Lumps of masonry and glass were scattered about the street, the shrapnel from bombed-out houses that had yet to be cleared. Anything of any worth would have been swept away by the scavengers who dodged the bombs and headed towards – rather than away from – any raging fire to see what pickings there might be.
It disheartened Edith that despite Winston Churchill’s rousing speeches, at the end of the day people always looked after themselves.
Thankfully, Edith’s father had only wanted to go to the newsagent’s at the end of the road for a newspaper and a packet of his favourite tobacco, which he secretly smoked against the doctor’s orders.
Edith wondered why he didn’t simply let her go and buy his daily paper and tobacco. He said he needed to get out of the house and get himself some fresh air, but Edith felt he enjoyed being awkward making her push him through the streets.
Sometimes her father liked to go further, which left Edith feeling completely exhausted. And yet still the man made more demands on her. She herself knew she was no spring chicken being in her late thirties with the possibility of matrimony far behind her.
Soon they were trundling back down the street when a small ball smacked into the side of her father’s face. He let out a great cry swiftly followed by an exclamation which filled the air and embarrassed Edith so that her face burned red. She prayed that the neighbours hadn’t heard her father’s expletive.
“What the hell blazes do you think you’re playing at?” he shouted at a group of boys who had been chasing the small red ball and stopped dead when they saw it hit the old guy in the wheelchair.
“Could have had my eye out, you little bastards!”
“Are you all right?” Edith asked leaning over her father. He shooed her away, his hand nearly poking her own eye out in the process.
“Get away from me, girl. No, pick that blasted ball up instead.”
Edith hesitated. These boys were children of her neighbours and she didn’t want to upset any of them. She had enough without aggravated parents giving her grief on her doorstep.
The boys had obviously been throwing the ball against one of the numerous brick walls that had previously been someone’s home when it had gone wide and taken its unlucky course.
“What are you waiting for, girl? Do as I tell you. Pick up that ball!”
As if poked by a red-hot poker, Edith involuntarily jerked away and collected up the ball, her nervousness making her fumble and drop it the first time. On the second attempt she had it firmly in her hand.
“Give it me,” growled her father through gritted teeth. His claw snatched the ball from Edith’s and, with a force that only hate made possible, he clenched and squeezed the small ball, the effort nearly making it burst in his fist.
“See this, you little sods. This is my ball now.”
There was no response from the group. There wasn’t one among them that had the cheek to answer her father back. Edith inwardly pleaded that one of them would stand up to the vicious old man in the wheelchair.
Unfortunately her father’s reputation seemed to precede him and the boys turned and ran off over a derelict site where a row of terraces had been razed to the ground a fortnight before. Edith did think she caught a few words from one of the elder boys as he headed away with the rest of the pack. It sounded like “miserable old swine”, which shocked and pleased Edith in equal measure. Serve the old fool right.
“Did you just hear what they said, girl?” he cried indignantly.
Edith said nothing and with a smile touching her lips began to push back towards home.
In the hallway, Edith had the devil’s own job of getting the old man up the stairs. As part of his enjoyment he liked to lean his whole weight on Edith and felt a deep satisfaction as she struggled with him up the stairs.
He never told her that when she went for the food shopping, he quite happily went up and down the stairs under his own steam.
“Don’t throw me on the bed, girl. I’m not your dirty washing,” he barked. “Now take my shoes off.”
Edith bent down and untied his laces and with difficulty removed his shoes – only to be rewarded for her labours with the pungent odour of the old man’s sweaty socks.
“Now, all I require is a nice cup of tea, girl. And then you can leave me to have a smoke and read of the paper.”
With further effort, Edith manoeuvred him to the easy chair next to the bed. Her father made a noise and then shifted his body sideways, his hand diving into his trouser pocket. He pulled out the small ball and placed it with pride on his bedside cabinet.
“Don’t you think you should give that ball back?”
“Near took my head off,” he replied as he shook his newspaper in preparation for reading it.
“They didn’t do it deliberately,” Edith replied, trying to be benevolent.
“They’re not having it back,” he grunted like a recalcitrant child himself.
Edith turned and stood in the doorway.
“You do realize the neighbours will most probably be round later to complain about your behaviour towards their boys.”
“And you’ll deal with it as usual,” her father sneered.
“Not this time. I’ll send them straight up here even if you’re in your pyjamas.”
“That’s right. Abuse the weak, why don’t you?”
It was then that Edith had a moment of strength pass through her bones. She really felt she’d had enough of him today. He had really been the absolute limit. Edith straightened herself up and pinned her father with a malevolent stare.
“You are anything but weak,” Edith declared. “And you are an embarrassment to me.”
Her father slowly looked up from preparing his first roll-up and eyed his daughter properly, something he hadn’t done since his precious Phyllis had been killed outright two years before.
After a few moments that felt as solid as steel her father questioned Edith.
“So, you think I am anything but weak, do you? And what does that make you, Edith?”
A fool is what Edith wanted to say. An absolute fool for kowtowing to you all this time.
But it was his look that silenced her and Edith’s moment of strength quickly ebbed away. It was the knowing gleam in his eyes that made Edith believe he knew something she didn’t and it made her feel a fool of fools.
“I’ll go and put the kettle on,” was all Edith could murmur as she went to close the door and escape this hateful man.
“Oh, and Edith?” her father called.
Edith opened the almost closed door to hear her father’s latest command. With a split second to react the red ball flew inches past Edith’s face, her shocked expression making her father howl with laughter.
Edith didn’t see where the ball landed but could hear it ping about on the landing.
“There you go,” her father said through laughter, before his face quickly changed to its usual death mask. “You can take the bloody ball back to your little friends. Happy now?”
“You could have . . .” Edith cried, before her throat constricted. She gave a swallow before being able to continue. “It nearly hit me in the face!”
Her father wafted his hand about by way of answer and settled the paper on his lap.
“You horrible, spiteful man!” Edith cried as she slammed the door and stormed downstairs.
Standing over the kitchen sink, sobbing, Edith looked out of the window. It was with a sharp shock that she saw the rat still lying swollen on the garden path. She had forgotten to pick it up this morning and dispose of it properly.
Then the second thought entered her mind. One she tried to push away, but it kept taking centre stage. No matter how hard she tried, it would not go away.
Edith had never been one to act irrationally. Every moment of her life had been carried out with forethought. Probably too much, she thought, although that couldn’t be helped now. But her personality would not stop her from doing something that may well catch up with her in time.
&
nbsp; Twenty minutes later, Edith was still sitting at the kitchen table, the glass phial directly in front of her on the scrubbed tabletop. She had sat immobile all that time deliberating what to do. Never in her whole life had she countenanced such thoughts, but the idea of being free from her father’s tyrannical reign was not allowing her a moment’s peace.
She pushed the phial away from her as though it were a poisoned chalice, just as the banging started on the ceiling.
“Edith! Where’s my tea?” came the usual battle cry, seconds later.
Mechanically, Edith swept up the glass phial and placed the kettle on the stove. She didn’t know how much would be acceptable and how much she could use without it distorting the taste. She would put some sugar in it and tell him he needed the sugar after his “near death” experience with the children’s ball. Ridiculous little man!
Edith was still hesitant, the phial in her hand, when the banging started again. Growling to herself in desperation, Edith flicked some of the poison into the teacup.
“Your tea,” said Edith as she grimaced at the old man.
Her father gave no response as she laid the cup carefully on the bedside cabinet next to him.
Edith hesitated at the door. Should she stay and make sure he drank it or should she leave, let him die in peace?
Finally the old man noticed her presence and looked up.
“What are you dithering for, girl?” he snapped.
“Nothing.” Edith replied with a wan smile. She decided to leave him. Let him pass away alone. She wanted nothing more to do with him. Edith closed the door gently and started down the stairs.
It was then that she stepped on the small ball her father had thrown earlier.
The fall headlong down the stairs killed Edith instantly.
Later, the doctor would give Edith’s father a sedative to calm him down. The old man had heard his daughter’s scream, but no amount of running could have saved her. She broke her neck the moment she hit the bottom of the steep stairs.
“A terrible tragedy,” commiserated the doctor. “And you didn’t get to finish your tea, either,” he crassly commented.
“Not to worry,” the old man sneered. “I never drank it anyway. I only asked for it to give Edith something to do. I always poured it into the plant pot. Edith never made a decent cup of tea in her life.”
Out of Bedlam
Stephen Gallagher
It was late in the afternoon when one of the ward orderlies appeared in the doorway to Sebastian Becker’s basement office. Sebastian had spent most of the day clearing a space to work. They’d given him a desk and a chair, and a hook for his coat. He would have appreciated a window.
The orderly, clearly not expecting to find the room occupied, said, “Oh.”
“Is that my welcome letter?” Sebastian said, eyeing the envelope in the orderly’s hand.
“That would depend, sir,” the orderly said. “Are you the Visitor’s man?”
“I’m Sebastian Becker. Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy.”
It was the August of 1912. Sebastian had been the Lord Chancellor’s man since the beginning of the year, and Sir James had been promising him an office for some time. Until now Sebastian had worked from coffee shops and corner tearooms, collecting his messages from a pie stand under the Southwark Bridge Road railway.
And now he had a room of his own, this grim little chamber under the Bethlem asylum, a space that he shared with suitcases and trunks storing the effects of deceased patients. Despite it being within walking distance of his home, he’d already resolved to spend as little time here as possible.
The orderly said, “Then this is for you. From the Director, sir.”
It was no welcome note. It requested Sebastian’s immediate presence in the male patients’ gallery. The orderly led the way.
Lambeth’s Bethlem Royal Hospital had separate wings for men and women, separated by an administration block in the middle. The men’s gallery was light and airy, with pictures on the walls and the atmosphere of the roomy but relatively spartan hotel that some of the more deluded patients believed it to be.
The Director was standing outside one of the private rooms, in an animated argument with a tweed-suited man and an equally well-dressed woman. Curious patients had gathered to watch.
“Mister Becker,” said the Director. “You’re the Lord Chancellor’s man. Will you please explain the law to Mr Raby’s relatives, here?”
“The law as applied to what?” Sebastian said.
Raising a hand to forestall interruption from his two well-dressed visitors, the Director explained that inside the room lay the body of John Raby, a Chancery lunatic who had been a Bethlem patient for more than two years. Though Raby had always entertained hopes of release, the hospital’s Consulting Psychiatrist had declared him incurable. Raby, who was harmless but inclined to wander, had been locked into his room for his regular afternoon nap and had died in his sleep.
Sebastian turned to the visitors. “And you are . . . ?”
“I’m Mrs Willis and John was my brother,” the woman said. “We’re here to claim his property.”
“A Chancery lunatic’s property is under the protection of the Crown,” Sebastian said.
Mrs Willis was about to reply, but her husband cut in. “You call it protection?” he said. “I call it control. Everybody knows that once the Masters of Lunacy get their hands on your fortune, you can wave it goodbye.”
Sebastian said, “Who found him?”
“I did, sir.” It was the orderly who’d brought him the note. “I went in to rouse him at four o’clock, for his afternoon tea. When he didn’t respond I sent one of the patients to fetch the Supervising Physician. I did not leave his side until Doctor Stoddart and the Director arrived.”
“Is the Physician with him now?”
“He is,” said the Director.
“Excuse me.” Sebastian left them to resume their argument, and let himself into the private room.
Dr William Stoddart had finished his examination. A heavily built man of some forty-four years, he was drawing the sheet across John Raby’s face as Sebastian entered and closed the door behind him.
“Becker!” Stoddart said. “You wasted no time in getting here.”
“I was in the building,” Sebastian said, “but the relatives got here faster. Did Raby keep much of value in the room?”
“Mostly sentimental objects.”
“His sister and her husband don’t strike me as a sentimental pair,” Sebastian said. “What about those books?”
Stoddart looked around at the bookshelf. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “They’re fine enough bindings, I suppose. But I’m hardly an expert.”
Nor was Sebastian, but he moved to the shelf and took down a volume at random. Chancery lunatics were people of wealth or property whose fortunes were at risk from their madness. Those deemed unfit to manage their affairs had them taken over by lawyers of the Crown, known as the Masters of Lunacy. It was Sebastian’s employer, the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor, who would decide their fate. Though the office was intended to be a benevolent one, many saw him as an enemy to be outwitted or deceived, even to the extent of concealing criminal insanity.
It was for such cases that the Visitor had engaged Sebastian. His job was to seek out the cunning dissembler, the dangerous madman whose resources might otherwise make him untouchable. Rank and the social order gave such people protection. A former British police detective and one-time Pinkerton man, Sebastian had been engaged to work “off the books” in exposing their misdeeds. His modest salary was paid out of the department’s budget. He remained a shadowy figure, an investigator with no public profile.
“What do we know about Raby?” he asked Stoddart.
Raby had been a bachelor of some prosperity. A shrewd investor who had lived well off his dividends and indulged his hobbies. He read, wrote bad poetry, and received few visitors. Sebastian leafed through the fifteenth book of
The Odyssey, Pope’s translation, in full leather boards. It was dated 1724, and its bindings were spotted with age.
Stoddart was preparing to leave. Without looking up from the book, Sebastian said, “Was it a natural death?”
“He died alone in a locked room. There are bars on the window. No one could approach through the gallery without being seen by at least a dozen people. There’s no trace of poison and the body’s unmarked. I know you’re paid to be suspicious, Becker, but in this case you’re wasting your time.”
“Can you tell without dissection if a rib has been broken?”
“Why?”
“Can you?”
One minute later, Sebastian stepped out into the gallery. A book – not the Pope translation, but a different volume from the same shelf – was in his hand.
Mrs Willis said, “Are you satisfied? Can we go in now?”
“I fear not, Mrs Willis,” Sebastian said. “Your brother’s room must be kept secure until the police arrive.”
“The police?” the Director said, and Willis echoed him in almost the same breath.
Sebastian was looking at the orderly, who was standing behind and apart from the others. Sebastian said to him, “Does the prospect worry you?”
“Why should it?” the orderly said, with no change in his expression.
Sebastian said, “You unlocked the room and discovered the body. You stayed with the body after sending for help. You took care to be the guarantor against any suspicion of foul play. Unfortunately, if foul play should then be discovered, your own position becomes awkward, to say the least.”
The orderly said nothing.
Sebastian said, “Is anyone familiar with the term ‘burking’? No?”
No one claimed familiarity. But the Director was taking a keen interest.
Sebastian said, “We can thank Burke and Hare for its coinage. The Resurrection Men would dispatch a victim by putting their considerable weight on the chest while pinching the nostrils and clamping the jaw shut with the heel of the same hand. It caused rapid suffocation with no obvious mark. I asked Doctor Stoddart to check Mister Raby for any broken ribs. There were none, but he did discover several ribs separated from the sternum. I believe a post-mortem will show that pressure forced a tearing of the ligaments.”
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