The footman claws at me, nails raking across my cheeks as he scrabbles desperately for my throat. The weight of my body pins his right hand, my shoulder crushing his face, blinding him. He’s writhing, grunting, trying to shake me off.
‘I can’t hold him!’ I scream at Anna.
His hand finds my ear, and he wrenches at it, my eyes filled with blinding white pain. I jerk away, banging into the sideboard, knocking the shotgun to the floor.
The footman’s hand breaks free from underneath me. He pushes me off him, and as I hit the floorboards, I see Anna reaching for the shotgun, the freshly severed rope still trailing from her wrist. Our eyes meet, fury gathered on her face.
The footman’s hands wrap themselves around my neck and tighten. I strike at his broken nose, causing him to howl in pain, but he doesn’t let go. He squeezes harder, choking.
The shotgun explodes, and so does the footman, his headless body collapsing beside me, blood pouring from his neck and spreading across the floor.
I stare at the shotgun trembling in Anna’s hands. If it hadn’t fallen when it did... if the knife hadn’t reached her, or she’d been a few seconds later freeing herself...
I shiver, horrified at the margins between life and death.
Anna’s talking to me, worrying about me, but I’m so exhausted I only hear half of what’s she saying, and the last thing I feel before the darkness takes me is her hand in mine, and the soft touch of her lips as they kiss my forehead.
58
Day Eight (continued)
Fighting through the thick fog of sleep, I announce myself with a cough, startling Anna who’s standing on her tiptoes, her body pressed against mine as she tries to cut me loose with a kitchen knife. I’m back in Gold, strung up from the ceiling by my wrists.
‘I’ll have you down in a tick,’ says Anna.
She must have come straight from the room next door, because her apron is covered in the footman’s blood. Brow furrowed, she saws at the rope, her haste making her clumsy. Swearing, she slows down, but after a few minutes my bonds are slack enough for me to wriggle my hands free.
I drop like a stone, hitting the floor with a thud.
‘Easy,’ says Anna, kneeling beside me. ‘You’ve been tied up all day, there’s no strength left in you.’
‘What...’ A hacking cough overtakes me, but there’s no water in the jug to ease it. The Plague Doctor wasted it all trying to keep me awake earlier. My shirt’s still wet from where he splashed me.
I wait for the coughing to ease, then try speaking again.
‘What time...’ I force out, feeling as though I’m pushing stones up through my throat.
‘It’s 9:45,’ says Anna.
If you’ve killed the footman, he can’t kill Rashton or Derby. They’re alive. They can help.
‘Don’t need them,’ I rasp.
‘Need who?’ says Anna.
I shake my head, gesturing for her to help me up. ‘We have to...’
Another painful cough, another look of sympathy from Anna.
‘Sit a second for pity’s sake,’ she says, handing me a folded piece of paper that’s fallen from my breast pocket.
If she looked inside she’d see the phrase ‘all of them’ written in Gold’s dreadful handwriting. Those words are the key to everything that’s happening, and they’ve been following me around since Cunningham delivered the message to Derby three days ago.
Tucking the note back into my pocket, I gesture for Anna to help me stand.
Somewhere in the darkness, the Plague Doctor is making his way towards the lake, where he’ll be expecting Anna to give him an answer she doesn’t yet have. After eight days of asking questions, we now have a little over an hour to make our case.
With my arm around Anna’s shoulders and hers around my waist, we stumble through the door drunkenly, almost falling down the stairs. I’m very weak, but the greater problem lies in how numb my limbs are. I feel like a wooden puppet on the end of twisted strings.
We depart the gatehouse without a backwards glance, smacking straight into the cold night air. The quickest route to the lake would take us past the wishing well, but there’s too great a chance of bumping into Daniel and Donald Davies by going that way. I have no desire to upset whatever delicate balance we’ve arrived at by blundering into an event that’s already been settled in my favour.
We’ll have to go the long way around.
Prickly with sweat, leaden-footed and gasping, I stagger up the driveway towards Blackheath. My chorus comes with me, Dance, Derby and Rashton out ahead, Bell, Collins and Ravencourt struggling behind. I know they’re figments of my fracturing mind, but I can see them as clearly as reflections, their individual gaits, their eagerness and disdain for the task before us.
Veering off the driveway, we follow the cobbled road to the stables.
It’s quiet there now the party’s in full swing, a few stable hands warming themselves around the braziers, waiting for the last of the carriages to arrive. They look done in, but uncertain of who’s in Daniel’s employ, I tug Anna away from the light and towards the paddock, following the small trail leading up to the lake. A dying flame flickers at the end of the path, its warm glow breaking through the gaps in the trees. Creeping closer, I see that it’s Daniel’s fallen lantern, burning its last breaths in the dirt.
Squinting into the darkness, I spot its owner in the lake, holding Donald Davies face down beneath the water, the younger man thrashing his legs as he tries to escape.
Scooping a rock off the ground, Anna takes a step towards them, but I catch her arm.
‘Tell him... 7:12 a.m.,’ I croak, hoping the intensity of my gaze can carry a message my throat is unfit to elaborate on.