Tess Gerritsen - The Bone Garden - A Novel

It was only with the greatest reluctance that she finally laid Meggie back in the basket and stood to leave. Night had fallen, and Rose was both exhausted and hungry. It would do Meggie no good if her sole support fell ill and could not work.

— I'll be back tomorrow, — said Rose.

— And same again next week, — Hepzibah answered. Meaning the money, of course. For her, it was all about the money.

— You'll have it. Just keep her safe. — Rose looked back with longing at the baby and said softly: — She's all that's left to me. —

She stepped out the door. The streets were dark now, and the only source of light was the glow of candles through grimy windows. She rounded the corner and her footsteps slowed, stopped.

In the alley ahead waited a familiar silhouette. Dim Billy waved and came toward her, his impossibly long arms swinging like vines. But it was not Billy she focused on; it was the man standing behind him.

— Miss Connolly, — said Norris Marshall. — I need to speak to you. —

She shot an irritated look at Billy. — You brought him here? —

— He said he's your friend, — said Billy.

— Do you believe everything you're told? —

— I am your friend, — said Norris.

— I'm without friends in this city. —

Billy whined, — What about me? —

— Except for you, — she amended. — But now I know I can't be trustin' you. —

— He's not with the Night Watch. You only warned me about them . —

— You do know, — said Norris, — that Mr. Pratt is searching for you? You know what he's saying about you? —

— He's been saying I'm a thief. Or worse. —

— And Mr. Pratt is a buffoon. —

That brought a grim smile to her lips. — An opinion we have in common, that. —

— We have something else in common, Miss Connolly. —

— I can't imagine what that might be. —

— I've seen, it too, — he said quietly. — The Reaper. —

She stared at him. — When? —

— Last night. It was standing over the body of Mary Robinson. —

— Nurse Robinson? — She fell a step back, the news so shocking it felt like a physical blow. — Mary is dead? —

— You didn't know? —

Billy said, eagerly: — I was going to tell you, Miss Rose! I heard it this morning, up on the West End. She was cut, just like Nurse Poole! —

— The news is all over town, — said Norris. — I wanted to speak to you before you hear some twisted version of what happened. —

Wind whistled through the alley, and the cold pierced like nails through her cloak. She turned her face from the blast, and her hair whipped free of its scarf, lashing numb cheeks.

— Is there someplace warm where we can talk? — he asked. — Someplace private? —

She did not know if she could trust this man. On the first day they had met, at her sister's bedside, he had been courteous to her, the only man in that circle of students who had met her gaze with any real regard. She knew nothing about him, only that his coat was of inferior quality, and his cuffs were frayed. Gazing up the alley, she considered where to go. At this hour, the taverns and coffeehouses would be noisy and crowded, and there'd be too many ears, too many eyes.

— Come with me, — she said.

A few streets away, she turned up a shadowy passage and stepped through a doorway. Inside, the air stank of boiled cabbage. In the hallway, a lone lamp burned in its sconce, the flame wildly shuddering as she swung the door shut against the wind.

— Our room's upstairs, — said Billy, and he scampered up the steps ahead of them.

Norris looked at Rose. — He lives with you? —

— I couldn't leave him sleeping in a cold stable, — she said. She paused to light a candle at the sconce, then, shielding the flame with her hand, she started up the stairs. Norris followed her up the dozen creaking steps to the dim and stinking room that housed the thirteen lodgers. In the glow of her candle, the sagging curtains that hung between straw mattresses looked like a regiment of ghosts. One of the lodgers was resting in a dark corner, and though he lay hidden in the shadows, they could hear the man's ceaseless hacking.

— Is he all right? — asked Norris.

— He coughs day and night. —

Ducking his head beneath the low rafters, Norris picked his way across the mattress-strewn floor and knelt beside the sick lodger.

— Old Clary's too weak to work, — said Billy. — So he stays in bed all day. —

Norris made no comment, but he surely understood the significance of the blood-flecked bedclothes. Clary's pale face was so wasted by consumption that his bones seemed to gleam through his skin. All you had to do was look into his sunken eyes, hear the rattle of phlegm in his lungs, and you'd know that nothing could be done.

Without a word, Norris rose back to his feet.

Rose could see his expression as he looked around the room, taking in the bundles of clothes, the piles of straw that served as beds. The shadows were alive with skittering things, and Rose lifted her foot to crush something black as it darted past, feeling it crunch beneath her shoe. Yes, Mr. Marshall, she thought, this is where I live, in this infested room with a stinking waste bucket, sleeping on a floor that's so packed at night with lodgers, you must be careful which way you turn or you will find an elbow shoved in your eye or a dirty foot snagged in your hair.

— Over here's my bed! — declared Billy, and he plopped down on a pile of straw. — If we shut the curtain, we'll make a pretty room all to ourselves. You can sit there, sir. Old Polly won't notice that anyone's been using her bed. —

Norris did not look at all eager to settle onto the bundle of rags and straw. As Rose slid the sheet across to give them privacy from the dying man in the corner, Norris stared down at Polly's bed, as though wondering how many vermin he might pick up by sitting there.

— Wait! — Billy leaped up to fetch the water bucket, which he brought sloshing back to their corner. — Now you can put the candle down. —

— He's afraid of fire, — said Rose as she carefully set the candle on the floor. And well Billy should be, in a room strewn with rags and straw. Only when she settled onto her own bed did Norris resignedly sit down as well. Curtained off in their own corner of the room, the three of them formed a circle around the flickering light, which cast spindly shadows on the hanging sheet.

— Now tell me, — she said. — Tell me what happened to Mary. —

He stared at the light. — I'm the one who found her, — he said. — Last night, on the riverbank. I was walking across the hospital common when I heard her moans. She'd been cut, Miss Connolly, the same way Agnes Poole was cut. The same pattern, slashed into her abdomen. —

— In the shape of a cross? —

— Yes. —

— Does Mr. Pratt still blame papists? —

— I can't imagine that he does now. —

She gave a bitter laugh. — Then you have your head in the sand, Mr. Marshall. There's no charge so outrageous that it can't be flung at the Irish. —

— In the case of Mary Robinson, it's not the Irish on whom suspicion falls. —

— Who would Mr. Pratt's unlucky suspect be this time? —

— I am. —

In the silence that followed, she stared at the shadows playing on Norris's face. Billy had curled up like a tired cat beside his water bucket and now lay dozing, each breath rustling the straw. The consumptive man in the corner kept up his ceaseless coughing, his moist rattles a reminder that death was never far away.

— So you see, — he said, — I know what it's like to be unfairly accused. I know what you've gone through. —