The Unquiet Heart

by The Unquiet Heart (retail) (epub)

  It took everything I had not to bound out of the house in my uncle’s wake – did I detect a thawing of my mother’s attitude towards my studies? Assuming that soon enough I would be off her hands, was she resigning herself to having a daughter who might be flouting society’s rules but was at least doing it with her husband’s permission?

  I was so caught up in possibilities that it wasn’t until I saw Merchiston sheltering from the rain as he smoked in one of the quad’s arches that I remembered a man had died in front of me the previous evening.

  ‘Gilchrist,’ he nodded. ‘You look sombre this morning.’

  ‘Colonel Greene was murdered last night.’

  He dropped his cigarette in a puddle and stared at me open-mouthed. It was rare that I could render him speechless – even at his most taciturn, he always had a clever rejoinder that was usually at someone else’s expense.

  ‘Miss Brown!’ He hailed a passing chaperone, as early for our lecture as I was. ‘I need to speak to Gilchrist here in private, and I’m not doing it alone. Follow us, please.’

  As soon as the door was closed, and with Miss Brown studiously pretending not to be listening, he turned to me. The story would be halfway around Edinburgh by lunchtime, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  ‘What do you mean, murdered? I was at the police station this morning and I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘He collapsed at a dinner party last night. All the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.’

  ‘Who attended him?’

  ‘A Dr Hamilton – he’s the Greenes’ family physician. Practically had kittens at the thought of me even looking at the body, so I didn’t try to tell him my suspicions.’

  ‘That will be Reginald Hamilton. What he lacks in mental acuity, he makes up for in the exorbitant fees he charges.’ He paused for thought. ‘I’d like to take a look at those organs. If he’s been poisoned—’

  ‘Then we’ll know it’s murder.’ I shook my head. ‘It was hard enough getting Wilson’s body properly examined, and she’d had her head bashed in. The Greenes will never allow it. They’ll insist he died of natural causes and refuse an autopsy.’

  That lunchtime, we commandeered an empty lecture hall and Randall and Elisabeth joined us – apparently for the sake of propriety but I suspected more out of curiosity.

  ‘A man of his age, fairly robust but heavier than he ought to be at that height . . . A heart attack isn’t out of the question,’ Randall said.

  I nodded. ‘That’s what I thought at first. But his symptoms are consistent, and given the residue under Clara Wilson’s nails . . .’

  ‘It’s the perfect murder,’ Merchiston sighed. ‘He’s been killed by a dead woman.’ He rubbed his face, and I saw under the harsh electric light that he looked tired.

  ‘That still doesn’t tell us who killed Wilson,’ I pointed out. ‘And we don’t know for certain that she did poison him.’

  He nodded. ‘Could have been the wife. Perhaps he and Wilson—’

  ‘He didn’t even know her first name!’

  Merchiston gave me a condescending smile. ‘He wouldn’t have been the first man to bed a woman without asking her name.’

  It was rare these days that I considered myself an innocent, but Merchiston had the knack of making me feel as though I had just stepped out of a nunnery.

  Randall clucked in disapproval. ‘It could have been gout or his heart. A once fit man gone to seed . . . It could have been any number of things. And murdering someone in a house where the police are already asking questions is a risky move.’

  ‘Not if he knew about the murder,’ I argued.

  ‘You have a kind heart. Elisabeth would say that’s what makes you a good doctor. But it’s your mind that will save your patients. You once looked at a streetwalker on a slab, deduced that she had been murdered and then nearly got yourself killed trying to prove it. Don’t just rely on your empathy, Sarah. Trust your brilliance. Now tell me again. Do you think he was murdered or are you sure?’

  I thought of the convulsions, the waxy, clammy skin. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Murders usually come down to one of two things, finances or . . .’ Merchiston faltered as Randall cleared his throat pointedly. ‘Or passion. Perhaps Aurora tired of his philandering. Or someone needed their inheritance and decided to speed up proceedings.’

  ‘Alisdair stands to gain the most as the elder son.’

  ‘The colonel could have promised a tidy sum to Aurora; perhaps she decided she’d rather have the money than the man. Or maybe Miles wanted to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed.’ Merchiston grinned, but in the dim gaslight all I could see was his teeth. ‘A nice collection of surgical instruments will set the lad back a pretty penny.’

  ‘It’s useless speculating,’ I groaned. ‘If they won’t release the body for autopsy then there’s no way of confirming our suspicions.’

  ‘Your suspicions.’

  I gave him a pointed look. ‘Your eyes lit up when I said “arsenic”, Professor. You want to find out what’s in his kidneys and liver every bit as much as I do.’

  ‘I’m not his doctor,’ he sighed. ‘There’s nothing I can do – Hamilton thinks I’m the lowest of the low, a guttersnipe who clawed his way into the higher echelons of medicine and academia. He’s not wrong, but he won’t take kindly to my interference. You’d better hope he smells something fishy about the whole business. Unless . . .’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘I’ll speak to Littlejohn tomorrow morning, suggest they perform a post-mortem. Say I heard rumours or had an anonymous note delivered – either way, we’ll get conclusive proof we can take to a judge.’

  ‘And then it’s out of our hands,’ I sighed. The excitement fizzled out of me rapidly and I felt rather like a collapsed soufflé.

  ‘Would it be the worst thing in the world?’ Randall asked gently. ‘Professor Merchiston works with the police; he’s used to this sort of thing. You’re a perceptive girl, Sarah, but perhaps leave this one to the professionals, aye?’

  ‘You mean the men,’ I muttered, still stinging from being called a girl, as though I were some schoolroom chit and not nearly twenty-three and studying to be a doctor. My uncle thought I was an old maid; my friend thought I was still a child.

  ‘This isn’t medicine,’ he argued. ‘There are perfectly good reasons why a murder investigation is no place for a young lady, no matter how worldly she may consider herself to be.’

  I turned to Elisabeth. ‘Are you listening to this? Your husband, alleged champion of professional women, thinks we lack the critical capability to solve murders! Do tell me, Randall – is it my smaller female brain that stands in my way? My physical constitution perhaps – I could withstand childbirth, but God forbid some ruffian spits on me. Or maybe it’s my reproductive organs,’ I added bitterly. Enlightened though he was, I was annoyed to see Randall grimace.

  ‘There’s no need to be vulgar, Sarah.’ Elisabeth was frowning. ‘Don’t you have enough battles to fight?’ she pleaded. ‘If the colonel was murdered, Gregory will prove it.’

  I lapsed into a silence that Aunt Emily would doubtless have called sulky. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed the hour and I scowled, for once reluctant to get back to my studies. As I traipsed obediently after the Chalmerses, Merchiston caught my eye and winked. It seemed that I would be assisting him after all.

  Chapter 14

  In life, Colonel Greene had been an imposing man whose wife and sons obeyed his every word. But in the hours between his collapse and Merchiston admitting me into the room where he lay, portly body covered by a tablecloth, any sense of his grandeur had departed.

  I shivered. ‘It’s so strange seeing him like this. Less than twenty-four hours ago he was in full flow, telling me that women should never be taught to read, much less learn medicine. Now there’s nothing left of him – not the real him.’

  ‘Au contraire, Miss Gilchrist,’ Merchiston said with a macabre smile. ‘This is where the real Colonel Greene r
eveals himself.’

  He yanked the tablecloth back and I flinched, not ready to see my late future father-in-law in his naked entirety. Fortunately for me, Merchiston stopped at the waist, threw me an amused look and pulled the sheet up from Colonel Greene’s feet to his upper thighs. It was a little higher than I’d have liked, but I refused to look away.

  ‘Williamson will spare your blushes in the lecture theatre, but don’t expect the same courtesy on the wards,’ he warned. ‘There will be countless newly qualified doctors queuing up to rag the lady doctors, and the private appendages of a dead man will be the least offensive thing you’re exposed to. Ahem. So to speak.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it occurred to the university faculty to teach the male students not to bully the women they’ll be working with?’

  ‘Ah, but it builds character. As they were tormented by their colleagues and professors, so will the trial by fire continue. Somehow, Gilchrist, I suspect you’ll give as good as you get.’

  If I ever made it as far as the wards, let alone the front of a lecture theatre, I fully intended to. It was about time some of the privileged little boys masquerading as men were given orders by a woman.

  ‘The colonel had a lacklustre approach to personal hygiene.’ Merchiston grimaced.

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose there wasn’t time for lengthy ablutions in Afghanistan.’

  ‘He fought in Afghanistan?’

  ‘My uncle saved his life at the Battle of Maiwand. They were both injured and sent home.’

  He frowned. ‘Randall was out there for a while. I met him when he came back, traumatised and wanting nothing more to do with the battlefield.’

  Elisabeth had never told me about her husband’s past. I couldn’t imagine the placid, easy-going Randall Chalmers in uniform.

  ‘He never mentioned it to Colonel Greene. I didn’t even know he had a military background.’

  ‘He doesn’t talk about it – not even to Elisabeth, by all accounts.’ He glanced at me. ‘We all have our secrets, Miss Gilchrist.’

  ‘I’m starting to think this family has more than most.’

  ‘And you’re marrying into it. Lucky girl.’

  ‘If it weren’t for my engagement, you wouldn’t be here,’ I reminded him tartly. ‘And don’t tell me you’re doing this as a favour – any fool could see you’re enjoying it.’

  ‘So are you,’ he countered. ‘Your future husband may just be able to stomach a lady doctor with a genteel private practice lancing boils, but how will he feel about a pathologist who spends her days prodding at corpses?’

  Could that really be my future? I had fought so hard to get this far that I could barely imagine anything past graduation. For all the time I spent protesting my right to a career, when I even tried to consider specialising I was overwhelmed by the options – and by my minuscule chances of being encouraged to do more than private practice or obstetrics. Could I really stand where Merchiston was, taking the lead on an autopsy? It wasn’t as though I could cite the two – now three – murders I had investigated as proof of my suitability for such a job. I didn’t even know how one went about applying – it wasn’t the type of thing we had been taught at finishing school.

  I was so greedy for any experience that I didn’t even know how to set my sights higher than just survival, than getting those precious letters after my name – Sarah Gilchrist, MD! Anything after that was amorphous, something too hoped for to be a concrete thing. Still . . .

  ‘If the alternative is Miles, I’d leap at the chance to lance a few boils.’

  Guilt settled on my shoulders like a cloak. It was one thing complaining to Elisabeth, even Randall, but laughing about Miles to Merchiston felt wrong somehow. Perhaps it was the moment of closeness we had shared, or the way the muscles in his arms grew taut as he pushed up his shirtsleeves.

  He sighed. ‘I’ll finish this,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Littlejohn will be back shortly and you shouldn’t be found alone with the body.’ Or with the man examining it.

  But I had one last question.

  ‘Why teach? You love this work, I can see it in your eyes.’

  He shrugged. ‘The money. We don’t all have a business magnate for a father, you know. Anyway, it’s a useful position to be in. The university opens doors a mere police surgeon could never have dreamed of. And it’s not as if I’m without precedent.’

  ‘So it was Professor Bell’s influence?’

  He scowled – he had mentioned that his particular blending of medicine and detection had been learned at the side of the man who had inspired Sherlock Holmes, but it was not a comparison he relished.

  ‘I could have you expelled for sheer cheek, Gilchrist. Never forget that.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question. If you didn’t want to follow in Professor Bell’s footsteps, why help the police?’

  He looked away. ‘Lucy,’ he said quietly. ‘I wanted to keep an eye on her, and that seemed the best way.’ He barked out a bitter laugh. ‘Not that it did a damn bit of good.’

  ‘She would have felt safer,’ I offered.

  ‘She could have come to me. Should have, if I’d ever given her a reason to. But she saw me as her meddling older brother, too allied with the polis to trust.’ He ran the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘And what about you, Sarah Gilchrist? Why are you here?’

  ‘I want to be a doctor,’ I said softly. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Edinburgh was supposed to be a fresh start – the silver lining to a horrible cloud. I came here to study medicine and yet it feels as though ever since I got here I’ve been doing anything but.’

  ‘Everyone struggles in their first year,’ Merchiston reassured me. ‘Yours weren’t the worst marks. No matter what, you’ve always got a place in my lectures.’

  He looked for a moment as though he wanted to say something else, but the clock chimed and the moment passed. Sweet as these stolen moments were, they weren’t my real life and it was no use pining after something that I knew I could never have.

  ‘You head back to the Chalmerses’ now. If your aunt or mother calls and you’re not there, there’ll be hell to pay.’

  He handed me some coins and a crumpled note or two. ‘For the cab.’

  ‘That’s too much,’ I protested. ‘I’m going past the Meadows, not to Glasgow and back.’

  He shrugged. ‘A woman should have funds of her own, and you’re working as hard on this as I am. It’s no’ a salary, but it’s a start.’

  As I turned to go, my pockets jingling, I realised I had my answer to the question that plagued me. Medicine would give me money, access – and there were other women out there like Lucy and Clara Wilson who had need of my services. Whatever came after graduation, I would use my education to rescue women from their fate, and avenge those I could not.

  Outside, I could taste snow in the air, so crisp and cold it hurt my lungs to breathe it in. I took gulps of it like a thirsty man drinks water, relishing being outside. It was past twilight and the gas lamps dotting the Meadows were lit. The cab rattled up the Royal Mile and through Tollcross, but I barely took in the frost-rimed streets.

  It felt as though my veins were running with champagne instead of blood, sparkling and fizzing. A horrible thing had occurred and I was a horrible person for being drawn to it, and yet . . . It was thrilling. I wanted to get closer – to the victim, to the crime, to the person who had committed it – and peel back the layers like an onion, find out who and how and why. It was the same excitement I felt when being led through a diagnosis – individually, the symptoms might not make sense but together they were a picture. Every element told a story – the bronchial infection that told me the patient was living in damp, squalid conditions, the mould spores under the microscope that he had breathed in from the very walls, and that I could track down to the exact street or house if I tried hard enough. The beginnings of phossy jaw told me what a woman did for a living and the sag of her stomach stretched from pregnancy could tell me how many children she had to supp
ort. No wonder our parents and guardians were so obsessed with keeping our bodies pure and blank, unreadable, when even the grime under my nails and the stains on my skirt could be analysed and interpreted.

  Back at Warrender Park Crescent, in front of a roaring fire and with a plate of crumpets and honey, I waited for the results of the arsenic test. Randall had a small study stocked with medical equipment; he and Merchiston had arrived waiting to see if the hair sample I had purloined offered further fuel to the fire of our suspicions.

  Despite the excitement of the day, I found myself dozing off, until a cry echoed from the study.

  ‘Eureka!’ They were out of breath, laughing like schoolboys.

  ‘Sarah, you’re a genius. I’ll give you top marks for every essay from now on; I’ll even get the university clerks to change your winter exam results. You spotted what Reginald Hamilton, that pompous old sot, wouldn’t have seen in a thousand years. Colonel Greene was so full of arsenic he was practically shitting it.’

  ‘Gregory!’

  ‘Now steady on, old thing.’

  I didn’t care about his language, only that my suspicions had been proven right. ‘Clara Wilson must have been administering it. Even after she died, it would have been working its way through his system until his heart couldn’t handle it any more.’

  ‘Then we have a powerful motive for her murder – but what about his? It’s not as though she stood to gain from his death,’ Merchiston pointed out.

  ‘If I had to live with him day in and day out, I might want to poison him as well. Can you tell how it was given to him?’

  ‘Food or drink. Some in his bath perhaps, hidden in bath salts so he’d breathe it in and there would be a clear source to blame if someone worked out what was wrong with him before he died. You wouldn’t believe the rot chemists sell claiming it’s medicinal – you’re lucky if it’s just common rock salt.’

  I thought back to the long, luxuriously scented baths I enjoyed, and felt slightly queasy.

  ‘The Greenes shared a bedroom more often than not, according to Blackwell. It would have been easy to bring the colonel a cup of tea along with Aurora’s, and she takes hers so foully milky that there’d be no confusion about whose cup was whose.’