Ainsley pushed the door to the morgue with a bit more force than usual and was startled when it hit a closely placed bed. The cadaver on the slab shook from the impact and its arm slid from the side peeking out from under the sheet. Ainsley exhaled and placed the arm gingerly back in place. As he did so he noticed the room was at capacity. Body after body was laid out in front of him in neat rows, a single rather slender aisle the only way from the examination table to the door. It was undeniable. His work was piling up. Ainsley had been so engrossed in the workings of the case that he had not noticed before.
A second after Ainsley turned from the door it reopened, again hitting the table with a thud. Ainsley turned and saw Benjamin and Frisker coming in with yet another body on a stretcher between them.
“Over there,” Frisker said, indicating with a nod of his head where the boy should go.
Ainsley did his best to slide out of the way as they passed.
“Excuse us, sir,” Frisker said with a nod as he passed.
Ainsley watched as they choose an occupied slab and hoisted the body between them on top of one already there.
“You can’t do that,” Ainsley protested, drawing near with a hand held out in front of him. “These are people.”
“Sorry, sir, Dr. Crawford’s orders,” Frisker said, as he looked about them. Ainsley followed his gaze and saw a handful of other stretchers laid out the same.
It was no secret Ainsley had been neglecting his duties. Too often did he leave with Simms to a crime scene or, more recently, to search out witnesses. He could hardly say he was earning the wages the hospital paid him, and the evidence was piling up in the morgue.
Ainsley pulled back the sheet from one and surveyed the boy’s face. It was obvious he had been pulled from the Thames; the filth from the water clung to his flesh while the stench created an aura around him.
“All right then,” Ainsley said, replacing the sheet. “Let’s get started then and get these people their rest.”
Between Ainsley, Frisker, and Benjamin, the work was quick. Ainsley had to discipline himself not to get carried away with the details. He had to remind himself of the intent of his work, to examine the bodies, superficially if need be, and give the families a small measure of reasoning for their pain. It was not the time to dally and it was this internal dialogue that made quick work of half the room.
“Hold the bucket,” Ainsley commanded sternly to Benjamin. “Hold it.” A second later, Ainsley tilted the body on the table enough so that a gush of blood, bile, and Thames water slid out, most missing the bucket and hitting the floor.
“Sorry, sir,” Benjamin said, still shocked by what he had just witnessed.
Ainsley shook his head, but he wasn’t angered. Frisker appeared a moment later with a mop and together the two porters worked around Ainsley to clean up the mess while the doctor turned back to his patient.
So focused was Ainsley that he did not notice when Simms entered the room. Pulling up beside the examination table, the detective watched as Ainsley did his work.
“He’s working out then?” Simms asked, indicating Ben with a slight tilt of his head.
Ainsley huffed. Perhaps Crawford wasn’t the only one who expected Benjamin to fail. “I’ve had worse, if that’s what you mean.” Ainsley quickly sorted through the organs in the abdomen. “Did you get my message?” he asked while still bent over the body.
“Yes, chloroform you say?”
“Both Sidney and I could smell it. It’s quite clear.”
“I understood chloroform to be odorless.”
“It is, for the most part. That’s why we didn’t smell it on the others. Our murderer splashed some on Maryanne’s clothes and that’s where the smell is coming from,” Ainsley explained.
Simms nodded, thinking over Ainsley’s words. “Did it kill them straight away?”
“We can hope,” Ainsley said. “I want to show you something.” Ainsley turned to his sink and began to wash his hands. “Why don’t you two go have lunch then?”
Frisker and Ben nodded and turned to leave. While he watched them go, Ben following behind Frisker, he could not help but feel a twinge of pride for having given the boy such a chance. He was holding up remarkably well.
“The cuts are interesting,” Ainsley said, turning to Simms. Together they walked into the adjoining room, where Maryanne waited. Her exam had been completed and her torso sewn up but what Ainsley intended to show the detective did not require her to be unstitched. Pulling the sheet back, Ainsley leaned in and pointed to the top of the scar in her torso.
“He cut her here, in what I thought was a circular pattern, a bit haphazard.”
Simms shrugged. “He was in a rush.”
“Yes, but then I found this.” Ainsley pointed to a part of her wound just above the others. It was an inch long and formed a nearly perfect line. “Seems odd to try to be so precise just to hack away at her insides.”
“Did you find this on any of the others?”
Ainsley shook his head. “No, they were too mutilated to see much of anything. The only consistency I found was he used a dull blade, no more than three inches long. All of their wounds were jagged.”
Simms nodded absentmindedly. “So he drugs them, lies them down, and then attempts to cut them open quickly with a blade that could barely give a decent shave?”
“That’s right.”
“For what purpose?”
“Well, he wanted some organs. He took her stomach and one of her kidneys. And he reached up and cut out a lung but he only cut off half of it.”
“Half?” Simms gave Ainsley a look of puzzlement.
“His blade was not big enough or sharp enough to cut through the sternum.” Ainsley turned and went back to his cache of tools arranged along the far wall of the other room. When he returned he held up one of his sharpest knives; though thin it could open a chest cavity in less than two minutes. “He’d have to have this to cut through the ribs with any kind of speed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. He had tried on Jonathon.” Ainsley pointed to the body of the boy behind Simms.
The two men turned and Ainsley pulled down the sheet, which revealed a half-dozen shallow cuts into the boy’s chest. “He tried here and here,” Ainsley pointed, “but his knife was too dull. So he must have not bothered with the girl.”
Simms listened intently while Ainsley explained. “If he wanted a lung, why doesn’t he just get a better blade?”
Ainsley shrugged. “Perhaps he can’t afford one.”
“He could steal it,” Simms put forth.
Ainsley nodded. He doubted any man who thought nothing of murdering children would have scruples against theft.
“A constable from Surrey Constabulary stopped by my office this morning,” Simms said. “That’s why I was so late coming in to speak with you.”
“Surrey?”
“He said he read about our surgeon in the papers and thought he might have something of interest to us. About a year ago, a body was found in Guildford, a young girl, not much older than Maryanne here, killed in the same manner.”
“Did they catch him?”
“No. The clues at the time were limited and the perpetrator never struck again.”
“So you think these cases could be related,” Ainsley said, anticipating where the detective was headed.
“The medical examiner still works in the area, if you care to speak to him,” Simms said.
Ainsley looked about the room, the remaining corpses waiting for his attention. If he left to pursue the case with Simms there was no doubt Crawford would be cross. But in his own way Ainsley felt he owed it to the children who lay dead in the other room.
Ainsley smiled. “I have a sudden hankering for a train ride, don’t you?”
The Royal Surrey County Hospital was housed in a newer red brick building with arched windows and a stout white bell tower centred on the roof. Ainsley and Simms walked the few steps to the front door before turning to a nurse stationed at a d
esk near the front door.
“Pardon us, ma’am, where may we find Dr. Ferris?” Simms asked, reading the name off his notepad.
“He’d be in the south wing, you’ll have to follow this corridor all the way down,” she said as she pointed to the hallway behind them. “Turn left and it is the last door to your right, I believe. But he might not be in. He’s so rarely at the hospital.”
“Has he a general practice in the area? A dentistry?”
“Well, no,” the nurse answered thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what he does when he’s not here.”
Ainsley and Simms nodded their thanks and headed in the way she directed. It was a much smaller facility than St. Thomas, and Ainsley marvelled at the brightness to the rooms and overall uplifting atmosphere.
“You seem chipper,” Simms remarked as he followed Ainsley’s gaze. “Far cry from London-town.”
“Everything is so new,” he said, peering into each doorway as they passed.
“The hospital itself is only a few years old,” Simms said with a smile. “Thinking of transferring?”
Ainsley shook his head, frowning at the thought. “No,” he said, without missing a beat. “I think I’d be bored.”
They walked the entire length of the hospital, each step taking them farther and farther from the regular hum of the nurses and visiting families. Another corridor, this one short and dark, led them to a door marked “Mortuary” in hand-painted, white lettering.
Simms looked to Ainsley. “Should we knock?” he asked.
Ainsley shrugged and turned the knob. The room on the other side was nearly empty. The only light was from a small window on the farthest wall and the light it filtered just gave the objects shapes and little shading. Arranged neatly, the shelves and tables made the place look as if it were never used. Only two bodies were hidden inside, both under sheets and situated against the wall.
“Hello?” Ainsley called out as he stepped inside. “Dr. Ferris?”
“We must have just missed him,” Simms suggested.
Ainsley saw something out of the corner of his eye, and studied the bodies to the left closely.
“Scotland Yard,” Ainsley said. “We rode the Brighton train for half an hour just to get here.”
One of the corpses moved, first rolling to the side and then sitting up. Simms jumped, preparing to make for the door, but Ainsley grabbed his arm. He cocked his head toward the moving sheet. “I think we found our doctor.”
Dr. Brindle slipped from under his sheet, the look of an afternoon nap betraying his secret.
“If I didn’t know you were there I’d have left thinking the place empty. How often does that trick work?” Ainsley asked.
“More often than you’d think,” Dr. Ferris answered, adjusting his glasses and dusting off his shirt and trousers. “How did you know I was there?” he asked, pointing to his hiding spot.
Ainsley smiled. “I am a morgue surgeon at St. Thomas. I know what a dead room feels like.”
Dr. Brindle eyed him, titling his head back slightly to look at Ainsley through his spectacles. “Usually, the other bodies scare people away. Nurses tend to not stick around for long with that smell in the room.” Dr. Ferris gestured toward the second body and laughed slightly. “I guess I have gotten used to it.” The doctor stepped forward, rubbing his hands quickly on his shirt and offering it to Ainsley first, then Simms. “Morgue surgeon, you say,” he said as he greeted them. “I thought you said Scotland Yard.”
“He’s Scotland Yard, I’m Dr. Peter Ainsley.”
“Detective Inspector Simms, sir,” Simms said.
“Dr. Ferris.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What can I do for you? I can’t say I know anything about the goings-on of London.”
“You may, actually,” Ainsley explained. “We are looking into the case of The Surgeon, you may have read the papers.”
Dr. Ferris dropped his arms to his side, obviously startled at the change in conversation. “Oh, yes.”
“We understand from a detective with the Surrey Constabulary that there was a similar instance here about a year ago. If it’s true, there may be a connection.” Ainsley turned to Simms, suddenly aware that it was usually he who explained their case. However, given that they were meeting one of Ainsley’s counterparts, it only seemed fitting that he should be the one to do the questioning.
“The boy found on”—Simms opened his notebook—“Tunsgate. Do you remember?”
Dr. Ferris looked confused, as if silently searching his memory. He began to shake his head.
“He would have had missing organs, a wound from here to here,” Ainsley indicated where on himself. “We’d like to see the file.”
Dr. Ferris looked from Ainsley to Simms, a look of doubt coming over him. He adjusted his spectacles and let out a deep breath. “I’m sorry, gentlemen—”
“It must be in your files. Can we sort through your reports from last August?” Ainsley pressed.
The doctor gave them a look as if he didn’t want to, as if he didn’t trust them.
“We won’t be but a minute,” Simms pressed.
Finally, Dr. Ferris nodded, and motioned for them to follow him. He led them around a corner to a set of tall wooden filing cabinets and pulled on one of the doors. He fumbled with some files, looking at them and placing them back. Opening another drawer, he gave the pair of investigators an apologetic look. “I’m not as organized as I used to be,” Dr. Ferris explained.
Ainsley began to doubt Dr. Ferris was looking in earnest and stepped forward to look for himself. He’d be damned if he came all that way, with hope of finding a new lead, only to go home empty-handed because of some two-bit country doctor. Standing beside Dr. Ferris, Ainsley searched, trying to make sense of the filing system. Eventually, Ainsley moved to the second cabinet and Dr. Ferris took a step back.
“Here are a few we can search in,” Ainsley said, pulling out a handful of files. He handed them to Simms, since Dr. Ferris’s help had been proven unreliable.
“Is there a table, Doctor?” Simms asked.
Dr. Ferris started, as if surprised someone was speaking to him. “What? Oh, yes. Table.”
Ainsley grabbed a second handful and followed Simms and Ferris back to the examination room. With two stools pulled up to the exam table, Ainsley and Simms sat opposite each other while Ferris slipped back onto his original bed and bit his nails while he watched.
Ainsley saw Simms eye him from across the table as they flipped through the pages. If he wasn’t already fuming, Ainsley would be laughing at the ludicrousness of it all.
After some minutes searching Ainsley found it, a brief report and a grouping of rudimentary sketches. “Here,” Ainsley said, laying the papers flat between himself and Simms. Ainsley read the notes while Simms looked over the images.
“Do you remember the case?” Ainsley asked.
Ferris slipped off his seat and drew near, leaning in to look over the file. He grabbed one and read his notes quickly before grabbing another. “There were hardly any clues, if I recall. The boy was six years or so and worked as a sweep.” Ferris placed the pages down. “His stomach was missing and his liver. It looked as if the kidneys had been scratched by the blade but that’s it. It was truly a nightmare,” the doctor said, shaking his head, “I couldn’t get the body sewn up properly.”
“What about chloroform?” Ainsley asked sharply.
“What?”
“Did you smell it on his body, his hair, clothes?”
Ferris laughed. “Good God, I don’t smell them. It’s bad enough I have to operate on the street urchins as if I cared for them. No one was pressing for answers, not even his employer, who I suspect had already procured another to take his place easily. Vagabonds are a dime a dozen.” The doctor laughed softly at his own joke.
Ainsley felt his body stiffen at his colleague’s words. Secretly, he dared the doctor to continue so Ainsley would have an excuse to give him one to the nose. He saw Simms watching him, shaking his hea
d slightly as if he could read Ainsley’s thoughts. In the end, Ainsley decided to ignore the doctor and instead concentrated on the papers in front of him.
“So this is related to that Surgeon case?” Ferris asked, unaware of the anger he was inciting. “Golly, those murders are getting quite a bit of attention.” He whistled. “I bet all the papers are begging for interviews and the like. I bet everyone wants to see what you’ll do. You’re like a West Side play, you are.”
Ainsley jumped to his feet. “These are children!” he yelled, stepping within an inch of Dr. Ferris’s face. “Any man who seeks fame at the expense of dead children is a blackguard!”
Dr. Ferris raised his hands as if to push Ainsley from him. Simms pulled Ainsley back.
“Come on, Peter,” he said, grabbing at Ainsley’s shoulder.
Ainsley turned to the file and gathered the papers. “I’m taking these,” he said. “They’re liable to get lost for all time in your care,” he sneered. Ainsley righted the stool and replaced the other files they had been sorting through but was careful to keep the one they needed in his grasp. He left without waiting for Simms to follow and marched down the hall, flipping through the pages in an effort to refocus his energies.
“Dr. Ainsley!”
Ainsley did not stop at the sound of Simms’s voice behind him but he did slow down a bit.
“I fear you gave that man a heart attack,” Simms said once he was at Ainsley’s side.
“And he’d deserve it. Who would hire such an imbecile?” Ainsley asked, not expecting an answer.
Ainsley set the pace, eager to get out of the hospital, assured that he had all he needed in his left hand. “He didn’t want us to find these,” he said, holding up the pages he held tightly in his grasp. “I have never seen such ill-organized notes.”
The Dead Among Us Page 17
