Текст книги "The Bedlam Detective"

Автор книги: Stephen Gallagher

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

THE OFFER OF THE CAR HAD BEEN MADE WITHIN THE DRIVER’S earshot, and he remained sullen and silent at his wheel throughout the return journey. The vehicle had been swept clear of broken glass during the interview, but the window was still open to the elements.

Sebastian looked through the pages in the folder. They were the work of a careful typist, but not a trained one.

After the car had dropped him off on Arnmouth’s main street, Sebastian went into the first tearoom that he saw. Over lunch he studied the restaurant’s copy of the Daily Mail, scanning it for any details of Sir James’s address to the British Association.

There was no mention of the murders in the early edition. The rest of the news was much as usual—a new terrorist outrage in the Middle East, a ban on infected cattle movements in Wales. Army maneuvers continued in Cambridgeshire, mirroring those of the Kaiser’s forces in Switzerland. If the shadowplay were ever to turn into real conflict, those boy soldiers from yesterday would probably be sent to join it. Meanwhile, the Mail saw German spies behind everything. The newspaper’s estimate of their numbers regularly exceeded the total of German nationals in Britain.

Sebastian folded the paper and laid it down. Someone on another table asked for it, and he passed it over.

He looked out the window. Take away the shadow that hung over it, and this was a nice little town. Not exactly the kind of place that he and Elisabeth had dreamed of, but somewhere they might settle for. If they had the money. And didn’t have Robert’s needs to consider.

After checking the time by his pocket watch, he paid his bill and went outside. He walked up the street to the preventative officer’s house, where he showed his credentials and begged the use of the telephone.

DESPITE THE fact that they’d agreed a time for the call, it took almost half an hour for the staff to locate Sir James in his Dundee hotel. Without any preamble, Sir James said, “So what do you make of our mad Sir Owain?”

“It’s a rum setup,” Sebastian said. “He’s dismissed most of the staff and the estate’s going to ruin.”

“I could commit him for that alone.”

“Except that his doctor now claims to be managing his affairs as well as his treatment. They’ve given me the books to look over. But, Sir James, I have to tell you that there have been other developments.”

“Of what kind?”

“Two more bodies were found on Sir Owain’s land yesterday.”

“Bodies?”

“Definitely murdered this time, no question about it.”

Sebastian explained further, including mention of Sir Owain’s appearance at the temporary mortuary and his assertion that the victims had been “torn by beasts.”

“One is the child of a prominent barrister,” he concluded, “so I imagine we’ll get to hear more about it. Sir Owain showed no sign of any guilt, only concern. I made little headway with Grace Eccles, but I’m hoping to track down Evangeline Bancroft. In the meantime I’d like to confirm the credentials of Doctor Ernest Hubert Sibley.”

“Stay with it,” Sir James said. “It’s no easy matter to take a knight of the realm out of circulation. So let’s hold off calling his doctor a quack until we can back it up with proof.”

AS HE left the customs house and crossed the street, Sebastian was startled to hear his name being shouted from nowhere.

“Mister Becker!”

He looked all around. Then he looked up. Stephen Reed, the young detective, had opened a second-floor window above the photographer’s studio in order to call to him.

“Yes?”

“Have you a moment? Can you come up?”

The studio was at the top of the house, combining attic space and a large skylight. It was reached by a gloomy staircase through the photographer’s living quarters. His private rooms were screened off by a red velvet curtain with braid and tassels, like the dressing on a Punch and Judy booth. Sebastian ascended through the chemical odors of the photographer’s trade, musty and unnatural, and the boiled-cabbage fragrance of his midday meal, even less appetizing.

Stephen Reed was waiting at the top of the stairs.

Sebastian said, “Did you pass on my suspicions to your superiors?”

“I did,” Stephen Reed said, “and the rebuke was even sharper than I expected. My handling of the search has been roundly criticized and I’ve been demoted to evidence duties.”

“I’m sorry. I’d hoped you might get a better hearing.”

“I know. I blame no one. For what it’s worth, I still think that your theory should be investigated before it’s dismissed.”

“Strictly speaking, Mister Reed, it’s more hypothesis than theory. It’ll be a theory when I can offer some hard facts in support of it.”

The studio itself was a bright room with a square of heavy carpet on the floor. Potted plants and chairs stood before a canvas drop with a painted seascape on it. Just showing behind the backdrop was a rack of dressing-up clothes that included cloaks and Pierrot costumes.

“Mister William Phillips,” Stephen Reed said, by way of introduction to the resort’s resident photographer. Billy Phillips was a small man, in a baggy linen jacket with a wing-collared shirt and a bow tie.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything with this,” Billy Phillips said, indicating the object of his frustration with a wave of his hand. Under the skylight stood the photographer’s retouching table. On the table stood the camera from the murder scene. “It’s a Birtac,” he added, as if that explained it.

“What’s one of those?” Sebastian said.

“A moving-picture camera,” Stephen Reed said. “Of a kind that’s designed for amateur use, apparently.”

“It doesn’t expose to plates,” Phillips said. “And plates are all I do. I’m not sure what it uses. For moving pictures there’s almost as many film types as there are devices. All I know is, it’ll be on a long roll and I’ve no way of handling anything of that length. I could try to rig something up in the bathtub, but I can’t guarantee I won’t ruin it. I don’t even want to risk opening the case.”

Sebastian said, “Where does the camera’s owner send his films?”

“That’s almost certainly the father. I’m not allowed to speak to him.”

The photographer said, “There’s a footage counter. See? It’s been run about fifteen feet into the roll.”

“What does that mean?”

“That something has been captured onto the film.”

“But we can’t know what it is yet,” Stephen Reed said, and he looked at Sebastian. “Unless you’ve any other ideas, I’ll have to return it to the evidence store.”

They walked out together with the camera parceled up in brown paper, to disguise it from view. The coroner, a local solicitor, had set a date for an inquest, and members of the national press had been arriving on the morning trains. A journalist and a photographer from the Daily Mirror had made the journey in a two-seater roadster. Hungry for story, they’d need little encouragement to speculation.

As soon as they were alone, Stephen Reed said, “I didn’t only stop you about the camera. I checked, and there’s a police file on Evangeline and Grace.”

“Can you get hold of it?”

“I already have. I called Records last night and it came over this morning. I tell you, I had no idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were not simply lost on the moors for a few hours, as we children were told. They suffered an ordeal, and had no memory of it.”

“Memory or no memory, Grace Eccles is a damaged and defensive young woman.”

“I knew Evangeline better.”

“Well enough to approach her on such a subject?”

“We’re not children now. I’d hope to engage her in a professional manner.”

Sebastian said, “Then I’d better set my office to tracking her down.”

“There’s no need for that,” Stephen Reed said. “We can ask at the library.”

“They have London directories there?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Stephen Reed said. “But Evangeline’s mother is the librarian.”

SEBASTIAN WAITED OUTSIDE. IT SEEMED WISER. ALTHOUGH Lydia Bancroft hadn’t shown him any actual hostility, he’d given her good reason to be cool toward him. How was he to have known that the subject of his insensitive inquiry—as she must have seen it—was actually the librarian’s own grown-up daughter?

He stood at the bottom of the street, looking out across the harbor. There wasn’t much to the harbor itself; a sea wall, some fishermen’s huts, a low tidal jetty with its pilings hung with weed. The sea was a way out, the sound of its rollers like a distant train. Where the river estuary spilled across the sand, the masts of beached sailboats pointed this way and that.

After only a few minutes, he heard the faint sound of a latch and the opening of a door. He turned and looked back up the street, expecting to see Stephen Reed emerging from the library. Instead he saw a young woman in a short-waisted coat and a full traveling skirt. Her hair was up, with a hat pinned in place. She looked back as she emerged; Stephen Reed was right behind her, a small traveling bag in his hand, drawing the library door closed after them. As he stepped out to join the young woman, Stephen Reed gestured down the street, in Sebastian’s direction. She looked his way and seemed suddenly confused. As they moved toward Sebastian, Stephen Reed was explaining something.

Sebastian did not need an introduction to tell him the young woman’s name. With her hair pinned up, the resemblance to her mother was unmistakable.

Sebastian straightened up and made an effort to look pleasant.

“Mister Becker,” Stephen Reed said. “This is Evangeline Bancroft.”

Sebastian briefly took her hand and felt almost as much at a loss as the young woman looked.

“Evangeline heard the news and came up on the morning train,” Stephen Reed explained.

“Heard it how?” Sebastian said. “I thought it hadn’t reached the papers yet.”

“The murder of a barrister’s child,” the young woman said. “It’s all over the Inns of Court.”

“You work in the Inns of Court? Are you in the legal profession, Miss Bancroft?”

“I carry out clerical work for lawyers,” she said, and looked from one man to the other. “Forgive me. There seems to be something I don’t understand here. Are you also a policeman, Mister Becker?”

“A servant of the Crown,” Sebastian said, “with an interest in this case. I’d intended to seek you out in London, but instead I find you here. You came because you see a parallel with your own history. Am I right?”

“It’s a shocking crime, Mister Becker,” she protested.

“I know,” he said. “And I know your own experience had a happier outcome. But there may be something we can learn from whatever you may remember.”

Evangeline looked unsettled and uncertain. Then she looked back toward the library, as if half inclined to retreat to it.

“A happier outcome,” she said, and there was no color at all in her tone.

Stephen Reed spoke then.

“Please, Evangeline,” he said. “Trust us.”

“Walk me to my mother’s house,” she said.

THEY FOLLOWED the shore road away from the harbor, overlooking the dunes and the empty beach beyond them. In the dunes stood posts where cork life preservers hung on weathered boards. The cork in the rings was old and splitting, but appeared to have been freshly painted for the season.

Stephen Reed continued to carry Evangeline’s weekend bag. Sebastian held back and let him do the talking.

“Evangeline,” Stephen Reed began, “forgive me. But for a moment I have to be a professional man and not your childhood friend. This may cause you some personal distress. But strictly in that professional capacity, I’ve had sight of the case notes from the time that you and Grace Eccles went missing. They tell a different story from the one in the newspapers. I wish I could spare your blushes, but there it is.”

“I’m not blushing,” she said, though she was. And so, for that matter, was he.

“This is very awkward,” he said. “If you want me to stop, I will.”

“No,” Evangeline said, betraying that she was aware of Sebastian without quite looking at him. He felt that his presence was that of part intruder, part chaperone. “Forget my embarrassment,” she said. “This is important.”

“We need to know what you remember of that night.”

The road made a steep and sandy turn and they began to climb away from the beach, toward a part of town where modest houses competed for hillside space.

Evangeline said, “That’s very easy to answer. I remember nothing.”

Stephen Reed said, “The doctor’s notes are in the file. Please be assured, I didn’t look at the medical details. But when he asked the two of you to explain what happened, he wrote that he saw a look pass between you. Evangeline, if there’s something you know that you have never spoken of, I urge you to tell it to us now.”

“With all honesty,” she said, “I have no memory of anything that took place. Or even of the exchange of looks that he describes. I can’t imagine what it may have meant. If it happened at all. Stephen, I’m concealing nothing from you. I’ve written to Grace several times over the years. She wrote back to me only once, to tell me that she’d taken over her father’s business and to ask if I’d send her notices for London horse traders’ sales. I imagine that in the usual run of things, we’d be strangers by now. I’ve done my best to keep our association alive, even though we’ve only the past in common.”

“Then why persist?”

“Because I think Grace remembers more than I do. I’m sure of it. I’ve been hoping that one day I can persuade her to share what she knows.”

“Mister Becker’s been out to speak to her,” Stephen Reed said.

“I had to dodge a rock for my trouble,” Sebastian said.

Though she’d been serious to the point of a frown until this point, this news transformed the young woman’s expression. Her face lit up, and she let out a laugh that she quickly tried to cover with an apology.

“Grace is a tricky one,” Evangeline said. “She always has been.”

“Perhaps you can talk to her,” Stephen Reed said.

“I will.” She stopped and took the weekend bag from his hand.

“I’ll walk on from here,” she said. “I’d like some time to think.”

AS THE two men walked away, Sebastian said, “The medical details?”

“Both girls were violated.”

Sebastian looked back, but Evangeline was already gone from sight. “Does she know that?”

“I imagine it won’t have escaped her, Mister Becker, memory or no memory. How does such an act fit in with your picture of Sir Owain’s madness?”

On the walk up from the beach, they’d passed a board fence that had been set up to hold back the gorse and sand from the road. Its timbers had all but disappeared behind a pasted mass of notices and handbills for pier-end shows, political meetings, temperance rallies, Fry’s chocolate, traveling circuses, and the Judgment of the Lord. They were passing it again now. The freshest, cleanest addition among the posted bills was the notice of the forthcoming inquest, placed within the last hour or two. The paste was still wet.

Sebastian said, “I don’t have an answer for you. But let me take the machine.”

“What machine?”

“The camera, if it won’t be missed for a few hours. I think I may know where to track down someone with the expertise we need.”

THE NAMES OF THE HOUSES ALWAYS CHARMED HER. THEY hadn’t when she’d lived here, but they charmed her whenever she returned. Prospect Place. St Cuthbert’s. Puffin. St Elmo’s. Evangeline was a city dweller now, a grown woman, and these names were her childhood. She wished that she could revisit them with simple pleasure. But between her childhood and the present stood a short passageway of lost time, where there was only uncertainty and pain. Something within her, some natural custodian whose name she did not know, had elected to close the door on that darkness.

As a result, she remembered nothing of her lowest hour. It was an act of consideration that she had not consciously authorized and did not appreciate. In speaking of the doctor, Stephen Reed had avoided mention of any results of the doctor’s examination. Perhaps the doctor had been discreet in his notes. For that, at least, she could be grateful.

As she climbed the last few yards, the sun broke out for a moment. She remembered the summers here. They were endless. And summer society was always strictly divided according to class, position, and propriety. A widow and a widow’s child had never quite fitted in. Which had brought freedom, of a kind. Her friendship with Grace Eccles would have been impossible otherwise.

Here was her mother’s house. Right up at the back of town with steps up to the front door, a view mostly of rooftops, and a side garden that was just about big enough to put a shed on. The brickwork was neat and the paintwork was green. Lydia paid a man to keep it spruced, every other year. The front door was a heavy showpiece with two panels of etched glass like a funeral parlor or a public house, and was rarely used. Evangeline let herself through the side gate and entered through the kitchen door, which, as ever, was unlocked.

Lydia Bancroft’s supper place was laid on the table, ready for her return. Supper for one. The house was silent, and Evangeline felt like an intruder.

But when she took her weekend bag up to her old room, she was surprised to find the bed already made up, and with fresh-smelling linen. She’d given her mother no warning of this visit, so Evangeline could only conclude that this was how she always kept it.

She laid out her nightdress on the bed, but otherwise she didn’t unpack. She went downstairs and out to the garden shed, which was no more secure than the house; its door didn’t even have a lock, but a small toggle of wood that turned on the frame to hold it.

From out of the shed, she wheeled her bicycle.

She hadn’t ridden it in two years, but her mother made occasional use of it, so its condition was good. The tires were soft but the chain ran freely, and a drop of oil and a minute’s work with the air pump had it ready for the road. She never rode in London, but back when she’d lived here she’d cycled everywhere. Evangeline was even adept at cycling in a skirt. Being neither rich nor eccentric, she owned none of the “rational cycling wear” that tended to draw ridicule onto women in public places.

When she set off down the hill, she wobbled a little at first; but within a minute she had the hang of it again and was soon sailing along.

If her mother had been surprised to have her turn up unannounced, imagine how Grace would feel.

ON HEARING where Sebastian wanted to go, Sir Owain’s driver said, “But that’s thirty miles from here!”

“Twenty-five,” Sebastian said. “I just measured it on the map.”

“I have other duties than this,” the driver protested, but Sebastian was firm.

“As I recall it, the offer of the car was for anywhere I may wish to go.”

The driver conceded, but did nothing to disguise his displeasure. He went to get behind the wheel, and this time Sebastian had to open the passenger door for himself.

Once inside, Sebastian set the camera down on the seat beside him. The car had been fully cleaned up now, and the broken window given a running repair with a sheet of thick parchment. It was opaque, but it let in some light while keeping the wind out.

These were country lanes, but a good part of the route would be along the Bristol road. When they’d left Arnmouth behind, he slid open the window that divided the passenger cab from the driver’s position.

Leaning forward and raising his voice almost to a shout to be heard, he said, “I fear we got off on the wrong foot, you and I.”

“Did we, now,” the driver replied without emotion. In his cap and goggles, facing forward in a scarf wound tight against the oncoming weather, he had the advantage over Sebastian, whose face was up against the little window with his eyes already beginning to stream in the rush of air.

Sebastian said, “I believe the fault is mine. It’s easy to mistake loyalty for obstinacy. How long have you worked for Sir Owain?”

The driver took a while to respond. And then all that he said was, “Long enough.”

“He said those girls were torn by beasts. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the driver said. “I didn’t see them. I stayed outside with the car.” He glanced at Sebastian. “I take it they were bad.”

“Torn by beasts or not. Someone meant to spoil them.”

They passed over the bridge across the railway line. The estuary was behind them now. Beyond the station stood a hill dense with trees.

Sebastian said, “What’s your name, driver?”

“Thomas Arnot, sir.”

“Forgive me for the way I spoke to you before.”

This belated touch of civility, along with mention of the suffering of the victims, seemed to temper the driver’s attitude.

The man said, “If you want to talk about beasts, go to the post office and ask them to show you the book.”

“The what?”

“The book where all the holiday people write down their stories of what they see on the moor.”

“Are you joshing me?”

“No, sir, I am not. And I’m not claiming there’s any truth in any of it, neither. I’ve never seen any such thing myself. But there’s been many a sighting over the years. For all I know, there could be something in it. Some animal escaped from somewhere, going back to the wild. Strange things brought home from faraway places. It’s not always peacocks and monkeys.”

Sebastian was inclined to dismiss it. He’d seen the results of animal attacks. But before he could say so, the driver suddenly said, “Is that why we’re going to the fairground? To see if anything’s escaped from their menagerie?”

And his manner was so changed, now that he saw himself included in the thinking behind the plan, that Sebastian chose not to contradict him.

“Something like that,” he said.

Then he closed the dividing window and sank back into the leather seat, steadying his mind for the drive ahead.

EVANGELINE WAS passing the upturned boats by the estuary. Out in the sand and the mud, a solitary rotted wooden post stood firm, worn down to a stump of two or three feet. A tangle of old ropes and knots festooned it like a merman’s necklace. Even farther out, rising from the water, was a dune topped with a memorial cross. A chapel had stood there once, she’d been told, until floods and the shifting river had cut it off from the town.

There was another mile to go. She’d have to keep an eye on the time, or risk returning across the moor as night fell.

In the days following their misadventure, the newspapers had reported that she and Grace had been found safe and well the next morning, none the worse for their outdoor ordeal. But many details had been suppressed in the retelling. All that Evangeline knew was that she and Grace had actually been found terrified and shivering, with most of the clothes ripped from them. And this was knowledge that she’d gleaned from the questions she’d been asked; she had no direct memory of it herself. Her closest memory was of lying in her bed while adults talked downstairs.

It was a rough ride down the last of the track, and for the final hundred yards Evangeline had to dismount and walk the bicycle. There ahead of her was the old familiar cottage, with the paddocks and the great wide bay beyond. It had been dilapidated then, and it was dilapidated now. Any more dilapidated, and it would be derelict.

“Grace?” she called from the gateway, but there was no reply.

She left her bicycle leaning against one of the outbuildings. The front wall of the wooden stable was a rusty maze of bolts and hinges and iron catches. She walked around it and found Grace in the paddock behind the house, tending to one of her horses.

She hadn’t heard Evangeline coming. Evangeline called out, “Are you well, Grace Eccles?” and Grace quickly looked toward her.

There was a moment in which Evangeline was uncertain of the reception she’d get. But it was quickly over.

“Better than some,” Grace replied, turning to face Evangeline as she crossed the paddock. Grace looked as dark and as wild as ever. “What are you doing here?”

“Just a brief visit to see some old faces.”

“And rattle some old bones?”

Instead of replying, Evangeline looked at the animal in the halter that Grace was holding. She’d been stroking its head and speaking soothing things into its ear. There was something odd in the way he held his head to listen, but Evangeline couldn’t have said why.

“What’s wrong with him?” she said.

“He kicked up and threw his owner. So his owner pulled his head around and had an eye out with his thumb. Who could do that to an animal?”

“That’s appalling. Though I could imagine wanting to do it to some people.”

Grace removed the halter. The horse didn’t move until she gave him a push, and then he trotted off.

Evangeline said, “I don’t know how you can keep a farm going on your own.”

Grace shrugged, as if there were no choice involved. She said, “I can’t sew and I can’t sing. And they don’t welcome riffraff like me in the kind of places you go.”

It was said without resentment. They started to walk back toward the house.

Grace’s father had bred horses. Grace herself did not. It was 1912, and the market for working animals was beginning to disappear. Tractors and buses and trucks were replacing more of them every year. With no capital to speak of, Grace scraped her living by taking in distressed city horses, nursing them back to health, and selling them on.

Evangeline looked out toward the estuary. The half-blinded horse had joined four others grazing down there, right up against the fence. With the sun going down, this felt like the sweetest, most isolated spot on Earth.

She said, “Does anyone ever come out here?”

“An earful usually sends them away. They don’t expect it from a woman.”

Grace had never been at a loss for a riposte. Evangeline could remember their school and the teacher who’d once said, when Grace had been scowling about something, “Now, Grace, what’s that face for?” And Grace had replied, “It keeps all the meat from falling off my head, Miss.” The entire class had laughed, and Grace had been sent to stand alone out in the yard for all of a cold March morning. Evangeline was the only one who could see her through the window, and the teacher would ask her every few minutes for a report.

“Just standing there, Miss,” she would say.

And indeed, Grace had just stood there; unbeaten, unbowed, until finally she was recalled. Whereupon she returned to her desk without any sign of self-pity or contrition.

They walked back up to the buildings. After she’d hung the animal’s halter up on a peg outside the stables, Grace said, “Come inside. We can have a glass of water.”

So then they moved from the stables toward the house.

Grace went on, “I know the real reason why you came back.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do. Can’t you let it go? You’d do better to.”

“You’re sounding like my mother.”

“Your mother’s ashamed for you. Doesn’t want people to think you’ve been tainted. She thinks you should feel the same way.”

“Do you?”

“I used to.”

“Don’t you think about it?”

“I’ve been through worse since,” Grace Eccles said, and they went inside.

Evangeline understood what Grace surely meant. Grace had nursed her father through his final months, right here in this house. They couldn’t afford doctors, and there was little that a doctor could have done; it was the drink that had killed him, and his final weeks had been a harrowing time of jaundice and delirium.

The house was mean, but Grace kept it neat. Fresh rushes on the floor, meadow flowers in a small cracked vase on the sideboard. Evangeline was surprised to notice some books, but she didn’t comment. She couldn’t recall seeing a book in the Eccles house while Grace’s father had lived.

Grace had water in a jug, kept cold on a stone. Alongside it were two fine glasses, polished.

Grace poured out two careful measures and handed a glass to Evangeline.

“Taste that,” she said. “It’s so clean.”

Politely, Evangeline drank; Grace sipped at hers, and closed her eyes to appreciate it. She kept them closed for a while, long enough for Evangeline to drink again and wonder if she was missing something.

Then Grace said, “Did anyone tell you they’re trying to get me off the land?”

“I thought Sir Owain made you a promise.”

“It’s not him. It’s that doctor who lives in his house. Tells him when to eat, tells him when to sleep, tells him when to fart and make water.”

“Grace!” Evangeline pretended to be shocked, and Grace to shrug it off. She’d always liked to play the outrageous child. Because her father was said to have been a settled gypsy they’d called Grace a diddikai, and she’d turned the insult into a badge of pride.

From her father she’d inherited his touch with horses and this cottage, and the dispute that came along with it. He hadn’t owned the land, but he’d laid out hard cash for a lease that still had thirty years to run. He’d counted the money out before witnesses and made his illiterate’s mark on a deed. When he’d died, there had been some immediate question as to whether it should revert to the estate or pass on to his heir.

Grace said, “Sir Owain was always as mad as a coot, but now he’s getting worse. A man came out from London. Went over to the Hall asking questions, trying to get him locked up. It’s supposed to be a big secret but everyone knows about it. Old Arthur told me.” She smiled with some satisfaction. “The London man came to the house. I sent him off, too.”

“What did he want with you?”

“Didn’t give him a chance to say.” They pulled out chairs to sit at the cottage’s plain board table. It was heaped with brasses and bridles and a mass of other tack that Grace was attempting to clean up or repair. She had to clear a space for them to put the glassware down.

She went on, “That doctor friend of his keeps saying that my piece of paper means nothing now Father’s gone. Says the estate has to be run properly or Sir Owain will lose it. He wants me paying rent or he wants me out. Well, he can want. There’s worse than him to watch out for.”

“Like who?”

“If anything ever happens to me, I daresay you’ll know where to look to find out.”

Evangeline looked at her. Lost, unhappy Grace. With her wind-scrubbed skin and her dirty fingernails. Evangeline felt a lurching reminder of the sisterly love she’d once had for her. Motherless Grace and fatherless Evangeline. At one time it had been as if they could read each other’s thoughts. But now Evangeline looked and found the book closed, its pages blank, its text encrypted and hidden from her view.