Painted Trust

by Elsa Holland

  She felt like she had imbibed an elixir which now ran through her veins, igniting desire and passion with every thought of the man who had fed it to her. The longer she stood there looking at that corridor, the hotter she felt. Between her legs, that new feeling burned, a stirring of sensation as she recalled his touch, the sure, firm way he had pressed his fingers there, as if he had a right, as if it was the most natural place for those fingers to be. And it had felt right, had felt the perfect thing in that moment. She wanted to know what it felt like when there was no bunched-up wool between his touch and her. What would it feel like to have that confident touch slide between the folds of her sex and press into her?

  This whole attraction complicated everything. The one man she had ever been attracted to had to be the one man she had no choice but to betray.

  Edith started towards the back door.

  Truth be told, her own role in the events was making her squirm. She’d clung to him, had pulled him to her for more and, even worse, she had unbuttoned his trousers! What had possessed her? She had never before been in such an all-encompassing, utterly mindless state. Even now, the thought was mortifying; she lay blame at the feet of her need, a euphoric drug that washed her rational self away, along with the concerns that plagued her. For a few moments, what was hunting her—she and her friends—was forgotten and that freedom from fear had been the most intoxicating sensation of all.

  ‘I’m cold. I’m desolate, lure me out of here, Apple, lure me with your warmth.’

  There were no other sentiments that would have made her step forward in that moment. He was handsome, yet she had seen many, many handsome men. He was fiercely intelligent, but she had met dozens of them, too. Moreover, she was disciplined enough not to be dazzled away from her priorities. But what he’d said, how he’d looked, had shot straight into her innermost self. She was cold, she was desolate, she needed a taste, a taste of what life promised and so infrequently delivered. She had needed his warmth as much as he had needed hers.

  Edith fanned her face as she walked toward the back door. She could see Thomas waiting for her through the glass pane.

  Calm down.

  Her hands touched the buttons at her neck, they were all closed, then checked those on the wrists—closed, too.

  Vaughn must think her loose, a floosy. A woman available to a man of higher station. Her hand fluttered to the buttons at her neck again. The irony. She was in danger because she refused to give sexual favors to her Collector, and here she was, her body aflame with the dream that Vaughn would want those sexual favors.

  Taking in a deep breath, Edith smoothed down her skirts and then walked through the door into the cool air.

  CHAPTER 17

  Thomas looked up as she walked toward him. Despite being in his early twenties, there was a weight in his eyes. She saw the same weight when she looked in the mirror, only darker. From what she had seen, Vaughn, too, was holding onto the edge of the cliff by his fingernails, the earth around him crumbing and threatening to send him plummeting. Surgeons and anatomists saw a part of life others didn’t; hands in jars, eye balls held in your fingers, the trail of nerves as they lay in your palm. The body as parts preserved and handled like foodstuffs. Every dissection confirmed the body was a collection of parts when not animated by that mystical spark of life.

  The full comprehension of that reality pushed one toward God.

  Or it pushed one to science, to Darwinism and perhaps Atheism.

  Or it pushed one to despair. Nothing was sacred, no person was safe, no amount of goodness could act as protection from the foibles and machinations of the body. Much like inheriting a house or purchasing a carriage, a body came with faults and weaknesses, only far less easily fixed.

  An anatomist in the making, Thomas had confronted the reality of death, and the mark of it sat in his gaze as it did for all of them. It was just that she and Vaughn had been at the coalface in different ways. For Vaughn, the deaths were at the end of his well-intended scalpel, or present in his forensic work; for her, well, she had very nearly been the study of a forensic enquiry herself. Edith had faced the horror that human nature could become, not only the Skinner, but the men who believed that cultivating such a beast was not an act of inhuman horror but rather a means to satisfy transient wants.

  “Thank you for waiting.” The boy blushed at her words and her heart softened.

  “I’ll lead the way, we’ll go in through the gallery,” he said gallantly, ushering her across the courtyard and into the hall, where she promptly came to a halt.

  Inside, the smells, the bottles of preserved body parts, the lacquers, the instruments were all so familiar they stabbed at her heart; for the briefest of seconds she missed her basement lab at the Hurleys’, and the brief period of freedom she enjoyed there. Yet that lab was leagues away from this one.

  Her gaze darted to Thomas, who watched her reaction and was not disappointed.

  “It’s quite something, isn’t it? I am not sure I have grown used to it myself.”

  And he was right, the space was extraordinary, and it said something very fundamental about its owner. The plastered interior walls stretched to the full height of the converted barn, which would be level with the second story of the house. Breathtaking images were painted on the walls, large anatomical murals filling the immense wall surfaces not covered by cupboards or shelving.

  Edith stepped closer to the wall nearest her, her breath quickening. It was as if Michelangelo had peeled the layers of flesh and skin off his chiseled subjects. They were images of a time gone by, of medicine as it may have been dreamed of by the ancient Greeks. The beauty of life, the images promised in their raw human vulnerability, reached into her chest and grabbed at her own longing to heal, to master life and death.

  The perfect athletic form of the figures expressed a promise that life was worth fighting for. That, despite the innate human vulnerability, under it all there was something more than the fixtures of the physical that should propel us. That there was something divine in a human form that was so wondrously crafted, something profoundly beautiful, it spoke of a creator. And that it was the task of medicine to unfold its secrets in the same way astronomers sought to unveil the secrets of the universe.

  Edith reached out, the surface smooth under her hand, tracing the painted image with her fingertips. Skin, bone, ligaments, muscles and nerves, portrayed in lifelike proportions and colors; the balance and beauty based on a master’s knowledge of the body.

  “An idealist.” She murmured under her breath. She looked for a signature, her gut tightening as she guessed the answer. An answer that would add yet more guilt to what she was already feeling about her mission. “Who did he commission for these?”

  “Ah.” Thomas raised his eyebrows “Dr Vaughn is the artist of all the murals.”

  Her heart lurched. This was the man in the dark corridor, the man driven to stand in the surgery covered in blood and demand they all follow. The man who had reached in and stroked her soul, who said she was not alone in the bleakness, that they could share the pain together. Was it really possible that after so short an acquaintance they had journeyed so far?

  Edith stepped away from the back wall to further survey her surrounds. On the far wall were shelves and a bench which ran the full length of the room with drawers and cupboards below, and around her were a few tables. Running parallel to the tables was a freestanding bench with cupboards either side, topped with shelves containing specimens in jars—eyes, hands, fingers, gallbladders, lungs, lymph nodes, and feet.

  Along the back wall were four more murals, the skeletal system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, and a combined image of the respiratory, digestive and reproductive systems.

  Between the long work tables were anatomical models made of papier-mâché.

  “Those can be taken apart—you probably have seen them before.”

  She nodded. She had been gifted with a partial by a Collector, a papier-mâché heart that could
be taken apart and put back together again, an unfortunately literal message of the feelings he had hoped she would reciprocate.

  “You must see this.”

  On a stand in the space between two cabinets stood the most expensive and sought-after of all anatomical models.

  “It’s a Dr Auzoux!” The Parisian firm were renowned for the best anatomical models the world had to offer, and they cost a fortune.

  Thomas beamed a knowing smile and nodded. “Oh yes. And she is a beauty, isn’t she?”

  Edith ran her hands over the coveted object then looked around the room again as heat flushed over her skin. Vaughn was nowhere in sight, but he was all around her. The man who had made these murals, who worked in this space, was the most attractive man—mind, body and soul—she had come across in her short and sordid life. As a Painted Sister, she had met some of the world’s richest, most handsome, most intelligent and most eccentric people, yet Vaughn surpassed them all.

  Edith drew in a large breath. Absolutely nothing good would come from her straying from her plan. She would stay focused, do what she needed to then leave for Africa, for real freedom and safety.

  She drew her shoulders back. Closed her senses and looked at the space as a professional. Gleaned every scrap of information which might help get what she needed.

  Edith walked over to a table near the systems murals. “Is this where you work?”

  Thomas came over. “Yes. I am preparing new models for the first-year students at the charity hospital where Dr Vaughn teaches.” On the table lay a forearm; the skin was removed, and the muscles were in the process of being neatly separated, each part labeled. Next to it was a rendition of the arm.

  Edith leaned in closer and read the labels.

  “This is very good, Thomas.” She checked back and forth between limb and drawing.

  “Isn’t this the extensor pollicis brevis?”

  “Yes.” Thomas moved to stand next to her and check his drawing. “Oh, I see, I have failed to label it.” Thomas set about fixing the mistake. “I have more to get through, did you want to help?” Thomas looked at her hopefully.

  Edith turned. “I’d rather like us to take Dr Auzoux apart and put him back together again.” Thomas laughed but was already wrapping his arms around the life-sized model and bringing it to a clear table.

  “It has to be put back together before he comes back, and I have work that needs to be finished.”

  “I’m an old hand with anatomy,” Edith gave Thomas a wink, “and besides, Mr Price said the doctor’s not due back until tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Stay close, keep your mouth shut and take notes.” Morrison looked down at the pup whose hairless cheeks were flushed. The kid’s eyes darted about, taking in everything as they entered the inner workings of Scotland Yard.

  “What if I have a question?” The pup’s hand darted into his satchel for the notebook. “I have numerous items to clarify.”

  Morrison shook his head.

  “Having ‘numerous items to clarify’,” he mimicked the kid, “is to be expected, but now’s not the time.”

  They moved down the tiled corridor, passing offices with opaque rippled glass, each one identifiable by the name and position painted in black and gold on the plaque on the door.

  “I would have thought now was precisely the time.”

  “No.” Morrison clasped the kid’s arm and guided him to the left, then started down a wide set of marble stairs.

  “You said on the train that asking questions is the cornerstone of good detective work.”

  “As is silence,” Morrison stopped on the stairs. “Listen kid, just trust me on this: we stick to the facts, no supposition or extrapolation. If we tell them what we’re thinking it colors their findings, and we lose the opportunity for a fresh set of eyes to see something we missed. We want an unadulterated opinion to add to our own, opinions to test our own.”

  “Supposition . . . extrapolation . . . unadulterated.” The kid mimicked under his breath as they started back down the stairs.

  Morrison barked a laugh. “Just adapting to the environment kid. The average man is scared shitless of another man with balls.”

  The coroner’s office and forensic laboratory were on the lower ground floor at the back of the building, the location allowing for the loading and unloading of bodies with a degree of privacy.

  They reached a door labeled ‘Laboratory 2’ and Morrison stopped.

  “I’m not kidding kid. Shut up and listen. Listen for what’s said, as well as what isn’t—listen for the hesitations. I promise we’ll have plenty of time to talk through questions later. Right now, we are collecting facts.”

  Morrison opened the door. Their girl was already on the steel table, minus the cloth cover. Her exposed, brutalized form was achingly vulnerable in the harsh lights. White tiled walls and steel finishings framed the room, a space to be hosed and wiped down. A metal trolley with a white cloth had an array of surgical and dental instruments, the shapes and structures of which left one wondering uncomfortably as to their purposes.

  A door at the far side of the room swung open and the Assistant Coroner, Dr Simpson, came into the room; a man aged well into his sixties, his bald head and round wire glasses shining under the laboratory lights.

  “Ah, Morrison. I sent a message hoping to intercept you, save you the trip in.” Simpson’s eyes darted over the pup then back at Morrison in an odd assessing look. The pup coughed. The air prickled with unspoken words.

  Morrison shifted, pushed his hands into his pockets. “You know each other?”

  Simpson moved as if he’d lost interest in the pup and laid a cover over the girl. Morrison looked at his sidekick, who had stepped back behind him and was shutting up as requested.

  “We’ll put her into the cool room. Something like this,” Simpson waved his hand over the body, “is best done with a second opinion. I have sent a request to a man I’ve used in the past. A Dr Anthony Vaughn from Edinburgh.”

  “I’ve not heard of him. Don’t we have someone local at hand?”

  Simpson shrugged, “My previous dealings with him have all been excellent and he comes highly recommended—the Coroner himself insisted I use him.”

  Irritation spiked. “There’s a killer on the street, Simpson—anything you can tell me to start would be appreciated.”

  “She was skinned,” was all Simpson said, as he started to wheel the covered body towards the cold room.

  “That much I was able to deduce myself. Anything else?”

  “I suggest you follow whatever evidence you collected at the scene. We’ll notify you when Dr Vaughn arrives and we start the examination and autopsy.” Simpson pushed the gurney through the doors, his gaze seeking the pup, who seemed to have shuffled out of Simpson’s line of sight and behind Morrison.

  Some odd protective instinct made Morrison broaden his shoulders, the width and length of his black coat visual protection for the kid. Simpson lifted his gaze and met Morrison’s, then huffed and pushed the girl through the doors and left the room, leaving him and the kid alone.

  Morison turned. “You know him?”

  The pup shook his head but red washed his neck.

  “I know you know each other; you virtually climbed into my coat.”

  “I am familiar with Dr Simpson, but it isn’t pertinent to our investigations and will not interfere with them.”

  “That’s for me to decide, kid, now cough it up.”

  And there was that shutter again. It slammed down behind the kid’s eyes.

  Morrison grabbed the kid and pulled him up on his toes, the pup’s eyes flaring in shock. “Speak.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “All the easier to share.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t care.” Morrison leaned down so that they were nose to nose and the kid teetered on the tips of his toes. “Tell me, or you’re off the case.”

  A flash of genuine panic showed
on the kid’s face. “Hurleys, I met him at the Hurleys’. He did some work for them.”

  “What kind of work?” Morrison kept the kid on his tiptoes a moment longer.

  “One of their wards, Miss Edith Andrews, she was studying anatomy. He came in and taught her a couple of times when her regular teacher, Dr Thorpe, was indisposed. I met him then but . . . I . . . he may not recognize me.”

  “Oh, he recognized you, alright.” Morrison let the pup down and he staggered a little.

  When you successfully rattled someone, it took them a few moments to pull themselves back into the controlled version of themselves, and their actions in those few moments told the unmitigated truth. The kid was flustered, focused on straightening his clothes as he composed himself, oddly patting his little pigeon chest. It hit Morrison then that the kid had that young look dandies tried so hard for, pale peaches-and-cream skin and delicate features.

  Morrison’s jaw tightened.

  “Did he touch you?”

  “Touch me?” The kid was still disoriented as he checked and rechecked his satchel.

  “Simpson, did he touch you?” Morrison cupped his dick and sack and gave it a shake. The kid’s gaze followed his hand down then staggered back in genuine shock.

  “No!” The kid then let loose a string of vocabulary that Morrison wouldn’t have thought he’d know let alone have the balls to say.

  The tension moved out of his shoulders, out of his jaw.

  Simpson liked boys, but the kid hadn’t known that. Had been horrified at the insinuation.

  And the kid was growing a pair.

  “Come on, kid, I’ll teach you how to put those words into a sentence.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The sight of her wasn’t what Vaughn expected. He’d seen the light was on, but he’d imagined he’d see Thomas in the anatomical lab, not her, not his Apple. Vaughn moved through the room towards his newest household member, his chest oddly tightening.