Page 56 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

Christian Felthorpe had spent the last half an hour trying to convince his returning father that the arrival of an itinerant circus troupe in Thistlewick Tye was not the calamity he supposed.

Yes, they were heathens and there’d been run-ins with the locals, but perhaps if the village had been more welcoming, these deluded people could be made to see the light.

No one had taken the time to teach them right from wrong.

The young tightrope walker, for example – whom he loved more than he’d ever loved anything in his life before – was a bright and lively young woman, open to his teachings, and they’d spent much of their precious snatched time together simply talking.

Her atheist parents had never taken her to church.

It wasn’t her fault. She listened to the things he told her, asked intelligent questions about his religion and was intrigued by a life where you could put down roots, have the security of four walls, and nurture and tend to a garden.

But Lord Felthorpe was not a man to be argued with, and certainly not the sort happy to entertain the idea of a lousy bunch of travellers polluting his beloved village.

He had no time for freaks and liars. If only Dr Appleby had done his job properly when the Garrod woman had fallen pregnant from a dalliance outside her marriage, then Thistlewick Tye wouldn’t be lumbered with a motherless halfwit.

Whatever potion he’d given her to make her pay for her sin had affected the development of the child no one knew she was carrying.

The idiot boy even survived being dragged out to sea several years later.

But, he told his son, God had come to him in a dream and told him the sins of the mother should not be visited upon the child, so he’d done his best to tolerate little Noah.

‘Silas Garrod tells me they’ve been thieving.

They stole one of my pigs, have been lying about being sold mouldy produce by the Draytons and all but kidnapped the Cleyfords’ daughter.

’ He was angry. ‘And the vicar’s full of the debauchery they practise.

Are you aware the owners of this abomination of a travelling show aren’t even married?

’ He spat the words out. ‘Dr Appleby said they drink to excess because old Jessop has been happily serving them at the Sailmaker’s – that damn man needs to retire; he doesn’t keep a proper watch on his customers as I’ve repeatedly demanded,’ he said, as an aside.

‘I want them gone from Thistlewick Tye, Christian, as soon as possible.’

His son began to plead for leniency when their butler entered the room and informed them that a Katerina Ballard was at the door, insisting she spoke with Lord Felthorpe on a matter of the utmost urgency.

‘Talk of the devil,’ his father said. ‘And I use that term advisedly.’

The exotic, raven-headed woman entered the room, her eyes lined in thick kohl and a long scarf draped over her head. She fixed her gaze on his father.

‘Henry,’ she said, and it took Lord Felthorpe a moment.

‘Oh, sweet Lord in heaven. Elisabeth?’ His father began to shake.

She swung her attention to Christian. ‘Did you touch Zella?’ she asked, her face fierce and her tone sharp, and then decided to explain a few things to the returning Lord Felthorpe.

‘Your son seems to have formed a most undesirable romantic attachment to my daughter. They’ve been meeting in secret and she’s under the impression they’ll marry. ’

Christian was confused. Where had this woman’s thick Russian accent gone?

‘I hope for your sake you didn’t, son,’ his father said, his eyes frantic. ‘For even God would find it hard to forgive such a sin.’

‘And we all know how highly you value God,’ Katerina said. ‘You always were a sanctimonious bastard. Trying to create the perfect village and punishing those who trespassed against Him, as though you were his chosen one.’

‘I don’t understand. How do you know my father?’ Christian felt that he was missing something fundamental, but wasn’t sure what.

Lord Felthorpe staggered backwards and slid into the high-backed leather chair behind him, clutching at his temples, and his forehead creased into the deepest frown.

‘You don’t remember, do you? How could you? You were so young when she abandoned us both.’

Christian’s eyes flitted between his father and this relative stranger, as he tried to come to terms with the suggestion that this woman was the mother who’d run off when he was barely four years old.

‘It’s imperative that you tell me you didn’t touch the circus girl, son.’ His father was now gripping at the chair arms and so furious that he could barely force the words through his clenched teeth. It was at that moment that the sickening truth hit Christian.

Zella was his half-sister. That sparkling, raven-haired marvel, with her dark hypnotic eyes and beguiling smile.

The connection they’d both felt the very instant they met – that inexplicable pull, as though he somehow knew the young woman from somewhere, even before the moment he’d first seen her on the common.

Now he understood and it made him sick to his stomach.

Panic, fear and disgust rammed into him like a speeding train.

He said nothing and walked calmly from the drawing room and along the corridor, down the steps to the lower floor, and took the second door on the right into the gun room.

He unlocked the glazed cabinet and took out a hunting rifle, loaded two bullets into the magazine and, using the bolt action, chambered the first round.

He retraced his steps and re-entered the room, where his father was now on his feet again and talking to…

to… his mother. He lifted the gun to his right shoulder and took aim.

His father’s shocked expression alerted the woman to his presence.

She spun around and started to speak but he didn’t want to hear one more word from her vile, lying mouth, so he gently squeezed the trigger and shot her in the centre of her chest.

Katerina Ballard slumped to the floor and her thick, red blood began to pool on her dark dress and then spill out over the Turkish rug.

‘This can’t get out,’ Lord Felthorpe said, strangely calm and unemotional, considering his wife was lying dead at their feet. ‘My reputation… yours… everything I’ve striven to create here in Thistlewick Tye.’

Christian nodded and dropped the gun to his side.

‘Leave it with me, Father.’

And he swept from the room to speak to the two young men he knew would do his bidding without question.

All loose ends must be silenced – even Zella.

The Devil had sent her to tempt him and he’d failed to spot His deviousness.

His father frequently called upon Dr Appleby to administer justice, and the man would have something in his medicine cabinet that should do the trick.

These obliging villagers would all be rewarded on earth by him tenfold, and in heaven by God for eternity.

His mind was racing as he made his way to the stables.

The people of Thistlewick had already taken against the circus and he would encourage this by adding to their crimes.

He’d tell everyone they’d sailed to St Petersburg from King’s Lynn.

If that bitch wanted to be Russian so badly, he’d send her there in his fictional ending to her wicked story.

His father had told him the truth of their marriage and it wasn’t the version she’d spouted in front of the fire only minutes before – instead, he’d spoken of her disobedience and constant questioning of the one true faith.

And for her to allow that snake of a temptress, in the form of Zella, into their Garden of Eden…

He’d thought it was love and had never felt anything so pure in his life, but it was a heinous trick that his mother had somehow been a part of.

She deserved to die… They all did.

* * *

Eleven hours later, in the light of a pale moon, as it began to shy away from the creeping dawn, Christian Felthorpe brushed the loose dirt from his hands and stared at the low mound in the patch of common land that held all his secrets.

Jacob and Silas began to harness the carthorses to the waggons and take them back to the hall.

They would be repainted and, along with the horses, given to good, honest, hard-working folk to make their lives a little easier – a reward for their faithfulness.

He looked out at the black sky, as it met with the raging sea below, confident that this dark chapter of his life was dead and buried.

But as he turned away, and walked back to the village across the common, he didn’t sense the cliffs, creeping up behind him.