The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller)

by Annelie Wendeberg

  ‘Thank you,’ I called, rubbed my hair dry and left the bathroom. My body burned; a sharp vibrant feeling that almost gave the impression of me flying so fast that the wind was peeling off my skin. When I was a child, I often dreamed I could fly. But the dreams were frustrating; I could only fly a few yards, then my feet touched the ground again. I never reached any heights. I never soared.

  Once in my room, I poured a cup of tea and drank it while slowly pacing in circles. I tried to sort through the many thoughts about what Moran would possibly do next. I didn’t even know whether he was still in bed or already moving about. I decided to ask Sherlock.

  ‘What is it?’ he called when I knocked at the door separating his room from mine. I opened. He stood at the window, a pipe in the corner of his mouth, his eyebrows drawn together.

  ‘Did your street arabs send any news about Moran?’

  ‘The doctor is still attending to him,’ he muttered absentmindedly.

  He barely looked at me; I nodded nonetheless. ‘Thank you. Good night.’

  I was about to pull the door into its frame when he called, ‘One moment, please.’

  I stopped.

  Before I could enquire about his reasons, he had stepped up to me and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. His other hand pushed my sleeve up a few inches. Red streaks glowed on pale skin.

  ‘Why would you do this?’ His tone was aggressive.

  ‘This is none of your interest. I wish you wouldn’t intrude upon my private life whenever you see fit.’

  ‘I was under the impression you invited me to intrude upon your private life.’

  I tugged at my hand until he released it. I tried to analyse his expression. All I saw was annoyance. ‘You know,’ I whispered, ‘you can simply say, “Anna, I wish this case was solved already so you’d disappear.”’

  I slammed the door in his face.

  A soft thud followed. ‘I apologise.’ His voice was muffled.

  ‘Stop offering your one hand just to use the other to push me away.’

  Footfalls on the other side, disappearing, then approaching again.

  ‘You are not to allow or forbid me anything.’ I pointed an angry finger at the innocent door. ‘You are not to steer me through life as though you know better than I. I don’t tell you what’s right or wrong for you, either. I respect your choices, even if I don’t understand them all. The fact that I once offered myself to you doesn’t give you any rights to me.’

  ‘Is the offer closed?’

  The surprise in his voice hurt. I opened my mouth and shut it again. I stared at the door. Light seeped in through the crack at its bottom, divided by the two shadows of his feet. He wasn’t moving. No sounds were coming from his side.

  ‘Good night.’ I blew out the candle and went to bed, hot with anger and ablaze with hope, which made me feel like a brainless fifteen-year-old girl. I could have slapped my face.

  — seventeen —

  I buttoned the top of my dress, observing the comings and goings down on the street. A brougham was waiting at the hotel’s entrance, shrouded by light fog. I had slept longer than usual and felt oddly slow and heavy this morning.

  Sherlock had left more than an hour ago to meet with his brother and talk about Whitman and the Kaiser’s favourite toy — whatever that could be.

  A knock interrupted my thoughts.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your tea and breakfast, Madam.’

  I walked to the door and unlocked it. The moment the door swung open, I saw my mistake. Parker grinned at me from behind Moran’s back and produced a mocking, ‘M’lady.’ An almost perfect interpretation of a maid’s timid voice.

  Shock slowed all movements around me to a comical crawl. Yet I couldn’t step out of the door’s way soon enough. It hit me in the face. Stars began to blossom in my field of view. Almost unnoticed, pain moved through me, past me, leaving only numbness behind.

  I stepped aside; aimed a kick at Moran’s shin. He answered with a swing of his fist. I ducked and saw his cracked knuckles fly past my face, a sharp breeze brushing the side of my head.

  Parker stepped forward. I was thinking fast. Not fast enough. I wished I could have reached my revolver and shot them both within a second or two. The door closed. Swift steps, heavy booted, forward, forward. Too close.

  Moran shoved his coarse palm in my face, kicked at my legs, and threw me down on the floor. The impact robbed me of breath. A rag was stuffed into my mouth, an arm pushed down on my throat. I blinked hard to wipe the light flashes from my vision, groaned to clear my windpipe and get air into my lungs, kicked at the two without being able to clearly see where they were.

  Moran’s swollen and disfigured face drifted into view. I heard him mutter, but didn’t understand what he said. I tried to kick and roll them off me. Parker was tying my legs together. I still had command over my arms. I pushed against Moran, against his weight on my chest and throat. I clawed at his eyes. He slapped my face. Once, twice, thrice. My ears sang. I felt my arms being pulled apart, one tied to each foot of the bed.

  No! Only one was tied to the bed. The left one. I pulled up the right one and—

  Moran’s knee came down on my right elbow bend, his hand grabbed my chin. ‘Bitch! Do you think I’d let you go? After what you did? The police want me! Do you believe me stupid enough to not see that you and Holmes are behind this?’

  He pushed his face closer to mine. The hornets had attacked him savagely. He looked dreadful. I almost laughed at him. How could he be walking about so soon?

  ‘God, how I wish to kill you. But that stupid woman…’ Spittle hit my face. ‘She wants the child. God, how I detest his family!’

  He rolled up his sleeves. Sweat dripped from his chin. His breath was a series of low, rattling bursts.

  ‘Once that child is born, I’ll take care of you.’ Maniacal muttering. As though he didn’t care whether I heard him or not. As though he had to tell himself that what he was about to do made sense in his own isolated world.

  What was he about to do? I moved my head to get a better view. His right arm was outstretched towards Parker. He grabbed the offered butcher knife. If I had believed I already used all my strength, I was mistaken. The surge of terror mobilised an unknown wave of power. I managed to roll Parker off my legs and shove my knees against Moran’s back. His body barely moved. He slapped me hard. Then a smile spread across his gleaming face. His incisors showed.

  ‘You are lucky. If I killed you now — believe me, I very much want to — she wouldn’t give me my money. So you’ll have to wait for me, my sweet. Once you are ripe, I’ll come to harvest. For now, I have to satisfy myself with a small piece.’

  All I could see was the knife, Moran’s contorted face, how he bent over my right arm, his hand clamping down on my wrist, his knee on the bend of my elbow, welding my arm to the floor. I began to scream before the blade touched my skin. Terror beckoned pain before metal met flesh, before nerves could fire and blood could flow.

  The noise I produced was muffed by the rag in my mouth. Snot and tears poured out of my nose and eyes. Soon the only other passage to my lungs was full with mucous. I felt the hacking, cutting, tugging. I tried to separate my brain from the searing pain. That birthplace of agony. My hand didn’t belong. Couldn’t belong. I barely managed to turn my head so my vomit wouldn’t immediately end up in my windpipe.

  ‘Careful with that,’ snapped Moran, unplugging my mouth. I had almost inhaled the bile, the little my empty stomach was able to expel. Coughing, I fought for air.

  He straightened up, wiped his bloody hands on my dress. ‘Parker, search the room!’

  The journals! Where had I put them? My brain stuttered and stumbled between two singing ears, behind bleary eyes. I couldn’t think. I began to scream. A palm slapped down on my mouth and nose. My lungs contracted in vain.

  Moran bent closer. ‘I’ll take a vacation. I trust that you and Mr Holmes will try to find me. Let me assure you that your efforts will be in vain.
I, however, will find you…’

  The room fell into blackness, decorated with blinking dots and the screeching music of blood loss.

  A click. I blinked. Slowly, my eyes regained vision. The door must have just fallen into its lock. Utter relief. But only for a moment. The journals. I still couldn’t think where I had put them.

  I moved the leftovers of my right hand to my face, running my sleeve across my mouth, chin, and cheeks to wipe the vomit off. With immediate danger gone, pain rushed in with overbearing speed and sharpness.

  The room was spinning. I couldn’t see clearly. I pulled at my left arm, inching closer to the bound wrist. The knot looked overwhelmingly complicated. I inserted my right thumb into the knot’s various openings. So little control. Everything trembled, even the room, the bed, the knot. My hand, my whole right arm was aching so badly. I kept poking at the knot. Kept poking… until someone turned the lights off.

  It dawned. How long had I been unconscious? My tongue was stuck to my palate. Metallic odour singed my nostrils. My head was hammering, my hand was about to rot off my wrist. I opened my eyes and inserted my thumb into the knot again, wiggling, pushing, until blood made the rope too slippery to move.

  A knock. Then another. ‘Madam?’ It sounded far off. Echo-like. Then a scream. Who screamed? Who had reason to make such ruckus?

  A pair of scissors approached, gnawing the rope in two. My wrist slipped out and onto the floor before I could move it. Prickling ran up the freed arm. I flexed my fingers to wake up the numb limb, rolled on my elbow, and pushed myself up.

  ‘Madam! Madam! I’ll cut you if you move too much.’

  I froze. She kept her nerves. Most maids would have run away, screaming at the top of their lungs for male support.

  The pressure around my ankles and knees disappeared. I began to move. ‘Could you help me up, please?’

  Her arm slid beneath mine. She was delicate, but determined.

  ‘Sit on the bed, Madam,’ she whispered, as though she didn’t dare to give me orders.

  ‘Could you please call for Dr Watson?’ I said, staring at her and trying to recall the address. My eyes searched the room as though to find my composure. After a too-long time, I finally remembered. Before the maid left, she gave me a kerchief to staunch the bleeding.

  I gazed at the stump, trying to look at it from a detached, medical viewpoint. Not my hand, I told myself. Not my hand. Blood was oozing; a lazy pulsing of red. The white of the bone was visible; splinters stuck out. The severed tendon would have retracted by now, hiding somewhere, now useless. A ragged cut, blurred by my trembling and my leaky eyes. I wiped my face. A mess of snot and tears and blood. More pain. I had forgotten about the angry door and Moran’s punches. I lay my hand on the kerchief and my aching head on the pillow. I needed to breathe for a moment.

  Another knock and the maid entered, bringing a stranger with her.

  ‘What happened here?’ he demanded.

  ‘Where is Dr Watson?’ I asked. And where was Wiggins and his ragamuffins? I doubted Sherlock would employ a group of unreliable boys. Something must have happened to them.

  ‘The doctor will be here shortly,’ the maid assured me.

  The man began pacing the room, stepping into the cut ropes and the spilled blood. ‘Are you the manager?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’ His eyes searched the room, apparently to catalogue the damage done, calculating the resulting costs, and deciding that it was me who had to pay for it.

  ‘You walk through the evidence, sir. One could almost believe you wish to destroy it.’

  Shocked, he froze where he stood and, like an oversized spider, he lifted one foot, stretched his leg as far as it would go, and stepped to the side. This he continued until he arrived at the wall.

  The door flew open and revealed a ruffled Watson. His eyes took in the mess, my state, the state of my hand, all in barely two seconds. ‘I must ask you to leave. Should the police feel an urge to enter this room while I perform surgery on my patient, you can be assured I’ll lose my temper.’

  I had never seen Watson angry. What a formidable friend he was. ‘I’m worried about Wiggins,’ I said once he and I were alone.

  ‘Don’t worry now. All is good. Explanations can wait.’ He sat down next to me and gingerly took my injured hand into his, examining the wound. ‘I’ll have to do a few stitches. Are you still unwilling to take opium?’

  ‘You’ll have to give me morphia,’ I said, pulling my knees up against my aching stomach. ‘I’m in labour.’

  The drug would help to stall premature contractions.

  Watson blinked, then nodded. ‘You wish to keep it.’

  I sighed. Keeping the child? I certainly didn’t want to kill it. But keeping it was an entirely different thing.

  He pressed my healthy hand and bent down to extract a syringe, a tourniquet, and a small bottle from his bag. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

  Soon, wonderful warmth entered my bloodstream, spread from my arm to my shoulder into my chest and abdomen. Eyelids quivered. I wafted away. A bed of clouds. My right hand puckered a little. There, where my index finger used to be. That ghost of a limb tied me to reality for a flutter of time, until a soft pling cut me off altogether. I rose…

  From: A manual on the Operations of Surgery, by Dr Joseph Bell (A.C. Doyle’s mentor, and inspiration for Sherlock Holmes), 1883 (11)

  — eighteen —

  Heaviness lay itself upon me when consciousness dawned. A glass of water on the nightstand reflected the evening sun. Watson sat in a chair next to the bed. His eyes were shut, his head lolling to the side.

  I examined my hand. A thick bandage hid the stump all the way past my wrist. The ache was extending to my shoulder. I could feel the thread pulling at the severed skin. My other hand slid under the blanket, pressing down on my stomach. The uterus was soft. The contractions had subsided.

  A snore issued from the armchair, then a cough. ‘Hello, Dr Watson,’ I said. ‘It must be exhausting to have to stitch me back together again and again.’

  ‘Ha! Indeed.’ He laughed. ‘You look much better already. Here, drink that.’ He reached out and gave me the water.

  I quenched my thirst and pushed myself up.

  ‘Careful,’ he said, lending me his arm. ‘Blood loss and morphia weakened you. Not to speak of the shock.’

  ‘Was Sherlock here? And the police?’ I pointed to the floor; the ropes and the bloody carpet had been taken away.

  ‘Yes,’ said Watson. ‘Holmes was here shortly before the police. He is now hunting Moran. I have never seen him so furious.’ He cleared his throat and added in a crestfallen voice, ‘I had to remove the fractured proximal phalanx.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have been able to use it anyway.’

  That last bit of index finger was gone now, too. As sharp as that end had been, it would have made wound healing impossible. He must have also needed the skin of the last phalanx to pull over the knuckle and make a suture.

  ‘You are an excellent surgeon. Thank you, Dr Watson.’

  He bobbed his head. I noticed a whiff of acid. Vomit was stuck to my hair. ‘You look tired, Dr Watson. Are you alright?’ I noticed his stubbly chin and cheeks, his tilted cravat. ‘Is your wife alright?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘She is ill. But nothing serious.’

  ‘Go home,’ I said softly. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘The police want to talk to you. They’ll call tomorrow in the morning.’ He rose and pressed my hand. ‘I’ll be back after breakfast and change your bandages. Call for me should you need me earlier,’ he said. ‘Oh! I almost forgot to tell you that Holmes wants to let you know the journals are at his brother’s. I take it you know what he means by that?’

  Relieved, I smiled and nodded. Sherlock must have taken them to discuss their contents with Mycroft. I hoped the two had found something of interest.

  After he had left, I rang the bell and asked the maid if she knew who had helped me earlier. She blushed and tipped her he
ad. ‘It was my sister, Madam. She wasn’t allowed up here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She works in the scullery. Scrubbing pans and pots. She just wanted to see the nice rooms where I work. She just… She was new here.’

  Could it be possible that the girl had lost her occupation so quickly?

  ‘Oh. I see,’ I said. ‘Hmm… Could you tell the manager that the eccentric lady who lost a finger wishes to see the maid who saved her?’

  Her hands clasped in front of her apron, fingers entwining.

  ‘Alternatively, you could simply tell him that I wish to see him,’ I added. She was visibly relieved. ‘But before I can receive such distinguished guest, I need to wash and dress.’ I sat up slowly, holding on to the bed frame for support should my feeble blood circulation betray me. And it did indeed.

  ‘Would you like me to help you, Madam?’ she asked, seeing me swoon.

  ‘Thank you, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll simply take my time.’

  With a very well, Madam, and a curtsy, she left.

  I sat for a while, then stood for a little while longer before moving. With my healthy hand sliding along the wall, I made for the bathroom. Nothing but fury propelled me forward.

  No sign of Sherlock the following morning. The police had interviewed me and promised to arrest Moran and Parker. I had my doubts.

  My hand puckered. Blood was seeping through the bandage and I needed to change it at once to avoid infection. Unwilling to wait for Watson any longer, I began unwrapping the gauze and soon noticed that it stuck to the stump. Tearing it off and opening the wound was out of the question. Watson had left bandages, but neither sterile saline solution nor disinfectant were at my disposal. He probably believed I still had my doctor’s bag with me. Or he didn’t think much at all. Perhaps his wife was more ill than he had admitted.

  Were there any other sterile liquids I could use? I considered asking the maid to boil salt water or milk for me, but I assumed the scullery to be a rather greasy place and I didn’t want any of the countless kitchen germs in my wound. That left me with only one thing: fresh urine.