Time of Blood. Robin Jarvis

from the housekeeper’s room.

      Wrapped in an expensive silk dressing gown that had belonged to her former mistress, Mrs Axmill burst into in the hallway. With steel-grey hair plaited in a heavy cable down her back, her face was slathered in so much cold cream that she looked like a greasy apparition.

      ‘Have you taken leave of your senses, girl?’ she bawled. ‘Return to your room at once! How dare you shriek down the household at this hour of the night.’

      ‘Stay away from me!’ Grace shouted back, struggling with the middle bolt. ‘Murderers is what you are! Monsters! You and the master! I saw – I saw what you did to poor Esme!’

      Mrs Axmill’s fierce expression vanished immediately and was replaced by a stony derision, which was even more alarming.

      ‘You should not have gone into that room,’ she said with icy finality. ‘Why can’t you silly girls ever do as you’re told? So foolish.’

      Grace wiped her frightened tears away.

      ‘I’ll fetch the law on you!’

      A sinister smile appeared in the cold cream.

      ‘You won’t be telling anyone anything, Flossy,’ Mrs Axmill threatened.

      ‘My name is Grace!’

      ‘No,’ the housekeeper corrected her with a vicious grin. ‘“Dead” is what you are.’

      Snarling, she leaped at her, seizing the girl by the throat.

      Grace tried to fight back, but the housekeeper was stronger than she looked and the girl crumpled beneath her.

      ‘Who would believe a snot-nosed slum slattern like you anyway?’ Mrs Axmill growled through bared teeth as she squeezed her fingers tighter round the slender neck.

      Gasping for breath, Grace kicked and pushed, but it was futile. In choking desperation she grabbed the woman’s long plait and tore at it.

      Mrs Axmill screeched and Grace punched her in the stomach. The grip loosened from the girl’s throat and she shoved her away. Mrs Axmill spun into the wall, splatting cold cream where her face smacked the panels. Incensed, she came raging back, launching at Grace like a tigress.

      But Grace was ready. She had snatched a silver-topped walking cane from the cloak stand and swung it defiantly. It cracked Mrs Axmill across the skull and she howled as she crashed to the floor.

      Grace drew the final bolt free, yanked the door open and raced into the night.

      Clutching her head, Mrs Axmill lurched to her feet and headed for the stairs.

      ‘My lord!’ she called urgently. ‘My lord!’

      Reaching the marquess’s bedchamber, she was about to pound on his door when it opened and the master of the house stood glowering at her.

      The Marquess Darqueller was a tall, athletic man. She worshipped his strong, handsome face, with its penetrating velvet black eyes that seemed to see into those deepest, most secret places she had kept hidden from the world for so long. He was half dressed, his shirt was undone and his thick raven hair pleasingly untidy.

      Even through the hammering pain between her temples, Mrs Axmill took a moment to admire him. She was so completely in his power.

      ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

      ‘The maid, Flossy. She’s been in the red room.’

      ‘And you let her get away?’

      ‘She attacked me and struck me down. I’m sorry, my lord.’

      Her master pushed by and ran across the landing.

      ‘Rouse the boy!’ he ordered the housekeeper. ‘Don’t bother to dress him – there is no time.’

      Mrs Axmill hurried to obey, but glanced back before entering Master Verne’s room. The marquess was speaking angrily to what appeared to be an empty corner, where an empty bottle of brandy lay on the floor.

      ‘I warned you, Gull!’ he growled, his fists trembling with barely contained fury. ‘I said leave the drink alone. You’re stewed! Don’t strain my patience further! The humans in this hall are not here for your amusement, you stunted, mollusc-brained halfwit. I don’t care how curious she was – I would have dealt with it. I had a particular use in mind for that girl; she was not for you to play with!’

      Frowning at those last words, Mrs Axmill rubbed her aching head and entered the blue bedroom.

      ‘Get up, Master Verne,’ she shouted, clapping her hands. ‘Wake up!’

      Another thick, low fog, what the locals called a ‘fret’, had rolled in off the sea. It flooded the labyrinth lanes of Whitby with dense grey vapour. In some places it was waist-deep; in others it crept up the walls and pressed against bedroom windows.

      Fleeing Bagdale Hall, casting the walking cane aside, Grace rushed up Spring Hill, scything a path through the curdling mist. The police station wasn’t far. If there was no one on duty at this hour she would batter on the door until she woke the inspector in his house or one of the unmarried constables in the rooms above.

      Cocooned in fog, the red-brick building was just in view when a tall, burly figure in a caped coat strode into sight ahead. The gaslight of a street lamp behind him pitched his bearded face into shadow, but the girl could tell from his homburg hat that he wasn’t a policeman.

      ‘You there!’ he challenged her, in a gruff Irish brogue. ‘What are you doing out at this hour?’

      Grace’s mind was in turmoil, whirling with the horror she had witnessed in the red bedroom. Halting, she stared at the stranger fearfully and was about to cry for help when he raised his arm and she saw a revolver in his hand.

      A shot exploded from the muzzle. It thundered high over her head. Grace spun round and tore back down the hill. Only one thought blazed brightly now: she had to get home, across the river, to her father’s cottage on the East Cliff.

      ‘Stop!’ the man yelled behind her. ‘Wait there! Stop!’

      Grace didn’t even hear him. Panic and terror drove her. She ran like a hare through Baxtergate. No glimmer of light shone in the windows of the surrounding buildings and the blanketing fog obscured the road. Stones cut her bare feet and she almost twisted her ankle when she crashed against the unseen kerb.

      The quay was just ahead. One dash through Old Market Place, then over the bridge, and home and safety would be moments away. Yet she knew she would never be free of the hideous sight she had uncovered in that forbidden room. That ghastly horror would haunt her forever and thinking of it now made her feel sick.

      ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ a hearty voice greeted her. ‘Why have you strayed from the snuggery of your bed, little miss?’

      Another man had emerged from the shadowy mist into her path. Grace tried to dodge aside, but he hooked her arm and reeled her back towards him.

      ‘What’s sent you dashing through these dark streets as though your chemise were on fire?’ he asked.

      The girl struggled.

      ‘Hold easy, lass!’ he chuckled. ‘Rufus Brodribb won’t harm you none. He saves his pugilism for the dough in the bakery. What’s got you so frighted? You’re quailing like a cornered mouse in the grain store.’

      Gulping desperate breaths, Grace looked up at him. She saw a thin but benign and ruddy face, flanked by a profusion of ginger side whiskers and a pair of pince-nez on a long nose. His shirt sleeves were rolled past the elbow and over his waistcoat he wore a large white apron.

      ‘Honest Rufus Brodribb, presently of Botham’s baker’s,’ he introduced himself with a friendly grin. ‘But most others do call me Crusty Rustychops, on account of me trade and the luxuriance of me cheek ticklers. What say you and me cut along to the place of my employment, where you can regale my ears with your troubles over a pot of tea