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“Yes?”
“Lally, she’s one of the skivvies what does in the operating theater and like. She’s only thirteen and she’s made like a nine-penny rabbit. She could slide down there easy, and there’s laundry baskets at the bottom, so she wouldn’t hurt herself.”
Kristian hesitated only a moment.
“Good idea. Fetch her, will you?” He turned to Callandra. “We should go down to the laundry room to make sure there’s a soft landing for her.”
“Yes sir, I’ll go for her,” the younger nurse said, and she went quickly, breaking into a run as she turned the corner.
Callandra, Kristian, and the other nurse went the opposite way, to the stairs and down to the basement and the dark, gas-lit passages to the laundry room where the huge coppers belched steam and the pipes clanked and rattled and poured out boiling water. Women with rolled-up sleeves heaved wet linen on the end of wooden poles, muscles straining, faces flushed, hair dripping. One or two looked around at the unusual intrusion of a man, then immediately returned to their labor.
Kristian went over to the base of the laundry chute and peered up, then backed out again and glanced at Callandra. He shook his head.
She pushed one of the large wicker baskets closer under the bottom of the chute and picked up a couple of bundles of dirty sheets to soften the fall.
“It shouldn’t have got stuck,” Kristian said, frowning. “Sheets are soft enough to slide, even if too many are poked down at once. Maybe someone has been putting rubbish in as well.”
“We’ll soon know,” she replied, standing beside him and looking up expectantly.
They had not long to wait. There was a muffled call from above, faint and completely indistinguishable, then a moment’s silence, a shriek, a curious shuffling noise, another shriek. A woman landed in the laundry basket, her skirts awry, arms and legs awkward. Straight after came the small, thin form of the skivvy, who shrieked again and scrambled to her feet, clambering like a monkey to escape the basket and falling onto the floor, wailing loudly.
Kristian bent forward to help the other woman up, then his face darkened and he moved his hand to hold Callandra back. But it was too late. She had already looked down and knew as soon as she saw her that the woman was dead. There was no mistaking the ashen quality of her skin, the bluish lips, and above all, the terrible bruises on her throat.
“It’s Nurse Barrymore,” Kristian said huskily, his voice catching in his throat. He did not add that she was dead; he saw in Callandra’s eyes that she knew not only that, but also that it had been no illness or accident which had caused it. Instinctively he stretched out his hand as if to touch her, almost as if some compassion could still reach her.
“No,” Callandra said softly. “Don’t …”
He opened his mouth as though to remonstrate, then realized its uselessness. He stared down at the dead woman’s body, his eyes filled with sadness. “Why would anyone want to do this to her?” he said helplessly. Without thinking, Callandra put her hand on his arm, gripping it gently.
“We can’t know yet. But we must call the police. It seems to be murder.”
One of the laundrywomen turned around, perhaps her attention caught by the skivvy, who was beginning to shriek again, and she saw the arm of the dead woman above the edge of the laundry basket. She came over and gaped at the corpse, then screamed.
“Murder!” She drew in her breath and screamed again, piercingly, her voice high and shrill even above the hiss of steam and clatter of pipes. “Murder! Help! Murder!”
All the other women stopped their work and crowded around, some wailing, some shrieking, one slithering to the floor in a faint. No one took any notice of the skivvy.
“Stop it!” Kristian ordered sharply. “Stop this minute and go back to your work!”
Some power in him, some tone or manner, caught their innate fear of authority, and one by one they fell silent, then retreated. But no one returned to the coppers or the piles of steaming laundry gradually cooling on the slabs and in the tubs.
Kristian turned to Callandra.
“You had better go and inform Sir Herbert, and have him call the police,” he said quietly. “This is not something we can deal with ourselves. I’ll stay here and make sure no one disturbs her. And you’d better take the skivvy, poor child, and have someone look after her.”
“She’ll tell everyone,” Callandra warned. “No doubt with a great deal added. We’ll have half the hospital thinking there’s been a massacre. There’ll be hysterics and the patients will suffer.”
He hesitated a moment, weighing what she had said.
“Then you’d better take her to the matron and explain why. Then go and see Sir Herbert. I’ll keep the laundrywomen here.”
She smiled and nodded very slightly. There was no need for further words. She turned away and went to where the skivvy was standing, pressed up against the capacious form of one of the silent laundrywomen. Her thin face was bloodless and her skinny arms were folded tightly around her body as if hugging herself to keep from shaking so violently she would fall over.
Callandra held out her hand toward her.
“Come,” she said gently. “I’ll take you upstairs where you can sit down and have a cup of tea before you go back to work.” She did not mention Mrs. Flaherty; she knew most of the nurses and skivvies were terrified of her, and justly so.
The child stared at her, but there was nothing awe-inspiring in her mild face and untidy hair and rather comfortable figure in its stuff gown. She bore no resemblance whatever to the thin fierce person of Mrs. Flaherty.
