Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

“If we can clear your name,” I answered him, “I’ll take you there myself.”

When Mrs. Hennessey returned later in the day, I went down to ask her what the man who had accosted her earlier had wanted with her.

“He was looking for a flat to rent for his daughter. He thought I looked to be the sort of person who would keep her from getting herself in trouble.”

“When you were away, he came into the house and went up the stairs to try every door.”

“Did he, indeed!” She was quite angry. “Is he looking to murder us in our beds? Or to rob us blind?”

“I thought perhaps you ought to know. Especially since I’ll be leaving quite early in the morning-”

She was quite exercised at the thought of someone coming into her castle and threatening it. It made me feel guilty for frightening her. But it was true.

“Is he still out there?” She went to her window and peered through a slit between the curtains. “By Judas, so he is. Just you wait-when Constable Brewster comes by on his rounds I’ll have a word with him, see if I don’t! And we’ll see then who is the clever one.” She let the curtains come together again. “Did you say you were leaving? Oh, my dear girl, you will be careful, won’t you? Those Huns are cruel, they shot that poor Edith Cavell, just for staying at her post with the wounded. And look how they sank Britannic. A hospital ship! You must stay as far away from them as you can.”

“I’ll keep myself as safe as possible. We’re behind the lines, it will be all right.” I didn’t tell her that sometimes when the shelling began, we were too close.

She embraced me, saying, “Of all my girls, you are the closest to my heart.”

I left her with tears in her eyes and went back up the stairs, feeling a certain elation.

The constable would see to our watcher just long enough for Peregrine and me to slip out of London.

There was no one watching when Peregrine and I quietly let ourselves out the door an hour before dawn. I had spent most of the evening removing any trace of Peregrine’s presence from the flat. The sheets were set out for the woman who did Mrs. Hennessey’s wash and ours, all the cups and dishes we’d used were in their accustomed places, and Elayne’s bed had fresh linens from our cupboard.

I’d borrowed a valise from another of my flatmates for Peregrine’s belongings, and repacked my own. When we crept down the stairs, I could hear Mrs. Hennessey snoring gently from her rooms, the house was so quiet.

There was a misting rain this morning, cold and wet on the face, as we walked several streets over in search of a cab to take us to the station. I had thought of everything, and I was rather pleased as we stepped into the train at Victoria Station, on our way to Rochester.

I had even fashioned a bandage for Peregrine’s head, so that he wouldn’t be required to speak, and I’d told him he was my brother, going home from hospital to complete his recovery. He had looked in the mirror and said, “It’s more believable than the bandage I contrived.”

“Well, of course, what did you expect?” I demanded.

We left the train at Rochester, walking up the hill to the old heart of the city. The squat, powerful Romanesque cathedral and the keep of the castle across from it were floating in disembodied splendor above the fog that had swept up from the Medway’s estuary. I needed transportation to my final destination, the home of a woman my parents had known for some years. The best place to find a driver was at an hotel. The long winding High Street was still nearly empty, though it was close on nine o’clock in the morning, but the shops had opened, and a chimney sweep walked by, whistling.

We were just by a butcher’s shop when I saw coming toward me an officer I knew, now a captain in my father’s old regiment.

I clutched Peregrine’s arm and steered him into the shop. “Wait here,” I said, in a low voice. “Whatever you do, don’t come out.”

To the astonished butcher, I said, “We’re eloping-can my fiancé wait in a back room? Someone who knows my parents is coming up the street!”

The butcher, a burly man with thick graying hair, nodded, and beckoned to Peregrine as I stepped out of the shop and walked on.

Captain Raynor recognized me, waved, and we met in front of a milliner’s, well beyond the butcher’s shop.

“Bess? Is that you?”

“Of course. What on earth are you doing in Rochester?” I asked. “I thought you were the terror of the Hun?”

“I could ask you the same. Your father isn’t here with you, by any chance. I thought I saw you with an officer.”

“Someone who was my patient on Britannic. He walked a little way with me, catching up on news. But tell me, how is Margaret?”

He grinned from ear to ear. “We’ve a son! I was here for the birth-nasty shoulder wound, and they sent me home. I never thought I’d ever be glad of German marksmanship. His name is William, and he’s beautiful.”

“I’m so happy for you.” I embraced him lightly. “That’s for Margaret. Tell her she’s wonderful.”

His eyes were bright with pride. “So she is. She could ask for the moon tomorrow, and I’d do my best to reach it for her.”

“How long is your leave?”

The brightness faded. “Ten days, and I’m off again. I don’t know how I can bear to go. I never hated the Germans until William came. And now I’m not very happy with the French either. And what about you?” he asked, quickly changing the subject. “I heard what happened. Are you all right? Are you returning to duty? The Colonel must have been beside himself.”

“I survived with nothing more than a broken arm,” I said. “And I expect my orders will be here next week.”

“I’m sure this break from blood and death has been good for you. But I must say you still look a little tired.”

If only he knew!

“The arm was slow to heal.”

“Don’t tell me. They worked on this shoulder of mine until I wished it had been blown off. But see, I can almost reach above my head.” And he demonstrated how far he’d come.

I made congratulatory noises, all the while praying that he’d be spared and come home safe to William and Margaret.

He asked after my father and Simon, and sent his dearest love to the Colonel’s Lady, and then we parted. He embraced me warmly, saying, “Keep safe, Bess. I’ll do the same, trust in that.”

And he was gone. I walked on as far as a small bookshop, stopping there to look in the window while surreptitiously watching Captain Raynor turn a corner and disappear.

Weak with relief, I hurried back the way I’d come, and opened the door to the butcher shop, still smiling at our close call.

The butcher was nowhere to be seen, nor was Peregrine.

But at the sound of the bell above the door tinkling its warning, the butcher appeared from the back, his ruddy face nearly as white as his shirt.

“You’d better come,” he said, and gestured toward the back.

I had no idea what was wrong, but I almost ran through the shop to follow him.

In the room behind the shop where the butcher worked, out of sight, there was a long wooden table, a block for a top, and beside it an assortment of knives and other tools.

Peregrine was on the far side of the table-rigid with shock, his face a mask of horror.

“I don’t know what’s wrong-I was cleaning a brace of geese-what happened to him in the war, then?”

I had nearly forgot that Peregrine was in uniform.

“I-a head wound-” I managed to say, and then my training asserted itself, and I put my hand on the butcher’s arm. “Could you leave us, please? For a little while? I’m a nurse…”

The butcher all but fled the workroom. I looked at the blood on the worktable, the entrails of the geese lying in an ugly heap. That hint of rusty iron that was the smell of blood caught in my throat.