The Murderer Inside the Mirror, page 22
‘Do you suppose,’ said Silken Thomas, softly, ‘that anyone has ever made love in this place? I mean really, completely, made love?’ He looked behind them at the bed, then raised an eyebrow quizzically.
Catherine felt her heart start to beat faster. ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ she said, at last.
‘It would create a new memory – another layer of history for the Tower of London,’ he said, his eyes never leaving hers.
‘It would. But – would it be possible? I mean, in such a place, could you—?’
For answer, Thomas pushed her back onto the bed, and pulled her hard against him.
‘Well, my lady? Doesn’t it feel entirely possible that I could?’
‘Oh, yes.’ But Catherine glanced across at the door. ‘But, what if someone comes in—?’
‘I don’t care if the entire Guard of the Tower come in, or if the whole of the English army marches through the door with Henry Tudor at the head of them,’ said the Rebel Earl. ‘Let’s make history.’
Catherine thought – when she could think clearly again – that Thomas’s love-making on that snatched, secret visit, had been far more intense than ever it had been at Maynooth, if that were possible. Was that because he had known it would be their last time together? That was not a thought that must be allowed to linger, though.
Liam was allowed into her room, to work on the portrait. Twice he worked on a sketch of Thomas: taking it from the rough drafts he had made during the visit to Dublin, when Thomas had made his extraordinary speech in St Mary’s Abbey. He was making good the excuse provided for visiting Thomas’s room, of course.
He worked with absorption. Catherine did not think that her portrait or anything he might eventually paint of Thomas would be very good, because Liam’s paintings never were very good, but she did not say this.
Once, he showed her a rough sketch he had made of parts of the Tower – ‘Only the parts I have seen for myself,’ he said, ‘for it’s a vast old place. But to have an idea of its layout could be useful.’
He looked at her very straightly, and Catherine said, carefully, ‘I expect it could.’
She did not dare ask anything else, just as she did not dare ask anyone what might be ahead for her. She certainly did not dare ask what might be ahead or Thomas.
There was starting to be a dreamlike quality to life, and it was difficult to measure time any longer, but gradually Catherine became aware that the body had its own way of measuring time. That there was something her own body was no longer measuring. Something that should be happening to her, but was not.
At first she did not dare trust the tiny hope – it was too fragile; it was as if it was a cobweb that would dissolve if brought into the light. And surely to goodness, being captive in this grim place was more than enough to disturb the body’s rhythms. But presently, the faint hope strengthened, and gained substance. She was going to have a child. Thomas’s son or daughter. The realization poured through her like cascades of molten gold.
A child. A boy with Thomas’s fiery hair, and with eyes full of light and life and rebellious spirit. Or a girl – an elfin-faced daughter, with mischief and delight and eagerness in her smile.
When one of the guards asked if she would like to have visits by a priest, she said at once, ‘Yes – yes, I would.’
The priest was elderly and inclined to be severe, but on his first visit he heard her confession without interrupting. When she finished, he used the word fornication in relation to what she had done with Thomas, and said it was an abomination in the sight of the Lord. Catherine flinched, because the word did not seem to bear any resemblance to what had happened between them, but the priest gabbled the words of absolution, added a blessing, and said he would visit her again.
At his second visit she told him she was going to have a child. He compressed his lips, and Catherine thought if he used words such as bastard, or child of sin, she would refuse to see him again. But he did not. He said he would make sure the Constable of the Tower was told of her condition, and that the proper arrangements would be made. The hope Catherine had tried to keep alive grew stronger and, encouraged, she told the sympathetic guard as well. He said he would tell people who needed to know. You could never entirely trust the clergy, he said.
Catherine had no idea if any of this meant she would be released, and she did not dare ask. She could not believe she would be left here to give birth, though. She did not dare to ask if Thomas could be told, in case they refused.
TWENTY-FIVE
Ethne Rafferty knew that she must find out what was in The Murderer Inside the Mirror as soon as possible. Above all, she must know what was in the scene that was being kept secret. The Murder Scene. Florian Gilfillan had failed her, but there must be some other way.
Montague Fitzglen had never used the word ‘murder’ about the two killings in Dublin Castle that night – her father’s killing of the first guard, and Ethne’s killing of the second one. He had said, with great firmness, that both had been self-defence. Ethne had never known if he believed that, but she certainly knew what she had done had not been self-defence; it had been outright murder.
When the second guard – the man who had grabbed her arm and was holding it too tightly for her to get free – shouted that he would tell the world that Phelan Rafferty was a murderer, she had known he must not be allowed to do so. There had been no hesitation and no doubt in her; she had raised the thick shaft of wood from the mirror she still had in her free hand, and brought it smashing down on the guard’s head. He had slumped at once, releasing his hold on her, and she had struck him a second, and then a third time, because she had had to make sure. She had to protect her father. It had unquestionably been murder – she had always known it, just as she had always known she would not flinch from killing again if the truth ever seemed likely to come out. It would be partly to protect Phelan’s memory, of course. But it would be to protect Ethne herself, too.
And now, it seemed, the truth might indeed be about to come out, and in a way Ethne could not possibly have visualized. She was almost sure what the play would contain, but she was not absolutely certain. She needed to read the script – even to see a rehearsal.
A rehearsal …
Florian had said they were rehearsing the Murder Scene tomorrow night at the theatre. Could Ethne slip inside and hide somewhere to watch? Perhaps in one of the boxes? And if it turned out that she was right …? What then? The answer came at once. She would have to prevent the play being performed – stop it from telling the story to the world. But how? She thought for a long time and gradually the glimmerings of a plan began to form. What if someone were to be attacked in the Roscius – not fatally, but sufficiently severely to result in an investigation? Wouldn’t that mean a postponement of the play, at the very least? The possibility took stronger shape in her mind, then with it came the memory of Viola Gilfillan’s interview, and how she had been asked about the theatre superstition of mirrors on a stage bringing bad luck. Miss Gilfillan had dismissed the belief, saying that the avoidance of mirrors on stage was purely a safety measure. Ethne knew there were a great many superstitions within the world of the theatre, of course – how it was unlucky to say aloud the title of Macbeth, how it was forbidden to whistle backstage. But if a member of the company were to be attacked in the theatre shortly before the festival’s first night, as well as it causing an investigation, mightn’t it bring into prominence the mirror superstition? Ethne knew from her father that theatre people were inclined to accept such beliefs, and she thought it might not take much for this play to become regarded as jinxed – as a kind of albatross that presaged ill-fortune. If that were to happen, no actor manager would touch it.
The more Ethne thought about this, the better it seemed. But who could be attacked? It could not be Florian, and nor could it be Viola or Timon Gilfillan, because that might end in someone making the link between herself and any of those three. The play bore her father’s name, and her own friendship with Florian had just been revived – and she knew him well enough to be aware he would probably have talked about it.
But she did not know anything about the rest of the company.
Or did she? Hadn’t Florian talked about some eager, wide-eyed little girl – Tilly, was it? Yes. Tilly Fendle, who was dazzled by the world of the theatre. Clearly he had developed something of a tendresse for her, and Ethne thought it possible that Tilly Fendle had been dazzled by the attentions of a senior member of the famous Gilfillan family – and that she would find an invitation to a secret rendezvous intriguing.
Florian had mentioned the lodging house where most of the company was staying – near the theatre, he had said. It oughtn’t to be difficult to find it, and unobtrusively slip a note through the letterbox.
Ethne reached for a sheet of notepaper from the supply set out for guests, careful to choose one that did not have the hotel’s address printed on it.
It was not until after supper that Tansy saw a letter lying on the table in the hall of the lodging house with her name on it. But no one except the family knew this address, and it had been agreed that only Jack would write to her – they did not want to draw attention to her, but a single, occasional correspondent was unlikely to be noticed. But the writing on the envelope was not Jack’s.
She took it up to her room and opened it. There was a single sheet – her name was at the top – just ‘Tilly’ – then two lines of neat handwriting.
‘We never seem to have chance to talk privately,’ said the author of the note. ‘As I think you know, I would very much like to do so. There is a rehearsal this evening at eight o’clock, so the stage door will be unlocked. Could we meet in the theatre at nine? Wait for me in the stage box.’
There was a squiggle that could have been anything, but Tansy’s heart gave a huge leap, because it could be T. Or couldn’t it as easily be F? Florian? Don’t let it be Florian, she thought, but her mind had already gone back to his sly suggestion about supper. Champagne and caviar, he had said, as if he was a lecherous relic from the Victorian era, for heaven’s sake.
It might be a T, though. ‘You really were Mimi,’ Timon had said, after they had played that brief scene in the deserted Roscius. And later, ‘It’s a pity we didn’t have time to explore the theatre properly together,’ he had said.
Tansy reached for a coat, pulled on the butcher-boy cap, and went quietly down the stairs. As she left the house, a nearby clock chimed half past eight.
The stage door was unlocked as promised, and Tansy slipped inside and went up the stairs, along the dressing-room corridor, and through the heavy doors that led to the boxes.
Timon had told her the Roscius had been built in the early 1700s, and had staged work by many notable Irish playwrights.
‘They would come to watch their plays being performed,’ he had said. ‘Sheridan, and Oscar Wilde, of course. Oliver Goldsmith, too.’
Tansy liked the thought of those famous people coming here. Would they have been apprehensive, or would they have been excited and pleased to see their work and the characters brought to life? Would whoever had written The Murderer Inside the Mirror be sitting here in a week or so, feeling any of those emotions? But then she remembered that it still might be Phelan Rafferty who had written the play, and that he was dead and would not see the people and the story he had created walk on to a lighted stage. This was extremely sad.
The stage box was at the far end, nearest the stage, of course. No one seemed to be around, so Tansy went cautiously in. On the left was the auditorium, shadowy and dim, the ghost-outlines of the rows of seats, and the gilt railings of the balconies and circle only just visible. But on her right was the stage. And the rehearsal was in progress.
Ethne had reached the Roscius shortly before eight o’clock. She had worn a long dark raincoat which would cover her and not attract attention. With it she had a deep-brimmed oilskin hat – the kind people often wore during inclement weather. Once in the theatre, the brim could be turned down to almost completely conceal her face. In the deep side-pocket she had a heavy marble paperweight, brought from Westmeath House.
The stage door was in a busy side street, but passers-by were intent on their own affairs, and no one gave Ethne a second look. It was unlocked, as she had expected, and she thought it should be easy to find her way to the theatre boxes – hadn’t she accompanied her father to all those theatres when she was younger, and weren’t theatres all built more or less to the same plan? She found the way easily. It was just on eight o’clock – too early for Tilly Fendle – and she went quietly into the box next to the stage box itself.
Florian, Timon and Viola were already on the stage, with a working light burning and shadows clustered at the edges of the stage. A half-completed stairway stood near the centre, and there were flats painted to represent stone walls. Even in the dim light there was the impression of a forgotten, shadowy corner inside some ancient castle.
Timon Gilfillan – as Maran – was saying the room they sought was behind the wall.
‘And up here is the mechanism that will open it.’
‘But Maran, if we’re caught—’
‘Tomás, haven’t I told you, I’ve never been caught yet. This will be the smoothest filch I’ve ever worked.’
Timon Gilfillan switched briefly back to his real self, and pointed out where the wall’s mechanism would be and where it would slide across.
‘It should do so with a nicely teeth-wincing scrape of stone against stone,’ he said. ‘Although we’d better pray to the gods of theatre that the mechanism and the sound effects work. Let’s go on. The panel’s open now. Viola?’
Viola Gilfillan took several paces forward, then stopped and thrust out a pointing hand.
‘Tomás – look there. In that corner … Lying by itself in the shadows – half covered by layers of dust, as if it’s trying to hide …’
The words sliced deep into Ethne’s mind, and in that moment she knew she had been right – that the play was an almost exact echo of that long-ago night. She pushed away the panic that was clutching her, and forced herself to keep watching and listening.
Florian – Tomás – had moved forward. ‘It really is there,’ he said. ‘I’ve tried to find it all these years and finally and at last I’ve done so. The murderer’s lute, my family called it. No one knew what happened to it, but they all knew my ancestor played it as he walked to the scaffold – to be hanged for committing murder. His name was suppressed – I’ve never known what it was.’ He turned to the other two. ‘That’s the nightmare,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s been with me ever since I can remember. That final dreadful walk by a man whose name was wiped from history – a man who walked to where the executioner waited, his music walking alongside him.’
Catrina said, ‘Tomás, did you want the lute so you could find out about your ancestor? About his music?’
‘No! Never that! I learned to play a lute – or at least, to play a stringed instrument. Only in a very basic way, but enough to understand it. What I needed to do, though, was to find this lute and destroy it,’ said Tomás. ‘To be rid of the nightmare. But all I ever knew was that it would be lying by itself somewhere – hiding … Shrouded in its own darkness …’
This time the panic almost overwhelmed Ethne. The dim theatre spun sickeningly around her, and she was seeing again Thomas’s own lute lying in the dim secret room, his last ballad folded inside it. The ballad that could only have been his own death song. In cold bleak dawn I soon shall die, he had written. But no one except for Ethne herself and Montague Fitzglen had ever known about it. Before they escaped that night, carrying her father’s unconscious body, Montague had closed up the secret room. No one would have known how to get into it. No one – no one – could have known the lute or the hidden music were in there. But whoever had written this play – this scene – had known.
It was some moments before she could bring her mind back to what was happening on the stage, but she managed to do so at last.
They appeared to have moved on to a later part of the scene, and Ethne had the sense of having missed some of the dialogue.
‘We haven’t got the walk-on who’s playing the guard,’ Timon Gilfillan was saying. ‘But he’ll fall about here.’ He indicated a place near the steps. ‘On you go, please.’
‘Murder,’ said Tomás, and Florian’s hands came up to half-cover his face. ‘Murder’s a hanging offence. You walk to meet your punishment, with music playing …’
Then Maran, his voice cutting sharply through Tomás’s line: ‘Tomás – Catrina – we have to close this room up, and we have to do it at once. If we push the body back in there it could be years before anyone finds it …’
‘But can’t you see!’ Viola, as Catrina, had backed against a wall, and in a low voice – but a voice that reached Ethne with dreadful clarity – she said, ‘Can’t you see? There’s someone inside the room. Someone’s been sealed up in there—’
‘Catrina, there’s no one—’
‘Tomás, he’s walking towards us …’
‘There’s no one – we must get out, because if we’re caught now, we’ll all be damned …’
‘We’re damned already, Tomás. Listen.’
‘What …?’
Then Florian broke off, because into the dim old theatre, shocking and discordant, came the sonorous chiming of a bell.
There was a second or two of what was clearly genuine shock, then Tomás’s voice came again. ‘It’s the warning bell. It’s the alarm.’
Ethne did not hear the next lines, because her mind was reeling with terror, and the memories were churning up again. There had been no alarm bell that night in the Clock Tower, but there had been the immense clock itself, crouching immediately above them, relentlessly pounding its own giant’s-heartbeat rhythm.
