AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She could feel her heart beating, and her hands were clammy. She was panicking. She must stop. Regain some control. She was no use to anyone like this. She was a nurse. She had dealt with terror, mutilation, and death on the battlefield. What was wrong with her?
She knew the answer to that with a jolt of surprise, and complete understanding. Life was far sweeter, immeasurably more precious to her now, because she had everything that mattered to her—love, purpose.
They were close to the far side already. She took out her money. As they drew in to the steps she paid the ferryman, thanked him, and climbed out. It was odd to think that he did not even know who she was or that someone had almost drowned her husband the night before. The river was so intimate, and yet at times so anonymous. That brown water could close over your head and you were gone as if you had never been. You became nothing, except a memory in the minds of those who had loved you.
She walked up the steps and along the cobbled road to the high street, catching an omnibus eastward to the Isle of Dogs, the bulge formed by the large curve in the river between Limehouse and Blackwall. She alighted at the nearest stop to where Crow had set up his new premises. She knew the address, but had not visited it before.
She counted the numbers along the street, and tried to recall the exact description he had given her. She followed Wharf Road, running parallel to the shore, if such an irregular line could be described as parallel.
She knew the landmark she was looking for, but she was passing it for the third time before she recognized it and went up the narrow stairs to what eventually became a large loft with huge skylight windows. It was full of beds and suddenly it was as if she were back in the hospital in Scutari among the soldiers. Until that instant the Crimean War had become a memory so distant it could have been a story told her by someone else. Now it was real again: the smells of lye, carbolic, and blood so sharp she inhaled rapidly and started coughing.
Then she saw Crow coming toward her, tall, and lanky as ever. His shirt was stained with chemicals and in places with blood, his black hair untrimmed and flapping over his forehead.
“Hester!” He had never bothered with formalities. “Come to see my new establishment?” He grinned with pleasure, both to see her, and with pride in his wider, cleaner, airier rooms. Then he regarded her more closely and frowned. “What is it? What’s happened?”
She had always been too candid—“undiplomatic,” her family had said. That was why in the past she had left the raising of funds for the Portpool Lane clinic to others. She found it almost impossible to be roundabout with words. The more important the subject, the more direct she was.
“The Princess Mary,” she told Crow. “Beshara is probably not the one who laid the explosives and set them off. Now that Monk has raised this doubt, they have given him back the case.”
Crow nodded as understanding opened up to him. “Tea?” he offered. It was a good way to start any serious discussion.
She nodded and followed him out of the big room, so like one of Miss Nightingale’s new wards in the Crimea, and into a small room with a woodstove and two chairs. It was clearly Crow’s office.
She sat down while he put the kettle on the hot surface, then sat opposite her. Briefly she summarized the whole story, from Monk’s part in the rescue on the night of the sinking, right up to the present time, with Monk at home in bed, dazed and injured.
Crow pursed his lips. “You need me to help, until he gets better?” he asked, his voice gentle but full of doubt. “I’d be glad to. God knows, we need to find whoever did this, and string the bastard up by his … feet. But I’m not much good at detecting. I’ll ask everyone I know, see what debts I can collect, but if anyone—”
“No … thank you,” she interrupted him. “Orme and Hooper will do that. I’m afraid I need much more from you.”
He looked puzzled. “What could be more important than finding who really did it? I don’t understand.”
The kettle came to the boil. He made the tea in an old tin teapot.
“Finding out who tried to kill Beshara in prison,” she answered as he waited a moment before pouring a cup for her and one for himself. “If we knew that,” she went on, “it might lead to the person who is behind all the lies and the pressure. Possibly also tell us why.”
“It might,” Crow agreed. “In fact it probably would. But I have no idea, and I don’t know anybody who would.”
“Don’t you think Beshara himself knows?” she asked with as much innocence as she could affect.
He still did not understand. She knew him well enough to pick up even the faintest glint of humor in his bright, dark eyes. He had never been able to hide it, in fact he had seldom seen any need to try.
“He’s ill,” she added.
“I know …” Suddenly his eyes widened and his jaw dropped a little. “No!” he said, sitting upright. “No, Hester …”
“Nearly two hundred people were drowned in that disaster,” she pointed out.
“One hundred and seventy-nine,” he corrected her. “Don’t exaggerate.”
“And sixteen more in other small boats, people who tried to rescue them. A rowing boat was pulled into the vortex, with five people in it.”
“All right, nearly two hundred.” His voice wavered a little. “I still can’t do that! I might never get out!”
“We’re on the right track,” she went on. “Monk was nearly killed last night. The ferry he was in was rammed. If the ferryman dies, I suppose you could count another one. And, by the way, two of the rescued people died of pneumonia afterward.”
“And I’d make it one more!” he said. It was a last attempt to avoid being drawn in, but his eyes reflected his defeat already.
“They wouldn’t dare kill you!” she assured him, but her voice wavered. “You’re a doctor.”
