Not so long ago she had been so sure of herself. She had a plan, a sense of direction. But perhaps her desire to be a doctor had been misplaced from the beginning. She did not want to change who she fundamentally was, to become someone else. She did not wish to suppress her feelings or moderate her compassion. She thought again of Elizabeth Blackwell, the sacrifices she had made in order to fit into a world controlled by men.
She did not need to be like Raven.
Sarah stopped walking for a moment as something else occurred to her.
She did not need Raven.
She let this last thought seep in. It was true though, wasn’t it?
She was a woman of independent means, free to live her life as she chose. She did not need him. She did not need anyone.
NINETEEN
aven was aware that his footfalls were heavier than normal as he strode east along Queen Street. It was an excess of energy born of frustration, the stamp in his gait a substitute for screaming as a means of venting his pent-up emotions.
They said absence made the heart grow fonder, but perhaps absence also made you forget someone’s less endearing qualities: in Sarah’s case, how high-minded and self-righteous she could be. She had an unfailing talent for putting him on the back foot: morally, intellectually and sometimes both.
As he looked back over their history of disagreements, he recalled a litany of apologies from him to her. He did not recall her ever apologising to him. Sarah was never in the wrong, at least in Sarah’s mind.
She had met and married Archie while he was abroad. After Archie died, she had expressed her desire to travel and educate herself, and despite Raven’s own desires, he had chosen not to stand in her way. But now that he had found someone else, someone he might be happy with, she was acting like he had been selfish and deceitful.
He had always harboured strong feelings for Sarah, and had believed them reciprocated, but he was starting to wonder whether those feelings were not quite what he had imagined. Had she instead drawn him into constantly seeking her approval, and mistaking that for true affection?
Eugenie did not belittle him. She did not constantly give him the sense that he had let her down and had making up to do. Quite simply, she did not make him work so hard to feel that he was good enough. She did not make him strive so hard for her approval.
He did not need Sarah’s approval, he counselled himself. He did not need Sarah.
Eugenie looked up from the table as Raven was shown into the drawing room. Her expression of intense concentration was replaced by a look of pleasure as she saw who her visitor was. She strode across the room and took both his hands. He wanted to kiss her, but privacy was precarious in this place.
‘Did you see Gideon?’ she asked.
‘I went straight there last night.’
‘How is he?’
Raven took a moment to consider his response. He decided that the phrase ‘Still an arse’ would not serve him well, for all its veritas.
‘Defiant. There may indeed be more to this than meets the eye.’
And it may be entirely as simple as it appears, as McLevy put it. In truth the only real question over Gideon’s guilt was the imprudence of the use of arsenic, but Raven preferred to keep it vague for now. Despite his earlier musings, he had to admit that he did crave Eugenie’s approval. He wanted to please her.
Eugenie was not easily fooled, however. She was worryingly adept at reading what he left unsaid.
‘After we last spoke, I realised that your impression of Gideon must be very different to mine,’ she told him. ‘I know what he can be like. Selfish and conceited. Callous too, though I think he uses it as a shield. There is a side of him you’ve never seen. He can be considerate. Tender.
‘When he was younger, he used to escape to the summerhouse by the river at Crossford, and I sometimes went to talk to him there, in his own private world. He was a different person in that place, away from his father. He said he wished that could be his life.’
Eugenie looked away, suddenly wary, as though concerned her remarks may have been unguarded.
Raven was instinctively prompted to wonder whether there had ever been something between them. It certainly did not sit well with him that she had a lingering affection for this person, and just as troubling was what it suggested about her judgment. But perhaps Gideon had always been on his best behaviour around Eugenie, presenting a different face to that seen by others. Raven, after all, had never shown her any glimpse of his own dark side.
He supposed Eugenie’s impression stemmed from having first got to know Gideon when they were both children, meaning that beneath everything else, she still saw the child he once was. Perhaps Raven needed to see the child in Gideon: the scared and fragile boy who was cowering before his cruel father. Raven had once been that child too. The problem was that this only made it seem more plausible that the cowering child had finally fought back: in anger and haste, as McLevy had said.
‘What were you poring over when I came in?’ Raven asked, eager to change the subject.
Eugenie led him to the table, upon which was laid a large sheet of paper bearing a detailed monochrome image. Some kind of heraldic carving. A knight’s helmet, a crown, a hunting dog, with a Latin inscription beneath.
‘It’s a brass rubbing. I made it at St Giles’ Cathedral.’
‘The detail is remarkable. How is it done?’
‘Affix some paper to the brass and rub with shoemaker’s wax. It’s amazing how much detail emerges.’
Raven looked closer. ‘Unexpected detail. “A pound of carrots, a shank of mutton”,’ he read.
Eugenie examined the paper. ‘I’m not convinced that was part of the original coat of arms. The cook must have been leaning on this when she wrote her shopping list, and left an impression.’
‘As do you,’ Raven replied.
He was about to lean closer when he heard footsteps from the hall, and a moment later Dr Todd opened the door. He greeted Raven with a warm smile.
‘I trust all is well at Queen Street.’
‘For now. Though we are bracing ourselves for Dr Simpson’s imminent departure. He’s off to London to meet Prince Albert.’
As soon as these words were out, Raven felt a little embarrassed by both his eagerness to impress Dr Todd and his resort to greatness by association.
‘What a privilege. For the prince,’ Todd added, smiling.
‘The professor told me you had already informed him of our happy news,’ Raven said.
‘Take it as a compliment that I could not hold my tongue. I appreciate no announcement has yet been made, but as Dr Simpson is to be family, as it were, I took the liberty. In fact, with regard to that, we ought to discuss certain formalities. Eugenie, would you excuse us?’
‘At once, Father,’ Eugenie replied.
She carefully rolled up the brass rubbing and left the room.
Dr Todd gave him an amused look. Raven suspected he was recalling that first encounter, when Eugenie had made an altogether less gracious exit.
‘You have bewitched and enchanted her. I sometimes wonder of late whether she is the same young woman. I have seldom seen her so carefree.’
‘Though she did seem rather upset by recent events,’ Raven observed, feeling it would be indecorous not to acknowledge it.
‘Of course,’ Todd agreed, thin-lipped. ‘A terrible business.’
‘You and Eugenie were close to the Douglas family, I gather.’
Todd looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Well, I was Sir Ainsley’s physician. I would not presume to describe myself more than that.’
‘I merely mean that you must have known him a long time. Eugenie said she visited the house as a child.’
Todd nodded rapidly, sincere but keen not to dwell. ‘Sir Ainsley was my patient for many, many years.’
‘Were you the one called, when . . .?’
‘Indeed. I was roused from my bed as soon as he was discovered. I went there without delay. He had clearly
been dead since some time in the night. I insisted he be taken to Struthers at once to perform a post-mortem, though Sir Ainsley’s butler tried to object. He maintained his master had often expressed revulsion at the notion of his remains being “butchered”, as he put it, but I brooked no such nonsense. Struthers carried out his examination and I escorted the stomach contents to Christison myself.’
There was no greater authority on poisons than Robert Christison.
‘So you immediately suspected murder?’
‘You saw him yourself. He was a quite indomitable specimen, in perfect health, and making plans for his wedding.’
‘No physical concerns at all?’
‘He suffered a touch of dyspepsia, for which he was taking bismuth, but nothing beyond that, unless you count insomnia in a man who tended to view sleep as a waste of valuable time. For that I prescribed a glass of brandy last thing at night, which I confess I recommended less for any medicinal purposes than as an incentive to go to bed. It is true that most any man can be struck down without warning, but simple inspection indicated that he had suffered. My instinctive impression was that he had been poisoned.’
‘Were there the remains of a meal to be investigated? Contents of a bedpan?’
‘Those had all been cleared away by the time I got there, unfortunately. Though that in itself pricked my suspicion.’
‘Was it you who first fixed upon Gideon as the culprit? I mean, was there any particular reason he should stand accused?’
‘Only he and Mrs Chalmers were in the house overnight, besides the staff. And of the two, his future wife stood to lose all by Sir Ainsley’s death, his son to gain by it.’
Todd eyed Raven with a growing wariness. ‘What is your interest in this matter?’
‘Eugenie has asked me to look into it. She cannot believe this of Gideon.’
Todd seemed exasperated, as though unsure where to look in an appeal for strength.
‘After everything, she still . . .’ He sighed.
‘What?’ Raven asked.
Todd paused, long enough for Raven to wonder if he intended to dismiss the subject. Eventually he spoke.
‘Are you personally familiar with Gideon Douglas?’
‘Our paths crossed as medical students.’
‘What was your impression of him?’
‘Nothing that I would wish quoted back to your daughter.’
‘Delicately put. A troubled young man. He is . . .’
Todd let it trail, unable to find the words, or perhaps allow himself to speak them.
‘His father’s son?’ Raven suggested.
Todd met him with a grave look. ‘Aye,’ he said, his voice low. ‘And for that reason I would caution you, though it pain Eugenie, not to look too deeply into this. These are dark waters that you do not know how to navigate.’
Raven nodded his acknowledgement, but continued, ‘I would happily leave the matter to others but for one question: Gideon asked me why he would use arsenic when he knew it was so easily detectable.’
Todd issued a bitter, mirthless laugh. ‘I can think of two reasons. The first is that he wanted his father to suffer. And the second is that Gideon did not think so far ahead because he has never learned to anticipate the consequences of his actions. There has always been someone to clear up his messes for him.’
‘He suggested his father had greater enemies than he. Would you say that was true?’
‘Indubitably. I am sure many a man wished him ill. But none stood to reap so much from his dying.’
TWENTY
arah looked again at the address Christina had written down for her: Dickson’s Close, off the Cowgate. She was in the right place and yet something about it felt very wrong. Christina had spoken of a respectable woman, which had conjured up the image of a more salubrious residence. No woman of any means would choose to live here.
The Old Town had its share of desirable places to stay. It was built bridge upon bridge, layer upon layer. But the further you descended from its airy heights the worse it became: buildings more dilapidated, ancient constructions repeatedly subdivided and poorly maintained. Generations of the same families crowded into single rooms.
Sarah had walked past many dark alleyways on her way here, concerned about what or who might be lurking within. She had begun to question the wisdom of her venturing out alone long before she got this far. Walking unaccompanied through any part of the city was ill-advised if you were a woman. It was a fear she had long since learned to accommodate. Otherwise how would she ever get anything done? But the deeper, darker parts of the Old Town were another matter entirely.
She remembered attending a church service near here with Raven once. She had to admit she felt safer in his company. Raven had a dangerous streak in him, but why should you need a dangerous man to protect you from the deeds of other dangerous men? Why was it that women were forced to alter their behaviour, when it was men whose conduct was at fault?
Sarah took in the folk passing on the street, working men and women with their carts and baskets. She drew reassurance from the thought that someone might come to her aid should she be accosted. But there was a difference between a busy street and its shadowed tributaries.
Dickson’s Close was a narrow lane, the buildings four storeys high on either side. In the middle of the passage, an additional apartment had been added halfway up the wall, like a carbuncle held aloft by wooden beams. It looked as if a stiff breeze would bring the whole thing crashing down. She thought about Daniel in the lion’s den and hoped that divine intervention would not be required.
The sun briefly broke through the clouds overhead, illuminating small sections of the passageway and making it seem momentarily less foreboding. Then it darkened again. Sarah could see a woman at a high window beating a piece of clothing against the wall beneath it, sending a shower of gravel down into the lane below. A woman with a child carried on her hip emerged from a doorway, walked a little further down the lane and then disappeared.
Sarah took a deep breath and proceeded into the close, looking for a name or number beside each dwelling. Thirty yards along she found the address Christina had specified, a peeling blue door up a short set of steps. There was a smell of food coming from somewhere. Not appetising. Like fish several days past its best.
She climbed the steps; found she was counting them for some reason. Five. Uneven. Well worn. A means of distracting herself from what she was really afraid of, which was what might lie beyond the door. She felt both disappointment and relief when her repeated knocking went unanswered.
The smell of cooked fish was stronger now. It seemed to be coming from a doorway further along the lane. Sarah decided to ask a few questions of whoever was home.
She stood for a moment on this second doorstep and paused before knocking. She should have asked Raven to come with her. It would have been the sensible thing to do. But that would have meant confiding in him, asking for his help, and she had already decided she was better off on her own. She would have to get used to it.
Sarah knocked the door hard, as though trying to convince herself that she was unafraid to do so.
She felt the tension ease from her shoulders when a woman answered, wiping her hands on her apron and not best pleased at being disturbed. She had a livid rash across the bridge of her nose. Sarah tried not to stare.
‘I am looking for Mrs King. I was told that she lives here in Dickson’s Close. Do you know her?’
The woman paused for a moment as though considering how to answer.
‘Haven’t seen her for a while. Not sure she even lives here any more. Not sure why she ever did to be honest. Always looked as though she had the money to live somewhere else.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Good coat. Good shoes. Better than the rest of us can afford round here.’
‘Do you know anything about her business? About her looking after . . . infants?’ Sarah asked tentatively.
The woman looked wary. ‘I don’t kno
w anything about that.’
‘I was told that she takes in babies. Cares for them when their mothers are unable to.’
The woman’s eyes went immediately to Sarah’s midriff.
‘It’s not for me,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m looking for a friend.’
‘Aye, that’s what they all say,’ the woman replied. Her eyes widened briefly as she realised that she had let slip more than she intended.
‘So, you do know a bit about it then.’
The woman sighed. ‘There’s no end of rumours about what went on behind that door, but she didnae take well to questions. I asked her once, just in passing, about the crying I heard, and she put me against the wall: right there. Told me it was none of my business. If it so happens she’s done a moonlight flit, then I’m glad she’s gone.’
She closed the door.
Sarah turned and headed back to the entrance to the close just as a woman with a basket of washing was entering. She had a plaid shawl wrapped round her shoulders, the ends tucked into her waistband. The bright colours of the tartan caught Sarah’s attention, standing out as they did against the drabness of the alleyway. The woman took no notice of Sarah, too intent on the task in hand, and Sarah had to manoeuvre around her. A little behind, previously hidden by the woman and her washing, came a well-dressed lady in a fitted green jacket with matching hat, voluminous red hair swept up beneath it.
Better than the rest could afford round here.
‘Excuse me, are you Mrs King?’ Sarah asked instinctively, without pausing to think.
The woman glanced up quickly, and upon seeing Sarah turned and fled, splashing her fine shoes through muddy puddles in her haste. Sarah gave chase but her quarry had a start and was quickly along the lane and out onto the street. Sarah emerged onto the Cowgate in time to see the woman climbing into a cab, and it was off down the road before she could get anywhere near it.
As Sarah stood at the mouth of the close, she was aware of the scent of perfume lingering in the air. It was cloying, so thick it caught in the throat. Sarah had never been much of an enthusiast for fine fragrance; the result of an over-developed sense of smell perhaps. She vastly preferred the clean smell of soap and water and found overpowering scents to be worse than the body odour they were frequently employed to smother. They often made her suspicious of what else the wearer might be trying to hide.
A Corruption of Blood Page 11