‘I know it like I know the sun will rise in the east,’ she said.
Rachel Weekes was watching Starling with a kind of steady amazement. Her tears had left her face mottled, but her eyes had dried; she seemed to consider several different things to say before choosing.
‘Jonathan Alleyn is a tortured soul… he said to me he wished to undo things he had done. And there is much violence in him, I have seen it. But to do so evil a thing… You truly believe it? You would have it that Mrs Alleyn lies to cover his crime? That she has done so all these years?’
‘Yes, she lies. Of course – what else would a mother do? Jonathan is all she has in this world, after all, especially now her father is gone.’ In that, we are alike; though our hearts be worlds apart.
‘When did Lord Faukes die?’
‘He’s seven years in his grave.’ Seven years I pray God he’s spent roasting. Starling fought the urge to spit at the mention of him. ‘Jonathan Alleyn loved Alice, once. But he was different after the war – he was not the same man, nor has been since. You saw how he behaved, when he first saw you! He might have killed you too.’
‘Aye, he might have,’ Rachel murmured. Her eyes were distant, thoughts racing behind them. ‘But why have you not denounced him, if you are sure of his crime?’
‘A public accusation?’ said Starling, in disgust. ‘Who would believe the word of a servant over people like them? Nobody. And I would lose my position, and all access to the man. Why do you ask me all of this? To know the man you are sent to comfort?’ Starling demanded, suddenly suspicious. Rachel Weekes shifted her feet, looking almost sheepish.
‘Yes, to know him… to know what I am to deal with. But also to know… to know Alice. The one whose face I share. The one he loved so dearly. Tell me, who were her parents? Mrs Alleyn says she was nobody’s daughter.’
‘She said that?’ Starling chewed her lip for a moment. ‘Alice herself often wondered, but none of us knew who her parents were. Lord Faukes would never disclose it.’
‘And he was the only one who would have known, I suppose.’
‘He and the parents themselves, whoever they were. But to know Alice you need know only this: that she was all kindness, all decency; all generous and gentle soul.’ Starling took a deep breath, teetering on the slippery edge of the chasm of grief inside her. She feared that if she fell in, she would never climb out again. She collected herself. ‘Alice would have forgiven Jonathan for killing her. That’s what she was like. She forgave people… there was no malice in her. No rancour or spite. To know Jonathan Alleyn you need know only this, that it is truly a fine line between love and hate.’
‘Then I am wed to a liar, this we know, and am possibly in the employ of a murderer,’ said Rachel Weekes, as she absorbed these words. Her voice was heavy and wretched, but she did not sound afraid. Starling looked at her curiously.
‘Then you believe what I have told you? That he killed her?’
‘We… we have not yet had the full story of what passed between them, I am sure, and I pray it is not so. But I believe he could have.’
For a long moment the two of them simply stood in the abbey’s pooling shadows and watched each other. Starling was not sure what else she should say, and it seemed that Rachel Weekes was also confounded.
‘It would not be wise for us to meet again,’ Starling said quietly.
‘But I will be at the house many times. I will be there this Wednesday… if you want to talk to me again.’
‘It was you who wanted to talk to me, remember?’ Starling pointed out, and saw Rachel Weekes flinch, stung.
‘But I am well placed, am I not, to try to discover the truth of the matter?’ she ventured.
‘Why would you want to do that?’ Suspicion flared in Starling again.
‘Because-’ Mrs Weekes broke off. Her eyes searched Starling’s face, as though the answer might be there, and Starling felt something tremulous in the pit of her stomach, like sparkles of joy that faded as soon as they lit. Ye Gods, but she is the very image of my sister. ‘I have thought, since I first entered that house, that it seemed frozen; sleeping, or perhaps only waiting,’ said Rachel Weekes. ‘Now I understand what it was that made time stop. It was Alice, and the way she vanished. She haunts that house… she haunts Jonathan Alleyn and his mother. Such secrets…’ She paused, shook her head slightly. ‘I… I am told I must keep going there, but I… I cannot do so, and not know the truth,’ she said vehemently. ‘The truth will set us free,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps it could set me free.’
‘I don’t think the Bible was referring to such dark truths as these,’ said Starling. Rachel Weekes frowned, in obvious thought.
‘But twelve years have passed since Alice was seen… In twelve years you have found out nothing new?’ she said.
‘Twelve difficult years, I assure you.’ Starling scowled defensively. ‘I stayed on in their service only to this end… only to keep my enemy close. It is nine years since Mr Alleyn got back from the war for good, and he was more than half mad when he did. I had conversations with him then that he claims not to remember now – not remember at all. Then for years he was near insensible with opium… He dreamed four years away, and drank the rest…’
‘He does not remember that time? Then… is it not possible…’
‘That he does not remember killing her?’ Starling shook her head. ‘I do not believe it. Perhaps he wishes to forget, but I do not believe that he has. That he could.’
‘Then it is this knowledge, you believe, that torments him so?’
‘Should it not torment him to know that he slew the one person who loved him best in all the world?’
‘But he knows what you suspect of him? Then… how can you be safe there? How can you not fear what he might do to you?’
‘You need not fear for me. I can manage Jonathan Alleyn.’
‘It has been so long since Alice was lost,’ said Rachel Weekes. She studied Starling with wide, pitying eyes, and Starling recoiled. No one had looked at her that way in years; Alice had been the last person to. It made her feel vulnerable, somehow weaker, as though she might crack. ‘How have you borne it?’ the woman asked.
‘What choice have I had?’ Starling replied, curtly. What have I become in those years, that I cannot stand to be comforted? ‘If Mrs Alleyn knew what I was about… But she lies for him, I know. She knows more of the truth than she lets on.’
‘Perhaps she also lies to herself,’ said Rachel, softly. ‘A mother’s love is a powerful thing. I have… I have begun to know the lady, a little. Perhaps, in time, she might speak.’
‘You must not say anything of what I have told you! Not to them… they must not know that I know, or in an instant they would be rid of me!’ Panic made Starling’s voice rise. If they send me away, if they do that, what have I then? She had the sudden, fearful sensation of losing control.
‘I shan’t speak of this to them. I… I don’t know what I will do.’
Starling thought quickly. It had been a relief to speak the truth and pass on her suspicions; she had not bargained on recruiting an ally – a person with her own ideas and plans. A person easily shocked, and likely to betray herself. She could ruin everything.
‘Do nothing,’ said Starling. ‘It would be better if you didn’t see him any more. If you went no more to Lansdown Crescent. It would be safer for you, and easier for me.’
‘I must go. My husband commands it, and I would feel… duty bound to Mrs Alleyn to do so, even if he did not. What should I do?’ said Mrs Weekes. Starling took a moment to decide, chewing the inside of her mouth. Her unease remained; the sudden fear of unanticipated change.