Perhaps he was an artist too, given his interest in Arthur Evershed?
Connie glanced to the footpath.
Since she was the person who’d found her, on the edge of their property, might the coroner let her know in time what had happened to the woman?
Connie pulled herself up. Why should he? She had to keep telling herself it was nothing to do with her, nothing to do with her father, just a terrible accident of geography. If it ever came to it, she could honestly say it would have been simple enough for anyone to get into the workshop and steal the mounting wire. More than once she’d found little Davey Reedman skulking around and chased him off.
But with each passing hour, her concern for her father deepened. Her hand slipped again to her pocket, turning the fragment of burnt paper over between her fingers.
She wished she knew the dead woman’s name. She wished she knew who had given her the beautiful coat, and why. She glanced over to the shrouded body on the ground, then away again. She had laid a blanket over the sheet. In part, it was to restore to her some kind of dignity; the thin cotton clung too closely to the damp contours. It was also, she realised, to protect the cold flesh from the birds.
The sky turned from a pale blue to white.
Connie became increasingly aware of the dark corridors of Blackthorn House stretching out behind her. All those echoing and empty rooms. She had told the truth when she said she wasn’t scared of being left with the body. But at the same time, she did not want to be here alone when darkness finally fell.
‘The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures.’
Again, that same soft voice from the past, speaking lines from a play, this time, not a poem.
Connie held her hands out in front of her, like her father had done earlier on the terrace. There were traces of blood still under her fingernails, from the business of removing the wire embedded deep in the woman’s neck. She’d scrubbed and scrubbed with carbolic soap, but blood was the hardest stain to shift.
Shakespeare, of course. Lady Macbeth. A young woman’s voice, reading aloud. Connie suddenly saw her younger self, her memory clear for once. A hot summer’s day, elbows on the table, hair loose over her shoulders, listening. Captivated by the story.
By the voice.
Chapter 14
The West Sussex County Asylum
Chichester
Dr John Woolston leaned forward and tapped the cab driver on the arm.
‘This will do,’ he said. ‘I can walk from here.’
The Dunnaways man pulled up his horses, then turned round on his seat. ‘Are you sure, guv’nor? It’s ever so dirty underfoot after all the rain.’
‘Quite sure,’ Woolston said. He fished a note from his pocket book, paid the agreed fare and added a generous tip.
There was no reason for Brook to drag him all the way up to Graylingwell, given that they were due to meet tomorrow morning anyway. Only the thought of his son kept Woolston going. He was worried for Harold’s future and didn’t want him to lose his position, even though he was well aware the boy hated the work and despised Brook. Rightly so, as it turned out, though Woolston couldn’t tell him that. More than anything, he did not want Harold to find out his father was not the man he believed him to be. He did not want to lose his son’s respect.
The sun grazed the tops of the trees in the parkland, the beauty of the afternoon at odds with Dr Woolston’s state of mind. He stood at the boundary of the West Sussex County Asylum, and for one glorious moment toyed with the idea of not going in.
Woolston served on the Committee of Visitors, a group of gentlemen responsible for visiting all such establishments throughout the county to ensure they were being run properly. He never met the patients or came into contact with any but the most senior of the medical staff. The committee’s job was to inspect the records and verify that each patient was receiving the treatment appropriate to their
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