‘Anna?’ he asks in a hushed voice.
‘Yes, Anna, she was being chased.’
‘By whom?’
‘Some figure in black, we must involve the police!’
‘Shortly, shortly, let’s go up to your room first,’ he soothes, ushering me towards the staircase.
I don’t know if it’s the heat of the house, or the relief of finding a friendly face, but I’m beginning to feel faint, and I have to use the banister to keep from stumbling as we climb the steps.
A grandfather clock greets us at the top, its mechanism rusting, seconds turned to dust on its pendulum. It’s later than I thought, almost 10:30 a.m.
Passages either side of us lead off into opposite wings of the house, although the one into the east wing is blocked by a velvet curtain that’s been hastily nailed to the ceiling, a small sign pinned to the material proclaiming the area ‘under decoration’.
Impatient to unburden myself of the morning’s trauma, I try again to raise the issue of Anna, but my Samaritan silences me with a conspiratorial shake of the head.
‘These damnable servants will smear your words up and down the house in half a minute,’ he says, his voice low enough to scoop off the floor. ‘Best we talk in private.’
He’s away from me in two strides, but I can barely walk in a straight line, let alone keep pace.
‘My dear man, you look dreadful,’ he says, noticing that I’ve fallen behind.
Supporting my arm, he guides me along the passage, his hand at my back, fingers pressed against my spine. Though it’s a simple gesture, I can feel his urgency as he leads me along a gloomy corridor with bedrooms either side, maids dusting inside. The walls must have been recently repainted for the fumes are making my eyes water, further evidence of a hurried restoration gathering as we progress along the passage. Mismatched stain is splashed across the floorboards, rugs laid down to try and muffle creaking joints. Wingback chairs have been arranged to hide the cracks in the walls, while paintings and porcelain vases attempt to lure the eye from crumbling cornices. Given the extent of the decay, such concealment seems a futile gesture. They’ve carpeted a ruin.
‘Ah, this is your bedroom, isn’t it?’ says my companion, opening a door near the end of the corridor.
Cold air slaps me in the face, reviving me a little, but he walks ahead to close the raised window it’s pouring through. Following behind, I enter a pleasant room with a four-poster bed sitting in the middle of the floor, its regal bearing only slightly let down by the sagging canopy and threadbare curtains, their embroidered birds flying apart at the seams. A folding screen has been pulled across the left side of the room, an iron bathtub visible through the gaps between the panels. Other than that, furniture’s sparse – just a nightstand and a large wardrobe near the window, both of them splintered and faded. About the only personal item I can see is a King James Bible on the nightstand, its cover worn through and pages dog-eared.
As my Samaritan wrestles with the stiff window, I come to stand beside him, the view momentarily driving all else from my mind. Dense forest surrounds us, its green canopy unbroken by either a village or a road. Without that compass, without a murderer’s kindness, I’d never have found this place, and yet I cannot shake the feeling that I’ve been lured into a trap. After all, why kill Anna and spare myself, if there wasn’t some grander plan behind it? What does this devil want from me that he couldn’t take in the forest?
Slamming the window shut, my companion gestures to an armchair next to a subdued fire, and, passing me a crisp white towel from the cupboard, he sits down on the edge of the bed, tossing one leg across the other.
‘Start at the beginning, old love,’ he says.
‘There isn’t time,’ I say, gripping the arm of the chair. ‘I’ll answer all your questions in due course, but we must first call for the police and search those woods! There’s a madman loose.’
His eyes flicker across me, as though the truth of the matter is to be found in the folds of my soiled clothing.
‘I’m afraid we can’t call anybody, there’s no line up here,’ he says, rubbing his neck. ‘But we can search the woods and send a servant to the village should we find anything. How long will it take you to change? You’ll need to show us where it happened.’
‘Well...’ – I’m wringing the towel in my hands – ‘It’s difficult, I was disorientated.’
‘Descriptions then,’ he says, hitching up a trouser leg, exposing the grey sock at his ankle. ‘What did the murderer look like?’
‘I never saw his face, he was wearing a heavy black coat.’
‘And this Anna?’
‘She was also wearing black,’ I say, heat rising into my cheeks as I realise this is the extent of my information. ‘I...well, I only know her name.’
‘Forgive me, Sebastian, I assumed she was a friend of yours.’
‘No...’ I stammer. ‘I mean, perhaps. I can’t be certain.’
Hands dangling between his knees, my Samaritan leans forward with a confused smile. ‘I’m missing something, I think. How can you know her name, but not be certain—’
‘My memory is lost, dammit,’ I interrupt, the confession thudding on the floor between us. ‘I can’t remember my own name, let alone those of my friends.’
Scepticism billows up behind his eyes. I can’t blame him; even to my ears, this all sounds absurd.
‘My memory has no bearing on what I witnessed,’ I insist, clutching at the tatters of my credibility. ‘I saw a woman being chased, she screamed and was silenced by a gunshot. We have to search those woods!’
‘I see,’ he pauses, brushing some lint from a trouser leg. His next words are offerings, carefully chosen and even more carefully placed before me.
‘Is there a chance the two people you saw were lovers? Playing a game in the woods, perhaps? The sound might have been a branch cracking, even a starter’s pistol.’