Spider Silk

by A. Wendeberg

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that excellent brandy of yours for hours now.’ He took the offered glass and tipped it down his tingling gullet. His tongue felt like a dead fish, his throat clenched, and his skin was all drawn up. He looked up at Sévère.

  ‘You look ill, Johnston.’

  Johnston pulled at his collar. ‘I must have caught influenza. The hospital is full to the brim. You wouldn’t believe how many patients were brought in today.’ He touched his brow. Sweaty. Clammy. His hands felt as though he’d dug into a nest of ants. A queer symptom.

  ‘Influenza? Really?’

  Johnston blinked, looked down at his hands, and curled his fingers. ‘Strangely intense.’ A mere mutter. His gaze flickered to the brandy. ‘I might be needing a holiday.’

  Sévère stood. ‘I’ll arrange for the carriage and tell Netty to call a doctor for you. Is there anyone you prefer?’

  Johnston waved Sévère’s concerns away. ‘Pour another brandy and allow me a few moments of respite from this…utterly mad day.’

  ‘Johnston, you should see yourself. You looked like death when you walked in, and now it’s even—’

  ‘I’m a surgeon, I know what I need,’ Johnston protested, a little too loud. He cleared his sticky throat, blinking the wavering black spots from his vision. ‘I need rest. Don’t bother your driver. I’ll catch a hansom.’

  He grabbed the armrest and pushed himself up. God, if only his skin didn’t feel so tight. When did the symptoms appear? This afternoon? He couldn’t quite recall. He rubbed his neck and decided to seriously consider retirement, when suddenly, the room tipped aside.

  A hand grabbed his elbow and steadied him.

  ‘Dammit, Johnston. You pigheaded old bastard! At least allow me to walk you downstairs, get you into my brougham and drive you home.’

  ‘I hate it when people mother me.’ His voice sounded far off.

  They made it out to the corridor, and Johnston was surprised at how fast he was deteriorating. What was the mortality rate of influenza this year, he wondered. One percent? Three percent? The hold Sévère had on his arm was painful. His skin felt as if it was tearing beneath his grip. ‘God, how my hands burn! Sévère, you are hurting my arm.’

  At once, Sévère let go of him. ‘Johnston, I don’t care what you think this is, or how much of an expert you are. I’ll call for a physician as soon as—’

  From the centre of his failing vision Johnston spotted the stairs. He felt as though a giant had picked him up and let him float a few inches above the world. His vision blurred. The walls turned a strange greenish yellow, wobbled, and the stairs approached slowly. He didn’t know what was up and what was down. His chest and head hurt. He wondered how he had reached the bottom of the stairwell. And his skin! God, how his skin was smarting.

  Sévère’s face appeared. Eyes big as saucers. Johnston knew this expression all too well. He looked like someone whose friend was dying. How curious.

  Johnston opened his mouth to speak, but words wouldn’t come. Darkness closed in on him like a fist. All he felt was the weight, the burning and prickling driving him to madness. And this one, all-important thought that kept him tied to life for a stuttering heartbeat longer: Molly.

  Olivia

  The sound of running feet. Down the corridor, and a short moment later, back up. Olivia stood, and Rose’s fingers slipped off her braid. Her thick black hair unfurled as she walked to the door and opened it. The corridor was empty. At the far end, Sévère’s door stood ajar, agitated voices sounding from the stairwell beyond it.

  Olivia pulled the lapels of her night robe close, and exited her room, Rose in her wake. The first thing she saw was Sévère hunched at the bottom of the stairs, a hand wrapped around a prone man’s throat.

  Her feet faltered.

  Johnston.

  ‘Go back to your room, Rose.’

  A gaggle of servants stood behind the two men, pale-faced, hands pressed to mouths.

  Olivia forced her feet forward, down. Goosebumps prickled on her arms, her neck. Her eyes stuck firmly to the two men, she realised that Sévère’s fingers weren’t wrapped around Johnston’s throat, but lingered softly at his carotid artery.

  ‘The brougham is ready, sir,’ Higgins announced.

  Sévère showed no reaction.

  ‘Sir?’

  Olivia stepped over Johnston’s legs, avoided looking at his open eyes, the gaping mouth.

  She touched Sévère’s shoulder, and said with a voice so hoarse she barely recognised it as her own, ‘Gavriel, we need to take him to hospital.’

  For a long moment, he did not answer, and the silence rang louder in her ears than a sharp cry. And then Sévère whispered, ‘Six minutes.’

  ‘Six m… What?’

  ‘Six minutes!’ With a growl, he chucked his watch against the wall. ‘His heart stopped beating the moment he hit the floor, perhaps already before he fell. It hasn’t been beating for a full six minutes.’ He looked up at her, and the paleness of his eyes made her think of a knife’s edge, well honed.

  ‘We need to inform his wife,’ she said.

  His gaze flickered toward the servants and back to Johnston. A slow nod. ‘Netty, send for Dr Taylor of London Hospital. Tell him the coroner requires him to perform a postmortem at once. Someone please inform the mortuary that we’ll be needing a table. Olivia, be so kind as to inform Mrs Johnston.’

  ‘What happened?’ she whispered.

  Sévère swallowed and shook his head as though not quite sure how to answer. Olivia knelt and placed a hand on his arm. ‘I can’t just tell her that her husband is dead. She’ll want to know what happened.’

  He inhaled, and sat up straighter. ‘He looked unwell. Very pale. He said he might have caught influenza. I didn’t believe it, because he seemed to be getting worse by the minute. I told him I’d put him into my brougham and send him home. He complained about me mothering him.’ A low chuckle slipped from his throat. He lowered his head, and continued. ‘I helped him walk down the corridor. Then he complained about pain in his hands and arm. When we reached the landing, he… His body stiffened and he…fell. I believe he must have been unconscious already.’

  He shook off her hand and stood with some difficulty. His weak leg had been curled up under him for too long. The knuckles of his hand turned white as he leant heavily on his cane. A trembling ran through his left side.

  She rose to grab his elbow for support and helped him sit on the stairs. ‘The crutch?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘In my bedroom.’

  Olivia stared at the door. She’d been there a few times. Johnston was refreshingly unconventional and humorous. Had been. His wife was quiet and reserved, but friendly. Practical. Both feet on the ground. Never pretentious enough to seem the wife of a leading expert in medicine. Somehow, Olivia managed to lift her arm and rap the knocker against the door. The housekeeper opened. ‘Mrs Sévère?’

  ‘I need to speak to Mrs Johnston.’

  The housekeeper peeked over Olivia’s shoulder, then pushed the door open to admit the late guest. ‘Is anything the matter with the doctor?’

  ‘I need to speak to Mrs Johnston,’ she repeated, hoarse. ‘I’ll wait in the parlour.’

  A few moments later, Mrs Johnston sat down on the couch next to Olivia. She didn’t say “hello,” or “what is it,” didn’t enquire about the bruise on Olivia’s face. She just sat and looked her full in the eye.

  Olivia opened her mouth, and shut it again. Her throat clenched shut and a tear rolled down her face. Puzzled, she touched her cheek.

  ‘Well?’ Mrs Johnston said. There was ice in her voice, as though she knew or suspected what was to come.

  Olivia reached for Mrs Johnston’s hand, and was rewarded with an incredulous stare. It felt like a slap.

  ‘Is he hurt?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  Mrs Johnston stood abruptly. A strand of her greying hair slipped from her severe bun. It made her look fragile, about to shatter into m
any pieces. ‘I knew it would happen this way.’

  ‘What… What do you mean?’

  ‘That one night someone would come to my door and tell me he’s gone.’ Mrs Johnston unfurled a fist, and looked down at her trembling fingers. ‘And that nothing would prepare me for it.’ She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. ‘How did he die?’

  It took Olivia a moment to collect her thoughts. She took in Mrs Johnston’s carefully guarded expression, the effort it took her to keep up the facade of the hostess. The effort to not sink to the floor, weeping.

  ‘I… I don’t know the particulars,’ Olivia began. ‘I saw him lying at the bottom of the stairs, Sévère kneeling by his side. He said that your husband had been looking quite ill, and had complained about pain in his arm. That he had helped him walk out. He wanted to send him home in the brougham. They made to descend the stairs, and then…your husband lost consciousness and fell down the stairwell. My husband found no heartbeat.’

  A long moment of silence. And then, ‘He has a healthy heart. It cannot just stop beating. He’s a healthy man. He cannot just…’ Mrs Johnston set her jaw and turned to look out the window. A lone street lamp pierced the dark.

  ‘Sévère has ordered a postmortem examination. It will be performed tonight. My heartfelt—’

  Mrs Johnston’s spine snapped to attention. ‘I don’t wish to hear heartfelt words from a woman who doesn’t know what heartfelt means. You don’t know love.’ She pressed her fists against the window sill. ‘I wish to be alone now. Tell them to send Peter… Tell them to send my husband back home as soon as they are…done. I wish to see him in the morning. Latest.’

  * * *

  A fetid summer breeze pressed through the windows as Olivia took the brougham back home. She wondered if it had always been obvious to Mrs Johnston that her marriage was an arrangement. She doubted Dr Johnston had mentioned the truth to his wife. Or maybe he had. Olivia couldn’t bring herself to worry about it.

  She entered Sévère’s house — her home, although she didn’t see it that way, not truly. A temporary arrangement, valid for another two and a half years. Had she ever felt at home anywhere? Yes, when she was little. But she couldn’t remember much of what it was like.

  The hallway was empty. Voices seeped up from the basement. She walked down and met an agitated scullery maid. ‘They are in the laundry room,’ the maid squeezed out, and fled toward the kitchen.

  Alf raced through the corridor, his cap flapping in one hand, hair on end, eyes gleaming. ‘The morgue is full! They’ll cut him up right here!’

  Olivia grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. ‘If I see a hair of you tonight, you’ll regret it bitterly. Now, off with you!’

  ‘You can’t watch, either. They sent the womenfolk away.’

  She ignored him, and set off for the laundry room. Sévère would be there.

  Wearily, she turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack.

  ‘Rigor mortis is setting in. Temperature in the rectum is—’

  A rushing noise filled Olivia’s ears. She felt sick to the bone.

  Pull yourself together. Three deep breaths. There, now. Only forward, no looking back.

  She slipped into the room, grateful to find Sévère’s back blocking most of the view. She found herself able to take one step farther in. She glued her gaze to the stone tiles, but she couldn’t shut her ears. Most of what was being said was terminology she could recall from her nights with Simon.

  Do not think of that now.

  She heard the questions directed at Sévère, and his brief answers.

  The sounds of bone giving way under the teeth of a saw.

  The howling in her ears intensified. Icy cold coated her skin like a wet blanket.

  She knew that her knees would fold soon. She bit the inside of her cheek, her tongue, the pain helping her to remain upright. She placed her left index finger onto her right wrist and counted the pulse.

  Wet noises. The doctor — what was his name? — spoke of stomach contents, lung and liver, spleen. No signs of a poisoning. Sévère insisting that something must be amiss, and the doctor answering gruffly, ‘If you say so, coroner.’

  A rivulet of blood crawled into view, with dark red clumps lazily drifting along. She tried to look away, but where to lay her eyes instead? Sévère’s back perhaps?

  She bit her tongue so hard that blood formed a puddle in her mouth. A mistake. Blood on the floor, blood in her mouth, the sounds of knife and saw. Screeching in her ears.

  A hand fastened around her arm and she was led out of the room. The door shut. She sank to the floor and buried her face in her hands, a sob erupting from her chest.

  The feeling of relief lasted only a moment. Anger followed. She slapped her face and pinched her cheeks, then pressed her knuckles against the cold floor, stood, opened the door and entered again.

  Sévère whipped his head around, his expression incredulous, irritated. She held up her hand, and stepped around him.

  Her eyes took in the sight. She told her mind to analyse, only analyse, and to put a damper on her heart. ‘Do you believe he has been poisoned?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Explain it to me.’ Johnston’s ribcage gaped. There was blood in the coarse salt-and-pepper hair that covered his chest, part of his belly, and his pubes. His mouth was slack. Saliva wetted his lips. Buckets held organs. The lungs, the liver, and smaller ones that she guessed must be kidneys, spleen, and—

  ‘He has never complained about a weakness of the heart,’ Sévère answered. ‘He mentioned influenza. But the symptoms came on too fast and were too violent. I can’t know how long he’d had them before he arrived, but when he entered the house, he looked pale, ill.’

  He directed his attention to a row of brown glass bottles standing on a chair nearby. Clumps of tissue samples shone through. ‘These will be analysed by a toxicology expert of London Hospital. If Johnston died of poisoning, we’ll know it in a fortnight.’

  He did not ask her if she was all right. But he moved a step closer to her. She bent forward a little, pointing to a dent at Johnston’s cheekbone. ‘Was he hit?’

  ‘He fell down the stairs.’

  The doctor cut along Johnston’s hairline and pulled down the upper half of his face, then sliced into his scalp and pulled it aside, too. He cut the bone with a saw, then used a small hammer to crack the skull along the groove he’d made. The skull cap came off. Olivia thought of a breakfast egg. Her stomach grumbled in protest. A flood of bile filled her mouth, mixing with the blood from her tongue. She swallowed, and cleared her throat.

  ‘Olivia.’ A warning. Don’t waste my time, it seemed to say.

  ‘I am well, thank you.’ She broadened her shoulders and held her chin high.

  ‘Anything yet?’ Sévère asked the surgeon.

  ‘As far as I can see, the man was as healthy as a horse. I assume you will want a second opinion? Of course you do. I’ll call for a colleague and send the samples to Dr Barry.’

  Olivia found him in his smoking room. The door stood ajar, and cigar smoke quivered over the threshold. Sévère’s gaze was firmly attached to a spot behind her.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Why did you do it? There was no need for you to attend the postmortem.’ His focus slid toward her face.

  ‘Wasn’t it you who said that I must educate myself on all facets of criminal investigation?’ And then, softer, ‘He was your friend. No one should have to do that alone. I’m… I’m sorry.’

  He gave her a small nod. ‘I need to be alone now, Olivia. Good night.’

  Dawn began to creep through the windows.

  Second Act

  Rage,

  rage against the dying

  of the light.

  * * *

  Dylan Thomas

  After the Blood

  Rose slid aside the door of the laundry closet. Every time it snagged in its rails, her heart hiccuped. He
r stomach felt hollow, and she was sure she’d never be able to put food into it again. Ever.

  She kept her eyes fastened to the tiles. Her face felt numb. Everything felt numb, except for the horrible buzzing in her head and chest.

  For the first time in her short life, Rose wished she hadn’t been so nosy, hadn’t wanted to see the dead man. The one she’d seen back at her mother’s hadn’t looked so bad. That one had looked like someone asleep, deep asleep. But this man here… All the blood and entrails were too much to bear. She wished she could burn the images from her mind.

  With a hand pressed over her eyes, and the other to brace herself at the edge of the sliding door, she climbed out of the closet.

  But Rose being Rose, her small hand acted on its own volition, and spread her fingers just a little, creating a gap large enough to peek through.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  He didn’t look all that bad anymore. The doctor had stitched him back together, and a sheet covered him up to his chest. The seams were ugly and thick, especially around the head. She turned away, pressed her body to the wall, and proceeded toward the exit. Her hand was already touching the doorknob when she thought, perhaps he shouldn’t be all alone in the laundry room. It was cold and awfully uncomfortable.

  But she was so tired. She hadn’t slept the whole night. Her body ached, and she had to go to school soon. Her stomach was grumbling. Perhaps she could eat a bite after all.

  But she should at least say farewell to Dr Johnston. Yes, that she could do. He’d been kind to her.

  Once the decision was made, it was easier to look at him and view him as who he was: not a bloody husk of a man, but Dr Johnston, Mr Sévère’s friend. She approached him respectfully and took his hand in both of hers. There was a drop of blood on his palm.

  She spat in her hand, and rubbed at his skin. She didn’t want to use her dress to wipe the stain off. Blood was so difficult to wash out. And although his flesh felt so cold and stiff that the hairs on her neck prickled with revulsion, Rose rubbed her small hand over Johnston’s big one until it was all clean and dry.