Page 45 of All of Us Murderers

She looked at Zeb, a little smile curving her lips, and he had no idea how he’d ever seen the innocent schoolgirl.

“Please,” he said. “Let us go. Whatever you’re doing, Wynn’s doing—I just want to leave. I don’t want the money.”

“Don’t you?” she said. “I do. Lock him in.”

“No!” Zeb yelped. He tried to rush forward, and the footman pushed him back, a sharp, hard shove not to his shoulder but to his face. The shock of it along with the force sent Zeb stumbling back.

“Nothing personal, Cousin Zeb,” Jessamine said, and shut the door. He heard the scrape of a key in the lock.

No.

He rattled the door handle, then tugged. It didn’t budge. He thought about kicking it in, but the doorjamb was on the wrong side, the door looked like oak, and he’d never kicked in a door in his life. Of all the useful skills not to have.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Let me out!”

Nobody answered. That wasn’t really a surprise.

Window. Zeb ran to it and stopped dead, because he noticed for the first time that it wasn’t a sash window. It was divided into twelve panes, all in one large frame. It didn’t bloody open.

He could break it. He could take the chair and put it through the window, smashing out the glass and woodwork until he’d made a hole he could escape through.

And Wynn’s vengeful staff would hear him do it, because they could hardly not, and they would come out after him, and if Gideon was taking the opportunity to escape that Zeb had thrown away for his stupid, greedy, murdering big brother, they’d catch him too.

Not the window, then.

Zeb was aware of his heart beating a little too fast, the odd clarity of crisis battling with the dragging sensation of oncoming exhaustion because the last days had just been too damned much, and he was fast running out of steam.

He exhaled hard and turned to the wall. This house was a Swiss cheese of secret passages on Rachel’s account: there would surely be one in the library.

And most of the walls were covered in bookcases, so—

He went to the painting of Walter Wyckham, hanging in the only free wall space, and examined the panelling around it. There was a row of carved bosses like the one Rachel had used; he pressed them in order and the third one clicked.

Nothing happened. He pushed the panel, working out where the concealed door must be, and felt a tiny bit of give, but it wouldn’t open, no matter how hard he pushed.

It must be latched on the other side, like the door in Elise’s room had been. It was latched, and there was no other spot in this damned room for another secret door, and now he was out of ideas, out of energy, out of time.

Despair swamped him, washing the strength from his legs. He sat on the nearest chair and put his face in his hands.

If he broke the window, he’d be caught, and Gideon with him.

But if he stayed here and waited for Wynn to come back with his twisted plans and angry men—well, it was Zeb they wanted.

Gideon could get away if he had the sense to run, if he wasn’t waiting for Zeb to come back.

If Zeb hadn’t ruined them both, this time for good.

“Please go, Gideon,” he said aloud, voice scratchy. “Please be going. Please, please, please have gone without me, please.”

There was a quiet scrape. The panelling swung open, revealing a dark space and a tall form in it.

“Not a chance,” Gideon said.

Zeb wasn’t sure what he responded. He wasn’t sure of anything except that somehow he was on his feet, in Gideon’s arms, holding on because Gideon was here, not escaping, and that was terribly right and even more terribly wrong.

Gideon gave him an ungentle shake. “Zeb! We have to hurry. Here, put this on.”

He scooped up a coat he’d dropped on the floor and thrust something into Zeb’s arms once he had it on. “Don’t lose this. Quick, now, and whatever you do, stay quiet.”

He gestured Zeb into the passage and shut the door behind them. It was instantly, horribly dark. Zeb stumbled and put his free hand out, right into a dusty, sticky mass that rustled against his skin. Cobweb. He tried to swallow his instinctive noise of horror, batting the filth from him.

“Zeb!” A hand grabbed his. “I have you. I’ll take you. Just follow me and stay quiet. Please.”

I can’t. I can’t.

You have to.

Zeb didn’t think he could speak, but he squeezed Gideon’s hand.

“Thank you,” Gideon said softly, and led them, feeling his way, Zeb gripping his fingers.

It smelled like spiders in here. It would be full of spiders and he couldn’t see and they could be landing on him in the dark and he wouldn’t know…

There are people out there who are going to kill you. We are not going to fuss about fucking spiders.

He couldn’t help fussing about fucking spiders. He put every scrap of willpower he had left into the acts of breathing, walking, and holding Gideon’s hand like a lifeline. I will not scream. If I scream they will catch us so I won’t, I won’t, I won’t…

Eternity passed, and then at last there was a click, and light, and they lurched out into the anteroom where Gideon had been imprisoned. Zeb released his hand with a gasp of relief, and brushed frantically at his shoulders.

“You did it,” Gideon breathed. “Only a few feet more and then we’re out.”

Zeb set his teeth. “Lead on.”

Gideon opened the other panel and they plunged into the passage.

It was just a few steps this time, then Gideon opened the door, and they were outside Lackaday House, in the fresh breathable air of a cold, grey-bright winter day.

It felt as though he’d been airless for the whole terrible time he’d been here.

Gideon set off at speed. Zeb hurried to match his stride and realised within seconds that something was wrong.

“Gideon? Are you all right?”

“My ribs hurt like blazes.”

“Oh hell. Can you walk this fast?”

“I’ll run if I have to,” Gideon said through his teeth. “We have definitely outstayed our welcome.”

He was marching down the curving path to the follies, breath steaming in the cold air. “Shouldn’t we head to the main drive?” Zeb said.

“When we’re out of eyeshot of the house.”

That was logical, even if Zeb wanted to run to the gate in the straightest possible line. He matched Gideon’s brisk pace and ducked round to his painful side, got his shoulder under Gideon’s, took a bit of his weight.

“Thanks,” Gideon said on a breath. They were walking at a speed that couldn’t be called running but was uncomfortably brisk. “Didn’t go well with Bram?”

“You were right. He killed Elise.” Zeb had to stop there a second, pressing his lips together against the wave of grief and anger. “He said Florence’s ghost made him do it.”

“God.”

“He wasn’t in his right mind. Wynn’s been drugging him, and scaring him out of his wits, and it was all Florence this and Elise that.

But even so…he was still going after the inheritance.

That was what mattered to him. In the end, it was all that mattered to him.

” The words were desolate in the moorland air.

“Yes,” Gideon said. “That’s what he chose. And if there was ever anything to be done about it, it wasn’t by you, and it wasn’t now.”

They walked for a moment in the silence you got when there was nothing else to say. Gideon steered them down a side path. “Let’s head to the damned drive. Ow.”

“You shouldn’t have been running around the house,” Zeb said, his voice wobbling with gratitude that Gideon had done exactly that. “How were you there?”

“I had a look around the room while I was waiting for you and found another secret passage which I realised must lead towards the hall. I’d noticed earlier that you’d left your satchel with the coats there, and I suspected you might not remember. So I thought I’d try to get it.”

“My—” Zeb belatedly noticed what he was holding. His satchel, reassuringly thick with paper. “Wait. You went out there just to get my manuscript? You saved my book?”

“Well,” Gideon said, sounding a touch embarrassed. “You write them, and I’ll look after them?”

Zeb couldn’t find words. Gideon gave him a quick smile. “And we couldn’t abandon the new Faraway Meadow. Imagine what my nieces would say. Anyway, I had started heading back after the gong, and I thought I heard you shout, so I came to listen.”

“Thank you,” Zeb said raggedly. “Jessamine locked me in. I couldn’t get out, and—and I thought, if you didn’t go, if you waited for me and you missed the chance to escape because of me—”

“Of course I didn’t go. I made you a promise, remember? A concrete and specific promise that you can mark as kept, and to which you can refer back as evidence when you’re wondering about future promises.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have!”

“But I did, because I love you,” Gideon said.

“You lit up my life when you asked if you could buy me a drink, and when the light went away—I can’t do that again.

I am with you and that is all there is to it, even if it means staying in this hellhole.

Although, in the name of all that’s holy, can we not. ”

“Amen,” Zeb said. “And I knew you wouldn’t go without me, really. That’s why I was so upset. Because I knew.”

“Good,” Gideon said softly. “Then—Oh shit!”

Zeb didn’t know what he meant for a moment, and then he saw it. Far too far ahead of them, well out of hailing distance, a horse-drawn cart, heading up the drive, towards the gate.

“Run,” they said together.

Zeb hadn’t run any sort of distance in a very long time.

He set off at a spanking pace, far too fast, because his legs started to hurt within a few steps.

It was so cold that every dragged-in breath felt like broken glass in his lungs.

His shoes were utterly inadequate and dangerously slippery, his satchel and overcoat felt like they weighed as much as himself again, and this was a nightmare where you ran and ran without ever getting any nearer your goal.

Gideon had hurt, perhaps cracked, ribs, and he was still charging on though his breath heaved and sobbed. Zeb put his head down, and forced his thighs to move, tasting something like iron in his mouth. Something like blood.

Blood. Wynn. Bram. Hawley.

Run.

“Can’t,” Gideon gasped. “Can’t. You go.”

The cart wasn’t so far ahead now, but the gate was in sight, too, and the gatekeeper might emerge any moment. Zeb looked over his shoulder, grabbed Gideon’s hand, and said, “Motor. They’re coming.”

He could feel the pulse of shock. Gideon made a panicked noise and sprinted with a last burst of energy, long legs covering the ground, accelerating away.

Zeb pounded after him, trying to catch up and failing, blood roaring in his ears, and then Gideon stopped running and doubled over, hands on knees, and Zeb thought, No, no, no, you can’t give up now, and took just a few more frantic paces before he realised the cart had stopped too.

The carter was twisted round in his seat, looking at them both oddly. Zeb could hardly blame him.

“Lift,” he managed through whoops as he attempted to suck in oxygen from air that seemed very short of the stuff. “Town?”

“In a hurry, are ’ee?” the grocer’s man enquired.

“Row,” Zeb explained. “Mr. Wyckham. Awful man.”

That would have to do it, because he was going to throw up if he did anything but breathe for a while. Gideon straightened a bit to add, “Very disobliging chauffeur,” which was more syllables than Zeb could imagine uttering in one go ever again.

“That’s a nasty bit of work,” the grocer’s man agreed, with a darkling look.

“Both on ’em, come to that. Sacked my young lady for nothing, that Wynn Wyckham did.

You may as well hop on. Be a bit chilly, so there’s an old blanket in the back if you want.

Mind, you’ve warmed yourselves up nicely.

” He chortled. “Aye, warmed yourselves nicely, you have!”

Zeb helped Gideon get into the cart with a push, and then couldn’t make his unwilling thighs do the necessary climb. Gideon looked down at him and said quietly, “If I tell you we’re being chased, would that help?”

“Sorry,” Zeb said. “Worked, though.”

“Swine.” Gideon pulled him up. “We’re in,” he told the driver, who was still chuckling at his own witticism. “Might just lie down to catch my breath. Shall we go?”

They hunkered down in the cart, concealed by its wooden sides. Zeb took Gideon’s hand, cold and sweaty, and felt long fingers lace through his.

They trundled on to the gate with agonizing slowness considering how fast the cart had seemed to go before, and stopped again. It would take time for the gatekeeper to go through the lengthy palaver of opening the gate. They’d just have to wait, and keep still. Again.

Zeb stared at the sky. He wondered if he could hear the motor-car in pursuit, or if it was the blood still roaring in his ears.

He wondered what was happening back at Lackaday House, and what they would do when they reached town.

He wondered if Gideon might like to find a place together in London, or what he might feel about living in the countryside instead, and everything except whether the gate might not open, because he could not bear to think about that.

He could feel Gideon’s pulse in his fingers, thudding against Zeb’s. If the gatekeeper kept them here and sent to the house for help…

The gate screeched and squealed, agonisingly slow. They stood for aeons longer and then finally, finally, the cart jogged into motion. Gideon let out a long, silent breath and whispered on the edge of hearing, “Still us.”

Zeb squeezed his fingers. Gideon squeezed back. The cart drove slowly, ploddingly, into the moor, jolting their way to freedom, and behind them the gates of Lackaday House screamed one last time as they shut.