A Sunless Sea

by Anne Perry

  “Did you meet him?”

  “Yeah, couple o’ times. I told yer, ’e were askin’ all sorts o’ things o’ people.”

  “About opium?”

  “Yeah. ’E wanted ter find Agony.”

  Hester was taken aback. “What?”

  “Agony Nisbet. Least I reckon ’er name is really Agatha, or summink like that, but everyone calls ’er Agony, ’cos she ’elps folks wot got real terrible pain.”

  “With opium?” Hester said quickly.

  “O’ course. You know anything else wot’ll ’elp when pain is that bad?”

  “No,” Hester admitted, “I don’t. Did he find her?”

  “Dunno. S’pose, ’cos ’e didn’t come back lookin’.”

  “What was he like?” She asked more from curiosity than because she thought it would help. And she was not sure what she was trying to gain anymore; she had begun with the idea of finding some explanation for Zenia Gadney’s murder that would prove Dinah innocent. Now her own emotions were disturbed to the depth where she could imagine getting lost in a madness of grief, where acts of violence might be quite possible, and she was no longer certain there was another explanation to find.

  Could she take that back to Monk, and to Rathbone? Would that be surrender, or just realism?

  Gladys gave the characteristic lift of one shoulder again. “Not like I’d ’ave thought,” she said with surprise still lingering in her face. “ ’E were soft-spoken, real gentle. ’E treated me like I were … someone instead of no one. I guess yer can’t always tell about folks, can yer?”

  Hester remained a little longer, but Gladys did not know anything more except the places where Hester might begin to look for “Agony” Nisbet. So she thanked her and left.

  SHE SPOKE TO SEVERAL other people in Copenhagen Place, including the shopkeeper that Monk had visited, and heard his account of Dinah’s visit, which added nothing new to what they already knew.

  Then she went out into the cold, gusty thoroughfare. As the eaves dripped on her and people jostled her on the wet footpath, she tried to put herself in Dinah’s shoes. Apparently Dinah had known for years that her husband had visited Zenia Gadney, and paid her. What had happened that had changed her from a compliant wife, tolerating the fact, even agreeing to it, into a woman who had lost all hold on humanity?

  If Hester had discovered something like that about Monk, it would have defiled her love for him. But would it have destroyed her own values of compassion and honor?

  She might have been hurt beyond bearing. She might have wept herself exhausted, unable to eat or sleep, but if her despair had been complete she would have taken her own life, not someone else’s.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Was it conceivable that it was Dinah who had actually killed Joel Lambourn? Had either Monk or Rathbone even thought of that, and weighed it without the tangle of emotion her pain caused in them?

  But Lambourn’s death had looked like suicide. It was even gentle, with the opium to dull the pain. There was no hatred there, not even any anger. But it robbed Dinah of the respectability, the social status, and most of the income to which she was accustomed. What about Adah and Marianne? Had she even thought of them? Did a woman ever really forget her children? What had Lambourn left? Enough for them to live on, for Dinah to raise and successfully marry the two young girls?

  Was it even physically possible that Dinah had done it alone? Had she lured him up to One Tree Hill in the middle of the night? Persuaded him to take the opium, then sit there while she cut his wrists, calmly picked up the bottle and the knife, and walked back home again to her children? Why take away the bottle and knife? That made no sense. If he had really committed suicide, they would have been there. And the fact that they were from her home wouldn’t need concealing, because it was his home, too!

  If she were capable of such cold-blooded planning, why the insane rage in mutilating Zenia Gadney? And what could have provoked her, after years of knowing about the whole arrangement? Why suddenly commit two murders, two months apart?

  It made no sense. There had to be another answer.

  HESTER SPENT THE REST of the day speaking to people in the area and learning a little more about Zenia Gadney, but nothing that altered the picture Gladys had given her of a quiet, rather sad woman. Apparently she had destroyed her youth with drink, but she also appeared to have beaten whatever demons had driven her then. For the last fifteen years she had lived in Copenhagen Place. She had done the odd job of sewing or mending for people, but more as a friend than for money. It was a way of associating with others, and having the occasional conversation. She appeared to be supported by Dr. Lambourn sufficiently that if she was careful, no other income had been necessary.

  Several people said they saw her out walking quite often, in all weathers but the very worst. Most often it was along Narrow Street, beside the river. Sometimes she would stand with the wind in her face, looking south, watching the barges come and go. If you spoke to her she would answer, and she was always agreeable, but she seldom sought conversation herself.

  No one spoke ill of her.

  Hester went to stand in Narrow Street herself, the wind stinging her face, gray water glinting in the light. Hester had a strong sense of Zenia’s loneliness, perhaps of the regret that must have crowded her mind so many times. What had started her drinking in the first place? Some domestic tragedy? Perhaps the death of a child? A marriage that was desperately unhappy? Probably no one would ever know.

  There seemed to be nothing in Zenia’s life that led to her terrible death, unless it was her association with Joel Lambourn. If it was not that, then she was no more than a chance victim, sacrificed to opportunity and insane rage.

  Hester had begun with pity for Dinah, a woman robbed not only of the husband she loved, but, in a sense, of all that she had believed of the happiness in her life. The sweetness of her memories were now tainted forever. Soon she would lose her own life in the awful ritual punishment of hanging.

  Now as Hester stood watching the gray water of the river swirl past her, her pity was for Zenia Gadney. The woman’s life had held so little comfort, and in the last decade and a half, almost no warmth of laughter, sharing, even touching another human being, apart from Joel Lambourn once a month, for money. Hester refused to try to picture that in her mind. What could he have wanted that was so strange or so obscene that his wife would not grant it to him, and he paid a sad prostitute in Limehouse instead?

  She was glad that she did not need to know.

  The water was loud on the shingle as the wash of a boat reached the shore on the low tide. A string of barges passed in midstream, laden with coal, timber, and bales stacked high. The men guiding them balanced with a rough, powerful grace, wielding their long poles. The wind was rising and smelled of salt and rain. Gulls screamed overhead, a long, mournful cry.

  Hester felt she had exhausted the subject of Zenia Gadney. She wondered if there was any point in trying to find out more of Dr. Lambourn’s search for information about opium. Probably not. The light was fading and it was getting colder as the tide turned. It was time to go home where it was warm, not just away from the wind off the water, but away from the impressions of death, from rage and despair, and the hunger that in the end had destroyed everything that was precious for these people.

  She would make Scuff something he really liked for supper, and listen to him laugh about something trivial, say good night to him when he was scrubbed and clean, smelling of soap and ready for bed.

  Later she would lie with Monk, and thank God for all the things that were good in her world.

  IT TOOK HESTER ALL the next day, and half the day after to find Agatha Nisbet. She had walked along the narrow path westward, past Greenland Dock and inland to Norway Yard. She asked again in Rotherhithe Street, and it was only a few dozen yards farther to a large, unused warehouse where there was a makeshift clinic for injured dockworkers and sailors.

  She went in, walking boldly; head up as if
she had the right to be there. One or two people looked at her curiously, first a young woman with a mop and bucket busy scrubbing floors, then a man with blood on his clothes, who appeared to be some kind of orderly. She smiled at him, and he relaxed and did not challenge her.

  She passed two or three middle-aged women. They looked tired and harassed, their clothes crumpled as if they had been in them all night as well as all day. They brought back sharp memories of her own hospital days: cleaning, rolling bandages, changing beds, and helping sick and injured people eat, above all taking orders. She remembered the weariness, and the comradeship, the grief shared and the victories.

  There were straw palliasses on the floor, all of them occupied by men, pale-faced and dirty, arms, legs, or bodies bandaged. The fortunate ones seemed to be asleep. If Agatha Nisbet had given them opium and bound up their injuries, Hester for one would have no criticism of her. Those who found fault should try a week or two of lying on this floor with bruised and broken bodies, with no ease during the long, bitter hours of the night in the cold and the darkness when even to draw breath was all but unbearable.

  She had reached the end of the huge room and was about to knock on one of the doors of the cubicles at the end when it burst open. She found herself looking up at a woman who was well over six foot tall and with the broad, heavy shoulders of a navvy. Her hair was frizzy and of a fading auburn color. Her features were powerful, and had probably even been handsome thirty years ago in her youth. By now time and hard living had coarsened them, and sun and wind had roughened her skin. Fierce blue eyes regarded Hester with contempt.

  “What do you want here, lady?” she asked in a soft, slightly sibilant voice. It was a little high, and did not sound as if it could possibly have come from her enormous body. There was contempt in her use of the word lady.

  Hester bit back the tart response she would like to have made.

  “Miss Nisbet?” she asked politely.

  “What of it? ’Oo are you?”

  “Hester Monk. I run a clinic for street women on the other side of the river. Portpool Lane,” Hester answered loudly, and without backing away.

  “Do you now?” Agatha Nisbet’s eyes looked her up and down coolly. “Wot d’yer want with me, then?”

  Hester decided to plunge in. Niceties were going to get her nowhere. “A better source of opium than I have at the moment,” she answered.

  “Yer mean cheaper?” Agatha said with a curl of her lip.

  “I mean more reliable,” Hester corrected her. “Cheaper would be good, but I believe that as a rule you get what you pay for.” She gave a slight shrug. “Unless you’re very new to it, and then you get less. There are plenty of dealers who would happily shortchange the sick.” She looked Agatha up and down equally frankly. “I should imagine they don’t do it to you a second time.”

  Agatha smiled, showing large, strong, unusually white teeth. “Any sense an’ they don’t do it the first time neither. Word gets round.”

  “So what you have is as reliable as it can be?” Hester reaffirmed.

  “Yeah. But it’ll cost yer some.”

  “Did Dr. Lambourn come here?” she asked quickly.

  Agatha’s eyes widened. “He’s dead.”

  Hester smiled as artlessly as she could manage. “And now maybe there won’t be a bill through Parliament to regulate the sale of opium because of it, at least not for a number of years.”

  Agatha’s eyes narrowed.

  Hester felt a sudden chill of fear, and realized that perhaps she had made a mistake, even put her own life in danger. She must not let this big woman see her unease. “Which will give me a little more latitude,” she said aloud. She was certain that her voice was husky.

  Agatha stood motionless, one hand on her hip. Hester could not help noticing the size of her fist, the shining, bony knuckles.

  “An’ what is it you mean by that, exactly?” Agatha asked. Her voice was so soft, had Hester not been able to see her, she might have thought she was listening to a child.

  Her mouth was dry and she could not swallow. Her throat tightened. She gulped air. “That I can’t do my job if I can’t get supplies,” she answered. “The men in government don’t think of that, do they? Rich men can buy opium to give them nice dreams, but people in the streets and in the docks, people who are beaten or broken, get what they can, where they can. Do I have to explain that to you?” She allowed the final question to be tinged with a note of disgust.

  Agatha’s large body relaxed and she allowed the ghost of a smile into her face. “Want a cup o’ tea?” she asked, stepping back a bit so Hester could come into the room. “I got the best. Get it from China special.”

  Hester blinked. “Doesn’t all tea come from China?” She followed Agatha into the room, which was surprisingly tidy, even clean. There was a slight smell of smoke and hot metal from the wood-burning stove in the corner, very like those she had seen in hospital wards in her nursing days. There was a kettle on the center of the top, steaming gently.

  Hester closed the door behind her and followed Agatha inside.

  Agatha rolled her eyes. “Most, though folks reckon it’ll do well in India soon. This is the best. Delicate. Know a lot, the Chinese.”

  In spite of herself, Hester was interested. She sat in the seat that Agatha offered her, and a few moments later accepted the cup of steaming, fragrant pale yellow tea, without milk. It had a sharp, clean fragrance she was unused to. She glanced around the walls and saw on one shelf at least thirty books in various stages of disrepair. Clearly they had been very well read indeed. On the opposite wall were glass jars with all manner of dried leaves, herbs, roots, and powders in them.

  She forced her attention back to the huge woman now sitting opposite her, watching and waiting.

  Hester sipped the tea again. It was quite different from any she was familiar with, but she thought she could learn to like it. “Thank you,” she said aloud.

  Agatha shrugged and raised her own cup.

  “How did you find out about this tea?” Hester asked, sipping it again.

  “Plenty o’ Chinese in London,” Agatha replied. “They know a lot about medicine, poor devils. Showed me some.” She looked up quickly at Hester, sharp-eyed. It was a warning that her secrets were precious. She had won them hard and was not going to share them without a price.

  Hester had a degree of respect for that. Her own skills had been learned on the battlefield. “I wish we’d had enough opium in the Crimea,” she said quietly. “Would have helped a bit, especially when we had to amputate.”

  Agatha looked at her carefully, eyes narrowed. “Do that a lot, did yer?”

  “Enough,” Hester replied; memory brought it back to her, as if she were crouching in the mud and desolation of the battlefield, trying to block the cries out of her mind and concentrate only on the silent, ashen face in front of her, the eyes sunken in shock and pain.

  Agatha nodded slowly. “Don’t do to go over it,” she said. “Drive yerself mad. Do yer get ’em now, people with the worst pain, torn-open guts, smashed bones an’ the like?”

  “Not often.” Hester took the chance she had been hoping for. “Sometimes. Stones that won’t pass, or torn open after a bad birth. Terrible beatings. That’s why I need good opium.”

  Agatha hesitated as if making a difficult decision.

  Hester waited. Seconds ticked by.

  Agatha took a deep breath. “I can get yer the best opium,” she said, her eyes fixed on Hester’s. “Good price. But I can do better than that. Eatin’ it’s better than nothin’, not as good as smokin’ it. But there’s better still. Scottish man made this needle where you can stick it straight into the vein, right wherever the pain’s worst. Fifteen years ago, or more. I can get you one of them needles.”

  “I’ve heard of them,” Hester said with a sudden lurch of excitement. “Can you teach me how to use it? And how much to give?”

  Agatha nodded. “Have to be careful, mind. You can kill someone easy, if
you get it wrong. And worse than that, if you give it to them more than a few times, they get so they want it every day, can’t do without it.”

  Hester frowned, her heart beating faster. “How do you stop that from happening?” Her voice was a little hoarse.

  “You make it less, then you stop them getting it at all. They learn. Least, most do. Some don’t, an’ they go on taking it, one way or another for the rest o’ their lives. More an’ more. Makes them as sells it rich.” The look of fury on her face made Hester wince.

  “Is there another way to deal with pain?” Hester asked softly, knowing the answer.

  “No.” Agatha let the one word fall into the silence.

  “Is that what Dr. Lambourn was asking about?” Hester asked. “Needles?”

  “Not at first,” Agatha replied. “ ’E were mostly on about deaths of children ’cos women gave ’em medicines they don’t know what’s in. He didn’t get nothin’ out of it one way or the other.”

  “You talked with him?” Hester pressed.

  “Course I did. I told you, even if the government’d taken his report, it wouldn’t ’ave made no difference to me nor you. An’ they didn’t anyway, so what do you care?” Her eyes were sharp, clever, watching Hester’s face.

  “But he asked about addiction to smoking opium?” Hester pressed again.

  Agatha grimaced. “Not much, but I told ’im anyway. ’E listened.”

  “Do you think he killed himself?” Hester said bluntly.

  Agatha frowned. “He didn’t look to me like that kind of coward, but I s’pose yer never know. What difference does it make to you?”

  Hester wondered how much truth to tell. She looked at Agatha more carefully, and decided not to lie at all. The whole question of opium in medicines was complicated by the abuse of it. Where was the dividing line between supplying a need, and profiteering? And had any of it to do with Joel Lambourn’s death, or Zenia Gadney’s?

  “I think maybe he was murdered and it was made to look like suicide,” she said aloud to Agatha. “Some of it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah? Like I said, why do you care?” Agatha repeated, looking at Hester narrowly.