Silent Witnesses

by Annelie Wendeberg

  'Why wouldn't I?'

  'I aimed for his leg,' he said. 'To stop him. You shot him in the heart. Why? It wasn't necessary.'

  'He pointed a gun in my direction. It was either the heart or the head. I thought you might need to identify him, so I refrained from blasting off his face.' In fact, I had thought none of those things. All I'd seen was the muzzle of a gun staring straight at me. And I'd simply reacted.

  McCurley looked incredulous. 'Well, there's nothing we can do about it now.' He shifted his weight somewhat awkwardly. His nightshirt reached only to his knees and…

  'Your foot is bleeding.' I slipped my revolver back into the holster, and buttoned my jacket over it.

  McCurley looked down at his foot. A small puddle had formed. Skin was badly torn off the outer side, and the small toe had swollen to nearly the size of a pigeon egg.

  He winced when he moved.

  'You bleed, you feel pain. Why, you almost have me convinced you are human.'

  'Says the Banshee.'

  I looked across to the dark, huddled form. 'I killed a man.' My mind registered the words I was speaking, but seemed unable to process the information.

  'What happened to your face?' McCurley asked.

  'It met a handsome young fellow.'

  He didn't even react to that. He merely emptied the cylinder of his gun, and whacked the butt against a lamppost. Five times.

  'No police box nearby?'

  'No.' And he whacked the lamppost some more.

  'How long until they come?'

  He shrugged. 'A few minutes. I'll wait here. You may go home, but expect a summons tomorrow or the day after.'

  'Hurrah! And thank you for stopping a murderer and saving my life, Dr Arlington,' I muttered, and made to leave. But stopped. 'I heard three shots. Are you hit?'

  He looked again at his toes, then at the place where he'd been standing when the shots were fired, and back at the front of his nightshirt. There were no bloodstains. 'Doesn't look like it.'

  'I would appreciate if you didn't mention my name to the newspapermen.'

  He narrowed his eyes at me. Then dipped his head in what I hoped was assent.

  Seeing that bullets had stopped flying, people opened their windows and craned their necks.

  'This is Inspector McCurley, Boston Police Department. If anyone has a telephone, please summon my colleagues.’

  There was very little hope anyone had a telephone installed in their home. But it served the purpose of calming the populace.

  'Look, mom, he's in his nightshirt!' a youngster crowed. Someone giggled.

  McCurley turned to gaze up along the alley. I felt, rather than saw, him stiffen as his eyes caught on an open window at the far end of the alley. A woman bent out, looked toward us, waved, and cried, 'Mr McCurley, are you all right?'

  In a heartbeat, he was moving. I followed, not sure I even should. But his look of panic had struck a chord in me.

  'Step back from the window, Miss Hacker!' he shouted from afar.

  'But…'

  'For heaven's sake, woman! Step back from the window. I'm coming.'

  The high-pitched cry of an infant rang through the night just as McCurley reached the door to the house. Third floor window, I recalled.

  'Is that your daughter?' Immediately, I realised it was the wrong thing to ask. I told myself to not look at the pavement where a body must have crashed down.

  He froze, his face ashen.

  'I will go up and see what she needs. You do your job.' I motioned toward the corpse.

  His mask of icy detachment did not waver. If he considered my suggestion, he didn't show it.

  'Do you want me to guard the man? So you can later accuse me of manipulating the evidence?'

  Hesitating, he looked up at Ms Hacker who didn’t seem sure what to do next, then back at me. Without a word, he turned and marched off as briskly as his injured foot allowed.

  I huffed, then called up to the third floor, 'Ms Hacker, would you please open the door for me. I am with Inspector McCurley.'

  After several long moments, she unlocked the house, and beckoned me in, the screeching child in her arms.

  We ascended the stairs, and all the while the little girl was hollering her heart out.

  'Is she ill?'

  'Leedin is all right. She's just hungry, is all. It's just that…I don't have enough milk.' She turned her head to hide her scowl.

  'Are you the wet nurse?'

  A stiff nod.

  'Is that her name, Leedin?'

  'It's Líadáin.' She spelled it for me as we crossed the second landing. 'It is Gaelic and means grief.'

  We entered the apartment. It was darkness and chaos. Everything whispered the small girl's name: Grief.

  The few pictures on the wall were hung with black cloth. A bouquet of wilting marguerites stood in a vase next to a photograph of a woman. She, too, was framed in black. But no cross, no rosary hung nearby or anywhere else in the room. Plates with bits of leftover food stood on a table. Dirty clothes clung to the backrests of all three chairs in view.

  The air was sweltering with odours of soiled nappies.

  'May I open the window again?’ I asked.

  'Go ahead if you want him to bite off your head.' She tugged on the laces of her nightgown as she sat down. 'If you don't mind?'

  'Please, take your time.' I sat a little away from her to give her space, but close enough to observe. 'Where is your own child?'

  She thrust her chin toward a door.

  'Your chamber? I see. A son or daughter?'

  'My son Billy.'

  I guessed that she wasn't married, the child illegitimate. She must have counted herself lucky to have been given this post. Or was there more to it?

  'Is Billy your first child?'

  'Yes.' She flinched as Líadáin latched on.

  'McCurley is the father?'

  'What! No! Did he say that?'

  'I'm sorry. No, he said no such thing. He says rather little.' Quietly, I watched her breastfeed McCurley's daughter. A soft breeze played with the curtains. 'How old is Billy?'

  'Three months.'

  So McCurley must have employed a different wet nurse before he’d found Ms Hacker. Had the first wet nurse abandoned her post? I wiped the concern away, and wondered how to best help Ms Hacker feed the two children. I thought about iceboxes to store cow's milk now that the days were getting warmer, but discarded the idea. Large dairies notoriously produced milk of questionable quality. And few mothers would know how to properly sterilise it before feeding it to their infants. 'Is there a housekeeper?'

  'Mrs Beamish.'

  'Does she cook for you?'

  Ms Hacker snorted.

  'A maid?'

  Both eyebrows shot up her forehead. 'Are these lodgings too dirty for Your Highness?'

  Ah, so she knows how to fight back. Despite her youth. Good for her. ’I’m sorry. I don't mean to criticise you. I think you do too much and sleep too little. Maybe even eat too little.'

  She didn't answer.

  'I'm a physician,' I said softly. 'May I recommend a more comfortable position for breastfeeding?'

  She was holding herself so stiffly, her back and arms must be sore.

  'Are you in pain?' I asked.

  'It's normal.'

  'Believe me, it's not.'

  * * *

  McCurley appeared about half an hour later. He looked around the flat and at the open window, an expression of utter alarm sliding into place. 'What happened?'

  'They are sleeping.' I motioned to a chair. 'Sit. I need to talk to you and check your foot.'

  He limped over to Ms Hacker's door, ripped it open, froze midway, and stepped back to close it softly. 'What happened?'

  'Sit down, and I will tell you.'

  Pain flashed across his features as he sank into a chair. I doubted it was from his injury. With a wet flannel and a towel Ms Hacker had given me earlier, I got to work. Once the crust of blood and dirt was gone, it was obviou
s that McCurley's foot had looked worse than it really was.

  'You stubbed it rather well. The small toe is fractured. And you'll lose this bit of skin here. It makes no sense to stitch it back on now that it's dried around the edges. You can cut it off with a pair of scissors in a day or two. But for now, wash the wound with soap before you go to bed. Wrap it in gauze. Keep it clean, and it will heal quickly.'

  My gaze slid to the hem of his nightshirt. 'Bloody hell! Have you checked between your legs?'

  He snatched at the hem and knocked his knees together as though I'd kicked him in the groin. Then he looked down. And found the frayed bullet hole I’d referred to.

  'You were extraordinarily lucky. Two inches farther left or right, and he'd have hit your thigh.' I rolled back on my haunches to give McCurley more space. 'Now I'm glad that I shot him in the chest. A hole in his leg wouldn't have stopped that man from getting what he wanted.'

  All blood drained from McCurley's cheeks. Cold sweat beaded on his temples. He clapped a hand over his face and groaned.

  'You aren't bleeding. Chances are that everything is still attached.'

  His eyes snapped open. For the first time, I noticed they were a dark blue. He almost smiled then. Almost.

  'I must ask you a question.' I stood, and placed towel and flannel on the table. Then I turned to face him, arms akimbo. 'Are you taking advantage of Ms Hacker's predicament?'

  He blinked. 'Excuse me?'

  'You understood my question perfectly well.'

  He clenched and unclenched his jaw. Swallowed. 'I understand your concern. What you are insinuating is disgustingly common, I know that much. And I commend you for your courage to ask. And no, I do not take advantage of Ms Hacker.'

  I nodded once. 'I'm sure she's grateful for this post. But she is about to collapse. She cannot possibly cook and clean for you, breastfeed two small children, and stay awake constantly to care for you all. She's already lost two teeth from malnutrition. She can barely produce enough milk for the two babes. She looks frail, underfed, and she's not getting enough sleep. If you want to keep her, you'd do well to listen now.'

  He leant back, his expression open for once.

  'Your housekeeper will provide warm meals three times a day. If Miss Hacker is sleeping, the housekeeper will let her sleep, and keep the food warm for her. And your housekeeper will find someone to do the washing. Have you any idea how much work the nappies alone are? No? I thought not. And your daughter is to sleep in Ms Hacker's room.'

  'No.'

  'Why ever not?'

  McCurley swallowed, inhaled, and said hoarsely, 'It is the only time I have her.'

  A clump formed in my throat. 'I…see. Does your daughter wake up often at night?'

  'She's hungry. She needs to grow.' A defensive statement. It made me like him a little bit.

  'How old is she?'

  'Six months.'

  So her mother must have killed herself only a few days after birth. I frowned. 'The girl looks small for her age. Has she always been smaller than other babies?' Upon his bristling, I added, 'I'm a physician and a mother. I know what I'm talking about. I'm trying to help, McCurley.'

  He tilted his head a fraction, considering. 'She has always been small. But she should be…chubbier. I know that. I don't know what else to feed her. One doctor says babies should eat condensed milk with sugar, another says they should only be fed cow's milk with barley flour. It seems they can't even agree on such a small thing.'

  'And they'll never agree on it, because they've never raised a child. And most likely never will. You are doing the right thing by employing a wet nurse.'

  He huffed. 'But I can't afford two of them. Although…I could perhaps ask my bank for—'

  'There's no need for a second wet nurse. A healthy woman can produce enough milk for two children. But she needs rest and good food to be able to do that. Can you afford to pay your housekeeper for the meals and the cleaning?'

  'Yes. Of course, I can.'

  'Good. Do that. And insist on her helping Ms Hacker. She's young, nearly a girl herself. And she's overwhelmed. I would be, too.'

  'But I won't allow my daughter to sleep in her room. Not the whole night.’

  'A compromise, then. When she's been fed, your daughter begins her nights in your room. Once she's hungry, you convey her to Ms Hacker's room. I don't care what the neighbours might think. Or the housekeeper. As long as Ms Hacker is comfortable with the arrangement, you bring your daughter to her, help her settle the child. Whether you then take her back to your own room, or leave her with Ms Hacker, is up to you and Ms Hacker. See that your girl gains enough weight.'

  I held his gaze, watching his reaction, and added, 'You might wish to consider allowing your daughter to sleep with you in your bed. She will rest better, and your warmth will help her gain weight. Especially for colder nights.'

  He nodded once. 'She's been sleeping there since…winter.'

  I didn't know what to say to that. There was probably nothing useful I could have said anyway. To fill the void I asked, 'How do you pronounce her name?'

  'Líadáin.' Leothine. The softness with which he spoke sent a pang through my chest. He looked down at his hands, and whispered, 'Beloved is the little voice which I hear, I do not dare to be happy about it. But what I say is merely: This little voice is beloved.' He cleared his throat. Once. Twice. 'You probably don't know the verse.'

  I didn't dare move. 'Who wrote it?'

  Abruptly, he stood. 'Líadáin Uí Chorca Dhuibhne. Twelfth-century Irish poet. You will want to return to your home now. I thank you for your help. You'll find a police carriage in the street waiting to convey you.'

  He limped to the door, opened it, and we said our goodbyes.

  The truce was over.

  11

  It hit me as soon as the police carriage had clattered away. Trembling, I grasped the gate and vomited into Margery's favourite rosebush.

  I killed a man!

  My vision was swimming. It mattered little that he'd been a convicted murderer. I had taken a life and violated all my values and beliefs. What made it worse was that there had been no hesitation. Not even a trace of it.

  I'd had my gun out faster than I could think. And shot the man in the heart before… Was that before or after I realised he had his gun pointed at me?

  It must have been after that, or was it? How could I ever be sure? It all happened so fast. Had I shot a man before being absolutely sure he was a threat? Why had I been so ready to take his life? How could I have been so coldblooded?

  A new wave of revulsion and nausea hit. I spat and retched until I heard a faint creak from our front door.

  My hand went to my side, feeling for the holster. A silhouette appeared in the shadows. And a familiar voice. 'What happened to you?'

  'I killed a man.' The words were out before I could snap my mouth shut.

  Zach stumbled to a halt on the walkway. 'The one you were looking for?'

  I wiped my mouth and…cackled. I was going mad! I certainly was. And then I wept. Haltingly at first, but when Zach's arms came around me, the floodgates opened.

  He patted my back, muttering, ‘There, there,’ and when I sat back to run my sleeve over my face he said, ‘Lets have a drink,' and manoeuvred me toward the kitchen.

  'Klara?' I managed to gulp out.

  'Sleeping next to Margery. They are safe. We are safe.'

  I nearly cackled again.

  He sat me down on a chair, plopped two mugs on the table, and a bottle of rum.

  'Any word from the cable office?' I asked.

  'No.'

  Disheartened, I sighed, and moved to the sink to wash out my mouth.

  I had dispatched an encrypted wire earlier that day. Even with the time difference between London and Boston, an answer should have arrived. 'When did you last check on Klara and Margery?'

  'You asked that only two minutes ago,' he said softly and motioned me to sit with him again. 'I left them when I heard you retching.'r />
  He lit a candle, placed it on the table, sat down, and folded his hands. Then he discovered the bruise on my face. 'What…'

  And that was when we heard Klara wake up with a muffled cry. I jumped up, but Zach pressed me back on the chair, and said, 'I'll get her.'

  A moment later, he returned with Klara wrapped in her favourite wool blanket. Her face was nestled against the crook of his neck. She'd fallen back asleep in his arms.

  I pulled back his chair and he lowered himself into it.

  'I think she feels my fear. She grows up feeling unsafe.'

  Zach scanned my face. 'I don't think so. She's brave, courageous. But there is so much going on in her head. Much more than in most adults. I think…' He paused and traced his index finger over the bridge of her nose. The gesture made my knees soft, and I was glad that I was already sitting. He smiled down at Klara and said, 'I'm afraid she'll be too much for this world.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'She'll probably want to sail across the ocean all by herself when she's twelve. And she'll know exactly how to do it. She'll have read all the books on the topic, talked to sailors, inspected ships, learned about navigation and the weather. And everyone will tell her she is foolish, that she doesn't have the skills to do it.’

  I gulped. 'You are probably correct.'

  My gaze was trapped by my daughter's fist wrapped around Zach's index finger. I couldn't stop my own hand from reaching out and cupping his. 'There's so much beauty here. The contrast between your large hand and her small one. One soft and one calloused, one young and one…not so young,' I said and pulled away.

  ‘One black and one white,' he added.

  'Yes, that too is beautiful.' Why had I got the feeling I needed to defend myself? I rubbed my tired eyes, then tipped rum down my throat.

  Zach huffed. 'Yes, some of you white people…' Abruptly, he broke off and shook his head. 'No, this has nothing to do with you. I'm sorry I said that.'

  'What has nothing to do with me?'

  He shook his head again. 'A memory. Dark one. Came back when you said you killed a man. What happened?'

  My gaze trailed over the items on the table in front of him. A small bowl with bits of porridge — probably Klara's. A jug of cider with a saucer serving as a lid. A teapot. A crust of bread on a small plate. Klara must have had one of her midnight meals. She was growing so fast.