The Women of Baker Street

by Michelle Birkby

  Mary took a deep breath.

  ‘I think – I may be wrong, maybe some of them really did run away – but I asked around and looked at some old parish records and old police reports and I think I’ve tracked down about twenty.’

  ‘Twenty?’ I cried out. Flo turned to look and Mary smiled at her winningly. Flo turned back to her scandal sheet.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mary, that would raise some concerns, no matter the circumstances,’ I objected. She nodded.

  ‘I know, but it didn’t all happen at once, it happened over a number of months. Well, years,’ she said sheepishly.

  ‘How many years?’

  ‘Around ten . . .’ she said slowly, aware that this was beginning to sound a tad unbelievable.

  ‘Ten,’ I said flatly, sitting back on my bed. Twenty boys disappear over ten years – no wonder no one noticed. In fact, I was surprised anyone said anything after all this time. It wasn’t so high a number, not in London.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ I remarked.

  ‘It started when John was with the Baskervilles,’ she admitted. ‘I had to do something with my time.’

  ‘You never told me,’ I said suspiciously.

  ‘I didn’t think there’d be anything to tell. And honestly,’ she said, smiling in what she hoped was a winning way, ‘I wanted to present it all as a fait accompli and impress you.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, not at all convinced. Maybe Mary was a better liar than I gave her credit for. Or maybe, so consumed with worry over my own health, I just hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I’ve got as far as I can get now, though,’ Mary said ruefully. ‘I have all the information; I just don’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘Present it to Wiggins. Or Mr Holmes,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think I can. It’s all just conjecture and rumour, and someone heard from someone else and so on. Even the cases with some sort of police record are years old. You know what Sherlock would say.’

  ‘Data. I must have data!’ I said, laughing, quoting Mr Holmes.

  ‘Besides, Billy and Wiggins told me. I don’t want to hand it over.’

  Why her and not me? I felt a sudden stab of jealousy.

  ‘Well, not to anyone but you,’ Mary said, suddenly insightful. ‘I’m sure Billy would have told you, but you were . . .’

  ‘Preoccupied,’ I finished for her. Worried by my pain, unsettled by Mr Holmes’ absence and still worrying over the outcome of my last case, I had sent Billy to Mary’s most days, wanting to be alone. No wonder he had confided in her.

  ‘I must talk to him,’ I said, meaning Billy, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  ‘He understands,’ Mary said. ‘Especially if we do take this on.’

  ‘Take what on?’ I insisted. ‘Unsubstantiated reports of missing boys? It’s not much to go on.’

  ‘No . . .’ Mary said, musing, but I knew that look. I was sharper now, and watching her.

  ‘What else?’ I insisted.

  ‘Nothing, really. Just a tale. A story. Something Wiggins’ boys tell to frighten each other.’

  ‘What?’ I said again. ‘What do they say, Mary?’

  ‘Wiggins says it’s silly but . . .’

  ‘Mary!’

  ‘The Pale Boys,’ she said cryptically.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  So she told me the tale of the Pale Boys. Boys who came onto the street only at night. They never came into the light. They never went onto the main street. They had pale faces, and all black clothes, and they melted into the shadows. They walked in dark corners and deserted alleyways. They never grew old, and never ate or drank and if you saw them, you would die.

  ‘Mary, it’s a ghost story!’ I cried. ‘It’s nothing but a horror story for children.’

  She nudged my copy of Frankenstein.

  ‘Even horror stories have some basis in fact.’

  I looked down at the book. It was fiction, but the horrible science within had some basis in fact.

  ‘Well played,’ I murmured.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mary said, smiling.

  ‘So the Irregulars think that the boys who disappeared became Pale Boys? Who never age, and never feed and kill those who see them? Some kind of vampires?’

  ‘They didn’t actually say vampires . . .’ Mary objected. ‘And Wiggins doesn’t think so. It’s just the younger boys who say that.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. Visiting time was ending. ‘Just ignore the Pale Boys connection. It’s just a ghost story. If I were you, I’d start with the most recent disappearances. Talk to the people in the shops near where the crossing sweeper was last seen. They’ll be used to him, they’ll know if he did something unusual.’

  ‘I will,’ Mary said, smiling happily.

  ‘I still think you’re making a fool of yourself, though,’ I warned.

  ‘Well, it passes the time,’ Mary said, standing up. She looked round at Sarah Malone and Miranda Logan and Emma Fordyce. I understood. I, too, was grasping at hints and shadows to pass the time. Mary and I understood each other perfectly.

  NIGHT TERRORS

  I regret to say, in our ward, we barely noticed the day staff. They were bright and clean and efficient and they seemed to be not separate individuals, but part of the fixtures and fittings of the hospital. They bustled around in their blue and white striped dresses and brilliant white aprons and lace headdresses, followed by eager probationers in brown, and were so many that I never learnt their names.

  It was different when night came. The staff changed over at six in the evening, and we were left with the Sister, and two nurses for the night. Then the room become more personal and intimate.

  I like the night-time. I like how the world changes, becomes private and quiet. I like how logical impossibilities in the day become just possible by moonlight. I feel I can hide, and watch, in peace at night.

  In the ward, the lights were turned down low in the evening. Later, only a single lamp on the Sister’s desk would burn. That end of the room, closest to the door, was panelled in dark wood – I believe it had once been some kind of vestibule. In the dead of night, that part of the ward was full of shadows.

  The great windows were left uncurtained. They were supposed to be open, according to Miss Nightingale’s rules, but some of the patients were convinced the night air was poisonous, and were always complaining, and asking that they be closed. The hospital became quieter, but never silent. There was always the cry of someone in pain, or someone alone and suffering, always the sound of footsteps, and low voices.

  Our Sister was called Ruth Bey. She never actually told anyone her name; I found it out later. She was a small woman, with smooth dark hair, and she never smiled, or looked at peace. She sat at the desk at the end of the room by the door, the one with the lamp, and wrote in her logbook all night. She rarely came to the patients, and when she did, she was silent and efficient.

  It was odd for a Sister to be there at night. They lived on the wards, in a separate suite of rooms, so were always available if needed, but most stayed on the wards during the day. However, Sister Bey (the only Sister not to be given the name of her ward, as if it was important she be known) slept during the day, and stayed on the ward, at her desk, all night.

  There were two night nurses, one for each side of the ward. The nurse on my side was always Nora Taylor. She was tall and slim and with a gentle smile, and a soft voice and strong hands. She had a sweet mouth, but also had an air of ‘do not touch’. She looked very efficient in her blue and white uniform, with a gold medal pinned neatly to it (a medal awarded to the top three probationers). I would come to know her very well, even count her as a friend, but on this second night in hospital she was just another stranger. The other nurse for tonight (although that nurse often changed) was Nurse Barry, also slim and tall, with a mass of golden curls like Mary, only hers were neatly confined beneath her cap, and never worked loose.

  I turned back to reading, Jekyll and Hyde this time. I had seen the play the previous year, a
ccompanied by Mary. I had been most impressed by the lead actor, and the way he had transformed from Jekyll to Hyde. Later, when I returned home, I had mentioned this to Mr Holmes and how unsettling it was, and he had pooh-poohed it.

  ‘Just lights and a clever actor,’ he said. ‘No more than that. Nothing to be afraid of.’

  Then, a week ago, once he had returned from Dartmoor, Mr Holmes had appeared at my kitchen door one night and said:

  ‘You were right. Lights and mirrors and transformations, while still just tricks, can be terrifying, at the right moment.’ And he was gone.

  Then he had given me this book, via Mary. There was a message, I knew. We all had a Hyde. I looked around the room at the sleepy, harmless, middle-aged and elderly ladies around me. We were nothing to be afraid of. And yet, I had done things, dark things, dangerous things, things I had never known I was capable of. There were acts I was proud of, and yet, at least one act I was ashamed of. It lay on my conscience and I could no longer deny that I, too, had a darkness inside me.

  If I could do that, what could they do?

  That was when Nurse Taylor came to introduce herself.

  ‘I’m Nurse Taylor, I shall be looking after you at night,’ she told me, softly, as she straightened my sheets. ‘Don’t be afraid to ask for anything, and call me if you need to. I shall hear you. Are you in pain?’

  ‘I am, but it’s bearable,’ I told her. The pain was a sign I was healing, and I couldn’t bear the fuzziness the drugs gave me. ‘Are you a Nightingale nurse?’

  ‘I am,’ she told me, pleasantly trained. ‘My sister and I are both Nightingale nurses. How did you know?’

  Mr Holmes could have told her in detail what had led to that conclusion, but all I knew was that she had an indefinable air of competence and duty that I had only seen in Nightingale nurses.

  ‘The way you walk, I think,’ I told her. She was pleased but puzzled and, straightening up, glanced at the book in my hand.

  ‘Won’t that give you nightmares?’

  I smiled, and shook my head. Oh, I had nightmares all right, that left me fighting my way back to wakefulness, panting and terrified and soaked in sweat, but they weren’t caused by books.

  They came again that night. I dreamed of my son, standing in a summer meadow, calling to me, waving me onwards. Behind him, in shadow, stood his father, my husband, my love. They were waiting for me, they wanted me to come to them, and I wanted to join them. I wanted to run through that tall grass in the sunshine and join them – but something held me back. Someone. Someone had hold of my arm. They grasped me tightly, hurting me, squeezing me and no matter how I twisted and turned I could not break free. I looked down at the hand, and saw it was charred and blackened. I could smell the stench of burnt flesh. I knew if I turned I would see a face, the skin burnt away, the bones and tendons and muscles laid bare, his mouth forever in a silent scream, and I knew I could never get away. He was dragging me down with him, to where he burnt.

  I woke sweating and panting again. I was not surprised. This was only a variation of the same nightmare I had been having for months. Relieved to be awake, I looked around the ward.

  I wasn’t the only one awake that night. I could hear St Paul’s clock striking three in the distance, and in the bed beside me, Sarah Malone was calling out, screaming incomprehensibly. I could hear Nurse Taylor try to soothe her.

  The screen was pulled between our beds, but as she moved round, Nurse Taylor’s skirt caught the screen and drew it back. In the light of the lamp on the desk I could see it all, Sarah Malone twisting and writhing in her bed, in the grip of some horrific pain. Nurse Taylor was trying to hold her down, and Ruth Bey watched from her desk, eyes wide.

  I could hear one clear word coming from Sarah.

  ‘Confess,’ she repeated over and over again.

  ‘Where’s the Catholic priest?’ Nurse Taylor asked Sister Bey. The other nurse came running in, and rushed to the bedside to help hold down Sarah.

  ‘There’s been an accident at the docks; he’s gone down there. He won’t be back in time.’

  ‘Surely there’s another priest?’ Nurse Taylor asked.

  ‘Not at this time of night,’ Sister Bey replied. I heard someone mutter about heathenish practices, and realized it was Betty. We all lay still in our beds, but we were all awake, all watching Sarah Malone struggle and scream her way out of life.

  ‘I can help,’ Miranda Logan said, sitting up. ‘I am a Catholic, too.’

  ‘You understand?’ Nurse Taylor said, as Sarah cried out again.

  ‘She cannot die unshriven,’ Miranda agreed, getting out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown.

  ‘You’re not a priest,’ Eleanor pointed out. ‘It won’t count. Isn’t that how you Catholics work?’

  ‘God won’t mind,’ Miranda said, as she walked to Sarah’s bed.

  I will never forget that sight. In the dim light Miranda walked past the end of my bed, wrapped in a red gown that trailed behind her, her dark hair loose down her back, her head held high. She looked imperious, regal even, a medieval queen.

  She waved the nurses away, and took Sarah’s hand. The nurses stood in the shadow, and watched.

  ‘I am of your faith,’ Miranda said clearly. ‘The old faith. You are dying.’

  Sarah, still now, looked up at Miranda and nodded.

  ‘You wish to confess?’

  Sarah nodded again.

  ‘There is no priest, but I can hear your confession. I will keep your secret and absolve you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Will you accept me?’

  Sarah nodded, and pulled Miranda down to her. Miranda sat on the bed and bent her ear to Sarah’s mouth. Sarah whispered urgently, her voice fast and harsh. I could not hear a word, though I tried. She did not speak for long. The clock was striking the quarter as she finished, and then she lay back, exhausted.

  ‘And do you regret these sins?’ Miranda asked. Sarah nodded again. She looked peaceful now, more so than she had done since I had arrived in this room. ‘Then we will pray,’ Miranda told her and, taking Sarah’s hand between her own, they prayed.

  They spoke in Latin. I was from an old Scottish Presbyterian family that distrusted Catholics, wary of their easy forgiveness and elaborate trappings. Yet I lay there and listened to this prayer that had been spoken for hundreds of years, men and women placing faith in old words that could never be understood, and I felt something peaceful and magical in it.

  The prayer said, Sarah Malone sighed once, and finally fell still. Miss Logan said the blessing, crossed herself, and stood.

  ‘She is dead,’ Miranda announced. The nurses hurried forward to take care of the body. The Sister made a note in both of her logbooks.

  Miranda Logan looked at me. ‘She is safe now,’ she said, calmly.

  ‘She seemed desperate to confess,’ I said to her. ‘Surely her sins can’t have been that bad?’

  ‘Her sins were great,’ Miranda said, as she walked back to her bed.

  My third night in the hospital. My second death.

  A CASE FOR MRS HUDSON

  I awoke to find the bed next to me empty, golden sunlight filling the room, and Dr Watson standing at the foot of my bed, reading my notes. It was very early, and the night staff were still on the ward, everyone else asleep.

  ‘Good morning,’ I mumbled. Dr Watson looked up and smiled.

  ‘You’re doing well,’ he said, putting down my notes. He came and sat on my bed. ‘I hear there was a death last night,’ he said in a low voice, nodding towards Sarah’s bed.

  ‘That poor woman,’ I said softly. ‘She was in agony.’

  ‘In mind or body?’ he asked.

  ‘Both. But I think her mind was soothed when she confessed just before she died.’

  ‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘She had a tumour; her death was expected. She had been ill a very long time.’

  Something about his tone puzzled me. Why should it be important that she was expected to die?
/>   ‘You know you’re not supposed to sit on the bed, Dr Watson,’ Nurse Nora Taylor said firmly, but with a smile as she came to join us.

  ‘Sorry!’ he said, quickly jumping up.

  ‘I forgive you. I’m off duty. I’m just about to go home. Sister Bey has already gone to her rooms,’ she told him, and they both looked at me.

  Well, it was obvious that they knew each other. She knew he was Dr Watson – and therefore she knew exactly who I was: Sherlock Holmes’ housekeeper.

  ‘You know who I am,’ I said quietly, anxious not to disturb the others.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’d rather they didn’t know who you are either.’ She nodded towards the rest of the ward.

  ‘I’m not a simpleton. What’s going on?’ I demanded. They exchanged a look. ‘Now!’

  ‘Nurse Taylor came to me a while ago, worried about this ward,’ John told me. ‘As you know, it’s a private ward, very small, for the exclusive use of Friends and benefactors of the hospital.’

  ‘I know. You arranged for me to be here,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, well, this ward . . .’ John tried to say, but he wasn’t sure how to explain himself. He seemed rather sheepish.

  ‘It’s odd,’ Nora Taylor said, in her brisk way. ‘There’s a strange atmosphere here, like nothing is ever quite right.’

  ‘It’s a hospital. We’re all ill: nothing is right,’ I told her dryly.

  ‘I know, and I am used to that. But there is a constant sense of expectation in this ward, almost of dread.’

  She seemed, under that prim blue and white uniform, to be somewhat of a romantic, of the Gothic sort.

  ‘What do the other nurses think?’ I asked.

  ‘There is a different nurse with me each night,’ she confided. ‘The others don’t like it here either. As for the Sister . . .’ Her voice trailed away. It must be difficult to betray someone you have been taught to revere as the voice of all sense.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said quietly.

  ‘She never talks to patients,’ Nora said, even quieter, so I could barely hear her. ‘Never walks round the ward. She never takes time off. And she writes in her logbook all the time.’