Page 4 of All of Us Murderers

Three

Zeb got up early the next morning and set out to escape the house without so much as stopping for a cup of tea. He needed to get out and walk. Fresh air and movement would give him a chance to think.

The rest of the evening had not gone well.

Wynn had decreed that they would not discuss his proposal further, and so everyone had made the sort of excruciating small talk you might expect when two brothers hated one another, and a cousin had notoriously had an affair with one brother’s wife, and the other brother had been exposed as a feckless wastrel, and Hawley existed, and a stranger was avidly watching the whole thing, and so was Gideon.

At least the conversation hadn’t included the barely grown woman who was to be auctioned off with the house. Presumably that would be a pleasure for the evening to come.

He let himself out of the front door without seeing anyone.

He wasn’t accustomed to the houses of the wealthy, not having been wealthy in a decade, but Lackaday House seemed rather lacking in the servant department.

Maybe nobody wanted to work in a faux-Gothic mansion miles from anywhere.

A big, echoing, empty faux-Gothic mansion, which last night had been so quiet that every creak of a board had sounded like a footstep, a cry, a sob.

He’d had a horrible night’s sleep in the peace and quiet of the countryside, and he wanted to go home to London, where it was never peaceful or quiet, rather than stay in a house with more or less every single person in the entire world he didn’t want to be in a house with.

At least he was alone for now. The grounds were extensive but odd: not kept in the way one would expect, with formal gardens or elegant planting.

There were trees and bushes aplenty around the house, but he couldn’t see any evidence of flower beds to liven it up come spring, or of anything to relieve the impression of forested medieval gloom.

It made for an aesthetic whole that suited the house’s Gothic atmosphere, which was wonderful if you liked that sort of thing. If it was Zeb’s, he’d plant flowers.

He walked on, not troubling to note where he was going.

It scarcely mattered, thanks to the huge wall that he knew surrounded the grounds.

If he walked directly away from the house for a mile in any direction, he’d bump into the wall, and conversely, it couldn’t be too hard to find his way back to the centre.

Not that he much wanted to go back for more sneers about how he was a worthless layabout.

He would have liked to throw those words in his brother’s teeth and was exasperated that he couldn’t.

His wandering had taken him along a tree-lined path. It opened onto a much more moor-like area: a plain of orange, grey, and green grasses. In the distance stood Stonehenge.

That demanded investigation, so he set off towards it.

The stone circle loomed impressively as he approached, standing alone on its plain, at least if you had your back to the house.

Zeb could almost believe that he was alone in a solitary wilderness with an ancient monument, rather than looking at an absurd folly in an enclosed garden with his family nearby.

It was quite good as follies went, he had to admit.

The circle was tidily complete, rather than half-fallen as with the real thing, but the stones looked suitably weathered and lichen-covered, and the central altar-stone was just the right size and height for a nubile young lady in a white nightdress to be subjected to dark deeds with a sickle.

A scene of exactly that sort had been the dramatic climax of Walter Wyckham’s The Stone Circle, a Gothic melodrama about a cult of murderous druids.

Unless Zeb was thinking of Walter Wyckham’s The Monastery, a Gothic melodrama about a cult of murderous monks.

It was one of the two: his grandfather had been imaginatively drawn to hooded lunatics inflicting torture on young, beautiful, helpless people.

Walter Wyckham had been a highly popular novelist once, his perverse imagination striking a chord with a lot of readers, including Zeb in his misspent youth.

In retrospect, the books seemed very much a product of the author’s personal peculiarities and obsessions.

Zeb was glad for many reasons that the old buzzard had died two decades before his own birth, but one of those was that he would not have wanted to shake Walter’s hand: it would probably have been sticky.

The thought of sticky hands led him to remember a recent afternoon playing animal alphabet blocks with a friend’s children. He was trying to list creatures that began with PT, and stuck on ptarmigan, when someone said, “Zeb.”

The voice came from right behind him. Zeb let out a yelp of fright and whipped round, heart thudding, to see Gideon.

“What the blazes,” he said. “Where the devil did you spring from?”

“Just behind you,” Gideon said. “You were wandering along in a brown study, as always—” He cut that off hard.

Zeb held back a wince. It had been an ongoing protest of Gideon’s that Zeb was liable to amble carelessly under the wheels of an omnibus one day. That had, of course, been when Gideon would have preferred him not to fall under an omnibus.

Gideon’s jaw set. He went on, “I followed you. I thought we should speak.”

He did not look as though he was anticipating that the conversation would be enjoyable. Zeb felt his heart sink. He attempted to hold himself a little better, straightening his shoulders, casually leaning back against the altar stone. “Right, yes, we should. I—ugh!”

He snatched his hand up from where he’d rested it on top of the altar, right in a pool of cold and viscous liquid.

Well done, Zeb, suave as ever. He wiped his hand on his trousers without thinking, still less looking, and saw Gideon notice.

He didn’t react or comment, but Zeb felt disapproval anyway because Gideon took more care of his clothes, as he took more care of everything. “Sorry. All right. I’m here.”

“Aren’t you just. Listen. I took this job because I couldn’t find another. I’ve been out of work for nearly a year, with that damned business following me around.”

“A year? But you’re so good—”

“Not that good,” Gideon said shortly. “Not good enough to overcome dismissal on the spot for the grossest misconduct, and no reference from Cubitt’s, and the endless damned gossip.”

“Oh God.” Zeb had assumed Gideon had found something else easily, because work had always come easily to him. He’d thought he’d lost him a job, which was bad enough. To have lost him his career—“Oh God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“I’m not asking for your sympathy,” Gideon bit out.

“I’m telling you I was unemployed for a great deal longer than I could afford.

I would not have taken a post with a member of your family if I had had any option at all.

But I didn’t have an option, so I took it, and I will not lose another job because of you. Understand?”

“I don’t want you to. Why would I?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon said. “Why did you make me lose the last one?”

Zeb couldn’t find an answer, not with the fuzz of panic shortening his breath and jangling his nerves. Gideon’s face was tense. He’d have a muscle ticcing in his neck, Zeb knew: he’d kissed it and soothed it, before.

“I haven’t come to make trouble for you,” he insisted. It sounded pathetically weak. “How could I? I had no idea you were here.” Something dawned on him. “But you’re Wynn’s secretary. You must surely have known I was coming.”

“I’ve been anticipating this delightful reunion for several weeks, yes. I’ve heard all about your letters to Wynn. He seems thrilled to have you, and I’m sure you’re thrilled to be here—”

“Are you joking? Have you noticed who else is here?”

Gideon’s jaw hardened. “Given what’s on offer, I dare say you can put up with the company.”

“What’s on offer?” Zeb asked blankly.

“Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t care if you want to crawl for this inheritance.

Marry the girl, I don’t give a damn. I doubt either of you will enjoy your bargain, but it’s not my affair.

All I care about is that you don’t say or do something that will ruin my life a second time. Is that too much to ask?”

He sounded purely furious, and it took Zeb’s breath entirely away for a second. “Wait. I did not come here snouting for an inheritance. I didn’t even know this Jessamine girl existed till last night, and I don’t want to marry her, or anyone.”

“I’m sure you can force yourself to it, in the circumstances.”

“Well, I’m not going to,” Zeb snapped, on a sudden wave of anger that made his skin feel hot and tight.

“And I’ve no intention of speaking about you to Wynn or anyone else, or talking to you any more than I have to, so you needn’t worry.

We can just ignore each other until I leave. That will suit me very well.”

He turned on his heel and walked off, upset and hurt.

Who the devil did Gideon think he was, throwing around accusations?

Did he not know Zeb better than that? They’d been together for nine months!

And yes, Zeb had ruined everything, but he hadn’t done it because he was scheming or acquisitive: the very opposite.

Gideon might believe he was callous or careless or culpably stupid. He had no right to think him a villain who would marry a schoolgirl for money.

Or, Zeb thought as he trudged on and cooled down, maybe he did.

After all, he knew Zeb’s employment history and financial situation better than anyone but Zeb himself.

And here Zeb was, sacked again, every inch the feckless wastrel Bram called him, in line for a house and fortune if he could win Jessamine’s hand. No wonder Gideon was suspicious.