turns to alarm. He halts abruptly, as if he’s slammed into a wall. “Tristan. Are you hurt?”

  Tristan raises a hand, warding Hugh off. Mick says, “Where’s Pierce?” Then he spies the body on the ground and shines his lantern on it. The thick leather-covered hilt of a knife protrudes from Pierce’s back. Wet red blood gleams around the base of the steel blade. “Gorblimey!”

  Olivia stabbed Pierce. Hugh and I gape, dumbfounded.

  Tristan feels Pierce’s neck for a pulse and looks up, his eyes filled with disbelief and horror. “He’s dead.”

  I’m too stunned to be glad that the danger is past and Robin’s murderer delivered to justice. Hugh murmurs, “All’s well that ends well.”

  Staggering to his feet, Tristan clutches his heart as if he’s the one who’s been stabbed. Olivia slips her hand through his arm. “Let’s go back to the house. I have to tell Daddy I killed Mr. Pierce.” She smiles at Hugh, Mick, and me, pleased to have an audience. “Daddy will be so proud of me!”

  I’m astonished by her self-centered reaction to killing a man. I’m ashamed of my relief that Hugh, Mick, and I didn’t need to do the honors ourselves.

  Tristan puts his hand over Olivia’s, but he doesn’t move. His face is white, rigid.

  “What’s the matter?” Olivia asks. “Mr. Pierce deserved to die. He killed Robin.”

  Tristan turns a sorrowful gaze on her. “No, Olivia. He didn’t.”

  The shock of Pierce’s sudden, violent death has impaired my wits; I don’t understand why Tristan is denying that Pierce is guilty, why he’s behaving so oddly.

  “Of course he did.” Olivia sounds like a little girl whose brother is spoiling her treat. “That’s why Father tried to shoot him. That’s why he ran away.”

  Tristan shakes his head. “I’m not going to lie anymore.”

  Enlightenment strikes me with the force of a punch in the chest. Tristan is confessing that he himself killed Robin. That’s why he sounded so certain Pierce was innocent.

  “Oh, God.” Hugh’s voice is hoarse with the pain of betrayal and heartbreak. “It was you after all.”

  Now I also understand why Tristan took Lottie’s place as Pierce’s hostage. He’d sinned by committing murder, and he wanted to atone. When Pierce was about to shoot him, he didn’t resist because he would have rather died a martyr than lived with his guilt.

  “Tristan, no!” Olivia recoils from him as if he’d slapped her.

  “I can’t go on protecting you.” Tristan regards her with tender pity. “Not after this.” He gestures at Pierce’s corpse.

  “But you promised. It was your idea to tell Father and the police that we were playing billiards together when Robin was kidnapped. You said nobody would ever know.”

  My ideas about Robin’s murder undergo another shocking alteration. Tristan lied to protect Olivia, not himself.

  Mick stares, incredulous, at Olivia. “You killed Robin.”

  Hugh exhales in relief. I’m stunned because although I never trusted Olivia, my suspicions had focused on the other suspects. Olivia had become lost in the shuffle of evidence and conjectures.

  Olivia faces Hugh, Mick, and me. “I didn’t mean to kill him.” She seems more defiant than repentant. “It was an accident.”

  “You sneaked into the nursery, kidnapped Robin from his crib, carried him to the pond, weighted him down with rocks, and drowned him,” I say. “How can you call that an accident?”

  Tristan rises to the defense of the little sister he’s always protected. “That’s not how it happened. She didn’t go to the nursery to kidnap Robin.”

  “I wanted to see why Daddy and Alexandra kept him hidden,” Olivia says.

  “She was just curious,” Tristan says.

  “I thought there must be something wrong with Robin. And there was.” Olivia’s lip curls with revulsion. “He was little and puny and crooked.”

  I envision her bending over the baby in the crib and her surprise when she discovered the secret that Robin’s parents had tried to conceal.

  “When I said, ‘Hello, Robin, it’s your big sister, Olivia—remember me?’ he made grunting sounds, like a pig. And this was the child that Daddy made such a fuss over.” Jealousy embitters Olivia’s tone. “The one he loved more than me.”

  Mick, Hugh, and I are silent, fascinated to hear the story.

  “Then Robin started having spasms. He was stiff and shaking all over, and his face was twisted. I didn’t do anything to him. I didn’t even touch him! He started bawling. I was afraid Alexandra would hear, and she would catch me in the nursery and tell Daddy, and he would be angry. So I picked up a pillow and held it over Robin’s face.”

  “She was only trying to muffle the noise.” Tristan’s look at Hugh, Mick, and me begs us to believe it.

  “When I took the pillow off his face, he was dead.” Olivia shrugs. “I must have pressed too hard.”

  “She suffocated him by mistake,” Tristan says.

  I don’t think it was entirely a mistake, and I can tell that Tristan doesn’t either. “So you dumped Robin’s body in the pond, and you put the ladder outside the nursery to make it look as if he’d been kidnapped.” Now that my shock has abated, I’m furious at Olivia. “You let Sir Gerald and Lady Alexandra suffer and hope he would be returned. And Raphael DeQuincey is in jail because of you.”

  My hands clench; I want to strike her on my own behalf as well as theirs. The fire, losing Barrett, and the damage to my friendship with Hugh all trace back to Olivia’s selfishness.

  “Not because of her,” Tristan says. “After Olivia killed Robin, she came to me. She was frantic; she didn’t know what else to do. She told me what had happened.” He addresses his words to Hugh, as if his opinion is the one that matters most. “I disposed of Robin’s body and faked the kidnapping.” He bows his head in remorse. “I didn’t want Olivia to be punished.”

  “Christ,” Hugh whispers. He seems both horrified by Tristan’s deceit and awed by the lengths to which Tristan went for the sake of brotherly loyalty.

  The night I watched him at the pond, Tristan must have been praying for Robin’s soul and God’s forgiveness. But his excuses and his remorse don’t cut any ice with me. “You were going to let Olivia get away with Robin’s murder and Raphael DeQuincey hang for it!”

  Tristan faces me, somber and apologetic. “I know that what I did was wrong. My conscience has been torturing me ever since. I’m going to tell the police the truth now.”

  As he starts up the path, Olivia runs to him and cries, “Don’t do this to me! I don’t want to go to jail—I don’t want to be hanged! Why not just let Mr. Pierce take the blame for Robin’s murder? It can’t hurt him—he’s dead. And everybody thinks he’s guilty.”

  The look Tristan gives her contains reproach as well as sorrow. “I covered up Robin’s murder for you. I can’t cover up anything else.”

  Olivia flinches. “There’s nothing else to cover up.” Her tone is artificially blithe.

  I’m flabbergasted to realize, yet again, that there’s more to the story than I thought. This case is like a montage of photographs; new ones keep appearing, and I’ve yet to see the last.

  “You poisoned Tabitha,” Tristan says.

  It’s not the idea that astonishes me; I’ve always thought that the person who killed Robin also poisoned Tabitha, and in another moment, I would have inferred that it was Olivia. It’s the certainty in Tristan’s voice. How could he know?

  Olivia utters a tinkling, nervous laugh. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I saw you climb out of her window just before the police found her dead.”

  The falsely innocent smile drop
s off Olivia’s face.

  “You put the strychnine in the cup of cocoa and brought it to her. She thought you were being nice to her.” Tristan speaks in the grieved tone of a man who’s solved a puzzle he wishes he hadn’t. “You watched her drink the cocoa and take ill. She must have begged you for help, but you let her die. You wrote the note and locked the door so that everyone would think she’d committed suicide.”

  Olivia’s huge, luminous eyes glint with fear. “I didn’t do it just for myself. I did it for you. Someone had to take the blame for Robin’s murder. Daddy suspected both of us. As long as the murder wasn’t solved, he would never believe we were innocent. It had to be Tabitha. She’s not family. She didn’t matter.”

  Mick exclaims in disgust. “Did you set the fires too? Did you think it was all right to kill Miss Sarah and Lord Hugh because they don’t matter either?”

  “I only wanted to scare them so they would stop poking around and go away.” Olivia delivers this confession as though the fires were trivial and his accusation merely irritating. She says to Tristan, “Please don’t tell Daddy about Robin. He’ll be so angry.”

  “Olivia, you’ve killed three people. We can’t go on like this.” Tristan’s manner is gentle but firm. “It has to stop tonight.”

  I remember the conversation we had after the fire. Tristan wasn’t threatening me; he was trying to warn me about Olivia. I think he understands that murder has become a habit with her, and if he helps her escape the consequences this time, someday she’ll find it worth her while to kill again.

  Olivia scowls, walks around Pierce’s body, and kicks the dead leaves like a pouting child. “It will stop. Just don’t tell.”

  Tristan holds out his hand to Olivia. “Come with me. I’ll talk to the police. I’ll make them understand that you’re young, you didn’t know what you were doing, and they should be lenient. I’ll explain to Father that you didn’t mean to kill Robin.”

  “No!” Olivia falls to her hands and knees. Obstinacy tightens her mouth. I think she’s about to throw a tantrum.

  “If I don’t tell, they will.” Tristan nods at Hugh, Mick, and me.