A Corruption of Blood

by Ambrose Parry

  Good coat, good shoes.

  She was reminded of something that her grandmother used to say: ‘Fine clothing is an affectation and often conceals a great deal of dirt.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  he tangy, putrid stink of raw meat mixed with the metallic smell of blood assailed Raven’s nose as he opened the door to the police surgeon’s room. He found it hard to believe he was back here again so soon. He generally preferred to conduct meetings with Henry at a local hostelry, or if time was pressing, the Infirmary mortuary. Admittedly, the latter rarely smelled much better than this place, but at least there was less chance of encountering McLevy into the bargain.

  Beyond the door the stench intensified. Henry was standing at the sink, washing his hands.

  ‘Anything interesting today?’ Raven enquired.

  ‘Trauma to the head. Blood in the brain. Not difficult to assign a cause of death in this one.’ Henry noticed the look on Raven’s face. ‘He was lying a while before he was found.’

  ‘That would explain the smell.’

  ‘Horrible way to die.’

  ‘Is there a good way?’

  ‘There are certainly better ways than being bludgeoned to death in an alleyway,’ Henry said, drying his hands. ‘I think I’d prefer to die at home in my own bed.’

  Raven thought of Ainsley Douglas. Not all deaths at home were peaceful ones.

  ‘Didn’t make it to the Infirmary then?’ Raven said of the corpse on the table.

  ‘Probably for the best. Nothing that they could have done for him there and you know how much Syme hates to lose a patient. Uncontainable rage when they have the temerity to die on him.’

  Henry scribbled something in a notebook then put his pen down.

  ‘I presume this is not a social call. What can I do for you?’

  ‘A couple of things. First, why are you always here helping Struthers? I would have thought that the Infirmary supplied enough work for a pathologist.’

  ‘Assistant pathologist,’ Henry corrected him. ‘The work is interesting. I learn a lot from it. And if truth be told, I have one eye on Struthers’ position here.’

  ‘Police surgeon? Really?’ Raven smiled at the implication that his friend might not be leaving Edinburgh after all.

  ‘You said that there were a couple of things,’ Henry reminded him.

  ‘The Ainsley Douglas post-mortem. Do you know anything about it?’

  Henry arched his brow. ‘More than I would care to. Struthers has been talking of little else.’

  ‘Even in death, the wealthy make a greater impression,’ Raven suggested, making his way to the cabinet in the corner.

  ‘Struthers says that he has been hounded by your Dr Todd throughout the whole examination, which he did not much appreciate.’

  ‘And what of the findings?’

  ‘Initially Struthers thought the diagnosis was dysentery, but Todd badgered him into sending off the stomach contents for analysis. Todd seemed to consider that this was a suspicious death from the outset, although he failed to enlighten Struthers as to why he thought this was the case. Not only did Todd insist on being present for the duration of the dissection, he then arranged transport of the stomach contents for analysis himself, conducting the jar of fluid in his own carriage. This enraged Struthers no end. Thought that his competence was being impugned.’

  ‘And what was found?’

  ‘There was a small amount of arsenic in the stomach contents, but none was found in any of the organs. Enough to satisfy McLevy, though what he doesn’t have is proof of who administered it.’

  ‘Why was Todd so certain from the outset? Any idea?’

  Henry looked wryly amused. ‘None, but you can be damn sure he was relieved. When your wealthiest and most famous patient drops dead in the night, you do not wish it to emerge that the cause was something you failed to diagnose or anticipate. That is why he was sticking to Struthers like a limpet. If he had missed something, he wanted to be the first to know. Incidentally, what on earth are you doing?’

  Henry had belatedly noticed Raven’s activity. He had retrieved a box from the cabinet and was fishing about inside. He extracted what he was looking for and began working at it with a piece of black shoemaker’s wax which he had purchased on his way here for this very purpose.

  ‘All will be revealed. Or nothing will. It is too early to say. You know it’s Gideon who stands accused?’ Raven added.

  Henry was hovering, trying to see what Raven was up to.

  ‘Yes. I have to confess I am surprised, given all I observed of him when we were students. I would not have thought him capable of carrying out such a deed.’

  ‘How so?’ Raven asked. Following his discussion with Eugenie, he was curious as to whether Henry also had a deeper impression of the man.

  ‘Because he would have had to do something for himself. It would be far more Gideon’s manner to pay a flunkey to take care of it for him, and I cannot imagine such services are so easily procured.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Raven observed.

  Henry examined his fingernails and frowned. ‘Joking aside, though Gideon was spoiled and conceited, I never considered him capable of actual harm. Cruel of tongue certainly, but cruel of deed is something else. Though that is the advantage of poison: it allows one to fell a physically stronger foe. It does not require the same fortitude as stabbing or—’ Henry jabbed a thumb towards the body on the table ‘—beating one’s enemy to death. That is why it is the preferred method of murder by women of their husbands. Betrothed persons take note.’

  Raven did not respond to his friend’s jest, too intent on what he was doing and upon the repercussions of what Henry had said. Nothing in it augured well for Eugenie’s hopes. Poison would be the perfect means by which Gideon might murder a more powerful man he could not face down.

  Even the first part of his musings held no comfort, for Henry’s impression of Gideon as physically harmless was based on limited information. In an alley outside a tavern not far from here, Raven had once glimpsed an aspect of Gideon that he kept hidden from the world, perhaps even from himself. Only one other person might testify to what Gideon was truly capable of, and he would likely remember little, between the drink, the damage and the darkness. It would be fair to say, however, that this individual was the very definition of an eyewitness.

  Raven heard the creak and scrape of the room’s heavy door. He had not recognised Struthers’ inimitable gait, each footfall alternating with the sound of wood upon the boards. Instead it was McLevy who filled the frame.

  ‘Dr Littlejohn, if you have a wee minute, I was—’

  The detective took a moment to notice Raven. It did not appear to be a pleasant surprise.

  ‘Dr Raven, I’m after telling you to stay out of my way, and yet here you are.’

  Raven lifted his hands, ostensibly in a gesture of submission. His true motive would reveal itself as soon as the detective proved himself appropriately observant.

  ‘Merely conversing with a friend,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, really? Conversing about Sir Ainsley Douglas, perchance?’ He looked to Henry. ‘Did your man here tell you his grand theory that Gideon must be innocent on the grounds that he was incapable of doing something that would get him caught? Because there’s a wee problem with that logic.’

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Mr McLevy,’ Raven said. ‘I have made enquiries, but the harder I look, the clearer it appears you are right. Nothing I have discovered contradicts your conclusions.’

  McLevy looked satisfied, if a little surprised.

  ‘Aye, that’s the way of it in detective work. Much the same as in medicine, I’d wager. As long as you follow where the evidence is pointing, you’ll usually get to the truth.’

  ‘And what of the evidence that was pointing to Mary Olsen? How will you feel if you find she was telling the truth, and you have dug up her dead child on little more than the say-so of a slighted man?’

  The policeman did not react with
his usual ebullience. The look on his face told Raven that this possibility had weighed on his mind.

  ‘Following the evidence sometimes requires a distasteful course, though if it is the course that leads to the truth, we do not shrink from pursuing it. But we have more to go on than one man’s say-so. Mary Olsen had a baby of approximately the right age, and her initials were written on the parcel.’

  With these words McLevy became aware of two things: that Raven was holding that very sheet of parcel paper, and that the fingers of his right hand were stained black.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’

  ‘Most of the ink was washed away by contact with water, but the impressions of the pen nib remain. It says “D. McCabe, 49 Candlemaker Row”.’

  McLevy snatched it from his hand, looking at the lettering that had emerged as tiny grooves in the wax. He could see for himself that there had never been an ‘MO’, or even an ‘OW’.

  ‘We follow the evidence in medicine too. But I have learned the hard way to be doubly sure of what it’s telling me before I proceed.’

  There was a flash of warning in McLevy’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by something close to gratitude, and not merely for being given a valuable lead.

  TWENTY-TWO

  arah walked past the Assembly Rooms on George Street, avoiding the crowd milling around the coach-stand on the opposite side of the road. She stopped to read a poster advertising an evening of musical entertainment. The list of names meant nothing to her, but she thought perhaps that she should attend. So much of her time had been focused on serious pursuits – work and study – that it would no doubt do her some good. She would have to find someone to accompany her, however. There was a limit to what she could reasonably do alone.

  She thought of Raven, but immediately dismissed that notion and was annoyed at how readily he still came to mind. Mina then, when she finally tired of travelling and returned home. Old maids together.

  As she resumed walking she caught a whiff of scent on the breeze and realised that she was approaching Mina’s favourite perfumier, a place they had visited often when she was still a housemaid. She took a moment to consider how much her life had changed since then. And how little. Her own aspirations had not come to much; while Mina, who desired the more traditional role of wife and mother, had also been disappointed. Sarah was unpleasantly reminded of a certain Dr Beattie, at one time Mina’s intended, who had favoured a distinctive cologne. She hoped that he was still sufficiently far from civilisation to be deprived of it.

  The smell grew stronger as she proceeded, reminding her of the residual scent in Dickson’s Close. It had been such a strange, unique mix, unlike anything she had smelled before. It suddenly struck her that if she described it to the perfumier, he might be persuaded to tell her to whom he had sold such a scent. He always had a good memory for his customers’ names.

  Through the shop’s front window, she caught sight of a lady with auburn hair standing behind the counter. Sarah was halted in her tracks. The green jacket was absent, but the woman was of similar height with that same, distinctive colour of hair.

  Sarah cursed herself for not making the connection before. She could so easily have missed this had she taken a different route home. Working in a perfume shop would certainly explain why the woman in the green coat had left such a strong spoor of clashing scents behind her. An occupational hazard, or perhaps she willingly doused herself with the shop’s merchandise.

  Sarah entered the shop and made a show of perusing the elegant bottles on display, silently scoffing at the ludicrous prices attached to them. She was perfectly happy with her own rose soap and lavender water. She made them herself. These products seemed to be aimed at those with more money than sense.

  She risked a surreptitious glance at the flame-haired woman, satisfying herself it was the same person she had pursued in the alley. Then she picked up the most expensive bottle to examine, a time-honoured manoeuvre guaranteed to summon the nearest assistant.

  ‘Can I help you with something, madam?’

  She was aware that she was being appraised. With a quick look the woman had scanned her head to foot, trying to ascertain her likely wealth from her apparel.

  Sarah made her own assessment in return. Though she was sure this was the woman she had seen, she was less convinced that she was the one who resided behind the blue door in Dickson’s Close. Why would Mrs King be working in a perfumier’s? Sarah needed to talk to her nonetheless. She decided a direct approach was probably the best.

  ‘I was hoping that we might run into each other again,’ she said.

  Several emotions registered on the woman’s face in quick succession. Confusion. Recognition. Concern. She tried to bluff her way out of it.

  ‘I’m sorry but I don’t believe we’ve met.’

  ‘It is true we have not been introduced but we have seen each other before. At an address down in the Cowgate only yesterday.’

  Concern quickly turned to alarm.

  ‘I’m afraid that you are mistaken.’

  ‘I can assure you I am not. I would like to talk to you about what you were doing there.’

  The perfumier emerged from the back of the shop. He did not appear to recognise Sarah, though she must have been in here dozens of times. Maids were not to be noticed.

  ‘Everything alright?’

  The woman smiled. ‘This lady is interested in a bottle of the Mille Fleurs,’ she said, spritzing some into Sarah’s face. Sarah suppressed a cough, worried that she might actually have to buy a bottle of the stuff in order to gain an audience with this woman. She was unsure whether her budget would stretch to it and would resent having to pay for something that she would never wear.

  The man lifted a ledger from the counter and retreated behind a curtained doorway.

  ‘I can’t talk to you here,’ the woman hissed. ‘We close in half an hour. I will meet you at the end of the street. Charlotte Square.’

  Sarah paced up and down at the entrance to the gardens, gazing fruitlessly along George Street. She had been foolish in letting the woman out of her sight. She probably had no intention of keeping this impromptu appointment.

  The pavement across the street was becoming increasingly crowded as clerks and office workers began making their way home: a few gentlemen in top hats, ladies in pairs, servants laden down with provisions. Sarah was uncomfortably aware that she was beginning to draw attention from passers-by: a young woman on her own.

  She was about to admit defeat and make for home herself, when she saw the woman approach, revealed as a carriage clattered past. She lifted her skirts high to avoid a pile of muck that had accumulated in the gutter, stepped up onto the pavement and grabbed Sarah’s arm, all but propelling her towards the north-western corner of the square, away from the crowds.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I don’t want you,’ Sarah said, which caused the woman to pause, dousing her temper a little. She let go of Sarah’s arm.

  ‘Then I ask again. What do you want?’

  ‘I’m trying to find a woman who lives in Dickson’s Close. And I think that you are trying to find her too.’ Sarah looked at her, trying to gauge her response. ‘Possibly for the same reason.’

  This was all speculation now, thoughts coming to her and connections being made as she spoke. The look on the woman’s face suggested that she had stumbled upon the truth.

  ‘Perhaps we can help each other,’ Sarah said.

  The woman scoffed, though more in doubt than that it was undesirable.

  ‘I am looking for a Mrs King,’ Sarah explained. ‘She takes in babies. And she sells them too.’

  At these words the woman crumbled before her. Her chin wobbled, tears welled in her eyes.

  They both took a seat on a nearby bench.

  ‘I had a little girl,’ the woman said, her voice faltering. ‘I named her Lilian. After my mother. But she was not my husband’s child.’

  The inf
ormation came out in pieces, slotting together to reveal the whole. A complicated picture emerged but not an entirely uncommon one. She and her husband were, on paper, a suitable match. He was a buyer for a large overseas trading company, a man with prospects who offered a comfortable life, security. What woman could want more? He travelled constantly, which proved to be a blessing as he had turned out to be a jealous and violent individual.

  She had an affair, the details of which she did not divulge. She became pregnant with her lover’s child and was able to conceal the pregnancy from her husband as he was in India during the latter part of it.

  ‘You couldn’t keep the child?’

  ‘My husband was from home when I conceived. He pays little attention to women’s problems, but he is aware of the normal duration of a pregnancy. Simple arithmetic would indicate that he could not have been the father.’

  ‘So, what did you do?’

  ‘I had little choice. I gave the baby away before he returned.’

  Sarah found it hard to imagine such a thing: feeling compelled to part with your own baby. She had lost a child herself in early pregnancy, a complication that had almost ended her life. Sarah doubted that she had truly come to terms with this yet. She had been so fixated on the loss of Archie and all that had happened around that time, that she had not had the opportunity to grieve for what else she had lost. Her chance of motherhood was almost certainly gone for good.

  Though she struggled to admit it to herself, the end of her pregnancy had also brought with it a degree of relief. Certain doors remained open that would otherwise have closed. Although after Grafenberg she was unsure if she would ever walk through them anyway.