The Unseen(143)

‘There must be some mistake,’ she whispers, leaning against the wall to steady herself.

‘Let me help you, madam. Do be seated. I shall find somebody to fetch you a glass of water …’

‘No, no, do not trouble Sophie. She’s too upset,’ Hester says, but so quietly that the man doesn’t seem to hear her.

‘Constable Pearce! Please bring up a glass of water for Mrs Canning!’ he bellows down the stairs, the noise crashing through Hester’s skull like storm waves. ‘Please – can you tell me where I can find the vicar, Mrs Canning? We really must speak with him.’ The policeman bends forwards over Hester in a way that makes her dizzy. She doesn’t know what to say.

‘Church. Try the church,’ she manages at last.

‘Of course. Foolish of me.’ And the man is gone.


Hester has no idea how long she stays sitting on the hard wooden chair in the hallway with a drink of water next to her, untouched. Her throat is parched and aching, but she doesn’t dare open her hand to reach for the glass. She knows what she will see, what is on her hands. With a surge of panic she looks at the wall where she’d leant a short while ago, but the paint is clean. The blood had dried sufficiently. She stares at the surface of the water in the glass, so clear and pure, shining with the daylight from the front door, which still sits open, abandoned, creaking occasionally in the breeze. But the library door, at the end of the hall, keeps drawing her eye. It is terrifying; dark, and secretive, and watchful. Hester is sorely tempted to get up, to run out into the sunshine and never come back. He was most dreadfully stained with her blood … The words echo through her thoughts. Oh, Cat! With a gasp Hester is on her feet, and rushing back through the library door before she can lose her nerve. In the light from the crack in the curtains she’d made earlier, she searches the floor. She finds Albert’s binoculars, stuffed hastily into their case but not closed. She looks at them carefully, sees some glistening dark mess all over them. Cautiously, her hands shaking uncontrollably, she draws them out and turns them to the light. The lenses are smashed and fragments of glass are stuck to the metal in a slick of clotted stuff. Glass, and fine black hairs. Hester stares at them with awful, grim recognition. Something falls from inside one of the cylinders, landing with a small sound on the rug. Numbly, Hester bends and picks it up. It is hard between her fingers, both smooth and angular, like a chip of stone, all covered in blood. Hester frowns, rolls it between her fingers to clean it off a little. She studies it again, and then knows it for what it is. A tooth. A human tooth, broken off sharply at its upper end. Hester screams. She drops the binoculars and they land with a thump that shakes the floor.

Her breath comes in ragged gasps, fast and uneven. She waits for the police to come and find her, to burst into the library in search of the source of the scream and the racket she has made; to find her all bloody and wild. In desperation, she again considers fleeing; climbing out through the window and running away as fast as her weak legs will carry her, though she has no idea where she would go. But she knows that if she moves she will faint. It takes long minutes for the panic to loosen its grip on her but after a while it seems that nobody has noticed her cry out. No footsteps approach the library. She shuts her eyes until the tightness in her chest eases and her head is clear enough to allow her to think. Crouching down, Hester lifts the cover of Robin’s bag and pulls out a silvery blond wig, a diaphanous white dress. All bloodied and ruined. She knows them at once, having spent enough time studying Robin’s pictures to recognise what they are. In that instant she realises: Cat was the elemental. Oh God, oh God, oh God … Hester has no idea if she has spoken aloud or merely thought this short and desperate prayer. Because if Robin has been arrested, with Cat’s body and coming straight from the scene of her killing, then only one other person could have brought these items back to the house. Could have washed their hands in the kitchen sink, and left a stained dish towel behind. My darling Bertie. What has happened here?

Hester’s mind empties of all thoughts except one – to protect Albert. Carefully, she puts the costume back into Robin’s bag, on top of a selection of his correspondence which is soon stained and illegible. The dress fabric feels fine and soft beneath her fingertips. The wig is slippery, alive. Hester shudders, gagging slightly, as if this is Cat’s hair, as if it is part of the girl’s murdered body. She clenches her teeth, struggles to keep herself steady. Then she puts the binoculars in with the costume, crying now, catching the smell of congealed blood coming from the case. A cloying, feral, butcher’s shop smell. Glancing up, she remembers Albert’s journal, obviously recently used, and left on the desk. Hester doesn’t open it, or read any of the entries. She has no wish to learn anything, to know anything more. She wishes she knew less; far less. She puts the journal into the leather satchel last of all, closes the buckles on this ghastly, incriminating hoard, and stashes it in the footwell of the desk, far out of sight to anyone but a person actively searching. She does all this without soiling her dress, but her hands are red and brown. Cat’s blood. Cat is dead. Hester’s stomach churns. She staggers out of the library and shuts the door, and just makes it to the cloakroom before she is sick.