Tess Gerritsen - The Bone Garden - A Novel

From there, one can tumble only one step lower, and that is into the grave.

Oh, yes, this was a grim view, but it was also what fed his ambition. He was driven not by the lure of endless platters of oysters or a taste for fine calfskin shoes or velvet collars. No, it was this view in the other direction, over the precipice, to where one might fall.

I must study, he thought. There's still time tonight, and I'm not so drunk that I can't read just one more chapter in Wistar's, cram a few more facts into my head.

But when he climbed the narrow stairs to his freezing attic room, he was too exhausted to even open the cover of the textbook, which sat on the desk by the window. To save on candlelight, he stumbled around in the dark. Better not to waste the light and wake up early, when his brain was fresh. When he could read by daylight. He undressed in the faint glow of the window, staring out across the hospital common as he untied his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat. In the distance, beyond the black swath of the common, lights flickered in hospital windows. He imagined the shadowy wards, echoing with coughs, and the long rows of beds where patients now slept. So many years of study lay before him, yet he had never doubted that he was meant to be here. That this moment, in this cold attic, was part of the journey he'd begun years ago as a boy, when he'd first watched his father slice open a slaughtered pig. When he'd beheld its heart still quivering in the chest. He had pressed his hand to his own chest, and felt his own beating heart, and had thought: We are alike. Pig and cow and man, the machine is the same. If I can only understand what drives the furnace, what keeps the wheels turning, I will know how to keep that machine working. I will know how to cheat Death.

He slipped off his suspenders, stepped out of his trousers, and draped them over the chair. Shivering, he climbed under the blanket. With a full stomach, and his head still swimming from brandy, he fell asleep almost instantly.

And almost instantly was awakened by a knocking on the door.

— Mr. Marshall? Mr. Marshall, are you there? —

Norris rolled out of bed and stumbled in a daze across the attic. Opening the door, he saw the elderly hospital groundsman, his face lit eerily by a flickering lantern.

— They need you, up at the hospital, — said the old man.

— What's happened? —

— A carriage has turned over near the Canal Bridge. We've got injured comin' in, and we can't find Nurse Robinson. They've sent for other doctors, but with you being so close, I thought I should fetch you, too. Better a medical student than nothing. —

— Yes, of course, — said Norris, ignoring the unintended slight. — I'll be right there. —

He dressed in the dark, fumbling for trousers and boots and waistcoat. He did not bother with a topcoat. If the scene were bloody, he would have to shed it anyway to keep it clean. He pulled on an overcoat against the chill and made his way down the dark steps, into the night. The wind blew from the west, thick with the stink of the river. He cut directly across the common, and his trouser legs were soon soaked from the wet grass. Already, his heart was pounding in anticipation. An overturned carriage, he thought. Multiple injuries. Would he know what to do? He didn't quail from the sight of blood; he'd seen his share of it in the slaughtering shed on the farm. What he feared was his own ignorance. He was so focused on the crisis ahead that at first he did not understand what he was hearing. But a few paces later he heard it again, and stopped.

It was a woman's moan, and it came from the riverbank.

A sound of distress, or merely a whore servicing a client? On other nights he had spied such couplings along the river, in the shadow of the bridge, had heard the whimpers and grunts of furtive ruttings. This was no time to spy on whores; the hospital waited for him.

Then the sound came again, and he stopped. That was no carnal moan .

He ran to the riverwalk and called out: — Hello? Who's there? — Staring down at the river's edge, he saw something dark lying close to where the water lapped. A body?

He scrambled over the rocks, and his shoes sank into black mud. It sucked at his soles, the cold seeping into cracked and rotting leather. As he slogged toward the water, his heart suddenly pounded faster, his breaths accelerating. It was a body. In the darkness, he could just make out the shape of a woman. She was lying on her back, her skirts submerged to the waist in the water. Hands numb with cold and panic, he grabbed her beneath the arms and dragged her up the bank until she was well free of the river. By then he was gasping from exertion, his own trousers soaked and dripping. He crouched down beside her and felt her chest for a heartbeat, a breath, any sign of life.

Warm liquid bathed his hand. Its unexpected heat was so startling that at first he did not register what his own skin was telling him. Then he stared down and saw the oily gleam of blood on his palm.

Behind him, a pebble clattered on rocks. He turned, and a chill lifted every hair on the back of his neck.

The creature stood on the bank above him. Its black cape fluttered like giant wings in the wind. Beneath the hood, a death's-head stared, white as bone. Hollow eyes looked straight at him, as if marking him as the next soul to be harvested, the next to feel the slash of its scythe.

So frozen in fear was Norris that he could not have fled, even if the creature had swooped at him, even if the blade had, in that instant, come hissing through the air. He could only watch, just as the monster watched him.

Then, suddenly, it was gone. And Norris saw only a view of the night sky and the moon, winking through a filigree of clouds.

On the riverwalk, lamplight appeared. — Hallo? — the hospital groundsman shouted. — Who's down there? —

His throat shut down by panic, Norris could produce only a choked: — Here. — Then, louder: — Help. I need help! —

The groundsman came down the muddy bank, lantern swaying. Holding up the light, he stared down at the dead body. At the face of Mary Robinson. Then his gaze lifted to Norris, and the look on the old man's face was unmistakable.

It was fear.

NORRIS STARED DOWN at his hands, where the coat of dried blood was now cracked and flaking off his skin. He'd been called to assist in a crisis; instead, he had added more blood, more confusion to the chaos. Through the closed door, he could hear a man shrieking in pain, and he wondered what horrors the surgeon's knife was now performing upon that unfortunate soul.

No worse a horror than was inflicted upon poor Mary Robinson.

Only as he'd carried her into the building, into the light, had he seen the full horror of her injuries. He'd brought her into the hall, dripping a trail of blood, and a shocked nurse had mutely pointed him toward the surgery room. But as he'd laid Mary on the table, he already knew that she'd passed beyond the help of any surgeon.

— How well did you know Mary Robinson, Mr. Marshall? —

Norris looked up from his blood-encrusted hands and focused on Mr. Pratt from the Night Watch. Behind Pratt stood Constable Lyons and Dr. Aldous Grenville, both of whom had elected to remain silent during the interrogation. They hung back in the shadows, beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp.

— She was a nurse. I've seen her, of course. —

— But did you know her? Did you have any relationship with her outside your work at the hospital? —

— No. —

— None at all? —

— I'm engaged in the study of medicine, Mr. Pratt. I have little time outside of that. —

— You live within sight of the hospital. Your lodgings are right at the edge of these grounds, and hers are but a short walk from this very building. You could have encountered Miss Robinson just by stepping out your door. —