The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” I say, my voice conciliatory. “If somebody’s trying to sabotage this deal with Ravencourt, I must put a stop to it, both as your friend and your legal counsel.”

  He sags.

  “Of course you must,” he says, looking at me over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, old friend. It’s just…all this talk of murder… Well, it’s stirring some old memories… You understand. Naturally, if you think Evelyn’s in danger, I’ll do everything I can to help, but you’re mistaken if you believe Helena would ever harm Evelyn. The relationship is strained, but they do love each other. I’m certain of it.”

  I allow myself a small sigh of relief. Battling Dance has been exhausting, but finally I’m on the verge of some answers.

  “Your daughter contacted somebody called Felicity Maddox, claiming she was worried by Helena’s behavior,” I continue, obliging my host’s need to place the facts in their proper order. “She’s not on the guest list, but I believe Felicity came to the house to help, and there’s a possibility she’s now being held as collateral should Evelyn fail to go through with the suicide. Michael told me she was a childhood friend of your daughter’s, but couldn’t recall anything more about her. Do you remember this girl? Have you seen her around the house, perhaps? I have reason to believe she was at liberty this morning.”

  Hardcastle looks bewildered.

  “I’ve never even heard of her, though I must confess Evelyn and I haven’t spoken much since her return,” he says. “The circumstances of her arrival, the marriage… They’ve put a barrier between us. It’s peculiar Michael wasn’t able to tell you more, though. They’ve been inseparable since she came back, and I know he visited often and wrote frequently while Evelyn was in Paris. I would expect him to know this Felicity, if anybody does.”

  “I’ll talk to him again, but the letter was correct, was it not? Helena has been acting oddly?”

  The record catches on the gramophone, the soaring violin solo yanked back to earth over and over again, like a kite in a child’s overeager hands.

  Peter glances at it, frowning, hoping his dissatisfaction alone will right it. Defeated, he moves to the gramophone, lifting the needle, blowing dust from the record, and holding it up to the light.

  “It’s scratched,” he says with a shake of the head.

  He replaces the record, new music taking flight.

  “Tell me about Helena,” I nudge. “It was her idea to announce the engagement on the anniversary of Thomas’s death and throw the party in Blackheath, wasn’t it?”

  “She’s never forgiven Evelyn for abandoning Thomas that morning,” he says, watching the record spin. “I confess I thought the years might dull her pain, but”—he spreads his arms—“all this, it’s so…” He breathes deeply, composing himself. “Helena means to embarrass Evelyn, I admit. She calls the marriage a punishment, but it’s a rather fine match, if you look at the details. Ravencourt won’t lay a finger on Evelyn, told me as much himself. ‘I’m too old for all that’ is what he said. She’ll have the run of his homes, nice allowance, any life she chooses, so long as it doesn’t embarrass him. In return, he’ll get… Well, you know the rumors about his valets. Good-looking chaps coming and going at all hours. Scandalmongering is all it is, but the marriage will put a stop to it.” He pauses, his stare defiant. “You see, Dance? Why would Helena arrange all of this if she meant to kill Evelyn? She wouldn’t, she couldn’t. Beneath it all, she loves Evelyn. Not well, I admit, but well enough. She needs to feel as if Evelyn has been thoroughly punished, and then she’ll start making it up to her. You’ll see. Helena will come around, and Evelyn will realize this marriage is a blessing in disguise. Believe me, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “I still need to speak with your wife, Peter.”

  “My organizer’s in the drawer; it has her appointments in it.” He laughs grimly. “Our marriage is one of overlapping duties these days, but it should tell you where to find her.”

  I rush to the drawer, unable to contain my excitement.

  Somebody in the house, possibly Helena herself, tore these appointments from her day planner to conceal her activities. Whoever did it either forgot, or didn’t know, that her husband kept his own copy, and now they’re in my hands. Here and now, we might finally discover what was worth all the trouble.

  The drawer is stiff, swollen with damp. It comes open grudgingly, revealing a moleskin book held fast with string.

  Flipping through the pages, I quickly find Helena’s appointments, my ebullience draining out of me immediately. Most of them I already know about. Helena met with Cunningham at 7:30 a.m., though there’s no indication why. After that, she arranged to see Evelyn at 8:15 a.m. and Millicent Derby at 9:00 a.m., both of which she missed. She has a meeting with the stable master at 11:30 a.m., which is in an hour’s time, and then she’s expected in Ravencourt’s parlor at 1:30 p.m.

  She won’t attend.

  After that, the planner’s blank.

  My finger roams the schedule, searching for something suspicious. Evelyn and Ravencourt I know about, and Millicent was an old friend, so that’s understandable, but what could be so urgent she’d need to see her husband’s bastard son first thing in the morning? He refused to tell me when I asked, but he’s the only person who’s seen Helena Hardcastle today, which means I can no longer tolerate his evasions. I must have the truth from him.

  Before that, I’ll need to visit the stables. For the first time, I know where the elusive lady of the house is going to be, and I’m going to be waiting for her when she arrives.

  “Do you know why Helena met Charles Cunningham this morning?” I ask Peter, as I replace the organizer in the drawer.

  “Likely Helena wanted to say hello,” he says, pouring himself another drink. “She was always close to the boy.”

  “Is Charles Cunningham the reason Stanwin’s blackmailing you?” I ask. “Does Stanwin know he’s your son?”

  “Come now, Dance!” he says, glaring at me.

  I meet his gaze, my host’s too. Dance is slipping apologies onto my tongue, urging me to flee the room. It’s a bloody nuisance. Every time I open my mouth to speak, I have to force aside another man’s embarrassment first.

  “You know me, Peter, so you know what it takes for me to ask such a thing,” I say. “I must have all the pieces of this nasty business to hand.”

  He considers this, returning to the window with his drink. Not that there’s much to see. The trees have grown so close to the house the branches are pressed right up against the glass. Judging by Peter’s demeanor, he’d invite them inside right now, if he could.

  “Charles Cunningham’s parentage isn’t why I’m being blackmailed,” he says. “That nugget of scandal was on every society page at one time, Helena made sure of it. There’s no money in it.”

  “Then what is it Stanwin knows?”

  “I need your word it won’t go any further,” he says.

  “Of course,” I say, my pulse quickening.

  “Well.” He takes a fortifying sip of his drink. “Before Thomas was murdered, Helena was having an affair with Charlie Carver.”

  “The man who murdered Thomas?” I exclaim.

  “They call this sort of thing cuckolding, don’t they?” he says, standing stiff at the window. “In my case it’s an unusually perfect metaphor. He took my son from me and left his own child in my nest instead.”

  “His own child?”

  “Cunningham isn’t my illegitimate child, Dance. He’s my wife’s. Charlie Carver was his father.”

  “That blackguard!” I exclaim, temporarily losing control of Dance, whose outrage mirrors my shock. “How on earth did this happen?”

  “Carver and Helena loved each other,” he says ruefully. “Our marriage was never… I had the name; Helena’s family had the money. It was convenient—necessary, one might say—but there was no
affection. Carver and Helena grew up together; his father was the gamekeeper on her family’s estate. She kept their relationship from me, but brought Carver to Blackheath when we married. I’m sorry to say my indiscretions got back to her, our marriage faltered, and a year or so later, she fell into Carver’s bed, becoming pregnant soon after.”

  “But you didn’t raise Cunningham as your own?”

  “No, she led me to believe it was mine during the pregnancy but couldn’t be certain herself who the real father was, as I’d continued to… Well, a man’s needs are… You understand?”

  “I believe I do,” I say coldly, remembering the love and respect that governed Dance’s marriage for so long.

  “Anyway, I was out hunting when Cunningham was born, so she had the midwife smuggle him out of the house to be nursed in the village. When I returned, I was told the child died during the delivery, but six months later, when she was certain he didn’t look too much like Carver, the baby turned up on our doorstep, carried by some wench I’d had the misfortune to spend time with in London, who was happy enough to take my wife’s money and pretend it was mine. Helena played the victim, insisting we take the boy in, and to my shame, I agreed. We handed the child to the cook, Mrs. Drudge, who raised him as her own. Believe it or not, we actually managed to find several peaceful years after that. Evelyn, Thomas, and Michael were born in short order, and for a while we were a happy family.”

  All through the story I’ve watched his face for some emotion, but it’s been a bland recital of the facts. Once again, I’m struck by the callowness of this man. An hour ago, I’d assumed Thomas’s death had reduced his feelings to ash, but now, I wonder if that soil wasn’t always infertile. Nothing grows in this man but greed.

  “How did you discover the truth?” I ask.

  “Sheer chance,” he says, laying his hands against the wall either side of the window. “I went for a walk and stumbled upon Carver and Helena arguing over the boy’s future. She admitted everything.”

  “So why not divorce her?” I ask.

  “And have everybody know my shame?” he says, aghast. “Bastard children are common currency these days, but imagine the tattle if people discovered Lord Peter Hardcastle had been cuckolded by a common gardener. No, Dance, that won’t do.”

  “What happened after you found out?”

  “I let Carver go, gave him a day to get off the estate.”

  “Was that the same day he killed Thomas?”

  “Exactly so. Our confrontation sent him into a rage, and he…he…”

  His eyes are blurry, red with drink. He’s been emptying and refilling that glass all morning.

  “Stanwin came to Helena a few months later with his hand out. You see, Dance, I’m not being blackmailed directly. It’s Helena, and my reputation with her. I simply pay for it.”

  “And what of Michael, Evelyn, and Cunningham?” I ask. “Do they know any of this?”

  “Not to my knowledge. A secret’s hard enough to keep without putting it in the mouths of children.”

  “So how did Stanwin come by it?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that question for nineteen years, and I’m no closer to an answer. Perhaps he was friends with Carver, servants talk, after all. Otherwise, I’m at a loss. All I know is that should word get out, I’ll be finished. Ravencourt’s sensitive to scandal, and he won’t marry into a family on the front pages.”

  His voice lowers, drunk and mean, his finger pointed directly at me.

  “Keep Evelyn alive and I’ll give you anything you ask, you hear me? I won’t let that bitch cost me my fortune, Dance. I won’t allow it.”

  36

  Peter Hardcastle has fallen into a drunken sulk, gripping his glass as though worried somebody will take it from him. Judging his usefulness at an end, I grab an apple from the fruit bowl and slip out of the room on the end of a hollow apology, closing the sitting room’s door that I might ascend the stairs without his noticing. I need to speak with Gold, and I’d rather not wade through a cloud of questions to do so.

  A draft greets me at the top of the staircase, twisting and curling in the air, sneaking through the cracked windows and beneath the doors to stir the leaves littering the floor. I’m reminded of walking these corridors as Sebastian Bell, searching for the butler with Evelyn at my side. It’s odd to think of them here, odder still to remember that Bell and I are the same man. His cowardice makes me cringe, but there’s enough distance between us now that it sits apart from me. He feels like an embarrassing story I once overheard at a party. Somebody else’s shame.

  Dance despises men such as Bell, but I can’t be so judgmental. I have no idea who I am beyond Blackheath, or how I think when I’m not wedged inside somebody else’s mind. For all I know, I’m exactly like Bell…and would that truly be so bad? I envy him his compassion, as I envy Ravencourt’s intelligence, and Dance’s ability to see through the shroud to the heart of things. If I carry any of these qualities out of Blackheath, I’ll be proud to have them.

  Making certain I’m alone in the corridor, I enter the room where Gregory Gold is hanging from the ceiling by his bound wrists. He’s murmuring, jerking in pain, trying to outrun some untiring nightmare. Compassion compels me to cut him down, but Anna wouldn’t have left him strung up like this without a very good reason.

  Even so, I still need to speak with him, so I shake him gently, then more firmly.

  Nothing.

  I slap his face, then splash him with water from the nearby jug, but he doesn’t stir. This is horrendous. Doctor Dickie’s sedative is unyielding, and no matter how hard Gold writhes, he can’t free himself of it. My stomach turns, a chill settling on my bones. Until now, the horrors in my future had always been vague, insubstantial things, dark shapes lurking in a fog. But this is me, my fate. Reaching up on my tiptoes, I pull his sleeves down to reveal the slashes on his arms he showed me last night.

  “Don’t get out of the carriage,” I murmur, recalling his warning.

  “Step away from him,” Anna says from behind me. “And turn around nice and slow. I won’t ask twice.”

  I do as she bids.

  She is standing in the doorway with a shotgun pointed at me. Blond hair spills from her cap, her expression fierce. Her aim is steady, her finger pressing against the trigger. One wrong move and I have no doubt she’d kill me to protect Gold. No matter the odds arrayed against me, knowing somebody cares this deeply is enough to make even Dance’s cold heart swell.

  “It’s me, Anna,” I say. “It’s Aiden.”

  “Aiden?”

  The shotgun lowers a little as she steps close, her face breathing distance from my own as she inspects my newly acquired crags and lines.

  “The book mentioned you’d get old,” she says, holding the gun in one hand. “Didn’t mention you’d end up with a face like a headstone, though.”

  She nods at Gold.

  “Admiring the slashes, are you?” she says. “Doctor reckons he did that to himself. Poor man cut his own arms to ribbons.”

  “Why?” I ask horrified, trying to imagine any circumstance in which I’d turn a knife on myself.

  “You’d know better than me,” she sniffs. “Let’s talk where it’s warm.”

  I follow her into the room across the corridor, where the butler’s sleeping peacefully beneath white cotton sheets. Light is pouring through a high window, and a small fire is crackling in the grate. Dried blood mars the pillow, but otherwise it’s a serene scene, affectionate and intimate.

  “Has he woken up yet?” I say, nodding to the butler.

  “Briefly, in the carriage. We haven’t long arrived. Poor sod could barely breathe. What about Dance? What’s he like?” asks Anna, hiding the shotgun under the bed.

  “Humorless, hates his son, otherwise he’s fine. Anything’s better than Jonathan Derby,” I say, pouring myself a glass of water from t
he jug on the table.

  “I met him this morning,” she says, distantly. “Can’t imagine it’s pleasant being trapped in that head.”

  “It wasn’t.” I toss her the apple I took from the sitting room. “You told Derby you were hungry, so I brought you this. I wasn’t sure if you’d had a chance to eat yet.”

  “I haven’t,” she says, looking pleased as she polishes it on her apron. “Ta!”

  My stomach is rumbling, but Dance doesn’t eat his first meal of the day until later in the afternoon, believing food dulls the mind. Even if I had brought an apple for myself, I wouldn’t be able to eat it. Dance would sooner see me starve than disrupt his routine.

  I walk over to the window, clearing a spot of grime away with my sleeve. It looks out over the road, where I’m surprised to see the Plague Doctor pointing at the gatehouse. Daniel’s standing beside him, the two of them conferring.

  The scene unsettles me. Thus far, my interlocutor has taken great care to keep a barrier between us. This closeness I see now feels like collaboration, as though I’ve bowed to Blackheath in some way, accepting Evelyn’s death and the Plague Doctor’s assertion that only one of us can leave. Nothing could be further from the truth. Knowing I can change this day has given me the belief to keep fighting…so, what on earth are they talking about down there?

  “What can you see?” says Anna.

  “The Plague Doctor talking with Daniel,” I say.

  “I haven’t met him yet,” she says, taking a bite out of her apple. “And what the bloody hell is a Plague Doctor?”

  I blink at her. “Meeting you in the wrong order’s becoming problematic.”

  “At least there’s only one of me,” she says. “Tell me about this doctor of yours.”

  I quickly fill her in on my history with the Plague Doctor, starting with our meeting in the study when I was Sebastian Bell and recounting how he stopped my car when I tried to escape and, more recently, upbraided me for chasing Madeline Aubert in the forest as Jonathan Derby. It already seems a lifetime ago.