“Two of those people handed it to me,” Ellie pointed out gently.
“But you’re smart. That gets you far. I figured out the musical notes before the Maggie clue and tried to rob Willow’s shop first. I didn’t find it, and she wasn’t going to hand it over to me...” Her voice trailed off, heavy with dejection. “I know how people look at me... I...”
Ellie watched in horror as Anne moved to the window, her frail figure silhouetted against the red-stained glass. The breeze that rushed in whipped Anne’s grey hair, giving her an almost ethereal appearance. Ellie’s heart raced as Anne climbed onto the windowsill, her intentions becoming frighteningly clear.
“I just wanted to be seen... to be heard... to write...” Anne’s voice was barely audible over the wind.
Ellie swallowed hard, her mind racing to find the right words. “You should see yourself from a different perspective, Anne,” she urged. “You are smart, and who’s judging, anyway? You didn’t mastermind this whole thing. You didn’t need to. You followed your instincts, your survival instincts, facing every obstacle using whatever you had on hand. And you figured out all those riddles!” Ellie stretched out a hand from the other side of the room, not daring to take even a step forward. “You’re a hard worker and you studied for a degree while cleaning half the houses in this village, and people clearly trust you to give you their keys and like you. I liked you... and I didn’t like Thomas... he wasn’t a good man. Emma wasn’t great either. You’re right. They were rotten apples. But at any moment over these past two years... you could have left this house... moved on... found something new for yourself without the Blackwood Family arguing about an imaginary treasure and instead, you became just like them. Desperately fighting over Edmund’s final treasure, thinking you knew what was best for it.”
Anne moved closer to the window, her body swaying slightly. “Then I might as well jump,” she said, her eyes scanning the room one last time. “Those four years… I loved this job.”
“Yes,” Ellie said softly, understanding all too well. “I know the feeling.”
“Then we could jump together?”
Ellie smiled sadly, shaking her head slowly. “How about neither of us jump?”
“I was pulling your leg,” Anne said, creaking the window open wider. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Me… I have nothing to live for… nothing to love…”
Desperate to keep Anne talking, to keep her from taking that fatal step, Ellie grasped for a topic. “I love reading. A lot. I’ve been so busy since I came back to Meadowfield I haven’t had a second to sit down and just enjoy reading. Do you enjoy writing? The process, I mean?”
Anne, too preoccupied with looking down, barely registered the question. “What?”
“The sixteen books that were never published?”
“Perspective, Anne,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “You’ve been cleaning your whole life, breaking your back and cramming in the writing, and that’s before your shifts with the tourists at the museum. You can rest. You can write... send the books to me... I’ll always read them. I promise, Anne, just come down.”
“Why are you being nice to me?”
Ellie shrugged, her voice sincere as she replied, “Maybe seeing a statue fall on someone, and a pen poking out of a man’s chest—and you literally pushed a gravestone onto me... maybe that’s enough horrors for one week?” She lifted up her other hand, beckoning Anne in. “Because even without all this going on, my gran broke her hip, I lost two jobs, and I realised that I might have just spent twelve years of my life scared to look at a bench, so... this was already officially the worst week of my thirties so far.”
Anne’s expression softened. “Change your perspective,” she stated, tugging the window shut and making sure to lock it. “You just beat the police to solving a murder case. That’s more than most people around here did with their week, mind.”
As Anne slid off the ledge, Ellie heard a commotion behind her as boots rushed up the stone steps.
“How did you figure me out?”
“The continuity,” Ellie said, offering a tight smile. “In the end, your resourcefulness was your downfall. You left a pen with no ink at the scene of the crime long enough that I saw it. The Penny of Offa you bought that morning, you dropped that in the alley. And you leave the scent of cherry disinfectant wherever you clean, which wouldn’t have given you away if you hadn’t hidden in that wardrobe to stay behind to take the pen.” Anne’s eyes widened, as though she hadn’t considered any of this. “But the one that gave you away was the book.”
“Edmund’s?”
“The book you never read but recommended to Edmund based on a review,” Ellie said, and Anne looked even more confused. “According to you, it was published half a decade ago, but my gran confirmed it was actually less than four years ago. 2020. Only a year apart when you round it, but a big difference in this timeline. If I worked out the sequence of events correctly, that’s the same year you started working here, which is also the same year Edmund’s career ignited again.”
Anne still looked puzzled, like she didn’t know how Ellie knew any of this.
“You told me,” Ellie stated. “When you were cleaning my mother’s bedroom, you were so quick to prove yourself to me based on how you thought I perceived you. You didn’t stop to catch your breath long enough to consider if you were confessing to murder. The footprints were all there. I just had to shine the right light over them to make them glow.” The marching boots were just around the last curve of the staircase. “I’m sorry, Anne. I should have told you who I was too.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “And who’s she when she’s at home?”
“The best historical continuity researcher my former employer ever had the honour of making redundant.”
Suddenly, hands yanked Ellie back as uniformed bodies flooded into the room, separating her from Anne. Through the chaos of arms and legs, Ellie caught glimpses of Anne wriggling against the officers’ grasp. Just before they dragged her away, Ellie saw Anne lean in and kiss the wooden desk, knocking over the chair as she went. Then she relaxed, ending her struggle.
“Edmund would have loved watching that unfold,” Anne called out to Ellie, her voice carrying over the din. “His final game, ending with a twist even he couldn’t see coming when he wrote his Last Draft—me. And now for a twist for myself. Maybe fiction isn’t for me... maybe the first book I’ll send you will be a true crime novel. My story... and how I almost got away with it.”
DS Angela Cookson pushed through the chaos, and Ellie watched as Anne was pulled down the stairs, her voice fading into the distance. Angela’s firm grip on her shoulders brought her attention back to the present moment.
Expecting a harsh reprimand, Ellie was surprised when Angela’s expression softened slightly. “You alright?”
Ellie managed a nod, still processing the intense conversation she’d just had with Anne.
Angela’s next words came as a warning, but without her usual bite. “You get this one for free, on me,” she said, extending a finger. “Meddle in one of my investigations again, and you won’t be lucky enough for me to tell you that you can—”
Before Angela could finish, Anne’s voice echoed up the stairs, cutting through the air. “You’re too nice, Ellie,” she called out. “I tried to kill you twice, mind, and still, you were nice. They’ll take advantage of that... all of them... they’ll see it as a weakness…”
Ellie fixed Angela with a hard stare, and the detective’s expression suggested she saw Ellie as anything but nice at that moment.
“Go on,” Angela demanded, jerking her head towards the door and stepping aside. “Your gran is worried sick out there.”
Ellie hesitated for a moment, taking one last look around Edmund’s empty office. She couldn’t help but hope that whatever became of this space in the future, it would have a little more cheer in the air. As her gaze fell on the window, she remembered how she’d always been afraid of it when passing by the tower. Given what she now knew had been going on up here for all these years, perhaps her instincts had been right all along.
“Eleanor Swan!” Maggie cried, charging at Ellie with her cane pointed the moment she was outside. “What got into you? I heard you flew over that wall. The police have been trying to get those gates open for the best part of ten minutes while I’ve been going frantic.”
“Someone said I ‘flew’?” Ellie nodded at her gran’s left hip and said, “And I did the same thing that compelled you to chase after Charles the first time you caught him robbing your shop.”
“Hmm.” Maggie grumbled. “Well, we are a clumsy bunch. You get that from me. Don’t think I didn’t hear about how you fell backend first out of the wardrobe.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Ellie said, suddenly feeling the ache from the fall in her lower back as she looked back at the wall she’d scaled. She saw Daniel chatting with Sylvia outside The Old Bell; well, she’d almost scaled it. He noticed her and he looked as relieved as Ellie felt to be back on the other side of the gates.
