Upstairs now, Constance tiptoes down the corridor and gently knocks on Verity’s bedroom door and edges it open an inch. Candles burn in every corner of her sister’s room and a faint aroma of incense escapes. She is on her knees praying the rosary. The cloisonné beads glint in her hand.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m stepping outside to Benedikt’s box and did not want to alarm you. Did you hear that noise?’
Verity raises her hand for a brief moment to indicate she has heard. Her eyes remain trained on the images of the saints while her lips form chants. After the last silent word of her prayer she turns to Constance, her eyes filled with the lustre of her faith.
‘I did. I think Bertie retired a bit pickled again. I’ll check on her.’
When Constance opens the front door to the night, its sibilant air entreats her to remain for a moment. The universe never feels more alive than when others are sleeping. Frost clings to the patch of front garden and she thinks of how the earth either rests beneath her feet, or endeavours to push its weeds and buds up and out of it. She feels that same struggle within herself; a restlessness has pulsed through her for months. In the zoological gardens the animals’ death throes juxtapose the canal’s placid canal water and perfectly encapsulate her conflict.
The hooves of a horse and trap break the quiet. Trunks teeter dangerously beside the driver, who delivers for a neighbour returning from an apparently long journey. And when her mind pictures a journey, clarity happens, and Constance knows exactly what to do. They will go away for a while. Abroad. Not this year, nor next, for there is the new queen’s coronation. Perhaps Percy will join them, too. Yes. That is it.
The tin cash box is hidden under a hessian bag, nestled between shrubberies. She unlocks it and places the letter in it. Also from underneath the bag she removes a petite, stuffed bird and positions it on top of the shrub to indicate a message. The paper, folded and tied with a ribbon appears small and unimportant in the empty box. The recipient would disagree.
The door creaks open behind her. Verity beckons.
‘Oh Constance, come quickly. The night has taken Bertie. She is dead.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
In the misbegotten hours of Millbank nights, when a large population of criminals are too weary to make mischief, factions of inmates come to life. None more so than those miserable creatures in the darks.
Down the basement stairs of Pentagon No. 5 the smack of a fungal odour clings to her clothes and seeps into her skin. Clovis holds a flaming candle to air so thick with damp it is like walking through mist. She bends down to avoid the low ceiling in an antechamber that leads to the dark cells, one of which is empty. She steps into an unspeakably cold space, so thick with darkness that in spite of her light, her vision struggles to adjust. Creeping along the wall like a blind person she finds the wooden plank and sets her items upon it.
It is not completely unthinkable that a prisoner would roam the dungeon of Millbank. For all its fortress-like qualities, it is entirely possible to breach Millbank’s codes, especially when the governor is so devoted to her. Charles, as he insists she calls him when they are alone, falls over himself to please her. He enjoys sexual positions he never knew existed, and after five years he remains possessed. They meet sparingly, which only fans the flame, for they must be clever and vigilant. He is of the mind that, really, she asks very little of him. She seeks no fortune or outrageous gifts, only access and a certain degree of freedom within the prison, which he readily gives.
Tonight Clovis seeks the criminal skull. Dressed in a matron’s uniform she places her candle tin on the flagstone and lifts the bar of the cell’s massive outer iron-lined wooden door. Behind the grated gate a fingernail scratches at the wall of a room so dark that it is impossible to see its beginning or end. When Clovis holds the light up to the gate a female prisoner turns slowly to face her, and even with her steely resolve, Clovis’s breath quickens. The woman has picked the whitewash from the walls and smeared it upon her face layer upon layer. Her hair is matted and sticks out from her head in short, dirty clumps. But it is her lips that make Clovis falter. They are cut and smeared with fresh blood. Dried blood gathers in thick globs at the corners of her mouth.
Clovis recovers and quickly thrusts her hand out, in her palm sits a large piece of soggy bread.
‘It is fresh. I will break it up for you and give it to you through the grating.’
Over her brown prison dress the woman wears a coarse canvas, sack-like covering fastened with leather straps and screws. Her waist bears the burden of a chain that hangs to the floor and passes through a ring in the wall.
Clovis sets the light down and pulls off pieces of beef broth-soaked bread as if she is feeding a bird. She cannot see the thickness of dirt under the woman’s scraggly nails as her hand greedily snatches the bread and stuffs her crimson mouth quicker and quicker, until it is all eaten.
‘I will return with more bread and wine.’
The woman looks at her askance. Wine?
Clovis retrieves the wine and more of the broth bread from the empty cell. The woman inches closer to the grating.
‘What is your name?’ Clovis asks as she doles out the bread.
Her lip curls up in a snarl before she says, ‘Antoinette.’
‘Stop that scratching, Antoinette, or they will put you in the
