“Where are they?”
I hold on to his gaze, even though it feels as though my insides have turned liquid, even though it feels as if my voice is small and lost and frightened.
“I don’t know. Maybe I lost them.”
“Mina, being a journalist taught me many things. One of those is how to tell when a person is lying. I learned that very quickly. Another was that there isn’t a policeman who doesn’t have a price. Any idea how many contacts I have in the force? How many old friends owing me favors? All it took was a single phone call.”
Distantly, a boom. Thunder. The heat is building, stifling as a damp flannel over the mouth.
“They questioned you, didn’t they? After your brother died.”
“It was routine,” I say automatically. My heart is beating an erratic rhythm in my chest.
“Oh, Mina. I think we can dispense with all this”—he flaps his hand idly—“politeness.After all, you’ve accused me of killing my wife.”
He steps up to me, putting the peach gently to one side. Hishand slides out from behind his back. He is holding one of the Devices, the one which looks like a long, slender needle with a worn wooden handle.
“This is the witch pricker,” he tells me. “It has broken stronger women than yourself, Mina Ellis. When I introduced it to Alice, she cried out like a wounded animal. Do you know what it’s used for?”
I shake my head.
“This particular pricker was used by one of my Puritan forebears as a test for witches. I’m told he drove it through the skin all the way to the bone. In the old days it was believed that a witch had a place on her body that was devoid of feeling and nerves and would not bleed when pricked. Let’s see if we can find it, shall we, Mina? Let’s find out. Let’s see how deep it goes before you confess.”
He grips my wrist in a surprisingly strong, manacled grasp, resting the tip of the pricker against my forearm. I can see the dent it makes in the skin as he applies slow pressure.
“Your brother, Eddie. He was quite the star pupil by all accounts. Very bright. Very driven. It’s no wonder he held out as long as he did toward the end. That tenacity is inbuilt in some people, isn’t it? Such a shame he was robbed of that future.”
“Pneumonia killed him. It was”—I gasp in pain as the needle draws a bead of blood—“th-the ice.”
“But why was heonthe ice, Mina?”
I stare at him. There is a tingling sensation in my hands and the backs of my eyes, a feeling of pressure surging. I have to bite down on my tongue to bring the room back into focus. A voltaic flicker of lightning and all the lights lower for a second. That buzzing, is it in my head? I don’t know. I don’t know.
“It wasn’t my fault. Dad said Eddie would have gone to saveanyone. A squirrel even, if it was stuck. That’s just who Eddie was.”
“But it wasn’t just ‘anyone’ and it wasn’t a squirrel, was it, Mina?”
In that long, heavy cloak Bert seems bigger, heavier somehow. Like he could crush me underfoot. He puts his forehead against mine, the witch pricker cold on my skin, slicing me open. “It wasyou.”
It’s as though I’ve swallowed a shard of ice and it is sliding down my throat, lungs crackling with frost. I’m shivering.Slow down Mina the ice is black,Eddie had shouted, but I hadn’t listened, had I? The crack beneath my feet so loud that rooks had risen into the wintry air like burning leaves.
“I’m told in the police interview you were very nervous. You shook all the way through it. No tears, though. No sadness. Funny, that.”
“I was broken. I was beyond tears.”
“I’ll bet you were. Like I said, it hurts to see the ones we love suffer. So much better sometimes to do what we must to ease their pain.”
I’m crying. I can feel the tears swell and sting, the soft, velvety punch of emotion in my chest and throat, that rising sensation like I’m lifting off the ground despite the hagstones tethering me. My mouth moves but no sound comes out. Bert nods, his voice gentle.
“Oh, Mina.”
My knees give way, suddenly and completely, and I slide bonelessly to the floor. The sound of the stones around my neck is a rattling applause.Bravo!Bert stands over me, his head tilted to one side.
“Ah-ah! No tears, Mina. Eddie wouldn’t want that. Come on. Up on your feet.”
“I can’t.”
I hate the way my voice sounds. Weak and needling. Bert eases himself into a crouch beside me. I can hear the joints in his knees pop, the long sigh. His eyes bore into mine with an agitation that borders on excitement.