Tess Gerritsen - The Bone Garden - A Novel

— Just so there's no mix-up, — he said, and straightened to look at her. — She'll be here till noon. Make your arrangements by then. —

Rose laid her hand on the lid. I'll find a way, darling. I'll see you properly buried. She wrapped her shawl around both herself and Meggie, then walked out of the hospital courtyard.

She did not know where to go. Certainly not back to the lodging house room that she'd shared with her sister and Eben. Eben was probably there now, sleeping off the rum, and she had no wish to confront him. She'd deal with him in the morning, when he was sober. Her brother-in-law might be heartless, but he was also coldly sensible. He had a business to maintain, and a reputation to uphold. If even a hint of malicious gossip got out, the bell over his tailor shop might fall silent. In the morning, she thought, Eben and I will come to a truce, and he'll take us both in. She is his daughter, after all.

But tonight they had no bed to sleep in.

Her footsteps slowed, stopped. She stood exhausted on the corner. Force of habit had sent her in a familiar direction, and now she gazed up the same street that she had walked earlier that evening. A Dearborn carriage clattered past, pulled by a swaybacked horse with a drooping head. Even so poor a carriage, with its rickety wheels and patched canopy, was an unattainable luxury. She imagined sitting with her weary feet propped up on a little stool, protected from the wind and rain while that carriage bore her like royalty. As it rolled past, she suddenly saw the familiar figure that had been standing right across the street from her.

— Did y'hear the news, Miss Rose? — said Dim Billy. — Nurse Poole's been killed, over at the hospital! —

— Yes, Billy. I know. —

— They said she was slit right up her belly, like this. — He slashed a finger up his abdomen. — Cut off her head with a sword. And her hands, too. Three people saw him do it, and he flew away like a great black bird. —

— Who told you that? —

— Mrs. Durkin did, over at the stable. She heard it from Crab. —

— There's a fool of a boy, Crab is. You're repeating nonsense, and you should stop it. —

He fell silent, and she realized she had hurt his feelings. His feet were dragging like giant anchors across the cobblestones. Beneath his shoved-down cap, enormous ears protruded like drooping saucers. Poor Billy so seldom took offense, it was easy to forget that even he could be wounded.

— I'm sorry, — she said.

— For what, Miss Rose? —

— You were only telling me what you heard. But not everything you hear is the God's truth. Some people lie. Some are the devil's own. You can't trust them all, Billy. —

— How do you know it's a lie? What Crab said? —

She'd never heard such a note of petulance in his voice before, and she was tempted to tell him the truth: that she had been the one who'd found Nurse Poole. No, better to stay silent. Whisper a word in Billy's ear, and by tomorrow who knew how the tale would have changed, and what far-fetched role she would have in it?

Let there be no whisper of my name.

She began to walk again, heading for familiar territory, the baby still sleeping soundly in her arms. Better to bed down in the gutter you know. Perhaps Mrs. Combs down the street would grant her and Meggie a corner in her kitchen, just for tonight. I could repair that old cloak of hers, she thought, the one with the badly mended rip. Surely that was worth a small spot in the kitchen.

— I told the Night Watch everything I saw, — said Billy, practically dancing up the street beside her. — I been out, y'know, lookin' for Spot. I been up and down this street ten times, and that's why the Watch says I'm a good one to talk to. —

— That you are. —

— I'm sorry she's dead, 'cause she won't be sendin' me out on errands anymore. Gave me a penny every time, but last time she didn't. That's not fair, is it? I didn't tell that to the Night Watch, 'cause they'll think I killed her for it. —

— No one would think such a thing of you, Billy. —

— You should always pay a man for his work, but she didn't that time. —

They walked together, past darkened windows, past silent houses. It's so late, she thought; everyone is asleep except for us. The boy stayed with her until she came, at last, to a stop.

— Aren't you going in? — said Billy.

She gazed up at Mrs. O'Keefe's lodging house. Her tired feet had automatically brought her to this door, through which she had walked so many times before. Up the stairs would be her narrow bed, tucked into the curtained alcove in the room she'd shared with Aurnia and Eben. The thin curtain had not been barrier enough to muffle the sounds from the other bed. Eben's grunts of lovemaking, his snores, his hacking cough in the morning. She remembered his hands groping at her thighs tonight, and with a shudder she turned and walked away.

— Where are you going? — Billy said.

— I don't know. —

— Aren't you going home? —

— No. —

He caught up to her. — You're going to stay awake? All night? —

— I need to find someplace to sleep. Someplace warm, where Meggie won't get cold. —

— Isn't Mrs. O'Keefe's house warm? —

— I can't go there tonight, Billy. Mr. Tate is angry with me. Very, very angry. And I'm afraid he might… — She halted and stared at the mist, which coiled at her feet like grasping hands. — Oh, God, Billy, — she whispered. — I'm so tired. What am I going to do with her? —

— I know a place you could take her, — he said. — A secret place. But you can't tell anyone about it. —

Dawn had not yet lifted the darkness when Wall-eyed Jack harnessed his horse and climbed up onto the buckboard. He guided the dray out of the stable yard and onto icy cobblestones that gleamed like glass under the lamplight. At this hour, his was the only wagon on the street, and the clip-clop of the horse's hooves, the rattle of the wheels, were unnervingly noisy in the otherwise silent street. Those stirring awake in their beds, hearing the rattle of his wagon rolling past, would assume it was just a tradesman passing by. A butcher hauling carcasses to market, perhaps, or the mason with his stones, or the farmer delivering bales of hay to the stableman. It would not occur to those drowsy people in their warm beds what sort of cargo would soon be loaded onto the wagon that now rolled past their windows. The living had no wish to dwell on the dead, and so the dead were invisible, nailed into pine boxes, sewn into shrouds, moved furtively on rattling carts under cover of night. What no one else has the stomach for, here I am, thought Jack with a grim smile. Oh, there was money to be made in the snatching trade. The clop of the horse's hooves pounded out the poetry of those words again and again as his dray rolled northwest, toward the Charles River.

There's money to be made. There's money to be made.

And that's where you'd find Jack Burke.

In the fog ahead, a crouching figure suddenly materialized right in front of the horse. Jack pulled up sharply on the reins and the horse halted with a snort. A teenage boy scampered into view, zigzagging back and forth in the street, long arms waving like octopus tentacles.

— Bad pup! Bad pup, you come to me now! —

The dog gave a yelp as the boy pounced and grabbed him around the neck. Straightening, the struggling dog now firmly in his grip, the boy stared wide-eyed as he suddenly saw Jack glaring at him through the mist.

— You damn half-wit, Billy! — snapped Jack. Oh, he knew this boy well enough, and what a nuisance he was, always underfoot, always searching for a free meal, a place to bed down. More than once, Jack had had to chase Dim Billy out of his own stable yard. — Get outta the road! I could've run right over you. —