by Alex Grecian
“Well, you’ve got a wonderful excuse.”
Day laughed. “Yes, I suppose I do. You’re all right now?”
“I haven’t slept much.”
“I’ve slept entirely too much.”
“Tell me about your legs,” Claire said.
“I’ve kept them both.”
“Well, that’s a good start. Will you walk?”
“I’m told I will, in time. There was tissue damage to the left leg. He didn’t do much to the right, and I should make a full recovery there. But I’ll walk with a cane.”
“It will make you look dignified.”
“It will make me look old.”
“I don’t care how old you look.”
Day pointed at the pram. “I wasn’t expecting two.”
“Imagine my surprise.”
“They’re so tiny.”
“They came early. But they’re healthy.”
“They’ll live?”
“I told you, they’re healthy.”
“What about you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Dr Kingsley has given me a clean bill of health. Only I don’t like to be at home by myself anymore. Not even with Fiona there. I can’t go into the kitchen. I certainly can’t go into the parlor.”
“I heard about what happened.”
“Poor Constable Winthrop. I can’t even look in that room now. The parlor, either. Our house is ruined.”
“Nonsense. Give it a little time. We’ll make new memories there.”
“I spend a lot of time with our girls at the park. I make up little rhymes for them and they love it. They smile when I sing.”
“Of course they do. They know they’ve got the best mother in London. In the world.”
“Would you like to hear one of my rhymes?”
“Perhaps later. Maybe once I’m home again.”
“Oh, Walter, I know you’ve had second thoughts about having a child. And now there are two. Please don’t—”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know.”
He shook his head. “Not second thoughts. Not really. I was worried about you. After what happened to my mother . . .”
“I’m fine. I’m not sad like your mother was. And you are not your father.”
“And you are not yours, thank God.”
She laughed. “Thank God. We really ought to name them. The babies.”
“That can wait.”
“When will you come home?”
“That’s a question for the doctor, but I should think no later than tomorrow.”
“And what about Nevil?”
“His recovery will take a good bit longer, I think.”
“Not so,” Hammersmith said. They looked at him and saw that his eyes were open and he was smiling at them. His face was very pale, and the nurses had not done a good job of shaving his chin. “If you leave tomorrow, I leave tomorrow.”
“Nevil,” Claire said, “you’ll do what Dr Kingsley tells you to or you’ll answer to me, sir.”
She stood and went to Hammersmith’s bedside, put a hand on his forehead. His hair was sweaty, but his skin was cool to the touch.
“How are you, Mrs Day?”
“Better than you are, Nevil.”
“I’m just fine.”
“Of course you are. I begin to think you’re indestructible.”
“I do wish people would stop testing that theory.”
“Yes.”
“What about Fiona Kingsley? I’d like to thank her. I’m told she saved my life.”
Claire looked away. “She’ll visit soon.” In fact, Fiona had declared that she could not bear to see Hammersmith again. She felt she was doomed to remember him always at death’s door.
They all turned at the sound of someone clearing his throat. Sir Edward Bradford stood at the door, a gift-wrapped package in his hand.
“Good,” he said. “You’re both awake. Mrs Day, good morning to you.”
“Please come in,” Claire said.
He stepped over the threshold and held the package out to her.
“I brought this,” he said, “thinking I’d give it to the inspector. I didn’t want to disturb you at home so soon after the . . .” He glanced nervously at the pram.
“Oh, thank you, sir. Would you like to see them?”
“I can’t stay long. There’s still a prisoner on the loose.”
She took the package and turned the pram around so that he could look down into it. He nodded at the sleeping babies and smiled back up at Claire.
“They’re perfect, aren’t they?” he said.
“Very much so,” Claire said.
“Well done, mum.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s, um . . .” He pointed to the package. “It’s a toy. I didn’t think to get two of them. I’ll send another one.”
“They can share, I’m sure.”
“It’s the sort of thing you wind up and the puppet pops up at the end.”
“How thoughtful.”
“They may have to wait to play with it. It might be frightening for babies that small. I’d forgotten how small they can be.”
“I’ll put it aside for them,” Claire said. “For when they’re ready.”
Sir Edward nodded and looked over at the men in their beds. Claire followed his gaze and hurried over to her husband, kissed his cheek.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose you men have business to discuss. I’d better go and feed these young ladies.”
“It was good to see you, Mrs Day.”
“And you, sir.”
Sir Edward watched as she covered the babies with a white coverlet and wheeled the pram out of the room. He looked down the hall after her, then closed the door and turned to his men.
“Very kind of you, sir,” Day said.
“Don’t give it a thought.”
“Well, thank you anyway. Tell me . . . the Harvest Man, have they caught him yet?”
“There’s been no sign. An apothecary was broken into the night before last. Ether was stolen. And an old mask they kept as decoration. It might have been him, but we’ve got nowhere with it. Blacker and Tiffany especially are beside themselves. Haven’t slept since you two went down.”
“And what about Jack? Have you found him?”
“I’m charging Adrian March with the crimes against you.”
Day swung his legs off the bed and stood, balanced carefully on his right foot. He tried to take a step toward the commissioner, but fell backward and sat on the edge of his bed.
“Sir, it wasn’t Adrian March.”
“You were under considerable duress and those tunnels are filled with pockets of gas, Inspector Day. Your mind was not your own. I imagine you saw a great many spectacular things.”
“It was no gas. Jack the Ripper is on the loose again, and we’ve got to track him before he does something worse than he already has.”
Sir Edward gave him a long, sad look. “Don’t . . . Inspector Day, I have already made my report. In it, I state that you were instrumental in stopping the murderer Cinderhouse, who invaded your home and killed poor Constable Winthrop. You found and apprehended both Napper and Griffin. You’re a hero. There’s only one convict still out there, and the public believes, largely because of what they’ve read about you in the tabloids, that we will capture the Harvest Man any day now. What do you think it would do to London, to the people in this city, if you told them that Saucy Jack was still out there among them?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hammersmith said. Day and Sir Edward both turned to the sergeant, who had not spoken to this point. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. There’s a madman about and he will kill more people unless we stop him.”
“Ah, Sergeant, your attitude is what I’ve actually come here to discuss,” Sir Edward said.
“Sir?” Hammersmith’s expression was grim, and Day wondered how much pain he was experiencing. His own wounds hurt much more than they had two days earl
ier in the underground cell. In some ways the healing process was worse than the injury.
“Sergeant, you almost died,” Sir Edward said.
“I’ll be right as rain by tomorrow,” Hammersmith said.
“No, you won’t. But knowing you, you’ll attempt to come back to work anyway.”
“Sir, I—”
“Let me say it, Sergeant. Since I’ve known you, you’ve been beaten, poisoned at least twice, nearly frozen to death, and now you’ve been stabbed, cut open, and sewn back together. You rarely seem to eat or sleep. You regularly push yourself past the limits of your body.”
“I try to do my job, sir.”
“But I believe your job is killing you, Mr Hammersmith.”
“Sir, I respectfully—”
“I can’t let you do this anymore. For your own good—”
“Sir,” Day said. “You can’t.”
“I think I have to.”
“If you dismiss him, I’ll go, too.”
“You have two new babies, Inspector. Think about what you’re saying.”
“I stand by Nevil. We need him on the Murder Squad.”
“Well,” Sir Edward said, “I need him to live. And I firmly believe he will die if he continues at this pace. I am dismissing him from his duties. And you as well, Mr Day, if that is what you choose. In fact, that makes things a bit easier for me. It has crossed my mind that you might be mad.” He looked away from them toward the small window in the far wall. “I mean no ill will toward either of you, but I have given this a great deal of thought and I believe it’s the only responsible decision I can make.”
He went to the door and stopped there, but did not turn back around, didn’t look at them. “I wish you both a speedy recovery and a very long life,” he said.
And he left them there.
68
Claire pushed the pram away from the hospital. The sun was warm on her face, but she stopped on the path and tucked the coverlet in around her daughters. She ran her fingers along its seams, where her ancestors’ names were embroidered. There was a faint pink stain left there in the shape of a hand. She tried not to think about what it was. One of the babies, the quiet one who always seemed to be deep in thought, opened her eyes and smiled. Claire didn’t know whether it was a genuine smile or the effect of gas, but she smiled back.
“Would you like to hear a rhyme, Baby Day?”
She wiped a bit of moisture from the baby’s cheek and smoothed its fine dark hair and stood back up. A stranger tipped his hat to her and she nodded back at him, went around to the other side of the pram, and pushed it across the path to a bench. She sat where she could see her children’s faces and she leaned forward and very softly recited the poem she had written that morning:
“I have two hands to clap and pray, two feet to skip and run.
I have two ears to hear you with, I have two eyes to see.
But of the most important things, the Lord just gave me one:
One head, one heart, and one thing more: One sister just like me.”
The thoughtful baby rocked and cooed and woke up her sleeping sister. Both girls stared up at her expectantly, and so she began to tell them another verse, something she had read in a book once. She had only written two or three rhymes of her own so far, but she liked thinking them up and she liked telling them to the babies. Perhaps one day she might even write them all down somewhere in one place so that the girls could keep them and tell them to their own children when they grew up.
She sat on the bench and talked to her babies and was in no hurry to return home, where she felt certain that blood had soaked between the cracks in the floor and deep into the wood. She did not think she would ever feel safe in that house again, but the sun was warm on her face and her babies were smiling and her husband was healing.
69
Well,” Day said, “at least my wife wasn’t in the room. Now I have some time to figure out what to tell her.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Hammersmith said. “You’ll go back to work.”
“I said I’d stand by you and I meant it.”
“I know. And I thank you. But the commissioner will accept you back without a word about it if you simply appear at your desk in the morning. I’d wager he never brings the subject up again.”
“Nevil . . .”
“No, Mr Day, you have two new babies to provide for. I have nothing.”
Day opened his mouth to respond, but didn’t know how. He had no intention of returning to the Murder Squad without his friend, but he didn’t want to argue about it. When Nevil Hammersmith said he had nothing, he was literally correct. His work was his life, and vice versa. He was a policeman through and through, and Day couldn’t imagine him doing anything else. He turned his head and looked at Hammersmith on the other bed. His throat, from just above his collarbone down to the loose collar of his hospital blouse, was bright pink, inflamed and irritated after all that had been done to him.
“I will go back,” Day said, “but only to talk to Sir Edward again. He’s a reasonable man.”
Hammersmith waved a weak dismissive hand in his direction. “I’d rather not talk about this anymore, if it’s all right with you,” he said. “I’m quite tired.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry.”
“After all, I’ve been awake for most of half an hour now.”
“You are insufferably lazy.”
“It comes naturally.”
Day smiled and did his best to relax. He stared up at the ceiling, at a water stain that had spread from one corner and had advanced in stages, darker at its origin and increasingly fainter as it worked out toward the center of the room. He rehearsed in his mind the sorts of arguments he might make with Sir Edward, looking for the one logical thing he could say to change the commissioner’s mind. Of course, Sir Edward wasn’t incorrect: Hammersmith was often careless, he jumped forward into every battle, he pushed himself seemingly beyond the limits of human endurance . . . None of that helped his case. Perhaps, Day thought, if he promised to look after Hammersmith, keep him out of future danger . . .
“I don’t need permission,” Hammersmith said. His voice startled Day, who had thought the sergeant was asleep. “There’s a murderer walking around out there, more than one, and I don’t need to ask anyone what I can and can’t do. I’m going to find that missing prisoner. And I’m going to find Jack for you, even if nobody else wants to do it.”
“I believe this is exactly what Sir Edward is talking about. You almost died, Nevil.”
“But I didn’t die. Here I am and there they are, and I am going to catch them.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. I really am, you know.”
Day sighed. “Yes, I know. But would you please rest first? Would you wait until you’re able to breathe properly and move without pain?”
“I tell you, I’m fine.”
“You won’t wait? Won’t rest and let me try to talk to Sir Edward for you?”
“How many people will they kill while I lie in bed?”
“You can’t wait even a week?”
“Tomorrow. I’m going to find them tomorrow.”
“Then I’m going to help you.”
“You can’t walk.”
“With you around, I hardly need to,” Day said. “I could never keep up with you anyway.”
“Then tomorrow.”
“Perhaps. But today, will you please just lie there and think about pleasant things and let your body mend?”
“What kind of pleasant things?”
“I have no idea,” Day said.
“Your babies are healthy. That’s profoundly pleasant.”
“It is.” Day shook his head at the water stain on the ceiling. “That’s really the only thing that matters, isn’t it? And you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” Hammersmith said. “Which part am I right about?”
“I have new responsibilities. I should go back to work.”
“Y
es, of course you should.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
“After tomorrow.”
“Yes. We’ve got one hell of a busy day ahead of us.”
EPILOGUE
Once upon a time, he knew, there had been other children. There had been friends and playmates for him, and they had probably called him by name. They had probably known who he was and maybe they had shouted at him across a public square or chased him round and round in the lane outside his home. But he couldn’t remember those children, couldn’t bring their faces to mind when he tried to think about them. He didn’t know what words they had shouted, what name they had used to get his attention. For as long as he could remember, he had simply been called the Harvest Man.
He didn’t mind it when the police and the doctors called him that. He had no other name he preferred. In fact, he didn’t think of himself by any name at all. He simply was.
But he knew that someday he would find his family again and they would open their arms to him and gather him up, and they would lean in close to him and whisper his true name in his ear. And then he would remember everything that had been good before they died and left him alone.
Finding them was the trick. He had tried many times with no success. But his father had always said (and these were words he did remember), “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
And so the Harvest Man did try again.
He had his ether and he had his plague mask, to protect himself from the spirits, and he had his blade. It was long and curved and sharp. He had found it in a little store next to the apothecary where he had taken the ether and the mask. It was not as long or as curved as his old blade, the blade the policemen had taken away from him, but it was just as sharp and he liked it.
He crept to the attic door, opened it a crack, and listened. The family downstairs was still eating their evening meal. They were talking and laughing just exactly the way a family should. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could hear the love in their voices. He had chosen a good house. They were a good family.
He wondered what their names were.