As Dody regarded her sister’s wan face gazing up at her from the plumped pillows, a heavy ache grew at the base in her throat and tears threatened to spill. She sniffed them away and turned on the bedside light.
‘I’m sorry, Dody, I hope I didn’t wake you,’ Florence said, weakly. The paleness of her skin seemed to blend into the colour of her lacy nightgown.
Dody turned down the lamp wick to extinguish the flame and forced a smile, not wishing Florence to see how much her condition was upsetting her.
‘It’s only just past eleven o’clock. I was still awake, running some tests in my study,’ she said. ‘I heard you screaming and ran down immediately. Can I get you anything — hot milk, a sleeping draught?’ She checked the kidney dish on the bedside table, relieved to see it was empty. Florence had vomited on several occasions since returning home — it was a side effect of concussion. She hoped her rake-thin sister would soon be eating normally again.
‘No, thank you,’ Florence replied. ‘I’m all right now. I have little memory of the event, yet my mind seems set on filling the gaps while I’m asleep. Hence the nightmares, I suppose.’
Dody placed her fingers on her sister’s wrist and noted her galloping pulse. ‘You suffered a nasty knock on the head. It’s normal to have some amnesia. I’ve found out the name of the doctor who struck you, by the way. He will be investigated.’
‘And ranks will close. They always do.’
Dody could not argue with that. Only the most negligent of doctors seemed to appear before the medical board.
‘That doctor was looking forward to the prospect of violating me, I could tell. I think I now understand a little of what you went through last year with that pig of a man in Sussex,’ Florence said.
A cold shiver ran up Dody’s spine. ‘I’ll never forget that, either.’ She still had the occasional nightmare about the outrage, but would never admit it to Florence.
‘Pass me the hand mirror from my dressing table, please, Dody.’
She put the mirror in her sister’s outstretched hand. Florence looked into it and gingerly prodded the lump on her forehead. Then she opened her mouth and inspected her teeth.
‘Good, all there,’ she said. ‘Having my teeth knocked out was my greatest fear. Do people still use Waterloo Teeth, Dody?’
She smiled. ‘You’re probably too young to remember our yardman in Moscow. He had them and boasted about them at every opportunity. His uncle had prised them from the mouths of dead soldiers at Waterloo.’
Florence shuddered.
‘No, dear, false teeth have changed for the better since then,’ Dody reassured her. ‘One’s own are still preferable, however.’
‘I should count myself lucky then.’ Florence handed the mirror back to Dody. ‘And you said the force-feeding itself hadn’t even begun before I lost consciousness? Funny, I seem to remember it vividly.’
‘You must be getting it confused with the last time. No, on this occasion you were saved by the bell — in the form of Pike.’
Florence sighed wearily. ‘Dear Pike.’
‘As soon as he heard the news from Parliament he rushed to the prison and put a stop to the procedure. You were on the floor, out cold. It was he who arranged for you to be brought home.’
‘Parliament? I don’t understand.’
Dody hesitated, wondering if she should reveal the Act in its entirety as explained to her by Pike.
‘Did he tell you anything about my release?’ Florence added. ‘Or say exactly why I was allowed to come home? Surely I should have just been sent to the prison hospital?’
The Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Act had made headline news, but Florence was not to know that. Dody had hoped to keep the details away from her sister until she had regained her strength, fearing that knowledge of it might cause an anxiety-induced relapse.
‘If I don’t hear it from you, Dody, I’ll hear it from one of my colleagues,’ Florence reasoned.
She was right. And the facts would be exaggerated and then she would be even more furious.
‘Oh, all right then.’ Dody took a bolstering breath. ‘The Act was designed to bring an end to force-feeding. The politicians hope it will stop you suffragettes from becoming martyrs and the government looking like the villain.’
‘But the government is the villain!’
‘I agree. But instead of force-feeding you when you are on a hunger strike, the authorities will wait until you are ill and weak with hunger, like you are now, and then let you go home. Once you have recovered your strength, you will be sent back to prison to serve out the rest of your sentence.’
‘And if we refuse to eat again?’
‘The pattern will repeat itself. It’s the government’s way of preventing martyrdom.’
Florence balled the sheets in her hands. ‘But that’s just as bad as before! The government is … is … like a cat playing with a mouse!’
Dody shared her sister’s feeling of exasperation. ‘I think the men behind it believe they are doing the right thing.’
She remembered the look on Pike’s face as he explained the Act to her, like a sunny day suddenly overtaken by cloud as he gauged her reaction. The plan might well have been devised with the best of intentions, but Dody had been obliged to explain that playing with the women’s minds could do them more harm than playing with their bodies. After the disagreement, Pike had left the townhouse somewhat abruptly, unable to see her side of the argument — or had he? As she was explaining the consequences to him he certainly seemed to take her words in, but then he reacted as if she had insulted him personally! Was there something he wasn’t telling her? How involved with the Act had he actually been?
‘I’d like to consult a nerve doctor about your dreams, Florence. Will you agree to that?’ Dody asked, trying to push her disagreement with Pike to the back of her mind.
‘I don’t want to see another doctor,’ Florence said. ‘Why can’t you look after me?’
‘I am not experienced in the treatment of nervous conditions. Also, we are too close, I could not be objective. It will help greatly to have the opinion of another medical person.’
‘A woman, then, the doctor must be a woman. Only a woman would understand.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, darling. There are few women specialists in any of the medical disciplines, and I know of no female nerve doctors at all. I am not an autopsy surgeon by choice, remember?’ Indeed, she had not chosen autopsy surgery, more like it had chosen her.
Florence winced as if the act of thinking pained her. ‘You wanted to be a bone surgeon.’
‘I did.’ Dody picked up her sister’s limp hand and squeezed it. ‘But listen to me, Florence. The man I recommend, Doctor Lamb, is a truly wonderful doctor who, I’ve heard, has sympathies for the cause. He wears a purple, white and green tiepin, and his sister marches. You want to get back to normal again, don’t you? Enjoy your food, sleep soundly every night?’ Dody paused. ‘Get strong again so you can return to the fray?’
Florence gazed heavenward. ‘Return to the fray? I’d have thought that’s the last thing you’d have wanted me to do. I didn’t think you approved of our militant methods.’
‘I am as keen for female emancipation as any of you and sympathise with what drives you. But while I still face prejudice every day at the mortuary, I can tell you that things are not as bad as they used to be. I feel vindicated to be a mere suffragist — to rely on time, patience and peaceful negotiation to obtain meaningful emancipation. I’m afraid I will never condone the violent tactics of the suffragettes.
‘Oh, but here is some very good news,’ Dody added, adjusting Florence’s pillows so she could sit up. ‘The night watchman has regained consciousness and is expected to make a full recovery.’
Florence’s eyes closed briefly. ‘Thank goodness. I could never have lived with that man’s death on my conscience.’
Neither could I, thought Dody. ‘I’m not sure if he has been interviewed ab
out the bombing yet,’ she said.
‘The main thing is that he lives, for his and his family’s sake, but also for mine. Being imprisoned for wilful destruction and assault is nothing compared to being hanged for murder.’
Dody agreed, but still she worried about the effect of another incarceration on her sister. She might not be a nerve doctor, but she was all too aware of the physical havoc anxiety could wreak upon the human body.
‘What about the old dear who identified me in the line-up?’ Florence asked.
‘Poppa’s lawyer says she is an unreliable witness. If they only have her word to go on, he doesn’t think the prosecution will have much of a case.’ Dody paused. ‘Has there been a lesson in this, do you think? You’ve had a very lucky escape.’
Florence hung her head, suitably ashamed. ‘I am also well aware that my confession to you inflicted an almost unbearable burden. For that I am so sorry.’
‘I’m still glad you confided in me. At least things are not so bad now that we know the watchman lives.’ There was no point reminding Florence that she was not out of the woods yet.
‘My head hurts, Dody,’ Florence said, after a pause.
So does mine, Dody thought, feeling the blood pound in her temples. Florence, Pike … how complicated human relationships could be, and how conflicting their associated emotions. How much easier it was to deal with the dead.
‘I’ll get you something for it.’ She rose from her place on the bed. When she returned with some Aspirin, she found her sister collapsed once more against her pillows. She thought she must have fallen asleep and was about to tiptoe from the room when her eyes flew open.
‘I think I would like to be seen by a nerve doctor after all, Dody. Even if he is male,’ Florence said in a weak voice. ‘I still feel ghastly. I don’t want to go on like this.’
Dody smiled softly. ‘As you wish.’
‘I would also like to thank Pike for bringing me home.’
‘He said he will call tomorrow afternoon. You can thank him then if you are awake. Sleep tight.’ She kissed her sister’s cheek and reached for the light by the bed.
Chapter Fifteen
The next afternoon Pike called at the townhouse as arranged. Annie and the scullery-cum-under-parlour maid, Lucy, lugged the ‘Baby Daisy’ from the middle of the stairs so he and Dody could pass. Annie was red in the face, whether from her vigorous pumping of the vacuum machine’s handle or from her never-ending annoyance with Pike, Dody couldn’t tell. How much longer could she and Pike trust their secret with the maid? she wondered. Would Annie be capable of holding her tongue in front of Mother, who was arriving the next day? The girl had an impulsive temper and was fiercely loyal to Florence. Dody didn’t dare contemplate what might happen if Annie ever found out that Pike and his colleagues were the cause of Florence’s current misery. She could only hope that since Annie had taken to walking out with a reportedly ‘handsome young man named Robert’, she would be too occupied with her own affairs to give much thought to anyone else’s.
Pike stopped on the stairs at the second-floor landing and nodded towards Florence’s closed bedroom door.
‘How is she?’ he asked quietly.
‘Physically, Florence is recovering nicely.’ Dody folded her arms. ‘Though maybe that is not such a good thing. I fear that being sent back to prison might drive her mad.’
Pike said nothing. He didn’t need to, the sudden tension in his jaw told her everything.
‘Can’t you see that this new tactic is no better than the alternative?’ Dody continued to whisper out of Annie’s earshot. ‘None of this barbarism would be necessary if the government was sensible enough to give women the vote.’
Dody left her words dangling, turned her back on him, and continued up the stairs to her study. They had similar views on so many subjects, but this Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge Act was one issue on which she could see no compromise.
Neither gave the bed a second glance as they passed it. Edward scratched for attention but remained unnoticed. Dody suggested that Pike take a seat behind the microscope to view one of her prepared slides. He was an eager student, one of the new breed of policemen who actually appreciated the role that forensic science could play in the detection of crime. He peered down the eyepiece of the microscope and adjusted the objective as she had taught him.
‘Fascinating. Much clearer than what we saw the other night,’ he murmured. ‘You have stained the sample pink to make its features stand out. I can see some nuclei now – the dots? Other than that —’ He shrugged, ‘— I have no idea.’ He drew away from the eyepiece and swivelled on the stool to face her. ‘So, tell me, what am I supposed to be looking at?’
Dody was pleased to find their disagreement at least temporarily forgotten. They were both highly rational people (Dody liked to think) and neither inclined to sulking.
‘The stain reveals that the cells are made of chromatin material,’ she said. ‘If you’d zoomed in you would have seen a small bubble-like thing called a Graafian follicle.’
‘Graaa …? You’ve lost me already.’
‘It means this lump of tissue is an ovary and most probably human.’
Pike coughed into his closed fist. ‘What is this, err, ovary you are talking about? Am I right in thinking it is from a female person?’
Dody laughed, unable to help herself. ‘I do believe you are blushing, Mr Pike!’
He shifted on his seat. ‘Well, where would I have learned such things? It was hardly talk around the campfire.’
Dody became serious again. ‘The ovaries are female reproductive organs situated in the abdomen and responsible for making the eggs.’
‘But how can you be sure this ovary is from a human and not, say, from a baboon?’ Pike asked.
‘Indeed, a large primate is about the only other creature this ovary could belong to, though highly unlikely, given their paucity in London. No, Matthew, the odds are that it is from a human.’ All of a sudden, Dody felt ill. ‘Oh my goodness.’ She covered her face with her hands and breathed deeply.
Pike slid from his stool and gripped her arm. ‘Dody, Dody, are you all right? You are white as chalk, what is it?’
‘The woman in the mortuary the other day, the one whose photograph I gave you. She’d had all her reproductive organs removed.’
This was the first time she had explained to Pike exactly what the illegal operation he was investigating entailed. At once he turned as white as she had.
‘We think it’s possible the operation had been performed illegally to cure her of hysteria. The woman had drunk bleach — no sane person would have done that.’ She opted not to tell him about the mutilated genitals for the moment, fearing the topic might prove too much of a challenge to his sensibilities. ‘I was meaning to tell you more about it, but what with Florence and everything …’
‘Let’s talk about this downstairs. I think we could both use a drink.’
It was teatime, but neither of them felt like drinking tea. Pike poured whisky into crystal glasses at an occasional table holding several gleaming decanters. While he prepared the drinks, Dody appraised her surroundings. The room was more immaculate than ever, the maids having been instructed to put in extra effort in honour of Mrs McCleland’s visit.
The carpet was traced with ‘Baby Daisy’s’ tracks. The green velvet curtains on the two front mullion windows had been cleaned and rehung, softly framing the diamond patterned glass as it sparkled in the hazy afternoon light. The oriental rugs had been beaten on the clothesline, the silver cleaned, and the inlaid furniture dusted and polished with lavender wax. All the room needed was fresh flowers, which Dody planned on purchasing the next morning from a roadside flower seller.
Not many single women had the luxury of living independently from their families. The sisters were always keen to demonstrate their appreciation to their mother and prove to her that her trust had not been in vain. They kept the townhouse spotless and made sure it was always welcoming to her.
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‘I wonder if Poppa’s coming too?’ Dody mused as they settled back into the plumped sofa, nursing their whiskies. ‘Mother didn’t say.’
‘Might that be a problem?’ Pike asked.
‘Only if he tries to force Florence back to Tretawn with him for a rest-cure.’
‘Whether he comes or not, I suppose I’ll still have to make myself scarce,’ Pike said with resignation.
‘Not necessarily. My parents know full well how my profession entails working with the police. I’m afraid the English police still remind them too much of how things were in Russia when they left.’
‘I’ve never understood that. I don’t see how they can compare the English police to the Russian.’
‘I’m sorry, Matthew, but that’s just how it is. Their socialist ways brought them nothing but trouble with the Tsar’s people.’
‘Just so long as your father doesn’t try to take another shot at me.’ Pike smiled boyishly, obviously thinking about the last time he’d had dealings with Nial McCleland. God how she loved this man, the way he accepted her and her eccentric family for what they were. She knew then that it would take a lot more than a disagreement over the Cat and Mouse Act to drive a wedge between them.
‘But about the suicide,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, that.’ Dody wetted her lips with whisky and organised her thoughts. ‘How much do you know about the treatment of female lunatics in this country?’
Pike shuddered. ‘I saw enough yesterday to last me a lifetime.’ He went on to explain how he had visited Bethlem, discovered the suicide’s name, and tracked down her former husband.
The Insanity of Murder Page 10
