‘We could take them to a tribunal,’ Leah said. We. How unexpectedly that word had slipped from her tongue. Her stomach gave a tiny jolt, but Mark didn’t seem to notice.
‘What’s the point? I don’t want any of it back. Any of that old life. How can you go back to things, anyway? When everything is torn apart? You just have to start all over. Might as well be in a new place. A new job,’ Mark said, finally sipping his wine.
‘You do have to start all over,’ Leah agreed. The lines on his face had faded away, smoothed out of relief by the candles’ glow. She took his hands across the table top, meaning only to hold them briefly, to give strength through the touch of human skin. But Mark gripped her fingers tightly, and didn’t let go. Leah met his gaze, as the pain she felt for him changed, became something like fear.
‘Stay tonight,’ he said. Leah opened her mouth but no words came out, and her heart lurched into her throat to choke her. The silence stretched and Mark let go of her hands. ‘There’re plenty of bedrooms, after all,’ he said, awkwardly.
Leah took a steadying breath. ‘I can walk back to the pub. It really isn’t far,’ she said.
Mark’s mouth twitched into the slightest of smiles. ‘Of course,’ he said.
In the morning, Leah rose early and drank a coffee standing at the window of her room at The Swing Bridge, where the glass panes were misted by a night of her own damp exhalations, and the day outside was tentatively bright. Her head was heavy and tender after the wine of the night before, and she couldn’t marshal a clear thought about Mark or what he had said to her. Downstairs there were sounds of movement from the kitchen, metal pans and cutlery rattling. The smell of bacon wafted up the stairs and under her door, and her stomach rumbled; but she didn’t have time for breakfast.
Leah was at the library for when the doors opened at half past nine. She was shown the microfiche collection, and how to use the machines, and was soon scrolling through the local papers from a century ago with her heart speeding in anticipation. Following a hunch, she started with the year that Robin Durrant’s discredited photographs were taken, and taking the hints from Hester’s letters, she started with the summer months. Not even halfway into August 1911, she caught her breath, clapping her hand over her mouth inadvertently. There it all was, just like that; the story stretching out for a few weeks, into the autumn of that year. She read, and read again, and tried to scribble a few key facts into her notebook, but her handwriting had gone wild and erratic, barely legible. Smiling, she gave up and pulled out her phone, ignoring the glare and tutting of the person using the machine next to her as she dialled Mark’s number.
‘Leah? Found something?’ he answered, and in his clipped tone she read something of the same ambiguity she herself had felt that morning. Storing this fact away for now, she took a deep breath.
‘I’ve found everything, Mark. It’s all here! And pictures … wonderful photos of Hester and Albert, and of the theosophist … Everything!’
‘You mean, something did happen? When?’
‘That summer – the summer Hester was talking about. The summer of 1911,’ Leah said, her voice tight with excitement. ‘And I think … I think I know why our soldier kept those two particular letters of Hester’s …’
‘Leah – tell me what happened! Was it a murder?’
‘Oh yes, there was a murder. A dreadful and violent one.’
‘Well, who was it? Who was killed? And by whom?’ Mark pressed.
11
August 4th, 1911
Dearest Amelia,
How I wish you were still here, to help and give me strength. This house is no longer a comfortable place. I don’t quite know where to start. Albert. Albert is not himself. He is strange and distant and so caught up in his desire to see the wretched elementals again that he has no space left in heart nor mind for me, or the parish, or his duties or anything. He eats little, and will no longer touch meat of any kind, and I have not seen him sleep in days. He has taken to lingering outside the inns and public houses of the district, preaching to passers-by about their many sins. Amy! I am quite distraught about it all! And I can trace only one possible cause of these unsettling changes – Mr Robin Durrant. Who is still lodging with us, after all these many weeks, though he contributes nothing to the running of the household. When I mentioned this to Bertie he seemed almost to find it funny. To find me funny. He describes Mr Durrant as ‘our esteemed guest’, and believe me – he could not possibly hold the man in higher esteem. Whatever Mr Durrant suggests, Albert agrees to. It is that simple. It’s as though my dear husband has quite lost his own mind!