The Pursuit of William Abbey

by Claire North

  The brush stopped moving. I heard wood against metal, then metal on metal as he picked up the first of his cutting blades. A laugh rose unbidden from the back of my throat, and died in the same breath. He hesitated, murmured, “Something funny?”

  “Hideo once said pretty much the same thing you just did. If you hadn’t cut his brain out, maybe you could have talked more on the subject.”

  “I don’t enjoy hurting people, William – you know that, I think. Langa should be near enough for you to know it.”

  “Neither do you regret it,” I replied. “I’m not sure what that makes you.” I thought I felt him shrug, then the tip of the blade pressed against skin. I blurted, “Did you catch her? Did you find Margot?”

  He didn’t answer, and didn’t need to. This time, I laughed so hard I shook, tears running down the side of my face and dripping onto the sheet below. Albert tutted, pulling back an inch. “Please don’t do that,” he chided. “I don’t want to have to paralyse you.”

  “Why not?” He didn’t answer, leaning back in with the blade. “Give me something for the pain.”

  “Unfortunately, I require you fully conscious to track the progress of the procedure. I did warn you that there would be some discomfort, but it will pass.”

  “Is there a cure?” I blurted. “Is there a way to cure it?”

  He hesitated, and I knew the truth of his heart in an instant.

  “No,” he replied, and pressed forward, a light, easy slice, just enough pressure to fold back a flap of skin. Compared to being shot, it was an unremarkable pain, a precise gasp rather than a shock of horror, but somewhere between the terror, the laughter and the tears I decided to try a bit of howling, if I could get the breath, just to see what it did for him.

  I had opened my mouth to give it my all when a voice calmly said from the door, “Kindly step away, Professor.”

  I couldn’t turn my head, but I would know her anywhere.

  “Mrs Parr,” murmured Albert, frozen, knife in hand. His fear rippled through me, a shadow to his incredulity. “What are you doing?”

  A footstep, sharp heel on cold tile.

  “Kindly step away, Professor,” she repeated. “As you know, I am entirely capable.”

  A snap of metal on metal, a shuffling of chair as Albert leant away.

  Another step, and another, Mrs Parr coming closer. I strained to see her, and couldn’t, but the truth of Albert’s heart was that he was astonished, and he was now rebuking himself, and he was building towards fury too, not that it would do any good – fury at her, fury at himself. And the truth of the man called Griswold is he also can’t believe this is happening, that the stupid old woman is going to spoil everything, and he is surprised to find that he is too terrified to look at her, too terrified to look at the gun in her hand, though he keeps on telling himself to be brave and gaze at her like a man.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Mrs Parr commanded, and reluctantly the man in red obeyed. Straps loosened, and as soon as I could move a hand, I scrambled and tugged at my restraints, half falling from the operating table in my haste to get away, a thin line of blood following the curve of eyebrow from the beginnings of Albert’s first incision, slithering to my temple.

  Mrs Parr stood before me, an oversized revolver in one hand – an absurd tool with a black iron handle – and a portmanteau in the other.

  “Dr Abbey,” she breathed, “you will walk behind me.”

  And the truth was that she was salvation, rescue, and she was angry, and she was ashamed, and all of this came with such potency that it was hard to really know any truth in her thoughts, other than that they burnt like a blizzard across her soul.

  Obedient, I moved behind her, and with a sharp nod she began to reverse towards the heavy doors of the operating theatre, keeping the gun still pointed at Albert and his man. The corridor outside was deserted, and as Mrs Parr stepped into it, she gestured at me to pull the door shut behind her, an iron key that weighed nearly as much as the gun emerging from her pocket to turn in the lock. This done, she put the revolver in the portmanteau and with a single sharp nod turned on her heel and began to march down the corridor.

  “We will only have a few minutes,” she barked as we walked. “I need you to listen with both ears and that other sense too, so that we don’t have to deal with any stupid questions. There are six men guarding this building. Two of them I have sent to deal with a broken gas pipe; it will not be long before they begin to wonder how the damage was done. One of them is an indolent wretch and is sleeping. That leaves three. There is a pantry at the side of the building, and a fig tree growing by it up a wall. You will need to climb. You should make the drop on the other side without injury. I will walk out through the front door; at my age I am not climbing fig trees. You will not wait for me. You will turn right immediately on leaving these grounds and proceed to the end of the lane. There you will turn left and walk for approximately five hundred yards until you reach a small passage between yew hedges. Walk down that for fifty yards until you see a gap on your right. You will be able to push through to come into the rear of a churchyard. A rhododendron grows by the grave of a man called Schroeder Croll. Beneath it you will find a bag with papers and money. I have not left any further instructions. If they catch either of us, they will put us in front of the Japanese man with only one eye, and ignorance is our best defence. I will not look for you, and you will not look for me. If you hear gunfire, or think something has happened to me, you will not turn around. You will proceed to the churchyard. Do you understand?”

  As she talked, she had walked, and now we stood at the end of a passage devoid of pictures, ornament, carpet or life, by a red wooden door to I knew not where. Here she turned, looked me in the eye at my silence and snapped, “William! Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “And do you see the truth of my heart?”

  “Yes, Mrs Parr. I do.”

  “Good. They used me too, William. They made me ignorant, a foolish little woman. That was my job. That was all I was good for. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mrs Parr.”

  A long intake of breath, a little nod. “I am going to step outside now. You will count to twenty, then follow me. You will turn right to head along the wall towards the pantry. You will not look back. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs Parr.”

  “Count now.”

  She pushed open the door, sudden, dazzling sunlight knocking me back as she stepped briskly onto gravel framed by grass. She turned sharply to her left, and marched away, out of sight.

  I counted to twenty, forcing myself to go slow, heart running in my head, then stepped into the light.

  There was a small, neat garden, vegetable patches set out in square boxes between the soft green grass. A bulging, squat oak tree leant over a small mound of tools, the highest leaves reaching out to bump against the windows of the house. To my left, Mrs Parr’s voice drifted on the breeze, a gentle chatter, “Are you sure I can’t get you anything? Tobacco, cold meats?”

  Another voice answering, perfectly well-meaning but a little bored by this old woman’s pestering. I turned right, hand pressing to the yellow brick, following until I came to a small outhouse butting up against the main property, a dark window framing gloomy shelves of eggs and paper bags. A pale fig tree stood by, leaves thick and soft, the soil not quite rich enough to produce sweet purple fruit. Mrs Parr had left a stepladder against its base, as if some gardener had been planning on pruning and never got round to the task. I unfolded it, used it to boost me up to the first branch, started to climb.

  The sound of Griswold shouting came just as my foot touched the top of the tall brick wall. Then another voice joined it, and feet ran on gravel.

  I swung out precariously onto the wall, began to edge my bottom down, feet dangling over the edge.

  Somewhere, muffled by the sharp edges of the house, a gun fired.

  It fired twice, and then once more.

  The
final shot was not a revolver.

  I listened, heard the wind moving in the trees and the distant whistle of a train. A pair of crows bickered on the other side of the lane, startling three pigeons into the sky.

  Feet tore against the earth, and I closed my eyes and dropped down to the other side of the wall.

  I landed awkwardly, sliding down mossy verges to the harder mud of the lane. I thought I heard a voice shout, but it was hard to tell. I turned right, and walked away.

  I was in suburban south London. Behind the wall to my right was a generous yellow-brick house with blue shutters and a weathervane. On the other side of the lane, framed in elm and oak, was a vicarage painted black and white, ready to partake in Sunday tea and a little light supplication. The path sloped downwards towards a line of trees dotted with cottages and the beginning of newer, terraced roads. A funnel of smoke from behind the treeline spoke of a train heading for the distant splat of the city, smeared in brown and soot. I walked, and did not run, and turned left and strode for five hundred yards until I came to a child-wide passage between two competing yew hedges grown by men who knew where their boundaries were and were damn sure that other people should learn to respect them. I shuffled fifty yards until I found the arching gap in the right-hand side where needled leaves had given way to a hollowed-out cave of wood, a child’s doll left in the dirt beneath the bower of green. Crawling on hands and knees, I pushed to the other side, bursting into a churchyard of clean white tombstones only just beginning to bloom with coal dust and lichen. Beneath the dark leaves of a rhododendron I found the grave of Schroeder Croll; behind it, nestled between tomb and wall, I found my medical bag.

  I didn’t know how Mrs Parr had found it. That had not been a truth that beat clearly in her heart. All that mattered was that I understood and obeyed; this had been her truth, her certainty and her demand, and there was no fighting it. And if I knew the other truths of her heart? If I knew that she blazed at having been kept in the dark for so many years, having been lied to and manipulated so that she could lie to and manipulate me? A stupid little woman, patronised and ignored and finally ordered to send her…

  … to send one she respected and valued…

  … to the operating table in chains?

  Well, that would only serve to make me get a move on, wouldn’t it?

  Mrs Parr had never had children, and did not permit herself to feel love. Such things were fancies for fools. She would have made a far better truth-speaker than me.

  Mixed into my instruments was a clean shirt, clean socks and a fistful of money. I did a quick count, and it must have been her life’s savings. I closed the bag, hugged it close to my chest, marched to the edge of the churchyard and let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

  Somewhere at my back, men were running, shouting, hunting.

  I could hear the edges of their hearts, the truth of their souls.

  I could not hear hers.

  I turned my face from them, and ran.

  Chapter 56

  The sun was rising at the truth-speaker’s back as he paused, grey light creeping in around the curtains.

  Lieutenant Charlwood lay sleeping between us, more of a boy than I’d ever seen him. I could hear the creaking of the pipes labouring against ice, ready to burst. I could hear the babble of my sisters’ voices, raised high, anxious. There was a big push nearby, right on top of us, a big battle to win. There was always some big battle to win, somewhere along the line.

  Finally, with a sigh, Dr Abbey closed his eyes, and murmured, “Charlwood dreams of saving his men. In his dream, he never quite gets to them. Something always holds him back, the air turned to stone. He never knew the names of all the privates in his company. Truth be told, they all looked the same to him. Just another Tommy. He felt bad about that. He always wanted to like the common man more than he did. He always thought it was a bit rough to assume that the rich man and the poor man are so far apart. Obviously different, of course. Culture. Learning. Maybe even breeding, to a degree. But that’s no reason to put a good chap down, is it?”

  His voice had slipped into mockery, disdain. Was that the truth of him? When everything was gone, was the only truth left in him that he was a bitter, twisted old man?

  As I thought it, I saw him flinch, look away.

  “We never know the truth of ourselves,” he mused. “Not really. Not until we see it reflected in someone else’s eyes. Saira had a sense of it. There is the truth we tell ourselves, she’d say, and then there is the reality of the world as it is, and that is always harder to see.”

  “You were someone better, once,” I replied. “If you’re telling the truth.”

  He smiled, ran his fingers through his hair. This time I looked for it; saw the long streak of white rising up from a thin, faded silver scar that ran above his right eye to the tip of his ear, a calculated scalpel cut. Then his hair fell around his face again, and putting his head on one side he said:

  “I despise who I am.” Thought about it a moment longer, and added, “Most of us would have cause for regret, if we ever truly looked at ourselves in the mirror. You can live with yourself after that revelation. You can even find redemption. But looking is terrifying. Looking is sometimes too hard.”

  He gazed down, and then almost immediately back up, eyes bright. “Albert is here.”

  I heard the sound of the car a moment later, listening for it now, wheels through pebbles, and looking round saw Abbey pull the folding knife from his pocket, knuckles white. I lunged forward, syringe pressing against Charlwood’s neck before the doctor was halfway to his feet. “I’ll do it,” I snapped, astonished at my ferocity. “I’ll kill the boy before you can curse him.”

  Frozen for a moment before me, I watched Abbey read the essence of my soul, and I was happy to let him look. He raised his hands a little, placating. At the end of the corridor, the front door bell rang, jangling on its rope. Slowly Abbey sank down against the window frame, knife slipping back into his pocket, hand closed tight around the handle.

  A voice in the distance, the sound of the chain being pulled back from the door.

  The cannon paused, then gave another thunderous encore, then returned to a more regular, rhythmic thump-thump-thump.

  The door closed, a woman’s voice mingling with a man’s.

  You shouldn’t have come, you shouldn’t have come, there’s a battle nearby, there’s been a push, you shouldn’t have come…

  I didn’t know if that was what Matron said, anxiety pushing through her stone skin, but the hospital dripped with the fear of it.

  Couldn’t hear the man’s answer, just a voice, low and insistent against the popping of gunfire outside.

  “All right, Sister Ellis,” murmured Abbey. “What do you want to do now?”

  Footsteps on tile, the crack of the loose one three rooms down, then an uneasy knocking on the door. People never know how to visit the sick, whether to burst in all merriment or shuffle in full of concern; to pretend that life goes on or wallow in pain. When neither of us answered, the door was pushed back uncertainly, and a man stood framed in it.

  He was smaller than I had expected, and older, his dark brown hair already a deep charcoal grey. He had a pinched face, tight around forehead, cheeks and lips, squeezing dark, sunken eyes. His beard had expanded out and down to form a bib beneath his jaw, and he had the beginning of a stoop and walked with his feet turned out to the side. For a moment I wondered if this could possibly be the fearsome professor, the hated Albert that Abbey had described, but then the two men saw each other, and there was only truth left.

  Whatever went through the professor’s mind, it took a while to sink in. He had a lot to look at. Abbey, by the window; his son, broken and sleeping before him. Me, ready to stick a needle in his boy, kill him rather than let him be cursed. Fair dos to the old man, he took to it all well enough, clearing his throat after a moment and pushing the door shut behind him, before turning to me and saying:

  “Do you
work here?”

  The question, given everything, weren’t what I expected. I felt suddenly absurd, needle in hand, so straightened up a little, finger still on the plunger of the syringe, and looking him in the eye said, “Yes. My name is Ellis.”

  “How is my son, Sister Ellis?”

  My eyes flickered to Abbey, but the professor was still staring straight at me, as if the doctor didn’t exist. “Sleeping, sir,” I replied.

  “And his condition? His letters were unclear, and the kind lady who answered the door appeared preoccupied. However, as we are here…” When I didn’t answer, his lips thinned, and straightening he added, “I would appreciate the truth. I think that will be… very pertinent, don’t you?”

  “His legs were blown off.” Abbey spoke, simple, reporting facts. “There was damage to his pelvis, lower abdomen. It’s a miracle he’s alive. Not necessarily luck. He’s doing well, but the chances of complications are high. He doesn’t really understand what’s happened to him yet. He doesn’t want to know. He thinks he would be better dead, but it isn’t brave to believe that, so he sits in a cycle of flickering courage and deepest despair. I sedated him, so Sister Ellis and I could talk.”

  “What complications?”

  “Apart from the psychological?”

  “Yes, if you please.”

  “Infection, of course. He’s already had one severe fever, and in the short term he won’t survive another. The damage to his pelvis has changed the layout of his internal organs; fundamentally the support for his intestines and stomach has been removed, and it’s likely that he’ll suffer digestive problems for the rest of his life, if they don’t just fail of their own accord. Of course urination will be extremely painful and difficult from here on in, and he’ll never have children. I would also predict respiratory difficulties long term, especially if he remains bed-bound. Morphine addiction is inevitable too, and it will eventually lose its efficacy as a pain medication.”

  “Are there alternatives?”

  “Heroin, perhaps. But all the information I have suggests that it will suffer much the same progression as morphine over time.”