Against the Light

by Marjorie Eccles

  The door was opened by a big, heavily built man with gingerish hair and small brownish eyes. He looked at her suspiciously, and even when she informed him she had come in place of Doctor Weston and with his recommendation, he didn’t alter his stance, not bothering to hide the prejudice she had by now become accustomed to against women doctors.

  ‘Very well,’ she said eventually. ‘If you’re not going to let me in, Mr Tooley, it seems as though your mother will have to wait until Doctor Weston can come himself.’ She turned to go down the steps, but he hurriedly called her back. Her first impression hadn’t been wrong. He was the sort of man who was all bluster, and not very intelligent either, she suspected.

  ‘There’s no need to be so hasty, now. And I’d bring that machine inside, if I was you. If you don’t want to have to walk home, that is.’

  He watched her manoeuvring the bicycle up the steps, not offering to help, but once inside, he relented and pushed it further along towards the back of the hallway until he found a spot where he could rest it against the dado. He was a rough-looking customer but he had the soft, musical lilt of his native Ireland in his speech, even though he was not making any attempt to be pleasant. Either it was deliberately assumed, or he couldn’t have lived over here for long, she thought. ‘Mrs Tooley’s up the stairs,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to think of what she’ll say when she sees it’s not Doctor Weston who’s come.’

  There wasn’t much she could reply to that and she followed him up two flights without speaking. Although the stairs were uncarpeted, they were fairly clean. Recalling what David and the police had said, she knew that the Tooleys did not occupy the house alone. If they, Paddy or old Roisin herself, owned the house, renting rooms must be how they made their money. It had once been large and handsome, and even run down as it now was, it was enough to provide the cramped sort of accommodation which sufficed in these parts for several families, and the rents would mount up to a profitable operation. They passed several scruffy doors with peeling paint, from behind which various domestic noises emanated, although she heard no piping voices of children, or babies crying. On the third floor, they reached a door which had attempted a touch of class, due to a rather tatty shamrock wreath nailed to it, left over from St Patrick’s Day last month. It made her catch her breath, reminded of Lucy’s bracelet.

  Sam had told her the old woman, Tooley’s mother, was not bedridden, but today she had taken to her bed. She was barely a bump under the bedclothes. She lay with skeletal hands outside the covers, her rosary twisted between her fingers, and showed no sign of movement when Alice entered with her son, but a pair of small, shrewd eyes followed her progress, which sharpened when she heard the explanation for her being there. ‘Get you away now, Paddy. Leave the women to it.’ And though her voice was barely above an exhausted whisper, and had the same soft accent as that of her son, it held a command which he didn’t hesitate to obey.

  The room was dark and stifling, and Alice’s first impulse was to throw open the one tiny window that offered all the illumination there was, had she not guessed it would be jammed shut. The small, cast-iron bedroom grate was empty, so the heat wasn’t generated by a piled up fire, as it often was in an invalid’s room. The smothering effect was due more to the room being crammed with overstuffed furniture, heavy draperies, and the numerous rugs that overlapped each other on the floor. A musty smell arose from the furnishings, and from the bed itself, where the old woman lay under heaped-up quilts. The pattern of the wallpaper could scarcely be seen, so many holy pictures were hanging there. In addition, a large crucifix hung over the bedhead, beneath it a picture of the Virgin Mary. Alice averted her eyes from another, Jesus with an all too realistically bleeding heart, as she approached the bed where Roisin lay. Her skin resembled the crazing on old china and her lips were cyanosed. She was nearly bald, but what was left of her hair showed it had once been red. A wig of that colour hung from the bedpost.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Tooley. I’m Doctor Alice,’ she introduced herself, mindful of Sam’s advice.

  There was little doubt that Roisin Tooley was a chronically sick woman. She was, however, clearly not in need of urgent medical attention, and Alice couldn’t prevent herself from thinking of all those who truly needed medical help and couldn’t even afford simple medicines. All she would say was that she’d had a pain, but she’d had worse, she’d taken her capsule and it was gone now and she wasn’t done for yet, evidently expecting the sort of joshing reply to this Sam would no doubt have given.

  Alice didn’t bother, and yet as she started to examine the old woman her annoyance at having made this pointless journey dissolved. She curbed her intolerance, knowing that patients often needed reassurance as much, if not more, than treatment and medicines, even someone like Roisin Tooley. Sometimes they were lonely and only wanted to talk. Old Roisin was nearly ninety and frail as the dried shamrock leaves that had fallen from Dudley’s prayer book. She looked liable to fall into dust, as they had, at a touch. Whatever medical attention she was given could be merely palliative, to ease her last weeks through this world – or even, Alice was afraid, her last days. But those sharp eyes still held a distinctly indomitable gleam.

  As if divining her thoughts, the old woman’s lips parted in a broken-toothed smile and she repeated, ‘I’m not for the next world yet, you may be sure of that.’ But even as she spoke, a claw-like hand emerged from under the bedclothes to make the sign of the cross. And for a second or two, dread showed in her face. Despite what she said, Roisin Tooley had not yet accepted the inevitable.

  ‘You go on believing that, Mrs Tooley, it’ll do you good,’ Alice smiled, reaching for what felt like nothing more than a loose bundle of bones to take her pulse, knowing Sam’s prognosis had been correct, and that it was doubtful she could survive much longer. Her heart condition was serious, even if she did choose to use it to exploit the situation. Clearly, she liked to have a doctor dancing attendance on her, but both Alice and the old lady knew there was nothing to be done except to ensure she was left as comfortable as possible, with a supply of her medicine handy. Alice was in fact getting ready to leave, when Roisin said suddenly, and quite strongly, ‘You look like the sort of young woman who can keep her tongue between her teeth. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Alice paused in the act of stowing her stethoscope into her bag. ‘I hope I can keep quiet when necessary, yes,’ she answered, wondering what was coming.

  ‘It’s a great gift.’

  She said nothing more for a moment or two, then her hand dived back under the bedclothes, this time bringing out a small cloth bag. ‘Take it,’ she said, ‘and give it to Doctor Sam for his new babby. It was my dear mother’s, God rest her soul, and it was herself put it round my neck when I was no more than six weeks old and where it’s been ever since. You can take a look at it, if you like.’

  In the bag was a tiny mother of pearl crucifix on a silver chain. ‘There’s no one else for it. I’d be after giving it to a grandchild if I had one, but Paddy’s never given me any. Or not that I know of.’ She gave a dry cackle. ‘I can tell you that one’s going to be a girl, and I want her to have it. Promise me you won’t forget to hand it over.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You haven’t been blessed with children yourself.’ The sharp old eyes rested on her.

  Alice felt her colour rising. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a queer old life we’re given sometimes, but don’t you fret.’ She nodded her balding head. ‘You’ve been through the darkness but the night doesn’t last forever. You’ll get what you wish for, one day.’

  It was unsettling, to be read so easily. The old woman clearly believed she really had got the second sight and maybe she had. There was something distinctly sibylline about her and her predictions.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Doctor. I took me pill and told Paddy there was no need, but he insisted, for all he’s used to seeing me like that. He’s a good son to his old mother.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’ It w
as true that there had been no need, and Paddy Tooley was used to his mother and maybe ought to have known that. But such attacks could be alarmingly frightening things for relatives to witness, and the old lady herself, as Sam had said, seemed more than capable of using emotional blackmail in order to hand over the little cross, which could be the real reason for requesting the visit. Roisin had been expecting Sam, so it probably was. It seemed to Alice that the intuition that had prompted her to volunteer for this visit had failed her. What had she expected to find, after all? The woman, Mona Reagan?

  Roisin lay back on her pillows under the smothering quilts, passing her rosary beads through her fingers again, her eyes never leaving Alice. ‘I’m sorry if you think you’ve been brought here on false pretences, Doctor Alice.’ Reading her again.

  ‘I’m a doctor, Mrs Tooley. I hope nobody’s ever afraid of calling me out.’

  ‘Well, don’t forget to leave your bill. Not that you will, or if you do, you’ll be the first doctor I’ve known that has,’ she added wickedly. ‘Paddy will pay you if you give him a shout.’

  Alice laughed and thought she saw why Sam had a soft spot for old Roisin.

  There was no need to call for Paddy. He was waiting for her outside the door. He had decided to put his previous obstructiveness to one side and had assumed a smile she found even more irritating and certainly unconvincing. ‘If you could kindly see it in your way to spare a moment or two longer, Doctor, I’d appreciate it. There’s someone else in need of the benefit of your expertise.’

  She didn’t for a moment think it was a request. She felt her flesh crawl as he put out a beefy hand and for a nasty moment she thought he was actually going to detain her physically, although she had shown no intention of refusing to do what he was asking. Her heart began to thump, with a premonition of what was coming. She hadn’t been mistaken, after all. This was why Roisin had pretended to need a doctor. She wasn’t the one who needed medical attention.

  She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of. No one knew who Doctor Alice was, or that she herself had any reason to have heard of anyone who lived here. But still she felt a qualm. Perhaps she ought not to have stepped in, and let Sam come here, after all. Sam would not have allowed himself to be coerced like this, even without the ‘persuasion’ of a little mother of pearl cross for his new baby. All the same, she followed Tooley into another room. And what would Sam have done faced with the man on the bed – whom Tooley said was called Frank Doyle, but whom she had not the slightest doubt was the Daniel O’Rourke who was suspected of murdering her cousin, and whom the police were seeking so urgently?

  The telephone was by no means Alice’s preferred means of communication. It was quick and convenient, a modern-day invention that was improving all the time, but it wasn’t yet always entirely reliable. Lines invariably crackled and not infrequently went dead. In no way did it equal talking face to face, or even communicating by a letter or postcard which would get there the same day. But there was no time for any of that. The telephone it would have to be.

  The staff at the Dorcas had gone home, Sam was upstairs with his family and she had the hallway and the telephone to herself. She asked for Inspector Gaines when she got through to Scotland Yard, on a line that for once didn’t break up, but he wasn’t there. She was put through to the dapper Sergeant Inskip, he who seemed to have taken a fancy to Lucy’s nanny, Emma. He listened attentively, only interrupting with a few sharp questions, as she told him how her visit to Prosser Street had come about.

  ‘Blow me,’ he said when she’d finished, and added, ‘We might have guessed, I suppose; it’s an old trick, moving around, going back to a place we’ve already searched. Twice, in this case.’ He thanked her, sounding jubilant. ‘But don’t do anything more, Mrs Latimer. We’ll be in touch and let you know what’s happened.’

  David was less pleased when she rang him with the story. ‘You did what? What possessed you, Alice? No, don’t say anything more. I’m coming over to see you immediately – no, dammit, I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes. But stay where you are and I’ll be over as soon—’ The line went dead.

  It was in fact less than an hour before he arrived and she admitted him into her surgery.

  ‘There’s no need to fuss – I wasn’t exactly in danger, you know. They didn’t know who I was for a start, I never gave my name. To them I was just any old doctor.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it. I just wish you hadn’t gone there. What made you do it?’

  Alice didn’t say she had wondered the same herself, when she’d been manoeuvred into that room, though she soon saw that all they wanted of her was her professional advice.

  She had tried the only way she could see to manipulate the situation. ‘This man should be in hospital,’ she had said after examining him, wanting to get him away from this house, but by no means certain that there was any chance of him being admitted into overcrowded wards, even at her urgent request, when there was nothing more they could do for him than what she could do here. She need not have worried. The suggestion was met with a flat refusal from the man lying in the bed, immediately endorsed by Tooley.

  The man, O’Rourke, was obviously a gaunt shadow of his former self, but when he’d had a shave and got dressed, he would no doubt look very different. His looks were not distinguished, the sort of fellow you passed every day in the street without remembering them, a narrow, dark face and deep-set eyes. Fit and well, she thought he would have the sort of looks that seemed to appeal to some women, simply because they couldn’t read them. ‘I’ll be able to travel soon?’ he’d asked with some urgency. ‘I have to get back to Ireland as soon as possible.’

  The police hadn’t mentioned his background. She had imagined, from his name and those he had associated with, that he must be Irish but his accent, unlike Tooley’s, owed nothing to Ireland. He sounded like a Londoner, born and bred.

  ‘They told me his name was Frank Doyle,’ she told David, ‘but I’m sure it was O’Rourke I saw. I suspected at first, the way they’d wanted a doctor in to see to him, that he must have been shot and they needed a bullet removing, but it wasn’t that. He’s had a virulent fever which has left him very weak, and he still looked pretty bad, but actually he’s on the mend, apart from his cough. He’s feeling pretty sorry for himself, but they needn’t have bothered with a doctor. He was well able to talk to me and he seemed clear-headed, though he swore he’d no idea what caused him to be ill.’

  ‘What do you think it was?’

  ‘Could be anything. Not taking care of himself when he had a cold … influenza … I left him with something that should help his cough and when I told him to be sure to eat well, he said there should be no problem with that, he’d been able to eat nothing for days and was feeling ravenous by now. So I suppose he’ll be up and about within a few days. By which time the police will have got him. Sergeant Inskip promised to let me know when they have him in custody.’

  But two days passed without hearing anything from the police.

  Gaines hadn’t the least idea what the delay was about, why Special Branch hadn’t gone in immediately, as he would have done, but he kept his opinion to himself. He needed their cooperation more than he needed conflict with them. In any case, he knew they would only say they had their reasons. And they had put a strict watch on the house in Prosser Street for the last two days, so that there was no possibility O’Rourke could have slipped away without their knowing.

  But now there was to be a full-scale search, led by the Branch’s Inspector Ted Williams, still smarting a little from the previous failed searches at Prosser Street. Gaines was satisfied with what was to be done. When he was apprehended, he wanted O’Rourke pulled in for questioning in connection with the murder of Dudley Nichol. Williams had additional reasons. There was enough suspicion hanging over him that he might be connected with smuggling contraband firearms and ammunition to have pulled out all the stops.

  Williams was a tall man, with a physique that was not threate
ning, so thin his jacket seemed to hang across his shoulders, rather than fit, but anyone who knew him had learned not to underestimate him. He was obviously keyed up but he made light of the proposed search. ‘The sort of people we’re dealing with here aren’t major players. Forget the Childers of this world, we know who they are. They’re dangerous, they have the money and the means to raise funds to buy guns and they’ll do it sooner or later, but they’ll get their comeuppance, we’ll see to that. That doesn’t mean, of course, that they’re not prepared to stir up feelings … easy enough to do, God knows, with these Irish, you don’t need me to tell you that. How many fights have you seen after closing time on a Friday night when they’re roaring drunk?’

  Gaines had lost count. As a young copper he had once narrowly missed losing his eye when he’d come into contact with a bottle hurled across the street in one of the late night brawls the fighting Irish were notorious for. After a drink or two, it was mayhem in the Irish quarters.

  ‘Are you saying O’Rourke’s not dangerous?’

  ‘I’m saying he’s bloody dangerous. Amateurs always are. The fact that they don’t know what they’re doing half the time is enough to put the wind up anyone.’

  He was right in that, of course. The people he was talking about were so-called patriots, but often no more than a rag, tag and bobtail lot with only the instinct to be part of a fight. If any of them other than O’Rourke had been involved in the murder of Dudley Nichol, or Lucy’s kidnap, it would only have been incidental to the main cause.

  Williams was expecting violence and since the British police were not permitted to use guns, he could only pray these Irishmen wouldn’t have any either, or at any rate not find themselves in a position to use them. He agreed that Gaines might go along with him, and Inskip, who would have been mortified at being kept away. Two of his own men were with him and five uniformed constables were stationed outside, together with a horse-drawn police van.