He came to the house on a cold Sunday afternoon in January, after church. He had recently returned from the port of Hamburg and he talked fondly of the beer he drank there, so I served him some local ale with his meal. Mrs Dempster objected, saying he might prefer wine as that was what she and Mr Dempster were drinking. However, he assured her that the ale was most welcome and delighted everyone by thanking me in German.
He began to feel ill that afternoon, and by early evening it was clear he was in no condition to return home. Mrs Dempster insisted he lie down in the guest-room, a large chamber she had never seen fit to offer me, despite me ‘paying my way’.
There was some concern that Colin’s illness was the result of his recent travels, as nobody else was showing any ill effects after eating the same meal. It was suggested that a doctor be summoned, but being a nurse, I convinced them that such a measure was premature, and that Colin would most likely improve after a good night’s sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep proved impossible for him. As he lay there, as restless and disoriented as any storm-tossed sailor, he complained of being stricken by a fierce thirst. I prepared a drink for him, and bade Martha serve it to him.
‘You will look after him in sickness when you are his wife,’ I told her. ‘Best that you begin now.’
This notion seemed to please her, and she swept off with urgent purpose, the glass clutched between her hands. Thus, though she would never know it, Martha administered a large dose of poison to her betrothed.
I recall sending Mrs Dempster to fetch me some towels soaked in cold water for Colin’s growing fever, and it pleased me to reverse our places, to be the one commanding her. She did as she was told because she was afraid for Colin, though mostly for her daughter and for her own grand vision. More than her obedience, though, I enjoyed her distress.
I will confess I was envious of Martha, and the life she was looking forward to with her husband-to-be, but that was not the motivation for what I did. She was not my target, any more than Colin was.
Once upon a time I had the means but not the fortitude to kill Mrs Dempster. However, by the time I had the fortitude, I had come to realise that I did not so urgently wish to end her life. I had seen people slip away, oblivious of their fate, and she did not deserve such mercy. I wished Mrs Dempster to suffer. It remained my intention to kill her, but first I wanted her to see everything she cared about destroyed.
FIFTY-THREE
here was a cold mist enveloping Edinburgh, the kind that caught in one’s throat with every breath and made one wish for high winds to disperse it. When he was a schoolboy, on such days Raven would often climb Arthur’s Seat or Salisbury Crags, as sometimes it was possible to get above the fog. Not only was the clear air a relief, but it was quite the spectacle to look down upon the clouds. It was even possible to imagine that Edinburgh had vanished, and that there was no city hidden beneath the shroud of grey. No Callum Flint to entangle him in criminality, no Archie Banks to request of him that he end his life.
Nor were his worries confined to Scotland any more. He had received another letter from Henry late yesterday, and though correspondence from his dear friend was always welcome, there had been little in it to comfort him.
I understand now why Gabriela has fled. The police returned yesterday, and I finally learned the identity of the man slain in the alley. His name was Javier Salazaro, and, as suspected, the man was no vagabond. The name was not familiar to me, but Liselotte informed me that Gabriela’s estranged husband is called Ignacio Salazoro.
It seems that Ignacio regarded Gabriela as an ongoing source of shame and disgrace, living what the police described as an immoral life. It appears Javier came here seeking to abduct her and return her to his brother’s household.
Given his status and influence, there can be little question but that Ignacio now knows the name of the man who thwarted those plans, and who killed his brother.
Raven recalled Dr Ziegler saying that you could judge a man by the calibre of his enemies. He reflected grimly that this at least indicated he was finally going up in the world.
He hoped that Gabriela’s disappearance was an effort to avoid a subsequent attempt rather than evidence of a successful abduction, though it angered him that she should be forced to uproot herself just to maintain her autonomy. No husband should consider a wife his property.
On this particular Sunday, much as he needed it, he could not afford the luxury of a recreational expedition. He and Sarah had to venture north through the murk to learn more about certain tragic events that might shed further light upon their investigations. Four deaths in one household in a matter of weeks – spanning three generations – was highly unusual and might well be another instance of the disease he was hoping to identify. If the symptoms were consistent with what had been described before, then this household could go down in history as the place where Raven’s Malady was verified. Three cases would be insufficient to convince anybody, but seven? That would be hard to refute.
Sarah had still not been dissuaded of her notion that the nurse had been taking an active role in the demise of her patients, though they were at least united in agreement that Mary Dempster might be a crucial common factor in this series of deaths. In her stubbornness, she had taken a trip to the Royal Infirmary and was still refusing to relinquish her wayward theory despite learning nothing more substantial than that Mary Dempster had been dismissed for being light-fingered; and that she might once have climbed into bed with a patient whose self-confessed delirium at the time made her the epitome of an unreliable witness.
Raven had begun preliminary work on a paper but would have to admit that a lack of primary evidence was undermining him. He cursed the fact that he had only begun to identify the illness after George Porteous died, meaning he had missed the opportunity to more closely examine a live sufferer. For now, all he had were sketchy second-hand accounts. Two of these were occluded by the fog of emotion, and neither Dr Johnstone nor Greta Porteous had been closely involved in their relatives’ care. The third witness was Dr Fowler, whose judgment was clouded by altogether different factors.
As a medical man Raven had been appalled by Dr Fowler’s obtuseness and superstition, though he suspected his disdain paled in comparison to Sarah’s. Her anger at the absence of opportunities for women to educate themselves was only matched by her resentment at the privilege and preferment extended to men she considered her intellectual inferiors. Raven had little doubt that a bumbling anachronism such as Dr Fowler would have fallen into this category; he suspected it to be a wide field, one in which he was probably included too. For that reason, he would have to admit to deriving some satisfaction from setting her straight on her flawed poisoning hypothesis. She was clever, but like her revered Dr Simpson, her judgment was not infallible.
It might have been due to the pallor of the day, but as they trudged along Inverleith Row he thought that Sarah was lacking colour about her face. Raven was loath to enquire as to how she was feeling, because she clearly did not wish to confide in him regarding her condition, and thus any enquiry, no matter how sincere in its intentions, was likely to be met with hostility.
Their destination was Trinity Grove, according to the relevant page of the newspaper which Sarah had rescued from the basket of kindling by the fire. The house they sought was a handsome one that would have enjoyed an uninterrupted view all the way across the Forth had the day been clear. From a distance, it offered no suggestion of the suffering that must have been endured within, but as they drew nearer, an unkempt garden was the first sign that all was not as it should be.
‘It looks disappointingly empty,’ Raven remarked.
‘It does,’ Sarah agreed. ‘I fear there will not be anyone with whom to leave a card.’
Raven was unsure whether this was intended as a slight, which usually meant that it was.
‘We should knock anyway, for what it is worth,’ she added. ‘Perhaps we could enquire at the neighbouring houses. Surely they will have
visited the family during a time of so many bereavements?’
Raven lifted the heavy brass door knocker and beat it against the plate. He could hear the reverberation inside, and imagined it echoing through the empty house, unheard. However, moments later he heard footsteps approaching from around the side of the building.
The man who appeared did not seem dressed for the weather, accoutred only in frayed trousers and a filthy shirt. Raven observed beads of sweat upon his forehead and recognised that he had been toiling, hence the lack of a coat.
‘You are too early,’ he said. ‘The sale of furniture and other goods is not until next Saturday.’
‘Are you the gardener?’ Raven asked.
‘I am today,’ he replied. ‘I am attempting to tidy things up a bit before winter falls. And before the sale, which as I say, is next week.’
‘We are not here for the sale,’ Raven stated. ‘I am Dr Will Raven, and this is Mrs Sarah Banks. We are investigating the spread of what we believe to be a dangerous new disease. Having learned of the unfortunate events that occurred here recently, we wish to ascertain whether there may be a connection. Are you a relative of the Eddlestone family?’
The man grimaced and let out a weary sigh.
‘My name is Iain McKinnon, and I’m afraid you will find nothing new here. Not unless this disease you seek is what we already call heartbreak and grief.’
‘You knew the family well?’ Sarah asked.
‘My sister Julia died here. Her husband Stuart was my closest friend.’
Iain pointed across the street to the house diagonally opposite.
‘I live there. Always have. We grew up together. Known the Eddlestone family all my days.’
‘If it is not too painful, can you tell us a little about what happened?’ Sarah asked, her voice softly appellant. She had a gift for putting people at ease: the same talent that calmed the most obstreperous patients at Queen Street no matter how busy the waiting room. ‘The newspaper said three generations had died but they often get these things wrong.’
‘No, that part is true enough. Old Mrs Eddlestone was the last to go. She spent much of the past few years bedridden, and yet I often said to myself that she would nonetheless see the rest of us buried. It was closer to truth than I intended.’
‘A hardy specimen, was she?’ Raven suggested with an encouraging smile, though he had detected little affection in Iain’s tone.
‘She was not an easy woman. I had not envisioned mourning her death, but in the event I was already grief-stricken. I was wary of her as a child and that never diminished. Her husband was lost at sea when her children were small, which I will own made things difficult for her, though, God forgive me, I sometimes wondered whether he was merely hiding.’
Raven wondered at the unguarded nature of the conversation, but traumatic events often rendered people more open than they would be otherwise.
‘Her son Stuart and my sister Julia were sweethearts from childhood. It seemed inevitable that they would marry, but I had my concerns about Julia moving into this house, fine as it is. In truth, I think she did not expect the old woman to live so long. Mrs Eddlestone was often ill, though I suspected it sometimes suited her to be so. Each time we thought she was nearing her end, she would wax strong again, bitter and spiteful as ever.’
‘Julia and Stuart had a child?’ Sarah asked.
He wore a sad smile.
‘Yes. Eleanor. A beautiful girl, although she was strong-willed and used to getting her own way, the only one of us who was any match for old Ma Eddlestone.’
The smile faded, and only the sadness remained.
‘A few weeks ago, she fell suddenly and profoundly ill. We all feared the worst, and then she appeared to recover. Unfortunately, her recovery was not sustained. The illness returned to claim her.’
Raven was aware of Sarah glancing at him but he kept his attention focused on Iain. Remittance and relapse: these were stages he had expected to hear about. However, he was cautious. Many a child had fought a brave battle with illness, raising their parents’ hopes only to succumb.
‘As I say, she was always strong and determined. They kept having to put her back to bed because she was impatient to be well. Perhaps in the end that was what did for her: she was vulnerable because she would not rest as she was supposed to. Nor did it help that she kept refusing her medicine. She said she didn’t like it. She was too young to understand. If only she had taken more of it …’
He swallowed back tears, his voice trailing off.
‘It stole the life from my sister. I saw her fade away before my eyes. Within a week of Eleanor’s death, she was bedridden herself. Tearful and wandering, as though the world no longer made sense to her. You could say she died of a broken heart.’
Raven turned to look at Sarah, as he knew that this would be hard for her to hear. He knew her father had passed away shortly after her mother died in childbirth, and Sarah maintained that it was his grief that had killed him.
‘And what of your friend, Stuart?’ Raven asked. ‘Did he die of a broken heart too?’
Iain glanced in the direction of the Forth, though there was only fog to see.
He cleared his throat. ‘Stuart …’ he began, then winced and looked away again.
The thought appeared to be too painful. They had been friends since childhood after all. But Raven detected another element to his reticence, and suspected he knew what it was. He thought of Archie’s request for perhaps the twentieth time that day.
‘You are a doctor, you say?’
‘Aye.’
‘Then I can speak to you in confidence?’
‘We can promise you the utmost discretion,’ Sarah assured him. Raven wondered if she suspected too.
‘Surely nobody could blame him for what he did,’ Iain said, almost as though talking to himself. ‘He had already been through so much. But people can be harsh judges when they sit at a distance. He had lost all; all but his mother, I suppose. But she was provided for, so he was not abandoning her …’
Raven was certain now of what Iain was reluctant to divulge and reasoned it would be easier if he said it for him.
‘He took his own life.’
Iain nodded solemnly.
‘We found him in his bed with Julia’s locket clutched in his hand.’
Raven was beginning to feel like an intruder upon a stranger’s sorrow. With every word spoken it looked less like this was a piece in the puzzle he hoped to solve, and thus they had little business troubling the man further.
‘How terrible for Mrs Eddlestone to find her own son that way,’ Raven said. Iain had not painted her well, but nobody would have wished her to witness such a thing. Family – even interfering in family – was often the thing that kept older people going. Now that she had lost everything, it was unsurprising that this proved the beginning of the end for her.
‘No, the mercy was that she did not,’ Iain said. ‘She was confined to bed at the time, and in fact was never to leave it.’
‘It’s just that you said “we”,’ Raven reminded him.
‘I meant myself and Mrs Eddlestone’s nurse. She lived with us for several weeks. She was recommended by Dr Fowler. Personally, I had little faith in the man, but he had been Mrs Eddlestone’s doctor a long time and she was not to be argued with.’
‘This nurse,’ Sarah said. ‘She didn’t happen to be called Mary Dempster, did she?’
Raven thrilled with anticipation at what was about to be revealed, sensing triumph in the air around him as he calculated the implications.
‘Yes. How do you know that?’ Iain asked, clearly surprised by her perspicacity.
‘Call it a woman’s intuition,’ Sarah replied.
‘We know Dr Fowler,’ Raven added, eager to assuage any curiosity. There was no time for detailed explanations about what it was they were trying to uncover.
‘Well, I’ll concede that his judgment was sound in this case,’ Iain went on. ‘She is a good woman, not jus
t a good nurse. Bless her. Truth is, she found Stuart first, though only by a few moments. He had killed himself with morphine. When I came in, she was disposing of it in the hope that we would never know and might thus be spared the ignominy on top of the loss.’
Raven felt the ground shift beneath him as Iain spoke, vividly seeing what the man could not. Seeing what he himself had been wilfully blind to, despite Sarah’s efforts to reveal it. His triumph turned to ashes in a twinkling.
Mary Dempster had killed Stuart, and Iain had walked in on her getting rid of the evidence.
‘The pity is, had I been but a minute later, I would have believed he went the same way as Julia,’ Iain said. ‘I was grateful for Mary’s solicitude nonetheless.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Sarah, flashing Raven a look. ‘We may never know how many such acts of mercy she has committed without acknowledgement or reward.’
‘As I say, Mary is a good woman. If she hadn’t been in the house to look after Mrs Eddlestone, I doubt Eleanor would have held on as long as she did.’
‘We are so sorry for your dreadful loss,’ Sarah said. ‘But can I ask one more question? You said earlier that Eleanor was too young to understand. Understand what?’
His countenance took on a look of profound regret.
‘She wouldn’t take her medicine because she said it was making her sick. She didn’t understand that she was already sick and even if it tasted nasty, the medicine would make her better.’
The Art of Dying Page 24