Page 22 of All of Us Murderers

Thirteen

Zeb returned to the house cold, sodden-footed, and dreading the near future. For all that, he felt better. He’d seen the expression in Gideon’s light eyes, the hope, the warmth. It was nice to have put something good there again.

Beslippered—he might as well be comfortable if he was going to have unpleasant confrontations—he went downstairs and walked right into Hawley.

“Oh,” he said.

“Morning.” Hawley looked heavy-eyed. Zeb had no idea who he was staying up drinking with; possibly just himself. “Still here? I thought you were going.”

“Wynn won’t let me take the motor. There’s a bad mist and we’re confined here till it lifts. I would go otherwise, I absolutely will, but it’s not in my power—”

“All right, all right. I don’t care.” Hawley sloped away in the direction of the breakfast room.

Zeb followed. “Yes, but I am trying to leave—”

“Good God, Zeb, shut up. I don’t know how anyone chatters so much.”

He sounded hungover but not particularly malevolent. Could Dash have gone about things tactfully? “Look, did you talk to Dash last night?” Zeb blurted.

“Dash? Christ, no. Why would I do that?”

“He was looking for you,” Zeb said numbly.

“Well, don’t tell him where to find me. I can’t be expected to tolerate that bore before coffee.”

He lurched off. Zeb stared after him.

They hadn’t talked. Dash hadn’t accused him of being the ghost. He wasn’t going to reveal Zeb’s personal life, so Gideon’s job was safe. Reprieve bloomed through Zeb like the sun as he realised that all the fretting and fear had been pointless.

Well, not entirely pointless. It had led to that kiss. And if he hadn’t been able to make amends in action, at least he’d shown he wanted to, and perhaps, with that in mind, Gideon might be more open to just a little bit of hope…

He cut that dream off as self-indulgence and tried to think through the revised situation. His urgent need was to find Dash and ensure he knew that Zeb’s suspicions had been wrong. And then he could keep his head down and last out the next couple of days, and everything would be absolutely fine.

Dash didn’t seem to be around. Zeb skittered around the house, checking the various shared rooms, but had had no luck tracking the man down by luncheon.

There was no Elise, as usual, and no Dash either.

Bram forked food into his mouth in grim silence.

Hawley ate in a perfunctory sort of way and made flattering remarks to Jessamine.

Gideon was stony-faced, braced for trouble.

Zeb smiled sunnily at him and asked Wynn, “Is Dash about? I wanted a word with him.”

“Ah, no, the poor fellow,” Wynn said composedly. “Unfortunately, he is suffering an attack of malaria. He contracted it in Africa and it returns periodically.”

“Really,” Hawley said without interest. “He looked revoltingly healthy last night.”

“I believe it comes on very quickly.”

“Ought he not have a doctor?” Zeb asked.

“How would we obtain one? I am not on the telephone, and I cannot send a man across the moor in the mist. He has a supply of quinine with him, and I understand that he will simply endure the period of fever, which will last several days. Yes, indeed, he will need to endure. He must be left strictly alone except for the man who will attend him. No visits—not even a mission of mercy from you, my dear.” He smiled at Jessamine.

That would be why Dash hadn’t spoken to Hawley, and blasted lucky timing it was too. Not that Zeb wanted him to suffer an attack of malaria, but if he had to, it might as well be useful. He flicked a reassuring glance at Gideon and thought his face had relaxed a fraction.

The meal went well enough, considering last night’s catastrophe. It was too much to hope that everyone was embarrassed about their behaviour; more likely, they were all gathering their strength for another round. Still, it was an oasis of comparative peace for Zeb’s nerves, and he took it as such.

He worked in his room that afternoon, sitting by the mist-shrouded windows beyond which the air writhed like spectres.

He would have liked to seek Gideon out, but knew he should not.

The physical pull between them was as strong as ever, and they’d slid back into intimacy with an ease for which Zeb was heart-shakingly grateful, but Gideon had made himself clear: he did not want to be mooning over a man hundreds of miles away when he was stuck here for a year.

Well, nor did Zeb. Where they differed was that Gideon seemed to think it was avoidable. Zeb would be mooning, like it or not.

And it wouldn’t be for a year either, because Wynn’s doctor had given him no more than a handful of months to live, a fact Zeb had temporarily forgotten and of which Gideon seemed to be unaware.

Hell’s teeth. Gideon was depending on this job, and he didn’t know his employer was dying.

Wynn had told Zeb about his health in confidence.

Zeb had no right to break that, but presumably his cousin had taken Gideon on to put his affairs in order, so he would doubtless reveal the truth soon.

And then, if Wynn’s doctor was right, Gideon would return to London in summer.

They would be geographically close once more and perhaps, maybe, then…

Then, but not now. Now Zeb was going to respect Gideon’s wishes and avoid doing anything that would destroy anyone’s life or livelihood, and if that meant sitting in his room with his mouth firmly shut until the mist lifted, that was what he’d do.

In that spirit, he got quite a lot of work done.

He was feeling rather pleased with his newfound maturity until it was time to dress for dinner, and he realised his dinner clothes were crumpled in the suitcase, he hadn’t retrieved his shirt studs from wherever they’d flown, and his shirt was stained with spunk.

***

Dinner passed as well as could be expected.

Bram rolled his eyes at Zeb’s daytime clothes, Wynn graciously accepted his apology for the informality, and Jessamine assured him she would have his laundry done.

Elise was furiously silent. She’d probably wanted to leave too, and was demonstrating her displeasure by ignoring everything everyone said.

Hawley held forth about the bohemian art world, telling stories that Zeb suspected were intended to be provocative.

Bram stayed grimly silent, though his jaw twitched a few times as though he was clamping it shut.

By the time they’d reached the second course—a chicken casserole that seemed to be flavoured with marmalade—Zeb felt impelled to open his mouth, if only so Hawley would shut his. “Is there any sign of the weather lifting?” he asked. “I tried going outside this morning but it was awfully wet.”

“I fear not,” Wynn said. “We may expect another few days of this. Lackaday House has always been lonely, but it is when the mist descends that we truly feel our isolation. The outside world is a thousand miles or a thousand years away, and those in this house are transported. Out of time. Yes: you are all quite out of time.”

He sounded almost dreamlike. Zeb said, “Uh, right, yes. Er, how is Dash?”

“I fear the dear fellow is suffering greatly.”

“Poor Colonel Dash,” Jessamine said. “But that is the nature of the affliction, isn’t it? One carries one’s past, always, and at any time, it can return to strike you down.”

They finished the meal in silence.

Wynn retired to the drawing room, inviting them all to join him.

Zeb didn’t think he could bear another evening in there.

He had the fidgety feeling he got when he couldn’t get out of places, which meant he’d be twitching his feet and fiddling with things all evening, which meant Bram would shout at him, and he didn’t want to be the person who set off the next familial explosion.

“Join me for a smoke, dear boy,” Hawley suggested.

At least it meant being outside and upright. They went on to the front steps, where Zeb shuddered against the cold. “I don’t know what’s worse, the mist or those gaspers.”

Hawley puffed reeking smoke, reducing the quality of the air around them even further. “The gaspers aren’t preventing you or Elise from going home. I am annoyed. I really did hope to see the back of the lot of you: you, your dullard brother, and that witch.”

“It’s entirely mutual, believe me. I’d love to show the lot of you a clean pair of heels.”

“You’ve never had clean shoes in your life,” Hawley pointed out. “I trust you intend to depart when you can, and will restrain your natural charm around Jessamine until that happy day. Tell me, Zebby, what happened with Elise last night?”

“In what sense?”

“You know very well. What she said she saw.”

“She said she saw a ghost,” Zeb said. “And before you say anything sarcastic, you claimed you saw writing on the wall.”

“I did see it.”

“Then I expect she saw a ghost.”

Hawley exhaled a long stream of smoke in lieu of reply. Zeb was weighing up the relative merits of freezing to death out here or sitting inside with everyone else when his cousin spoke again. “Do you believe in the Wyckham curse?”

“If you ask me, the Wyckhams are the curse.”

“I’m serious,” Hawley said. “There are some odd things happening in this house. That writing. That damned ghost of Wynn’s.”

“It’s not his ghost. It’s from The Monastery.”

“Wynn has evidence that Walter based The Monastery on what he saw here. He showed me letters from two of Walter’s wives, letters from his father.

People have seen it—the ghost—for years.

And this cursed place—” Hawley turned abruptly.

“For God’s sake, can you not feel it? Can you not feel something wrong? ”

“Oh, don’t you start.” If there was one thing, one single thing Zeb had thought he could rely on in Hawley, it was boundless cynicism, but apparently the man couldn’t even be trusted for that. “Everyone’s on edge, that’s all, and hardly surprising.”