Among the Darkness Stirs

She sighed. “Of suspects, if you must know.”

He stared at her for a long moment before speaking. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

Henry looked at her. “My mother is on this list.”

“She’s crossed out.” Audrey didn’t really think she was a suspect.

“I’m on this list,” he said angrily, raising his voice.

She shot him a sharp look. “Don’t speak too loudly. Frances is upstairs reading.”

“Don’t speak too loudly?” he asked, though he did lower his voice. “I’m on a list of suspects. You think I’m a suspect. You think I’m guilty of doing some sort of evil in the workhouse.”

“I don’t, Henry. Honestly, I just put everyone on the list that might have a motive. I even put Della and her mother.” He was silent. She sighed in exasperation. “Henry, I don’t think you’re a killer.”

“Don’t you?” he said coldly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Henry, I don’t think that of you. I put down all the names of all the staff in the workhouse, those connected with it, such as you, and then people I’ve met. Della and her mother were added but obviously ridiculous. And your mother, also ridiculous.”

He grudgingly relented. “I understand. You are just trying to make sense of it all.”

“Exactly.” She suddenly became aware of her hand still on his shoulder and removed it.

“The ledger is quite large,” he said. “It’s used for everyone who dies in the workhouse. We should be able to cross-reference the names in the diary to see if they even match. Or indeed if Dr. Beesley is right about them being dead.”

“Thank you for this,” Audrey said.

“I want to get to the bottom of this just as much as you do.”

“I know that.” She poured out two cups of tea and handed him one saucer and cup while she took the other. She smoothed the papers with the names on it in front of her as he opened the

ledger.

“This goes back at least ten years. I think we should start at the most recent deaths and then work our way back,” Henry told her.

“Yes,” she said. “That makes the most sense.”

Henry opened it halfway and then began turning pages until he came to the last entries.

“How did you happen to come by the ledger? Did you take it?”

“I am a board guardian, Audrey. I don’t need to take things. I merely asked for it.”

She stilled. “Asked for it?”

“Of course.”

“Who do you ask?”

He frowned. “Nurse Durrant. She has the records of deaths in the infirmary.”

She pursed her lips. “So, Nurse Durrant knows that we have this.”

“That I have this, yes. What of it?”