A Corruption of Blood

by Ambrose Parry

  ‘A few months.’

  ‘Then he might yet be identified. Some of these have been down here for quite some time. With the attendant deterioration in the tissues . . .’

  His words tailed off as Sarah turned away. She was struggling not to cry. It was impossible to remain aloof, disconnected from the horrible reality of it all. She could not summon the professional detachment that Raven assured her she would learn to muster on such occasions.

  When she looked at Raven, she could see that he was struggling too. She would not have expected him to be so moved on Christina’s behalf and certainly not on Gideon’s. Then she realised that his thoughts were with neither of them.

  Henry seemed to sense that there was something personal in their responses. He replaced the sheet over the bodies and stepped away.

  ‘Eugenie had a secret child, didn’t she?’ Sarah asked gently.

  Raven nodded. Swallowed. When he replied, it was barely above a whisper.

  ‘Two years ago. A daughter. Her father took the baby. He gave it to a woman at a railway station, just as the lady at the perfumier described. I think that Eugenie’s child may lie here too.’

  There was a commotion at their backs. Sarah looked across to see McLevy making his way through, accompanied by the officer they had seen rushing into the police office. Henry wandered across to greet him with the news of what had been uncovered.

  Sarah thought of some of the terrible things she had borne witness to over the past few years. The dreadful crimes of the so-called French midwife that had never come to light, partly to protect the innocent, and partly to protect the values of a society not yet ready to confront them. Earlier this same year, the grim harvest of a murderous nurse had been suppressed to avoid a panic against a trusted profession. There would be no hiding this, however. Too many eyes had already seen it. News of this gruesome discovery would travel across Edinburgh faster than any carriage and would likely reach Queen Street before they did.

  She heard McLevy loudly clearing his throat, clearly calling their attention. He was standing over the gruesome assembly of little corpses once again revealed beneath Henry’s sheet.

  ‘So, Dr Raven and Miss Fisher, what do the pair of you reckon? Am I missing an innocent explanation involving medicine and science, or can I call this lot murder?’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  he news was all over Edinburgh, seemingly the only thing Raven heard anyone talk about. The newspapers were referring to the perpetrator as a ‘baby-farmer’, and it appeared the practice was not new. It had proliferated in recent times all over the country, known about but never spoken of. However, as McLevy had put it, child neglect was one thing – children succumbing from want of proper care and attention – but this was something else again. Strangulation to hasten the end. This was murder.

  Every patient at Raven’s clinic yesterday had voiced an opinion about who was responsible, or about the women who had surrendered their babies in such a way. What troubled Raven was that they all gave the impression this horror had nothing to do with them. They were shocked that such a thing had been discovered here, but it was as though it had happened to their city, visited upon it by some unimaginable malefactor.

  Raven was more of the opinion that it was something their city had done to the women involved. To his mind, the discovery at Bonnington Mills collectively shamed Edinburgh, and the more influence you had, the more shame you ought to bear.

  He was sure that Mrs King would be lying low, if not already fled, while the likes of Madame Bouvier would be admitting no knowledge of the woman or her activities. McLevy’s men were combing the city, and if they tracked their quarry down, she would surely hang, but Raven knew the true culprits would never be held accountable. It was men like Ainsley Douglas who created the baby-farmers, who proposed and helped devise the laws that made it impossible for unwed mothers to provide for their children, or to seek financial recourse from the fathers.

  Upon those the scandal directly affected, the damage was considerable. If poor Christina had previously been deceiving herself about the fate of her son, she was not now. The news had reached her before Mrs Simpson’s party had even made it back into the city. According to Mina, they had heard it read from the newspaper by someone who boarded their train at North Berwick, whereupon Christina had – inexplicably to her employer – collapsed inconsolably into weeping.

  She had taken to her bed upon her return to Queen Street, where a strange reversal witnessed Mrs Simpson bringing her housemaid a bowl of soup in an effort to feed and comfort her.

  Raven and Sarah had discussed telling Christina what they knew, wondering if it might lift her spirits to learn that Gideon had spoken of his love for her and had only failed to seek her out because his father had told him she was dead. Raven had counselled caution as he did not feel confident about how Gideon was likely to conduct himself should he learn that Christina was in fact alive. He was now a man of means and status, whether he liked it or not. His perspective on an affair with someone below stairs may have altered dramatically.

  Perhaps significantly, Raven still had not seen the man.

  Since Gideon’s release two days ago, Raven had thought often of McLevy’s scorn. He was not expecting tearful gratitude, but that there should be no word of acknowledgement didn’t give the impression of a man humbled by the admonitions of his recent experience.

  Eugenie had seen him, but only briefly, and he had barely registered her presence as he stormed in and out of the house on St Andrew Square. It had been far from the reunion she had envisaged, his conduct leaving her troubled.

  ‘There was something coldly determined about him,’ she had told Raven. ‘He all but barged past me like I wasn’t there, intent on speaking to my father, brooking no refusal. Then after they had spoken, he charged out again, barely looking at me as he went.’

  ‘What did they speak about?’ Raven asked.

  ‘I don’t know. My father would not discuss it, but he looked shaken. He had lost a button from his shirt. I think Gideon might have grabbed him.’

  ‘Did you overhear anything?’

  ‘They kept their voices low, deliberately so I would say, though it was clearly a heated exchange.’

  There had been a time, only days ago, when Raven would have been relieved to learn that Gideon had not rushed straight to Eugenie’s waiting embrace upon his release. But relieved or not, something about this did not feel right.

  As Raven entered the dining room for breakfast, he saw that while Sarah, Mrs Simpson and Mina were already seated, there was once again no sign of Dr Simpson. He decided that, once he had eaten, he would go up and check on the professor whether he wanted him to or not. Thus far he had been refusing to let anyone except Jessie tend to him.

  Dr Simpson’s withdrawal was not unprecedented. It had happened on several occasions before, usually due to a profound depression of spirits or over-exuberant experimentation with various inhaled chemicals. Both usually responded well to a few days in bed but there was no sign of recovery yet and Mrs Simpson had mentioned a low fever that Raven did not like the sound of.

  Raven had just finished off a bowl of porridge and was on his way to the stairs when the doorbell sounded. He postponed his ascent, conscious that it might be an urgent summons requiring his immediate departure.

  There was no such emergency. Instead Jarvis opened the door to reveal Amelia Bettencourt, dressed as always in black. At the sight of her Raven remembered that today it was her father rather than her husband she was formally mourning: she must have stopped by on her way to the funeral. Following Gideon’s exoneration – and despite McLevy’s protestations that the case was not closed – the body had been released for burial.

  Amelia was carrying her son Matthew, clutched tightly to her chest. He recalled Eugenie saying Amelia could not bear to be parted from him, as though constant vigilance would save him from succumbing to disease. She had even dismissed her nursemaid because she feared she had been insufficiently watc
hful. It seemed harsh to blame the woman for a child’s illness when they went down with so many things, but it was testament to how precious the baby was to Amelia. A last remnant of her dead husband.

  Christina had shared a similar maternal instinct, to protect her child at all costs, but she had lacked the financial means to do so and now mourned for the son she could not afford to keep.

  Amelia nodded at Raven as she entered, the black feathers on her hat quivering as she did so.

  ‘I must speak with you, Dr Raven. And Miss Fisher too.’

  Raven led her upstairs to the drawing room, thinking that his rather messy consulting room would be inappropriate for an interview. She took a seat and settled the baby in her lap as Sarah entered.

  Raven thought that Amelia looked wan, as though deeply burdened.

  ‘Are you in need of refreshment, Mrs Bettencourt?’ Sarah enquired.

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘You are on your way to the funeral?’ Raven asked. It was a banal question, but it felt polite to mention it, by way of tacitly acknowledging also that her detour via Queen Street was irregular to say the least.

  Raven looked at Sarah, who seemed equally puzzled.

  ‘It will be a relief, I hope,’ Amelia said. ‘Marking an end to this dreadful business.’

  Raven waited for her to say more but she did not.

  ‘How is your brother?’ he asked. ‘I have not seen him since his release.’

  ‘Nor I. Indeed, that is what brings me here to speak to you both.’

  She adjusted her grip on the child, shifting little Matthew in her lap.

  ‘I know I should be grateful that you exonerated Gideon, because for all his faults, I would prefer not to live with the knowledge that he murdered our father. However, there is something that has been troubling me. Something that makes it difficult for me to accept that the matter is truly resolved.’

  Sarah took a seat beside her, looking adoringly at the swaddled bundle in her lap. Raven could not but think of how she would now never bear a child of her own, and wondered at how that might weigh upon her.

  Little Matthew seemed too old to be so tightly wrapped, Raven thought. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes heavy, his head nodding a little as he tried to fight sleep. Amelia, unusually for a proud mother, turned the child away from Sarah and shifted herself a little further too. Perhaps she feared that Sarah was a potential source of contagion.

  ‘What is it that has caused you to feel troubled?’ Raven asked.

  Amelia paused a moment, then spoke.

  ‘I must have cast the image from my mind while it was believed Gideon poisoned my father with arsenic. But now that you have proven arsenic was not the cause of his death . . .’

  She sighed, the strain of conflict etched upon her face.

  ‘I want to believe better things about my brother, but I know I will be unable to while there remains a question not merely unanswered, but never asked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Raven asked. ‘What image?’

  ‘On the night of the soirée, shortly before I left, I saw my brother go into the kitchen. He was carrying a hessian bag which he did not have when he emerged. He seemed furtive. I recall he had brought some exotic fruits home from Tobago, and I believe that is what was in the bag.’

  ‘Yes, one of the housemaids mentioned that,’ Sarah said. ‘You may rest easy. It was merely pineapple. Quite harmless.’

  ‘I know well enough what a pineapple is,’ she replied. ‘I have visited the Indies too. And that is not what he was carrying. The bag was too small. As I say, I discounted the significance of this while arsenic was believed to be the cause, but now . . .’

  Amelia winced, as though tasting something sour and unpleasant. She turned to Sarah.

  ‘Miss Fisher, I have heard much about you. You are clever and ambitious. I am told you have designs on becoming a doctor. I have always had an interest in the law, and would have liked to pursue a career myself. Alas, such a course is not open to my sex. I therefore know that to make any headway a woman needs to be twice as good as the best man. That is why I believe that if anyone might get to the truth of this, it would be you.’

  Raven noticed Sarah blush at this unexpected praise. Unexpected but not unearned. Much as he was happy for Sarah, he could not help but feel overlooked himself, as though his efforts thus far counted for nothing.

  ‘What is it you want me to find out?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Gideon kept saying he is innocent because if he was going to murder someone, he wouldn’t have used a detectable poison. Doesn’t that prompt the question – what would he have used?

  FORTY-NINE

  rossford House loomed before Sarah as she stepped from the carriage onto the path nestled between two immaculate expanses of lawn. As she made her way to the front door, she belatedly wondered whether she was wrong to assume Gideon would attend the funeral, given his disregard for his father. If he turned out to be in residence at what was now his property, it would make explaining her purpose here considerably more awkward.

  After the attack in Fleshmarket Close, Sarah felt wary of being on her own, but she knew that she would have to get used to it. There was often little choice in the matter. Raven had been called to an emergency at the Maternity Hospital almost as soon as Amelia left, and Sarah did not think that this visit could wait.

  She understood now that whoever attacked them may well have had a lot to protect. It seemed most likely to have been someone connected to Mrs King, worried about what an investigation into her activities might uncover. She thought about Madame Bouvier and wondered just how many people were complicit in the baby-farmer’s crimes.

  Sarah felt sickened by the horror and tragedy that had been revealed. It had all started with her agreeing to help Christina find her baby. Even at that time she had not thought it likely the girl would ever be reunited with her child, but she had never imagined anything like this.

  One thing she could be sure of was that it was not Gideon who had attacked them, as he had been locked up in Calton Jail at the time. But his innocence in the other matter seemed far from confirmed.

  Sarah had thought herself so clever, but Amelia’s question made her realise that the arsenic may have been a coincidental distraction. Christison had agreed that the amount discovered would be unlikely to cause such a sudden death, but just because Sir Ainsley Douglas had not been poisoned with arsenic did not mean that he hadn’t been poisoned by something else: something that wouldn’t leave a trace.

  Therein lay the problem, however. If an organic poison had been used, how would they find evidence of it?

  Sarah thought about how the killer’s modus operandi might have been in front of them all the time. Gideon kept talking about the way he could not have done it. She was reminded of a conjurer she had seen in the Lawnmarket during a fair. He kept telling the crowd of all the ways that a feat was impossible, drawing their minds to the ways in which he couldn’t do it. This was so that they paid no attention to the way he was doing it.

  Raven had insisted that though Gideon might be rash and angry, he was no fool. In fact, it was possible he was the one who had fooled everybody.

  Sarah pulled the bell several times but there was no answer.

  She was reluctant to leave without getting what she had come for. She tried the door, and finding it unlocked, she stepped into the entrance hall.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out, her voice echoing down unseen corridors.

  There was no response, so she walked in a little further.

  She had forgotten just how dizzyingly vast the house was. Whatever the attendant pressures and responsibilities of inheritance, this place was a prize. She knew that she would not be comfortable living amongst such grandeur and thought of how Amelia did not desire it either. However, there were those who might be more than happy to live here.

  Sarah thought again about the motive they had imagined for Teddy Hamilton: an inheritance of wealth, power and influence, owning lan
d, businesses, a newspaper. But was it worth killing for? She knew that not everyone was capable of such a deed, no matter how great the reward. Teddy Hamilton had not seemed the sort of man who might contemplate such a thing, did not seem ruthless enough. But she had only met him very briefly and she knew that appearances could be deceiving.

  She was making her way along the hall when a housemaid appeared, one she had not seen before. She expected to be challenged but the girl averted her eyes. Sarah was struck by how deferential she was, not asking any questions about what a stranger might be doing there. The right garb and an air of purpose and entitlement caused the girl to make all kinds of assumptions. Sarah wondered if this was what it felt like to be a man, everyone assuming you had a right to be wherever you were.

  She made her way down to the kitchen, remembering the route without taking any wrong turns. She knocked on the door out of habit and politeness, then stepped inside, where she found the cook kneading dough at the kitchen table. Meg, the housemaid Sarah had spoken to before, was stirring up the fire in the range.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ the cook said, unperturbed by this unexpected visit. ‘Back again, are you?’

  ‘Is Mr Wilson here?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘He’s at the funeral,’ the cook replied. ‘It’s just us, though there’s not much for us to do at the moment.’

  ‘What about Gideon? He is the new master now, is he not?’

  The cook gave her a look as if to say they were not quite sure.

  ‘He has barely been here. Can’t have been over the door more than ten minutes since he was released from the jail. He came to grab some of his father’s money – well, I suppose it’s his money now – and left again. Given the look on his face, I wouldn’t have got in his way.

  ‘You’re not the first to be looking for him, either. There’s been plenty others. Men he’ll be in charge of now, needing decisions made, documents signed. I think he’s dodging all of them. He’s not ready for all that, if you ask me. I think he’s holed himself up somewhere, probably getting drunk. Indulging his other appetites too, no doubt.’ She pushed some stray hair away from her face with the back of a floury hand. ‘Can’t say I blame him when he’s spent so many days facing the rope.’