Opening the top drawer of his carved walnut bureau, he removed a long leather sheaf knife and tucked it below his belt.
Upon extinguishing the tallow candles that lit the parlour of his modest cottage, Richard vanished into the dark obscurity of the room.
He gently lifted the door latch and peered out. Just as he had expected, the street was deserted.
Without making a sound, he closed the door behind him and, carefully monitoring his footfall, padded along the road to the field on the corner where his horse, Apollo, was tethered.
‘Hello, boy,’ Richard whispered, gently stroking his head. He despised what Eliza and the rest of the Priory Ground criminals had done to his relationship with his horse; the absolute trust that he had once had in Apollo was irreparably destroyed.
Placing his foot in the stirrup, Richard mounted then clipped the horse with his ankles to begin his journey to the Priory Ground. As had been the case ever since his fall, he asked nothing more than a moderate canter from the horse, taking a route along the shoreline, which avoided witnessing eyes. But he need not have worried. By the time that he dismounted at the priory bridge, he had not seen another living soul.
Moments later, Richard found himself once again outside the blacksmith’s workshop, just a short distance from the Lovekin house. Both the house and the Black Horse were in darkness. He made towards the house but suddenly stopped. There was movement. The street door to the Lovekin house opened.
Richard quickly stepped backwards, pressing himself to the blacksmith’s wall and not daring to move. He held his breath as he observed Harriet step out, holding the hand of a young man whom Richard had seen before in the gin palace.
Richard cocked an eyebrow curiously as Harriet, leading her giggling friend by the hand, headed off in the direction of the beach. He fumbled at his hip to check that the knife was still there, then walked guardedly to the house.
Taking one last glance around him, Richard lifted the latch and entered the dark parlour. The only sound above the beating of his own heart was the soft ticking of the clock. In his black buckskin trousers and tailcoat, he melded seamlessly into the absolute darkness of the cottage. His progress up the stairs was slow, testing each step before fully applying his weight to ensure his approach was silent.
He reached a short corridor with two doors.
He stopped and listened.
A soft, feminine wheeze emanated from behind the first door. Her bedroom.
Slowly and carefully, he lifted the latch and gently pushed, recoiling at the low sigh it emitted, as it swung open.
He paused.
Her rhythmical breathing remained unaltered.
From the thin splinter of light that defied the window shutters, he could see that she was lying prone with her back to him, the edge of her shape brushed in a soft pallid blue. It was a warm night and the blankets were peeled back, leaving her white nightdress exposed perfectly, making his job all the easier.
Without a trace of apprehension, his hand glided to his waist and withdrew the sheathed knife. Silently, he pulled the blade from the leather casing and moved closer to her.
Still she slept, oblivious to the fact that she had just seconds more left to live.
Time seemed to congeal mulishly, as he reached the side of her bed, now gripping the blade more tightly. Thoughts from his past flitted in and out of his mind.
Finally, after a long while visualising this very moment, it was time.
His knuckles whitened as he took a deep breath and plunged the knife into her back.
She offered no words and no resistance, just a barely audible gasp as the knife penetrated through the back of her ribcage.
Without pausing, he slid the knife out and stabbed her again.
Her rhythmical breathing faltered as the knife thrust inside her again and again.
Then her breathing stopped.
He stood over her, listening. Eliza Lovekin was dead.
Lydia Bloom was dead. Amelia Odden was next.
Richard wiped the blade clean on the blanket which covered her lifeless body then hastened from the room. He paused, wondering if he should search for the documents. They had to be here somewhere. But, more than anything, he needed not to get caught. Harriet might arrive back at any moment. Besides, as he was told, you can’t make a claim on a parcel of land if you’re not alive.
He descended the stairs quickly, not worrying about the creaks and groans under his feet.
Just a few short minutes later, Richard was back at the priory bridge, untethering Apollo. His breathing was fitful and the adrenalin in his body was making the muscles in his arms and legs quiver.
It was time to leave.
His work here was finally over.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was with a great deal of apprehension that Morton parked his Mini in exactly the same parking bay in Maidstone as the last time that he had been here. For several minutes he just sat, with the central locking engaged, staring through the windscreen and waiting for something to happen. He stared unblinking, counting the seconds between each sweep back and forth of the windscreen wiper. Ten seconds exactly and the fine drizzle that gradually obscured his view was swished away. But nothing untoward happened. There was nobody suspicious around and, to the best of his knowledge, he hadn’t been followed here. It was strange, but it unnerved him more that he hadn’t been trailed. But then again, they had admitted to putting a tracker on his car, so he was fairly sure that they knew fully well where he was at every moment of the day. Tomorrow was the deadline. When tomorrow? he wondered.
