touch of the cold plaster seemed to burn her palm that it was the last thing she should have done. The memories in the stone had been set free.
The images were coming thick and fast now, like a jerky silent film, the figures jostling on the screen. Lizzie couldn’t breathe. She was drowning in sorrow. Her lungs were full of it. She could taste it in her mouth. Images spun through her mind, animated with sound as well as movement now.
‘It’s not Amy,’ she said. ‘It’s not Amy whose grief we can feel here. Amy had hopes and plans. She was excited, happy. She was going to escape and start anew…’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s someone else here,’ she said. ‘Amy calls her Anna. It’s Anna whose grief we can sense, Anna who is broken with guilt. She never meant for it to happen. She did not want Amy to fall. It was an accident—’
The images shifted abruptly and Lizzie saw not Amy Robsart but Amelia, in one of her long, flowing dresses, her blonde hair loose about her shoulders, standing at the top of the stone stair, suitcases scattered about her. She was looking back at someone and she was smiling, but it wasn’t a warm smile, it was edged with impatience and spite. Lizzie could feel Amelia’s emotions, the irritation and the exasperation. Amelia wanted to get away and someone was calling her back…
‘Anna! No!’
It was Johnny’s voice and the shout was so loud that it broke Lizzie from the trance. She opened her eyes, saw the dark stairs yawning below her and teetered on the edge for one sickening moment. She waited for the push in the small of the back, the fall, the rush of air and the clutch of terror, everything she had felt in her visions, the fate that had lain in wait for Amy Robsart and for Amelia and now for her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a hand raised and instinctively put up an arm to protect herself. The blow glanced off her shoulder, giving her a momentary excruciating pain and Lizzie stumbled back, jarring her arm again as she fell clumsily. She lay still for a moment with her cheek pressed against the cold stone of the floor whilst the darkness swirled through her mind and started to clear and the pain receded. Far away, as though in a dream, she heard the splintering crash of stone.
‘Anna,’ Johnny said again, and there was a whole world of despair in his voice. ‘It was you. You killed Amelia.’
Pushing herself upright, Lizzie saw Anna Robsart, and behind her Arthur, who was breathing as though he had run a mile. His eyes met Lizzie’s and she saw the moment he realised what had happened. She saw the horror swamp him and felt his despair. Arthur turned away and Lizzie felt the link between them shut down.
Far below them, on the turn of the stair, the stone angel lay smashed into shards, just as the gazing ball had done so many years before.
Chapter 26
Lizzie: Present Day
‘Yes, I did it,’ Anna said. ‘I pushed Amelia down the stairs.’
They were back in the kitchen, amidst the breakfast debris. There was an air of complete unreality about everything. The papers, the cold pot of tea felt like a relic from another time, from before. Arthur had his arm around Johnny. They both looked completely ashen. Lizzie felt like an interloper; she wanted to reach out to Arthur, to try to comfort him, but she knew there was nothing she could say. There was no comfort anyone could give.
Anna’s blonde hair fell across her face like a curtain, sheltering her expression from view. ‘I killed Millie,’ she repeated. ‘We were arguing about the divorce. I wanted Millie to take Dudley for all he had. It was the least he owed her after the way he had behaved.’ She shot Lizzie a look. ‘But Millie wasn’t interested. She was running away, planning a new life. She was all excited and glowing and happy and I—’ Her voice cracked. ‘I was still so full of anger and resentment and hate. I couldn’t understand why she would let Dudley off the hook like that. I told her I thought she was weak and stupid, and she looked at me with pity.’ She clutched convulsively at the mug, wrapping her hands about it, searching for fading warmth. ‘Pity from Millie, of all people! I couldn’t stand it.