After Alice Fell(55)

“They’ll be long gone. Or changed. Dr. Mayhew will have seen to that.”

“But you could make a statement. To the police.”

“You signed the death certificate,” she says. “An accident. That clears him and this facility of all liability. Everything else will have been dropped down the incinerator.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I have no reason to lie.” She grabs my arm. “Kitty has notebooks. She used to keep them for Alice, smuggled them in and out. Before she was transferred up here, Alice made her promise to give them to you. That you’d know what to do.”

“There are other notebooks?”

“We have little time.” She steps close to me. “The night she died, there was a situation on the second floor. I went down, as we are to do when needed. I locked the ward door. I never forget to lock that door.”

“Are you the only one with the keys?”

She shakes her head. “The night watch. The doctors. Even Kitty has a set to borrow when she needs them.” Her eyes are glass marbles in the sallow light.

“You don’t think Kitty—”

“When I came up again—and it couldn’t be more than a few minutes, whatever had happened had passed by the time I got there—when I came up, her door was open.” She jerks a finger. “And the entrance. And the access to the roof.”

I stare down the hall. The door is shut. There’s nothing to see.

“But by the time I’d made it to the roof, it was too late. She’d gone over the edge.”

“Or someone pushed her.”

“What did she know that she shouldn’t?” She peers out, then takes my arm and moves us away from the door.

“Besides Beatrice? Besides the horror of that box?”

“Dr. Mayhew believes in his treatments. His writings on them are well regarded.”

“But they don’t work.”

“Many times they do.”

My teeth rattle; I am cold everywhere, my fingers numbing as if held to snow. “My God, I don’t know.”

“Shh.” Miss Clough puts her hand to my mouth. There’s a clang and clink of entry locks ricocheting like loose shot. It’s answered by a muted pound from the inside of one of the cells. “The night watch—”

Out the door. Down the hall. Ignore the sighs and chitters that seep from the cells. Miss Clough turns down the lamp flame and sets it back to its spot on the landing. She takes the keys to the locks, checks them again.

We leave through the same back passage. There’s a thump of a door closing directly below us. She stops, snatching my wrist to keep me from descending, and then leans over the railing to peer in the shaft.

“Harriet?” A woman’s voice carries up to us, sliding along the railing.

“Mrs. Brighton.”

The second-floor matron. I push myself farther against the wall and hold my breath.

“You’re here late.”

“As are you,” Miss Clough answers.

“One last pass. Check the locks.”

“We think the same.”

“Mm.” Mrs. Brighton follows with that little cough. “Shall we go down together?”

Miss Clough hasn’t moved. She remains a statue bent over the railing, knuckles whiter and whiter as she grips the wood. “I’m just heading up.”

“But I thought—”

“Good night, Mrs. Brighton.”

“Don’t miss psalms.”

“I would never.”

“All right.”

“Yes, all right.” She shifts a heel. Leans farther.

Mrs. Brighton’s footsteps echo as she takes the stairs down. There’s a waft of air from another door opening, then closing. Then our own breaths released.

Harriet Clough’s words run in circles. They hang in the air and chase around me as we return to the kitchens and the sweet smell of bread. Stoakes waits by the tunnel door. Kitty jumps from her perch on the long table.

“Where are the other notebooks?” I ask her.

Kitty’s face blanches. She stares at Miss Clough, then at me. “I don’t have them.”

“What did you do with them?”

“They were taken.”

“Who took them? Kitty, who took them?”

Her hand trembles as she reaches to touch her throat. Her breath comes fast and ragged.

“Mrs. Abbott,” Stoakes says. “We need to go.” He pulls me to the tunnel. I reach for his arm to slow him.

“Wait.” I look back to Miss Clough. Her form is flat like a shadow puppet, lit from behind by the kitchen light. “We need the police.”

“No.” Her voice is sharp like nails. “Dr. Mayhew is too . . . You haven’t been here, Mrs. Abbott. I hope you have another story for your night.”

Something catches her attention; she turns away, leaving Kitty alone in the room.

“Kitty. Please. Who took them?”

Her wheeze echoes along the tunnel. “Mr. Snow.” She slams the door shut.

I can’t move. Mr. Stoakes’s voice rumbles from the tunnel walk, and he drags me the rest of the way.

Mr. Snow. My brother.





Chapter Twenty-Two