by M. J. Trow
‘No, sorry, nurse,’ he said, chastened. ‘But my friend here … I don’t know what it is. He … well, he seems to be hardly breathing.’
She looked at the porter who withered under her gaze. ‘Don’t just stand there, Jenkins,’ she said. ‘Fetch a stretcher and call for a doctor. Who is on call this morning? It doesn’t matter. Just fetch him.’ She turned back to Grand. ‘Come with us,’ she said. ‘I shall need to take some details.’
Grand reluctantly got to his feet. He couldn’t just leave Batchelor stretched out on this cold, unforgiving tiled floor. But before he was properly upright, two stretcher-bearers appeared at the trot, with Jenkins slouching along behind. They expertly lifted the prone detective on to the canvas and were gone through the double swing doors into the wards almost before Grand could blink.
‘There,’ the nurse said, taking him kindly by the arm. ‘He’s in good hands. Just come with me and we’ll just take a few details, such as name, address, ability to pay, that kind of thing. I assume he isn’t indigent?’
‘Indigent? Oh, no, no, not at all. Whatever it costs …’ Grand was still looking at the doors, swinging gradually to a stop.
‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘I know I shouldn’t say it, but, well, it isn’t too good to be indigent in here. The doctor will be with him by the time we’ve done our bit of ledger-filling, so the sooner we start, the sooner we’re done.’ She tugged gently at his arm. ‘Come along, Mr …?’
‘Grand. Matthew Grand.’
‘Ah,’ she said, understandingly. ‘Not the same name as your dear old mum. That explains it. We did wonder.’
Grand thought briefly about explaining the whole Miss Jones debacle, but in the end decided that now was not the time. As he was led down a corridor, he heard running feet behind him. A voice was calling, urgent, loud.
‘Doctor, doctor. In here!’
Another voice cut in. ‘He’s gone.’
The nurse stiffened at Grand’s side and pulled him into a side room. ‘Come on, Mr Grand,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing we can do out there. Your friend is in God’s hands now.’
James Batchelor felt better. He had felt really, really sick. His heart had been racing, pumping as though it would leap out of his chest, and his lungs didn’t seem able to get the air in and out. He was hurting all over. His hair hurt. Was that even possible? There was a lot of shouting, which he didn’t like, because it made the insides of his ears ache. There were hands, pulling him about, and that just wasn’t nice. Not when he felt so sick and ill.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped. The pains all just went away and the horrible gnawing at his bowels stopped, as though someone had thrown a switch. There was still some shouting, but it was much further away. His heart had stopped hammering. His lungs were not fighting for air. A soft singing noise filled his head and he couldn’t feel the lumpy bed beneath him. Could he be floating? It was a good place he was in, wherever it was …
‘He’s gone, Doctor.’ The stretcher-bearer had no medical training, having been seconded from the adjacent workhouse to help earn his keep. But he was a bright youngster who, in other circumstances, might have stood where the doctor stood now. And even if he had been the dimmest denizen of St Martin-in-the-Fields, he would still have been able to tell that Batchelor was no longer in the land of men.
The doctor wasn’t a quitter. He had been torn from his breakfast to attend this emergency and he was damned if he would let it be for a corpse. He barked to a hovering nurse. ‘Sal volatile, nurse. Keep the vial in place until it takes effect.’ He rolled up his sleeves. ‘You,’ he snapped to the attendant. ‘Open his coat. I will massage his heart. Come on man – now, not when you feel like it!’
Grand was sitting in the nurse’s office, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, his heart in his boots. The gentle scratch of the pen in the ledger was all that he could hear. He was concentrating on this room, this moment. He could feel the sharp pain of his elbows on his thighs. He could smell the sweat of fear that Batchelor had left on his jacket. He didn’t want to think about any moment other than now. The soft flap of an enormous book closing brought him back.
‘Mr Grand,’ the nurse said, in gentle tones. ‘I’ve filled in the register. I … I’m afraid there isn’t anything else to be done at the minute. Mr Batchelor’s … effects … will be available for collection later today. There will be other paperwork for you to complete in the fullness of time, but for now …’ She came around the desk and put a strong arm around the man’s shoulder. ‘Mr Grand, do you have anyone at home?’
‘Mrs Rackstraw,’ he said, quietly. ‘She’s going to be devastated, you know. She was always moaning at James, spending all his time in the attic and making her go up and down all the time, but she is very fond of him, really … was very fond …’
The nurse said nothing. These two young men certainly lived unusual lives and the ending of one of them was already raising questions. That the police should be involved was a given. How Grand was going to deal with that was his problem but, apart from his neglect of his dear old mum, who was perhaps no better than she should be, he seemed nice enough and she was sorry. She stayed there, patting his shoulder gently until he felt better.
With a sigh, Grand got up and dusted off his hat. ‘My apologies, nurse,’ he said. ‘This has brought back a lot of bad memories. From home, you know.’
He was foreign, so that probably explained that.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘We have the address,’ she said. ‘We’ll send in the bill when the doctor has finished …’ Her voice died away.
Grand smiled at her, a rueful smile that broke her heart. ‘I see. Well, thank you for all your kindness, nurse.’ And, with heavy steps, he left the room, leaving her standing there with tears in her eyes.
James Batchelor was annoyed. He wasn’t floating any more; he was leaning over the side of a lumpy bed, vomiting what felt like his very soul over the immaculate shoes of a man who seemed to be squeezing his heart out of his body. He had enjoyed the floating, whereas this new stage in his existence, he was not so keen on.
‘Bugger me!’ a young voice said from behind him. ‘I had him for a goner.’
The nurse, standing well out of range of the flying sick, was thinking the same, but was too genteel to say so. ‘Doctor,’ she breathed instead. ‘You’re a miracle worker.’
The doctor, whose valet would not be pleased to see him when he went home to change, was feeling rather smug. He knew he was good – no one rose in the profession as he did without being good – but raising the dead was a new height, even for him. ‘Oh, just lucky, nurse, just lucky. But not as lucky as this young man.’
Batchelor’s stomach, indeed his whole inside, was empty at last, and he looked up to say thank you to his saviour. He had begun to realize, as the retching became less, that floating wasn’t a patch on living after all. He wiped his mouth. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ he began, then found himself in chorus with Doctor Beard. ‘You!’ they both said together.
Grand was passing the ward when a compulsion gripped him. He couldn’t just go home, leaving James in the hands of strangers. He needed to know, for his own satisfaction, that he was being treated right. He had lost a lot of friends, God alone knew how many, cut down by the withering fire on some random hillside, and he hadn’t often had the chance of a goodbye. And, even though it was too late this time, he could perhaps have the luxury of a few quiet moments, with the blood not yet cool, with the pallor of death not yet fixed. He opened the door softly and peered in. The serried ranks of beds he expected were missing. The room was small, with only two curtain-shrouded cubicles in it. One set of curtains was partly drawn back, showing a narrow cot, with a shrouded figure on it. A woman in black was hunched at the head, a crumpled handkerchief to her eyes. That was good service, Grand thought, a mourner arranged just like that. Batchelor didn’t need that kind of thing, of course, he had his own family and friends to mourn him, but still … it was a thou
ghtful gesture. He made a move towards the body, which seemed small and somehow diminished under the sheet.
The curtains around the other bed were suddenly thrown back and a man in vomit-spattered trousers emerged, his pepper and salt hair on end and a stethoscope swinging wildly as he strode across the room, making for the door. A nurse trotted after him, hardly glancing at Grand as she passed. At the threshold, the man paused and turned back, speaking to the attendant.
‘Clean him up, will you, Dawkins? Then get him to the public ward.’
‘But,’ the nurse interposed, ‘he has money, Dr Beard. You can tell that by his clothes.’
‘Even so,’ Beard snapped. ‘The public ward for him. Jump to it, man.’ And with that, he swept out, almost catching the nurse a nasty one with the swinging door.
Dawkins turned to the man in the bed. ‘He’s got a down on you, all right,’ he said. ‘Good job he didn’t recognize you right off, or you’d be a goner now. Come on, let’s get these stinking clothes off you and we’ll get you washed.’
‘Thank you.’ The man on the bed was too exhausted to say more, but the voice was still music to Grand’s ears.
‘James?’ he said, hurrying over. ‘James? I thought you were dead!’
‘You ain’t the only one, mate,’ Dawkins said. ‘I reckon he was dead, and all. Dr Beard, he brung him back to life. He’s got a lot to thank Dr Beard for. Though he seems to have took against him. Met before, have they?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Grand said. ‘Do you have to put him in the public ward? I can pay.’
Dawkins sucked his teeth and looked doubtful. A florin tucked into his top pocket seemed to make up his mind. ‘I’ll have a word with matron,’ he said. ‘You go home for half an hour and when you come back your friend will be all spick and span and in a nice room of his own, you’ll see.’ He peered at Grand. ‘You don’t look so chipper yourself. I hope you ain’t coming down with what he’s got.’ He looked down at Batchelor, who had collapsed back on his pillows, exhausted. ‘I don’t reckon he’s out of the woods yet. I never seen nobody throw up like that before.’ He tittered. ‘All over the doc’s feet. Funny, that was, but it’s more than your life’s worth to laugh, o’ course. Not at Doc Beard.’ He shooed Grand off with a grimy hand. ‘Off you go, then, mister.’ It seemed pretty clear that no more money was going to be forthcoming and he had work to do. ‘Come back in an hour and ask at the door. Jenkins’ll let you know where your mate is, you can be sure.’
Grand knew he should go home. He should tell Mrs Rackstraw. But all he could find it in his heart to do was to pace the pavement outside the hospital. Flower sellers were setting up strategically along the street; undertakers were patrolling, in step with Grand and almost as gloomy. Death was in the air and it was impossible to think straight. As the end of the hour approached, the American stood on the bottom step approaching the front door and looked about him. Above the roofs of the houses, spires and steeples poked at the summer sky, hot and blue already. Cab horses pulled their loads, flies thick around the sweaty harness. Some shone like conkers, the brass fittings on their reins and bridles glinting in the sun. Others had coats like coconut matting, ribs like knives, their tails thick with grease and horse-shit, the filthy leather the same colour as their hides. The crossing sweeper leaned on his broom. Not much to sweep as yet, but the day was very young. The flower sellers called their wares, the undertakers’ mutes, glycerine tears on their cheeks, paced behind their masters. Grand didn’t need glycerine. If Batchelor did still die, he couldn’t stay here. And he realized, with a lurch of his heart, that he loved this place, smells, noise and all. Shaking himself free of the black cloud around him, he turned and bounded up the steps. He had a friend to attend.
A nurse barred his way. She was younger than the one who had taken down Batchelor’s details, shorter, prettier. But that there was iron under her starched front could not be in doubt.
‘I cannot let you see your friend now,’ she said. ‘He needs his rest. He had been eating shellfish or something similar, I understand. Nasty stuff; I never touch it. He will need careful nursing for quite a while; there are often complications in cases of ptomaine poisoning.’
‘Come across those often, have you?’ Grand was in no mood to exchange pleasantries this morning, of all mornings.
‘One or two,’ she said, frostily, ‘Mr …?’
Instinctively he passed over his card and watched her eyes light up. ‘Ooh, how exciting!’ and she actually clapped her hands. ‘You’re a detective.’
‘I am,’ he said.
‘And your friend … Mr Batchelor … he works with you, does he?’
‘When he feels up to it,’ Grand nodded.
‘I’ve never met a detective before,’ the nurse trilled. She was softer now, smiling. ‘But I am something of a follower of grisly murders. I have newspaper cuttings. That’s not peculiar, is it, Mr Grand? For a woman to be interested in such things?’ She looked into his face, a little anxiously. She wanted to give a good impression; he was a detective, after all, and – apart from that – easily as handsome as any man she had ever met.
‘Er … no,’ Grand dithered, secretly finding it a little strange. ‘No, not at all.’
‘The James Greenacre case is my favourite. Dismemberment. Regent’s Canal. Very gruesome.’
That rang bells for Grand, who sat down on the hard chair in the anteroom to where Batchelor lay dozing. ‘One of Inspector Field’s cases,’ he remembered.
‘Field?’ The nurse blinked and the first detective she had ever met lost a little in her estimation. ‘No, sir, you’re mistaken. A sharp-eyed constable called Pegler solved that one.’
‘Did he?’ Grand asked. No surprises there, then; Field building up his part yet again. Still, just to be sure, ‘What about Daniel Good?’
‘Yes, he led the police a merry chase,’ the nurse remembered the cutting, yellowing now in her scrapbook. ‘A retired policeman caught him – Tom Rose, his name was.’
‘What about Muller?’ Grand was intrigued now. ‘Was Field in on that one?’
‘Lord love you, no, Mr Grand; that was Inspector Richard Tanner caught the Railway Murderer. An interesting case; the papers were full of it. Bludgeoning, though – very crass.’
‘Tanner?’ Grand was half out of his seat. ‘When was this?’
‘Ooh, let me see. Sixty-four, it would be. I hadn’t even started my training then.’
In ’64, Matthew Grand had been with General Sherman, marching to the sea.
‘No, you’re confused about Chief Inspector Field. The only famous case he worked on was the Bermondsey Horror. You know – the Mannings?’
Grand didn’t. ‘When was that?’ he asked.
‘Eighteen forty … now, was it forty-eight?’ She thought for a moment, finger to her lips. ‘No, I tell a lie. It was forty-nine.’
In 1849, Matthew Grand had still been at school.
‘Dreadful hanging, it was. Horsemonger Lane Gaol. The late Mr Dickens witnessed it and wrote about it.’
‘Did he now?’ Grand wasn’t so sure about that, but there was no reason to share that with the nurse. ‘Tell me, what sort of crime was that? The weapon used, I mean?’
‘Bludgeoning again.’ The nurse beamed broadly. ‘With a side order of quicklime. Very messy.’
Her smile vanished as Matthew Grand dashed for the door. ‘Mr Grand,’ she called after him. ‘Mr Grand, you can see your friend for a minute now, Mr Grand.’
SEVENTEEN
Grand had waited for half a day, planning his moves, checking his strategy. He had even gone to Batchelor’s usual domain, the hushed circle of the British Museum Library to check on the crimes that the nurse knew all about. And she had been right. There was no Inspector Field involved in any of them. Except …’
‘Good evening, Chief Inspector.’ Grand swept off his hat and perched on the end of the park bench. ‘I’m sorry to bother you again so soon, but I hoped to pick your brains on the Manning murder.
What did the Press call it? The Bermondsey Horror?’
‘Mr Grand.’ Field’s smile was frozen. ‘Good evening to you too, sir. How’s Mr Batchelor?’
‘Alive,’ Grand told him. ‘And although he would hate me for using this overworked cliché, it seems appropriate, so, “No thanks to you”.’
‘Me?’ Field’s eyes widened. ‘You flatter me, Mr Grand. Old Solly has killed more people with his jellied eels than anybody I’ve seen hanged. The rumour is that he just mixes the leftovers from the day before in with his new batch; there are eels in there older than I am, or so I believe. It’s just your good luck you don’t like ’em, eh?’
‘And your bad luck,’ Grand said. He watched as Field threw his crusts of bread to the mallards, clucking and squawking in the waters of St James’s again. ‘These ducks of yours are better fed, I’ll wager, than most people in the metropolis.’
Field laughed. ‘I leave such social comments to Mr Mayhew,’ he said. ‘As for me, I find ducks more honest than people, don’t you? They don’t lie and cheat, they don’t let you down, they don’t commit immoral acts, they mate for life. Oh, they’re greedy, I grant you, but they’re honest about that, at least.’
‘But this case has nothing to do with greed, has it, Mr Field?’ Grand said.
‘What case is that, then?’ Field asked, all innocence.
‘The poisoning of Charles Dickens. The poisoning of Arthur Clinton. The bludgeoning of Gabriel Verdon. Oh, and the attempted poisoning of James Batchelor. They might put you on the treadmill for the last one, but they’ll surely hang you for all the others.’
Field’s smile had gone. ‘Why did you ask about the Bermondsey Horror a moment ago?’
‘Because, when you were reeling off your successes as a cop, you cited various crimes you had no connection with. And the one you did crack, the Manning case, you didn’t mention.’
‘It slipped my mind,’ Field said, rummaging for more bread in his box.
