The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

It’s his kindness that knocks the wind out of me. He thinks I’m half mad, a drunken fool who spent the night in the forest and came back raving. Yet instead of being angry, he pities me. That’s the worst part. Anger’s solid; it has weight. You can beat your fists against it. Pity’s a fog to become lost within.

We’re following the road to the village, the trees drawing closer with every step. It’s not quite what I’d anticipated. The map in the study conjured images of some grand labor, a boulevard hewn from the forest. The reality is little more than a wide dirt track, wretched with potholes and fallen branches. The forest hasn’t been tamed so much as bartered with, the Hardcastles winning the barest of concessions from their neighbor.

I got it into my head to go for a stroll, but when I came back, I couldn’t get anybody to open the front door. I’ve been banging on windows for the last half hour, but there’s not a servant to be seen. The whole thing’s positively American.”

Nothing like a mask to reveal somebody’s true nature.

as with everything at Blackheath, its beauty is dependent on distance. Viewed from the ballroom, the reflecting pool’s a magnificent sight, a long mirror conveying all the drama of the house. Here and now, though, it’s just a filthy pond, the stone cracked, moss growing thick as carpet on the surface.

“Why the hell are we meeting all the way out here?” asks Pettigrew grumpily, dropping into a chair. “You’ve a perfectly good…” He waves in the direction of Blackheath. “Well, you’ve got something that resembles a house down the road.”

Thankfully, the leaves and twigs are so demoralized by the earlier rain they don’t have the heart to cry out beneath my feet.