Page 33 of All of Us Murderers

Eighteen

Jessamine was removed in hysterics. Wynn indicated that he was in a state of shock and tottered away on Gideon’s arm. Hawley stood by the body for several moments without speaking, then went out for a smoke. Bram announced, “See that she is decently disposed,” and walked away.

That left Zeb to supervise the footman and chauffeur carrying Elise’s body with its horribly lolling neck into an anteroom in the east wing.

He saw her properly disposed and covered by a blanket, then he went to his room, washed his hands till they felt raw, although he had not touched her, and sat alone on the floor, knees to his chest, running the rosary through his fingers.

Eventually, there was a knock, and Gideon came in with a plate of sandwiches.

“Oh,” Zeb said, suddenly realising he was very hungry. “Oh, that’s a good idea.”

“I made these; the kitchen is deserted. Are you all right?”

“Not really.”

Gideon folded himself down onto the floor, next to him, and put an arm over his shoulders. Zeb leaned in to him. They both munched sandwiches, more through necessity than enthusiasm, and Zeb slumped back as soon as his immediate hunger was assuaged.

Gideon pushed the plate away once they were both done. “Have you converted?”

“Converted what?”

“Yourself. I mean, have you become a Catholic?”

“No?” Zeb said, bewildered. “I don’t go to church.

” He wasn’t an atheist as such, but divine service had been a torture instrument throughout his childhood: be ordered to sit still and silent for an hour, fail, be punished, regular as clockwork.

A benevolent deity would surely have kinder worshippers.

“I didn’t think so, but—” Gideon pointed at the floor.

Zeb looked down and saw the rosary where he’d dropped it.

“Oh! Oh, yes, no. I lost my beads. That string I used to carry? So I thought I’d get a rosary instead.

People think it’s odd if a man plays with a necklace, but if the beads are divided into groups of ten and there’s a cross on it, that’s perfectly reasonable.

I say reasonable: I’ve had three people on omnibuses call me a Papist.”

“May I?” Gideon waited for his nod and picked the string up.

It was a nice rosary, with smooth, dark brown oval beads on a chain, and a thick, chunky metal cross.

He ran it through his fingers, thumbed the edges of the cross, twisted the string into a cat’s cradle in imitation of Zeb’s frequent practice, then handed it back.

“That’s quite satisfying. I’m sorry you lost your other beads. ”

Zeb shrugged. It didn’t do to get too attached to portable things. “I suspect my supervisor at my last job threw them away. I left them on my desk and they were gone when I got back. He hated it when I played with them.”

Gideon’s breath hissed out. “Did you explain to him why you have them?”

“No point. Once people have decided you’re not listening to them, they don’t listen to you. It’s always Stop fidgeting and pay attention, as if that wasn’t what fidgeting is for. Gideon, what’s going to happen? With Elise?”

“I can tell you what should happen. The police should be summoned, urgently. Wynn insists that he can’t send someone out to travel for hours on a cold misty night, and perhaps that’s reasonable, but he certainly ought to do it in the morning.”

“You said before that we need the police,” Zeb said. “But she fell down the stairs. If she tripped and fell, it’s an accident. I would like you to tell me she tripped and fell, please.”

“I’m sorry.” Gideon grimaced. “I saw movement at the top of the stairs. It was an impression only, not enough to identify or even guess at a person. But I saw someone moving away; I am absolutely certain of it.”

Zeb hunched in on himself. “Hawley and Bram were both up there. Close by.”

“I know. And those are steep stone stairs, and… If she was pushed, it’s murder, Zeb. I don’t know if anyone would be able to prove it, but morally at least, it’s murder.”

Murder. Zeb tried to make his mind fit around the word.

Could he imagine his brother walking up behind Elise, for whose love he had betrayed Zeb, and putting out his hands and pushing?

Could he picture Hawley doing that to a woman for whom he had once felt passion?

All for the sake of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

Yes, of course he could.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit. This might be my fault. If she only wanted to talk to Wynn about leaving, and they thought she was planning to spill the beans—”

“She probably was planning that. Do you really think she would let one or the other of them win?”

“Maybe not. But I think she wanted to come with me.” Zeb felt horribly small and sad and lonely. He’d barely known Elise. She hadn’t been a very nice person. They’d shared a single proper conversation and one real smile, and now he felt nothing short of bereaved. “I wish—I wish—”

“I’m so sorry.” Gideon tightened his arm. “God almighty, what that damned fellow has done. Can one be prosecuted for inspiring people to murder one another?”

“Wynn can’t have meant this. Surely it’s gone too far now. He must see it’s gone too far. That is, if he suspects—”

“Of course he suspects. He asked me repeatedly how I thought it could have happened, and talked about the family difficulties and how she had wanted to speak to him tomorrow. He didn’t say, ‘Which of Hawley or Bram did it?’ but he might as well have.

Sorry,” Gideon added swiftly. “He’s your brother. I’m sorry.”

“Did you tell him what you saw?”

“I did not, but it was obvious they were both near the top of the stairs. And I didn’t get the impression he was panicking. If anything, he was enjoying himself.”

“Christ.” Zeb took that in. “You think he wanted this to happen?”

“Or doesn’t care that it did. I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on in his head, except that I very much doubt it’s remorse, because he is still stirring the pot.”

“This is insane. He is insane. We can’t just sit here and let him do this!”

“I quite agree. The question is what we can do about it.”

Zeb had no immediate answer to that. Gideon hugged his knees to his chest. “You’ve repeatedly confronted him to no effect. He’s got the footmen and the chauffeur on his side, and they’re all thugs. We’ve no allies in this house. So—”

“But Elise is dead! He can’t just pretend it never happened, not with a houseful of people. What’s he going to do, kill us all and hide the bodies? That was a rhetorical question,” he added quickly.

“Was it?” Gideon said. “What is the damned man’s intention here? Because he seemed determined to wind up all your nerves to snapping point, and now someone has snapped, and I don’t know what the devil he’ll do next!”

His voice had risen. Zeb said, “Are you all right?”

“No! We’re trapped in here! The walls are twelve feet high, Wynn has suborned the staff, Mrs. Bram has been murdered, and we can’t get out! What the devil are we going to do?”

Zeb somehow hadn’t expected that. He’d come to know Gideon as the calm, rational supervisor who always seemed to see a solution or a sensible path.

He’d looked on in awe in the nine months they’d had together, wishing he could be like that, knowing he couldn’t.

Gideon was self-controlled, remembered what needed remembering, made and kept plans, organised his life.

Gideon didn’t make mistakes and lose his head.

Except he did, and Zeb would do well to remember that. Gideon could be unable to cope, just like everyone else, and now he was on the verge of panic in a situation wildly outside his experience.

Well, Zeb had plenty of experience of panic, and uncontrolled situations, and Wyckhams. He might as well use it.

“Gideon.” He squirmed round and grabbed his face.

“Gideon. Lover. Listen. Tomorrow Wynn will surely have to summon a doctor, if only for the look of it. So when his messenger leaves, or returns, or the doctor leaves, we are leaving with them. Simple as that. We’ll ask for a lift, but if we have to walk out with just the clothes on our backs, we will do that.

We’ll wait by the blasted gate all day if we have to.

And if he doesn’t call someone, we will find a ladder and scale the sodding wall, but either way we are leaving. All right?”

“Not really,” Gideon said through his teeth.

“That is, yes, absolutely, we will flee from here like thieves. Good idea. It merely entails abandoning my post and my possessions, which I can’t afford to replace, just when I had thought I was clawing my way out—sorry.

Sorry.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly.

“You’re absolutely right, of course. We concentrate on getting out, and I’ll worry about the future when we’ve dealt with the present. ”

“Well, don’t worry about money, at least,” Zeb said. “I can float you until you have a new job, and if you have to abandon your wardrobe, I’ll replace it. So forget about that entirely, and concentrate on getting us both out of here.”

Gideon looked at him for a moment. Then he said, “Zeb, I really cannot bear it if you’re going mad too. You just got sacked, if you recall? So while that is a very kind offer—”

“I have money, or I will. What day is it?”

“The first of December.”

“Then I have money. My publisher pays quarterly.”

“Your what?”

This was really not how Zeb had wanted to tell him this.

He’d thought of quietly dropping the news later, in London, over dinner, when he was sure of how it might be received.

“I’ve written a couple of books. The advance for the first two wasn’t very generous, but they’ve sold rather well.

Very well. Actually, between the advance on the new contract and my royalties on the current books, I’m due about three thousand this quarter. So you see—”

Gideon was waving his hands. “Wait, wait, wait. You wrote a book? When did you do that?”

“I’ve been doing it for a while. Mostly at work. It’s probably why people keep sacking me.”