A Fever of the Blood

by Oscar de Muriel

  I took note of that. ‘Now, I must ask you a rather blunt question and I do apologize beforehand – would you say he was capable of murder?’

  Poor Bertha had to produce a handkerchief and cover her mouth. I did not rush her.

  ‘Quite frankly, sir … no. Never.’

  I looked intently at her. ‘Never?’

  She hesitated, which on its own would have been informative enough to me, but then she added: ‘Well … who am I to judge such things, sir? I always thought he had a big heart, but if his child – or his wife, when the good Lady Beatrice was alive – were under threat … who can tell?’

  A most interesting statement, that was. I wrote her words down, adding a large question mark.

  The last person I interrogated was the dim-witted cook, from whom I could extract nothing useful. Forster, the stiff butler, came to me just as I finished, announcing that the additional officers were waiting for me at the entrance.

  As I walked to the main hall I stumbled across Caroline. We stared at each other for an awkward moment, after which I bowed and turned to make my way out, but the young woman stopped me.

  ‘Mr Frey, what is going to happen to my father?’

  I looked back. ‘Do you mean, what will happen if we find him?’

  She nodded, and I thought of telling her a soothing lie; however, I knew she was too clever for that.

  ‘If we find him,’ I sighed, ‘we will have to escort him back to the asylum and he’ll have to go to court. Given his mental health, I doubt he would be sentenced for homicide, as long as Dr Clouston can prove he was insane when he – committed the murder. And in that case I doubt he’d ever be allowed to leave the asylum.’

  Caroline bit her lip. ‘Thank you for your honesty,’ she said, a quiver in her voice. Then she looked at me, and again I thought she was about to tell me something, but instead she looked down and walked to the staircase.

  I felt a twinge of sorrow for her, especially when I saw her squaring her shoulders as she went upstairs. What dreadful times she must have gone through.

  I shook my head, trying to focus on the practicalities of the case. I went to the entrance and saw that among the guards they had sent us McNair again. The poor man could not believe his bad luck.

  ‘Worst New Year’s o’ my life,’ he said as he took his place near the main gate.

  ‘And it is early still, chap.’

  It was mid morning, to be precise, and despite the dull winter sun the city was gleaming. The Georgian buildings were covered with a thick layer of snow, as white as the misty sky. The worst of the blizzard had passed, but a few tiny snowflakes could still be seen fluttering down.

  I rode Philippa back to the City Chambers, although it took far longer than I expected, for the Royal Mile was in chaos: the snow had piled up in the narrow street, leaving but a fraction of the pebbled road fit for transit. Philippa’s white coat was like a beacon against that filthy street. Her hooves constantly skidded on the murky slush, which did not help her temper. Right before arriving at the police headquarters, I heard a throaty scream from above, and by mere luck did I manage to dodge the ghastly contents of a chamber pot, which a large hag had thrown from her fifth-floor tenement.

  ‘How I love this place,’ I grumbled, knowing that the view would not be greatly improved when I reached my office.

  The Commission for the Elucidation of Unsolved Cases Presumably Related to the Odd and Ghostly, the ludicrous subdivision instigated and led by Nine-Nails McGray, had its lacklustre headquarters in an abandoned cellar, the only space the CID was willing to spare for such nonsense. A moth-infested, damp-plagued pit, I fondly called it ‘the dumping ground’, very evocative of what was happening to my career.

  I walked in between the towers of books and artefacts crammed into the place: treatises on the occult, crazy pharmacopoeias, witchcraft reports, zoology compendiums for the gullible mind – those were the sort of titles that McGray had collected over the years. I dodged a precariously balanced pile of old books, on top of which sat a formaldehyde jar containing some shapeless specimen, and found my sad, cramped desk. I sat down on my woodworm-infested chair and opened the convoluted medical history of Lord Joel Ardglass.

  I was in for a riveting read.

  The man had suffered severe depression, with several suicide attempts throughout his adult life. The earliest entry talked of a quiet child, with a natural predisposition to sadness, but other than that quite normal: intelligent, with an aptitude for languages and mathematics, and an avid reader.

  Everything had changed by his early twenties. There were citations from a couple of London physicians, mentioning a first attempt at suicide in 1858, when Joel was twenty-three – he’d ingested rat poison. There was no mention as to what had triggered the incident, only details of the treatment undertaken to purge his system. I imagined Lady Anne already pulling strings so that the records remained purely medical.

  After that brief treatment, I found a long list of medicines prescribed and shipped to France, Bavaria and Italy. I supposed that Joel had embarked on a long trip around Europe, perhaps to escape whatever had been tormenting him … perhaps instigated by his mother in order to avoid gossip. From the dates, I gathered that the tour had lasted around three years, maybe four.

  This must have been followed by Joel’s marriage to that Lady Beatrice mentioned by Bertha. The files did not specify it, but there was a rather long gap in the records, which I could only attribute to a brief period of family bliss. Caroline, now around twenty-five years old, must have been born during that period. The next entry concerned another suicide attempt and, contrary to the record of the first occasion, this one did mention a possible cause: the death of his wife. This record was dated 1868 – I calculated that Caroline would have been five years old at the time. She might remember something. I made a note to question her again.

  Then there was a long hiatus in the records, spanning almost fifteen years. It was after that that Dr Clouston’s entries began, and he detailed Joel’s sanity plummeting like never before. He had behaved aggressively towards his servants and mother, and had disappeared on several occasions, to be found days later at unlikely spots in Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside, as well as having attempted to take his own life not once but thrice. This had ultimately forced Clouston to confine him in the asylum.

  That terrible spree of violent episodes seemed to have been as unexpected as the very first suicide attempt – assuming, of course, that the absence of recorded incident indeed meant a long improvement in his mental state, rather than further concealment.

  I closed the file and tossed it on to the desk, rubbing my eyes and feeling as if I were about to plunge my hands into a pool of dark sludge. Joel Ardglass had led a most complex life – clearly there was so much more to him than his family wanted to tell us, and their frustrating reticence would certainly make solving this case all the harder.

  My eyes began to itch from tiredness. In vain I tried to go through my notes or reread the more technical entries; my eyelids were heavy and without knowing I dozed off.

  I could have slept well into the evening, but McGray’s heavy steps awoke me and I nearly fell off my chair.

  ‘Och, sleeping yer crow’s feet away as soon as I leave ye alone? Did ye get a wet shave and a rose-scented bath too?’

  ‘I was resting my eyes,’ I said, noticing an unprecedented numbness in my derrière.

  ‘Aye, course ye were.’

  As I abandoned myself to an unashamed yawn I saw that McGray was carrying a large leather bag. He had a suspicious look on his face.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ I moaned, ‘what have you brought in here now? I hate it when you carry leather bags!’ The last time he had been carrying a human hand, as casually as he would a loaf of bread.

  Before I could protest he tipped the contents out on to my desk. Dozens, if not hundreds of black ants poured forth, running anxiously in all directions, and I instinctively jumped up, suddenly awake, feeling as if
the insects were crawling under my sleeves. Then something round and dark fell out of the bag, thumping on to the wood, and then a handful of white powder.

  I had to rub my eyes again. The blackened ball turned out to be … a red onion. Old and dried, half-shrunken, its surface pierced by shiny pins and nails.

  ‘What the dickens is that?’

  McGray’s eyes were glowing above a six-inch grin.

  ‘Witchcraft, laddie. Good witchcraft.’

  Nine-Nails dumped an ancient-looking tome on his desk, the covers as dusty as a mummy’s veil, and speedily leafed through it. Amidst his countless books and trinkets he’d known the exact spot where that title sat.

  ‘Where did you find this mess?’ I asked, stamping on the ants that had invaded our already shambolic office.

  ‘Joel’s chambers. Under a floorboard right underneath his bed. I followed the trail of ants that got you squealing and twisting like a wet kitten. Now I understand why Miss Smith couldnae get rid o’ the constant infestation.’

  ‘Remind me how you get hold of these sorts of books.’

  ‘Black market, bribes and lots of luck,’ he said as he perused the pages. ‘Witches are very cautious; they don’t like to put their secrets in writing, and when they do they either use codes or keep everything so vague it only makes sense to their inner circle. This book is a rarity. Let’s see. Onion … onion … Onion!’ I stepped closer as his eyes flashed across the lines, his frown slowly deepening.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mmm … I’m confused. It seems that onions and sugar are healing amulets. Also used for exorcisms and … protection.’

  ‘Protection?’

  ‘Aye. They’re supposed to absorb diseases and hexes.’ He turned the page. ‘Mmm, count the pins.’

  Gingerly, I lifted the rotten vegetable, flicked away a remaining bug and looked at all its faces. ‘Jesus, this is going to turn you smug beyond belief …’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Thirteen.’

  Another grin. ‘That is revenge, it says here: “Take thirteen needles or nails and pierce a large onion which shall be purple; leave it and as it dries away so does the life of those who wronged thee.” ’ Again he turned the pages. ‘Damn it, it doesn’t say how to direct the jinx. What a careless witch, the bloody hag who wrote this!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If ye do the jinx wrong, it can fall on yerself or yer own folk.’

  I threw the onion back into the bag. ‘Do you honestly believe that you can kill someone by sticking a few nails into a bloody turnip?’

  ‘What d’ye care what I believe?’

  I shrugged. ‘I do not, but whoever put it there believes it, and with a good deal of conviction. Red onions are an expensive treat, not something the average fishwife throws into an oxtail stew. It looks as if it had been there for a long while too. What about the sugar?’

  ‘What? Now ye want recipes?’

  ‘Rather, to understand the point of it. Your book mentions healing and protection, as well as revenge. It is somewhat contradictory to say the least.’

  ‘It’s not “contradictory”. It’s one or the other. We just have to figure out which.’

  ‘You suggest that either someone was trying to protect Lord Ardglass or damage him?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Yet another question …’ I blew out my cheeks, looking at the primitive sketch of a winged devil on a corner of the page. ‘That is the last thing we need right now.’

  Dr Reed drew the sheets away to show us Miss Greenwood’s body.

  There is something almost unbearable about the sight of a woman’s corpse on an operating table – perhaps it is the horrendous memory of my mother on her deathbed, still playing in the back of my mind, regardless of how many years have passed. Whatever the reason, the instant discomfort I felt then was the exact feeling I’d experienced in the Oxford operating theatres, during my unfinished studies at the faculty of medicine.

  It could have been much worse though. Reed, notwithstanding his youth, was clearly skilled. He had done a neat job, the post-mortem incisions stitched up meticulously, the body not entirely robbed of its dignity. I had a more conscientious look at the deceased nurse while Reed fetched his paperwork. Miss Greenwood had been rather beautiful, with soft features, dark wavy hair and a pointed nose. Between her slightly parted lips there were teeth as white as pearls.

  ‘Mid twenties,’ Reed began, reading from his report. ‘Generally in good health. There were some recent bruises on her legs and arms, but they are most likely from the final convulsions.’ He turned the page and pointed at the woman’s chest, which was still contorted upwards. ‘Broken spine –’ Reed gulped, then said, ‘again, from the strychnine poisoning.’

  ‘So ye found nothing out o’ the ordinary?’ McGray asked, but Reed immediately wrinkled his nose.

  ‘Well … I don’t know how out of the ordinary you’ll find this …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She gave birth – at least once.’

  ‘She what?’

  ‘There’s no doubt, sir. It didn’t happen recently, but the signs are undeniable. Hips, belly, breasts, cunny …’

  ‘Oh, shush!’ I snapped. ‘I know how the clock ticks.’

  ‘Do you?’ McGray jumped in. ‘I thought youse ladies in waiting only found out on yer wedding night.’

  Even Reed sniggered. ‘Perhaps he left Oxford before that lesson.’

  I blushed. ‘Upon my honour! Watch your mouth, Reed. I can ask Campbell to discipline you.’

  ‘The first thing you did when you arrived,’ Reed retorted, ‘was to ask Campbell for my dismissal – yet here I still stand, sir.’

  McGray almost did a little dance, overjoyed by the young doctor’s insolence.

  ‘I liked you better when you were a mousy graduate.’ I turned to McGray and changed the subject swiftly. ‘Do you remember what Miss Smith said? That Miss Greenwood had come to Edinburgh after an awkward family affair?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what she said. D’ye think she got into what youse all-michty arses call trouble?’

  ‘It is possible,’ I muttered. ‘Whether it is relevant to the actual murder, we cannot tell yet. We may find out more about Greenwood from that other nurse, the one she was training and sharing lodgings with. Miss Smith did tell us her name.’ I turned back the pages of my notebook. ‘Miss Oakley. We must question her as soon as possible.’

  ‘Anything else ye can tell us, laddie?’ McGray said.

  Reed was already nodding. ‘Aye. One thing.’ He pointed at Greenwood’s inner thigh, so high up that the young doctor blushed, despite his degree and the fact that the lady was no longer alive.

  From where I stood it looked like a reddened spot, but on closer inspection it revealed itself as a scar. One of the most disturbing marks I’d ever seen.

  It was a snake, tangled in on itself and biting its own tail, resembling a Celtic knot. Somebody had once engraved the skin with a blade as thin as a scalpel. It was an old wound, but made so deeply that time could not erase it.

  9

  We had tried to show Joel’s portrait to the ground officers, asking them – off the record – to keep their eyes open. We had mixed reactions, however. Although Campbell had sent his most trusted men to clear the scene at the asylum as inconspicuously as possible, he’d also ordered them, most emphatically, not to become involved any further. Men like Constable McNair, who had a good relationship with Nine-Nails, had agreed, but the majority would not risk unleashing the superintendent’s wrath.

  Both of us knew there was nothing else we could do until Campbell returned to the office, so we had to curb our frustration and head home. It was already early evening, as we were going through the shortest days of the season, so the city was as dark as if it were midnight, the yellow glow from the gas lamps painting the piles of snow that had still not melted or turned into slush.

  As we passed the crowded tenements the smell of stew and boiled potatoes fille
d the air, making my stomach growl. I realized that all I’d ingested during the day was a rushed coffee and a cup of Bertha’s tea.

  McGray was thinking the same.

  ‘I’m bloody starving,’ he said, and then his eyes glowed. ‘Och, they might still have some mince ’n’ tatties left at the Ensign. Mary makes the best in town.’

  I blinked aloofly. ‘Please yourself.’

  ‘I’d ask ye to come along,’ he said, ‘but I ken that just hearing a word like tatties can make a Southron dizzy.’

  Before I could come back with some of my dry humour he turned his mount and headed back to the High Street, to his favourite pub, the Ensign Ewart.

  Throughout the short ride back I ruminated on the intricacies of the case, McGray’s obsessions and Campbell’s intransigence. I ended up gripping the reins so tightly my nails could have torn my leather gloves, and my mood did not improve until I sat back in the ragged armchair in my room and was free to kick my boots away. It was not the most comfortable of seats, with a couple of springs sticking up from strategically annoying points, but I was so tired a goosefeather cushion could not have offered more comfort.

  ‘D’ye want these polished, master?’ Larry asked, picking up my muddy footwear. The twelve-year-old had changed dramatically within a couple of months. When I’d taken him on as a footman, right after his drunken father had given him a merciless beating, he’d been a scrawny, filthy chimneysweep. Joan – who’d cheekily instigated my decision to hire him – had been feeding him heartily with bread, milk and boiled ham, and by now had almost managed to get him to wear shoes every day. I still feared his father might one day appear, looking for him, but fortunately that had not yet happened.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said, looking at the battered leather. ‘I do need a new pair though. Oh, and tell Joan I’d like my supper now.’

  ‘Aye, master.’

  Minutes later Joan arrived with a tray. Roast chicken, carrots and potatoes smothered in gravy, and a good portion of buttered bread.

  From the moment she came in, Joan prattled away at an unthinkable speed, the never-ending sentences spurting out without pause. Perhaps she’d not had a chance to chatter throughout the day. I focused on the tender chicken and her wholesome gravy, not even registering what she said, but then, as she rambled on and on, I felt one of my eyebrows rise to a perfect arch.