Beloved Poison (25 page)

We ran back towards Prior’s Rents. I felt no shame in it – far better to be thought scared and get away from the place, than to be foolhardy enough to stroll homewards, and be murdered into the bargain.

Joe’s building was a corner tenement, dark and derelict. It was quite possible that Joe would not be there, though there was some comfort in the knowledge that if we could not find him then it was unlikely that anyone else would. There were any number of places he might be hiding in that great ants’ nest of tumbledown buildings.

There was no door, just a flight of stone steps leading up into the groaning darkness. Here and there a mound of rags told where a human being lay – dead, perhaps, or insensible, brains and organs poisoned beyond redemption by cheap gin. Higher and higher we climbed, at length passing a window, the shattered panes sharp against the mocking blue of the sky. In the light it threw onto the stair a pair of sunken-cheeked children sat, their faces black with dirt. They looked up at us with exhausted indifference. One of them stuck out a hand. I continued on. What use was a coin to such as they? They would only use it to buy gin. Or the coin would be extorted from them by violent family members, reluctantly exchanged for a bloody nose and another broken tooth. Behind me I heard Will stop. I turned, and saw him pressing a shilling into the grubby outstretched hand.

‘You lookin’ fer Joe?’ The child’s voice was sharp, its eyes suddenly bright and hungry looking.

‘Yes, please,’ said Will.

‘He’s not up here?’ I said, turning back quickly. ‘He used to live at the top.’

‘He’s not there now,’ said the child. I had no idea whether I was addressing a boy or a girl. The face looked familiar, though lack of food gave them all the same pinched, sepulchral appearance.

‘Where is he?’ I said. ‘Can you take us to him?’

‘Joe said you’d come. The one with the red mask and the one with the ’at, he said. Said the one with the ’at was soft as butter and like as not’d give us a shillin’ just for lookin’ sad.’ The child winked. ‘Easy to look sad in this place, ain’t it?’

‘Will you take us to Joe?’

‘Course!’ Quick as ferrets both children sprang up and vanished through a hole in the wall behind.

‘Well,’ said Will. He looked at my filthy coat, and then down at his own scuffed and shit-caked boots. ‘It can’t get much worse, can it?’

The further we followed those two ragged children, the more uneasy I felt. We crawled through a jagged gap in the wall, clambered up a tall rickety ladder, and tiptoed over a dozen or so worm-eaten rafters. Here and there the lath and plaster had fallen through and dark holes gaped at our feet, the abyss below unfathomable. A draught of foetid air, and the sound of rustling and muttering voices, drifted up from the depths. The place was dark, the only light coming from holes punched in the roof where the slates had tumbled down. We ducked below a wooden beam, upon which, inexplicably, the bodies of dead rats had been pinned, lined up in a row – some curious tally of the city’s most populous and execrable vermin. There were four score at least, all dangling by their tails, all in various states of desiccation, dried like kippers in the warm draught that blew up from the tenement below. The first ones we passed were now no bigger than tobacco pouches, the last plump and oily-looking.

‘What are these for?’ said Will, appalled.

‘Never mind, Will,’ I whispered. ‘Some things are best left unexplained.’ We crawled behind a chimney stack and along a narrow passage directly beneath the roof. I was sweating with exertion. How quickly those children moved, scuttling before us. Behind me, I could hear Will gasping for breath. He kept knocking his hat on the overhanging rats and they swung gently on their dry tails as he shuffled past. All at once the child in front of me vanished through a hole in a wall beside the greasy black flank of a chimney stack. At first I could see nothing, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I noticed that the shadows beyond the hole were moving. The sound of smothered coughing was audible, and whispered voices. Then a match was struck and the darkness was interrupted by the feeble yellow glow of a cheap tallow candle-end.

‘Mr Flock’art?’ It was a whisper from the cave ahead. The smell of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes was pungent beneath the smell of smoke and burnt fat.

‘Joe.’ I kept my voice low. ‘That you?’

Joe’s face appeared, lit from below by the feeble yellow candlelight. ‘You shunt o’ come,’ he whispered. ‘I tol’ the others to look out fer you in case you came but you shunt o’ come.’

‘Do you have something for me?’ I said.

‘It ain’t here. I hid it.’

‘Where is it?’ I could hardly imagine a more well-hidden and repulsive hidey-hole than the one Joe currently occupied. Why on earth he chose to hide himself in one place and Dr Bain’s missing coffin in another—

‘You’d never find it even if I tol’ you,’ said Joe. ‘No one can find it ’cept me. But I’ll get it and bring it you. Tomorrow. I were goin’ to do that, but I heard there’s been someone lookin’ for me. P’raps someone what saw Dr Bain give it me.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know who.’

The building was suddenly eerily quiet, for all that it teemed with vermin and paupers. From somewhere – whether behind or below us I could not tell – came a scuffling sound, followed by the echo of cautious footsteps. Even I could tell that those footsteps were made by the sharp heels and supple soles of new, finely crafted leather. Had we been followed after all? I put my hand into my pocket and felt the rough surface of the sugar lump between my fingers. Then the footsteps stopped – there was only silence, and the sound of the wind rattling the rotten shingles above our heads.

‘He’s ’ere!’ whispered Joe.

‘It was probably just the wind,’ I said. ‘God knows, there’s enough loose boards around here to squeak and bang and thump till you’re half frightened out of your wits.’

‘I know all the sounds o’ Prior’s Rents,’ replied Joe. ‘And them footsteps weren’t none I’ve heard before.’

‘Then you’ll know when to run, won’t you?’

Joe looked up at me, his face pinched, and frightened. ‘Dr Bain’s dead, ain’t he?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘I knowed it,’ said Joe. ‘I liked Dr Bain. I got no complaints about ’im.’ He sniffed, and rubbed his eyes with hands black with soot and grease. ‘Gave me a sov that day. Just for keepin’ that box for ’im.’

‘A small coffin?’

Joe nodded. ‘Somethin’ nasty lookin’ inside it, but I seen much worse round ’ere. Said I were to give it to you if he din’t come back for it ’imself. Trusted me to keep me word, Dr Bain did, and I will too.’

‘Well, you bring me what Dr Bain gave you, and I’ll give you half a crown.’

‘Here’s one for now,’ said Will. ‘Go and buy yourselves something to eat.’

The coin was hardly visible as he tossed it forward, but I heard the sound of Joe’s grubby hand snatching it from the air. ‘Now go away,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll bring that thing tomorrow mornin’, sharp.’

W
e said little as we walked back to St Saviour’s. Will had to go to the graveyard – he had spent too much time away from the place already – and I knew I had left Gabriel and my father alone in the apothecary for too long. How selfish I was, gallivanting about the city when my father was ill. I glanced behind us. Were we being followed again? But St Saviour’s Street was thick with people, cabs, coaches, carts, and I could see no one in pursuit. I took a deep breath. After the stinking tenement of Prior’s Rents the place was like a fragrant oasis.

I had not been in the apothecary five minutes when Dr Hawkins appeared. ‘Where’s your father, Jem?’

‘Out-patients, with Gabriel.’

‘Has he slept?’

I shook my head.

‘Then he’s no better?’

I thought of my father, gaunt and worried, directing Gabriel about the apothecary shelves, trying his best to pretend that all was well. But I knew from his face, when he thought I was not looking, that fear and sorrow were his constant companions. ‘From what I can tell he’s just the same.’

Dr Hawkins rubbed a hand across his chin. ‘We’re running out of time.’

‘Running out of time?’ I said. ‘For what?’

He did not answer.

‘Will he die?’ I said.

‘We will all die, Jem.’

‘That’s not the sort of sleep my father needs.’

Dr Hawkins shook his head. ‘He may well beg for it before much longer.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ I said. ‘What do you mean “beg for it”? Why would he do such a thing?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Dr Hawkins laid a hand on my arm. ‘I spoke out of turn. He won’t die yet, not if I can help it.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime . . . There is something—’ He stopped, as though the words had stung his lips.

‘What?’ I said. ‘
What?
’

‘Something we might try. We can’t wait much longer. And this time I will need your help.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Tonight, Jem. I will come for you both.’

My father and I attended to the ward rounds together that evening. I knew the seven o’clock round was his favourite. The physicians were seldom on the wards at that time, the nurses behaved themselves and it was too early for them to be noticeably drunk.

I had told him that Dr Hawkins had been, that we were to go to Angel Meadow together that evening, and he lingered over his duties about the wards as though it might be the last time he ever saw the place. We passed from bed and bed. He stopped and spoke to every patient who was still conscious. ‘You’ll need another apprentice when I’m gone,’ he said as we left the surgical ward.

‘Gone?’ I said. ‘You’ll not be away for long, surely?’

He smiled, but his eyes were grave. ‘You know what I mean.’

When we got back to the apothecary my father went upstairs to gather whatever personal items he might need for his sojourn at Angel Meadow. I waited downstairs, staring into the fire. Will had taken Gabriel out to Sorley’s for supper, and the place was silent. I wondered when Joe Silks would come. We had learned little from the coffin brought to us by the girl from Mrs Roseplucker’s. Perhaps Joe’s would be more illuminating.

At that moment Dr Catchpole came in, Dr Magorian and Dr Graves in his wake. I was surprised to see them at the hospital so late – why were they still here? But then I remembered that there had been a meeting of the Building Committee over in the governors’ hall to discuss St Saviour’s relocation south of the river. They would not have missed the chance to opine about the new hospital.

‘I cannot bear to be at home without her,’ said Dr Catchpole as he entered.

‘But it is for her own good,’ said Dr Graves. ‘Dr Hawkins concurs. Angel Meadow will provide her with a refuge from the world.’

Dr Catchpole shook his head. ‘She will not see me,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot put that knowledge from my mind. I’ve been in the library all evening trying to distract myself but I have failed. I stepped in to see whether Mr Flockhart would give me something to help me sleep tonight.’

‘Surely you have laudanum?’ said Dr Magorian. He rested a hand on Dr Catchpole’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry for your troubles. A wife should be a support to her husband. A helpmeet in all he does.’