‘Will we pass the lovers’ tree?’ Rachel asked, at last. Starling shook her head.
‘No. It stands back the other way, towards the river. And it would be folly to go so close to the river’s edge in darkness. If you stumbled in at this time of year… We can go another day, in the light, if you want.’
‘I would like to.’ There was a silence before she spoke again. ‘It must have been terrible, not knowing what happened to Alice. Terrible then, and terrible now.’
‘Yes,’ said Starling, with a note of suspicion in her tone. ‘But I do know what happened to her.’
‘But you are not sure. It… it can be a way to grieve, I think. Or rather, a way to postpone the grief, and to divert it. After my little brother died my father chased after every doctor in England for an explanation. For a definitive answer – what was the illness that took him, how did it work, where did he acquire it, how might it have been prevented. It… it drove him to distraction for a while, but it did not bring Christopher back.’
‘I know she’s not coming back,’ Starling whispered tersely. ‘I only want justice for her.’
‘If she is dead then justice does not interest her. It is only for you that you seek it.’
‘Should her killer go unpunished, then? Should his crime stay hidden?’
‘No. I only mean that… that perhaps you ought not let your grief blind you. You ought not let it insist upon an answer when perhaps there is none. Or perhaps you truly have it already.’
For a moment Starling made no reply, and when she did speak her voice was low and angry.
‘What answer?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that Bridget saw Alice talking with another man?’
‘Because it means nothing! It was innocent! Alice was pretty… men often tried to catch her eye.’
‘But Bridget knew her as well as you did – wouldn’t she know what she saw? And what of the note Mr Alleyn spoke of, from the lovers’ tree? Don’t the two things together perhaps suggest that-’
‘No! No, they do not! It’s all a veil, can’t you see? You want her to have run away because you want her to be your sister, and living. But she did not; and she is not!’ Starling’s voice rang out loudly. She quickened her pace as if wanting to leave Rachel behind.
‘You… you cannot have it both ways, you know,’ said Rachel, striding to catch up with her. It was a thought she hadn’t entirely meant to voice, but there was no way to take it back. She braced herself for Starling’s response.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You cannot have Alice flawless, and yet murdered by Jonathan Alleyn. He cannot have all the blame for her vanishing.’
‘Speak plainly.’
‘They loved each other, that much is known. They were in love for years. Do you mean to tell me Alice would reject Jonathan when he came back from the war, because he was disturbed? Haven’t you told me she was a most forgiving woman, and kind-hearted to all?’
‘Yes. She was.’
‘Then would she have rejected him if he came back in a poor state? Even if he had done bad things in the war?’ There was silence. ‘Would she?’ Rachel pressed.
‘No.’ The word was small, and unwilling.
‘Then what cause would he have to murder her?’ Again, silence. ‘The only possible cause would be that she did indeed try to leave him for another.’
‘No! Faukes must have frightened her into it, somehow.’
‘But she was quite prepared to defy Faukes and elope with Jonathan, you told me. You don’t want it to be so, and I understand. But Bridget saw her speaking with another man, and Jonathan found a note – an invitation to meet, written to Alice in writing he didn’t know.’
‘That is no proof! Where is this note, then?’
‘If he did not find it, Starling,’ Rachel said gently, ‘what other reason could he have to harm her?’
They walked on for a while, their steps steady and measured in the dark. Rachel felt oddly calm, oddly removed from the scene she inhabited. She felt as though she was gliding past the world, drifting along to one side, powerless. A pair of watching eyes. Just like on my wedding day. I exist only on the edges of this. ‘There is another explanation.’
‘What?’ Starling leapt at this small offering.
‘He did not kill her.’
‘Then who did? This other man she met?’
‘So you can conceive that she was meeting another? That she loved another? Then can’t you conceive that she ran away with him, in truth? That she was too ashamed to face you and Bridget because of it; too ashamed to face Jonathan? She wrote to him to break it off. Captain Sutton was there with him in Brighton when he got that letter.’
‘She would not leave us. She would not leave me. Jonathan killed her!’
‘Only if she was untrue to him. That could be the only reason. Don’t you see, Starling? You can’t have it both ways!’
‘And this is how you honour the one you hope is your lost sister?’
‘I would rather have her faithless, and cowardly, than dead,’ Rachel said softly.
‘Alice was neither of those things!’
‘Then you prefer her to be dead?’ The words were pitiless to Rachel’s own ears, and she awaited an angry rejoinder that didn’t come. After a minute or so Starling blew her nose, and Rachel saw her cheeks all silvery wet.
‘I wish you hadn’t come,’ said Starling, quietly. Rachel couldn’t tell if she meant on the visit to Bridget that night, or to Bath, and into Starling’s life. She heard an echo of her own loneliness in the words; wanted to put her arm around the girl, but didn’t dare.
‘What did you mean when you said Alice left you to Lord Faukes?’ she asked instead. Starling didn’t answer, but Rachel noticed the way she tensed, her shoulders curling inwards just fractionally, as if to absorb a blow.
They paused at the foot of the bridge that would lead them to Bath’s inner streets, as though unwilling to return to their lives in spite of the late hour, the cold, and the unease between them. Rachel thought of Richard, and what she would say if she found him home, waiting for her. That is my life, in spite of my reluctance. I chose it and I can’t change it. He is my only chance for a family. It was an unavoidable truth. Unless. Unless I can find Abi. She followed Starling’s gaze to Lansdown Crescent, in the high distance, and knew then where she would rather go. The realisation hit her like a slap, a jolt that went right through her. Should we switch places? But if Starling had once wanted Richard Weekes, Rachel knew she wanted him no longer. She was clever enough for that. Her will is bent on proving Jonathan Alice’s murderer. Now I must bend to proving he is not. Their parting glance was full of unspoken things, and Rachel didn’t ask, though she wanted to, when or if they would meet again in private. She tried not to dwell on how much she would rather have carried on at Starling’s side, to Lansdown Crescent, to the dark and disordered rooms on the second floor, and their dark and disordered inhabitant. Be alive, Abi! Be alive, and run off, as Bridget believes. As all others believe. Let Jonathan not be your murderer, and me not destined to lose you twice.
The house above the wine shop was empty and unlit. Relieved, Rachel let exhaustion swim into her body; from the cold, and the wearying intensity of all she had heard and said that night. She went slowly up to the bedroom with a taper to light the lamp, undressed and brushed out her hair. Her stomach felt hollow, but she didn’t want to eat. She closed the shutters and went to the dresser where her trinket box was kept. She craved her mother’s advice like never before. Seconds later her heart fled her chest, sinking like a stone. The box wasn’t in its normal place. She scrabbled through gloves and stockings, combs and neckties; through each of the drawers and then throughout the rest of the room, though she knew she hadn’t put the box anywhere else. But there weren’t that many places to search, and soon she was forced to stop, sit down on the bed, and accept that the box, with her mother’s lock of hair pinned inside, had gone. At once she guessed its certain fate, and then she wished even more to be Starling, and free; rather than Rachel, and trapped.