A Corruption of Blood

by Ambrose Parry

  As soon as she said it, Raven knew who she was talking about. Gideon had wanted to know what happened to his son. Evidently, Todd had told him.

  Raven found the door ajar, as though someone had left or entered in a hurry. He called out but there came no answer from within.

  Raven pushed the door fully open and stepped inside. Down a short corridor he came to the main room, where two chairs sat on opposite sides of a table a few feet from a range with no fire in the grate. The air smelt stale, cut through with the sharp reek of ammonia. There was a dresser in the corner bearing a pile of baby clothing. Little cotton shirts, petticoats and napkins, all neatly hand-sewn, a few with initials embroidered at the hem.

  The woman from the perfumier’s told Sarah she had been asked to supply clothes for her child. She wouldn’t have been the only one. It probably helped convince them that their children would be cared for, as well as providing the baby-farmer with an additional source of income.

  The place was otherwise empty. Still. Raven stood in the middle of the room and listened but heard nothing. An open door at the far end led to another room. As he crossed towards it, the smell became much worse.

  He saw a row of cots lined up against the wall.

  Raven assumed they were empty but upon approach he saw that he was wrong. Each contained an infant, and each infant was quite obviously dead, white tape looped around every tiny neck and pulled tight.

  Mrs King must have realised that the game was up, that all trade must immediately cease. Given the story was all over the city she could not afford to be discovered with several babies in her home. She could not even afford to have anyone hear them cry. And with Bonnington Mills discovered, she would have needed to find somewhere new to dispose of them. That she had not done so yet was because she had been interrupted.

  She was lying on the floor behind the door, her eyes bulging, the skin of her face purple and congested. She too had been strangled with a length of dressmaker’s tape.

  Raven checked the tiny body in each cot for signs of life; a forlorn hope but he felt it was something he ought to do. He then knelt down beside the body of the baby-farmer and felt for a pulse, unsure what he would do if he found one. There was none and he was released – thankfully – from any obligation to act. She was still warm. Whoever had done this had not been gone long.

  He knelt beside the body for a moment, thinking that there would be many people in this city relieved that she could not spill their secrets or speak of their complicity. But there would be no comfort now for the dozens of women asking why and how: women anxious to know whether their child had been sold on to a good home or disposed of at Bonnington Mills.

  Mrs King would not be providing them with any answers. She had answered only to the vengeance of Gideon Douglas: a man eminently capable of murder after all.

  FIFTY-THREE

  aven entered the drawing room ahead of the housemaid whose job it was to announce him. Dr Todd was sitting in an armchair by the fire reading the Scotsman. He looked over the top of it, frowning at the intrusion. The housemaid began to apologise but Todd got up and shooed her away, waiting until she had closed the door before addressing his visitor.

  ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ he said, though his tone was far from friendly.

  ‘I can assure you, sir, that there is no pleasure to be had in this business.’

  Todd folded up his newspaper, putting it down on the table in front of him.

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘I know that you were involved in getting rid of Christina Cullen’s baby. That is why Gideon came to see you as soon as he was released.’

  ‘I have no idea—’ Todd began, but Raven cut him off.

  ‘Gideon had deduced that you were to blame, that you were the one who came up with the solution, because you had disposed of your own daughter’s unwanted child through the same channel. Gideon’s son lies in the mud at Bonnington Mills, and most likely your own granddaughter lies there too.’

  Todd looked for a moment as though he would continue to deny his involvement, but Raven already knew too much and could see the older man’s resolve disintegrate.

  ‘Eugenie spoke to you of this?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘There is a bond of trust between us. She is a complicated woman, as you said. But she is also honest and honourable. It is a pity that I cannot say the same for her father. What other mistakes and inconvenient truths have you covered up? What happened on the night Margaret Douglas died? Dymock said I should ask you that.’

  Todd now looked wounded, but he was not yet ready to surrender.

  ‘I don’t owe you any explanations,’ he said. ‘You should tread carefully lest I reconsider your future.’

  Raven decided to call his bluff. He no longer had anything to fear from this man.

  ‘You are the one concerned that your daughter will never find a husband. If you still want her to marry someone who cares about her, then you will show me some respect, and you will start by being honest with me, sir. What did you conceal? The staff said you were called to Crossford House on the night that Lady Douglas died and that only you were admitted to the room.’

  ‘She became ill most suddenly,’ Todd said. ‘I am the family physician. There is nothing suspicious about my being there that night.’

  He was still trying to brazen it out, but as he spoke Raven remembered what Gideon had said in the stables, causing his father to strike him.

  My mother’s only weakness was her blindness to what you are. But in time the scales fell, and that was why . . .

  ‘She killed herself,’ Raven stated. ‘She took her own life and you concealed it.’

  Todd’s eyes widened with alarm. He seemed to know now that he was undone, that further resistance would be futile.

  ‘It is true,’ he said, sitting back down in his armchair with an air of defeat. ‘She died by her own hand. Swallowed the best part of a bottle of laudanum.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘I can only speculate. Why does anyone do such a thing? Because she was unhappy, I suppose, and as you are no doubt assuming, it was most likely Sir Ainsley who made her so. But I did what I did as an act of mercy, to protect the children as much as Sir Ainsley. It would have been an appalling scandal had it been known she committed self-murder.’

  So there it was. Another man prostituting himself before Sir Ainsley’s power and wealth. But Ainsley had been wary of the leverage this knowledge might grant his physician. That was why he had been pressing Dr Simpson, trying to wheedle out evidence of a scandal that he could hold over Todd.

  ‘There are things you can hide from wider society,’ Raven told him, ‘but within a family you cannot hide the sins of the father. Amelia knew. Eugenie told me her manner towards her father changed irrevocably following her mother’s death. Gideon knew too.’

  ‘I suspected as much, and I understand that the nature of his mother’s demise may have contributed to his behaviour. But that does not mean I can forgive him for what he did to my daughter.’

  Raven shook his head. At least there was one charge Gideon appeared to be innocent of.

  ‘Gideon was not responsible for Eugenie being with child. She let you believe that he was the father so that you would not pursue the truth.’

  Todd looked taken aback. ‘If not Gideon, then who was it?’

  ‘That is for neither of us to know. If Eugenie does not wish to speak of it, then I will respect that as her right.’

  ‘And knowing all this, you would still marry her?’

  Raven looked at him in his fine clothes, with his persistent haughty demeanour, as though he was still the better man despite what he had just admitted.

  ‘How absurd that it should be her honour that is somehow in question. That you should fear she might never marry if people knew her secret. In this house, she is the one with the least to be ashamed of. If I were to fear the stigma of a tainted
association, sir, it would be with you.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  aven was seated at the kitchen table while Sarah made tea. More tea. He seemed to be running on the stuff of late. He remembered something Sarah once said: The higher ranks of society used tea as a luxury while the lower orders made a diet of it. It was from Buchan’s Domestic Medicine. Sarah could quote from it like some Christians recited tracts from the Bible.

  He put a hand to his forearm, probing delicately at the site of the larger wound. It was smarting less by the day, Sarah having done an exemplary job. Never mind learning about it, she could be teaching this stuff.

  The kitchen at Queen Street was one of his favourite rooms in the house. It was always warm and usually full of inviting smells, which could certainly not be said of the consulting room upstairs. He had already told Sarah about Mrs King and the circumstances in which she was discovered. Hence the tea-making.

  ‘What did you do after finding her?’ Sarah asked as she emptied the kettle into the brown enamel teapot Mrs Lyndsay favoured, and which was never permitted beyond the confines of the kitchen. Only china for the upstairs rooms, despite the old brown pot doing a better job of brewing tea.

  ‘I alerted McLevy and pointed him in the direction of Mrs Mackay, who was able to identify the body as the same woman who rented the premises on Dickson’s Close.’

  ‘Who do you think killed her?’

  ‘McLevy suggested it could be any of the dozens of women who gave her their babies. I did not get the impression he would be looking too hard. He seemed satisfied that she had been dealt with; the whole city will be satisfied simply that she is dead. Everyone can put the matter behind them and forget about it.’

  ‘Until another Mrs King sets up in business.’

  Raven took a sip of his tea.

  ‘I think it was Gideon,’ he said. ‘He went to see Cameron Todd immediately after his release. It is my guess that Gideon suspected Todd had been involved in dealing with Christina’s pregnancy and what happened thereafter. Presumably, Todd told him about Mrs King and where he could find her.’

  ‘Did you share your suspicions with McLevy?’

  Raven sighed, rubbing his hands through his hair. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I could not. To do so I would have had to reveal how I knew, which would expose Dr Todd’s connection to Mrs King, and through that Eugenie would learn the likely fate of her daughter.

  ‘I want to be the one who confronts Gideon with this,’ he added. ‘I fear that if he is revealed by McLevy as the man who killed Mrs King, he will be hailed as some kind of avenging hero, not a mere murderer.’

  ‘I have no doubt he is that,’ Sarah said, placing a small hessian bag in the middle of the table.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s what Amelia saw Gideon carrying into the kitchen the night Sir Ainsley died. This is the fruit of the manchineel tree. I took it to Professor Balfour at the Botanic Gardens. He told me it is also known as the “little apple of death”. Highly poisonous. Tastes sweet initially then burns your insides. Meg said that she had tasted a piece of the fruit on Ainsley Douglas’s tray that night and it had burned her mouth.’

  ‘But Ainsley did not eat the fruit on his tray. Or have I misremembered?’

  ‘No, you are correct. The burning would likely have alerted him to the poisonous nature of the fruit before he consumed enough of it to cause any real harm. The taste would need to have been disguised in something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Most likely the brandy he drank to help him sleep.’

  ‘If it was put in the brandy, why then leave the fruit itself on the plate?’ Raven asked.

  ‘Perhaps Gideon intended that it should appear to have been served up and consumed, so that a kitchen mishap looked to be responsible for Ainsley’s death. Accidental rather than deliberate.’

  ‘But why even leave any such clue, particularly if Gideon could be revealed as the source, having just returned from Tobago?’

  Sarah looked as though she was about to suggest a reason when they heard footsteps on the stairs. Raven was surprised to see that it was Mrs Simpson who entered. She looked distraught.

  ‘Will. Sarah. Thank goodness you are here.’

  Raven was immediately on his feet. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘He has taken a turn for the worse.’

  Raven was off up the stairs before she had time to finish her sentence. Sarah was hard at his heels, Mrs Simpson following on behind. He burst into Dr Simpson’s room without knocking and could immediately see why Mrs Simpson was worried. Simpson was flushed, delirious, muttering to himself. Hot to the touch and his pulse rapid.

  Raven had a look at the axillary abscess he had spotted before. It had increased in size and was tense with pus.

  ‘That abscess will have to be drained. He needs a surgeon.’

  ‘A surgeon?’ Mrs Simpson asked. ‘Can’t you deal with it?’

  Raven could certainly attempt it – surgical drainage of an abscess was not a technically difficult procedure – but there was too much at stake. Was he being a coward by not taking responsibility himself? He had, after all, performed a particularly risky procedure on Sarah a few months before, but that had been done out of necessity, and had an alternative been available then, he would happily have taken it. If things went badly here, he was not sure he would be able to live with himself.

  ‘A surgeon would be better,’ he stated.

  ‘I will ask Professor Miller,’ said Mrs Simpson. ‘He’s only next door.’

  ‘Professor Miller left to see a patient across the Forth this morning.’

  It was Jarvis who spoke, coming up the stairs carrying a jug of water and some towels.

  ‘He is not expected back tonight.’

  Mrs Simpson looked at Raven and Sarah in turn. ‘If not Professor Miller, then who? Who is the best?’

  ‘Syme,’ Raven said. It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

  ‘Then that is who he must have,’ Mrs Simpson declared.

  ‘Syme?’ Sarah repeated. ‘Are you sure?’

  Raven knew that she was not questioning the surgeon’s ability but expressing her concern about the personal relationship between the two men. Simpson and Syme. Notable adversaries. Always on the opposing side of an argument.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Raven said. ‘He’s the best. I’ll go and fetch him.’

  ‘I’ve already asked Angus to bring the carriage round,’ Jarvis said, having evidently anticipated the need for reinforcements.

  Raven ran down the stairs, grabbing his coat on the way. He called out the address to Angus and climbed aboard the carriage.

  ‘It’s urgent,’ he added as he slammed the door. The coachman pulled away without a word, well used to such demands.

  As the carriage crossed Princes Street and began its journey to the south side of the city, Raven wondered about his choice of Syme as their saviour in this situation. In the heat of the moment it had been the first name that had come to mind. He hoped his mentor would not regard it as some kind of betrayal, given that he might end up owing the man his life.

  They had just passed the toll on Leven Street and were approaching the junction for Millbank when the coach veered left and picked up speed.

  Where the hell were they going?

  Raven leaned out of the window to tell Angus he had missed the turn.

  But it was not Angus who was driving.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  arah was doing all that she could. Tepid sponging, an open window for ventilation, spooning in the mixture Raven had left to help bring the fever down. None of it was making much difference. Dr Simpson was still fiercely hot, though the muttering had subsided, and he was a little less restless.

  Quiet. Still.

  Was he going to die? She could not conceive of a world without him in it. Her life had been transformed by her association with him, with this family. He had encouraged her in her reading, pushed her to consider a life beyond domestic ser
vice, urged her to see how much more she might do, what she could become. Even as she had come to doubt herself, his faith in her had remained unwavering.

  Sarah removed the cloth from his head, shocked by the heat in it. She rinsed it in cool water, replaced it. She thought about praying but could not bring herself to do so. She wished she had a stronger faith, something to comfort her at such times of uncertainty, when she felt that there was little she could do to effect a particular outcome.

  She looked over at Mrs Simpson, sitting on the other side of the bed. She did not seem to share Sarah’s difficulty. Her eyes were closed, her head bowed, lips moving in silent supplication.

  Suddenly their peace was disturbed by a noise from downstairs, a commotion in the hallway. Was Raven returned already? She knew that he could not be unless he had fortuitously encountered Syme along the way.

  Sarah left the room and looked over the banister into the hall. She could see Angus, his head bleeding, being assisted by Jarvis.

  She ran down the stairs, Mrs Simpson close behind, and helped the butler get the coachman into a chair.

  ‘I was leading the horses out through the lane at the back,’ Angus said. ‘Fellow came up to me. I thought maybe he was lost and was going to ask for directions. He drew a pistol: told me he would shoot if I so much as raised my voice. Had me take the carriage out onto the road then led me back into the lane and whacked me on the napper. I came to lying in the gutter, water soaked right through my britches, a swelling the size of a hen’s egg on the back on my head. He’s made off with the coach!’

  Sarah thought that this was the most she had ever heard Angus say. He was a quiet man who seemed to prefer the company of horses to people.

  ‘Can you see to him, Sarah,’ Mrs Simpson said.

  Sarah went into the consulting room to retrieve a cloth and a dressing for the coachman’s head, wondering as she did so why Raven had not come back in to announce that the coach was missing. A chill ran through her as she realised – Raven was inside it. And it was not headed for Millbank.