James McGee - The Reckoning

After a moment’s hesitation, the hatch scraped shut. The sound of several large bolts being withdrawn was followed by the rasp of wood on stone as the door was hauled back. Hawkwood took a quick gulp of air and stepped through the gap. The door closed ominously behind him.

Welcome to Bedlam … again.

The last time he’d called upon Robert Locke, the apothecary’s office had been on the first floor. To get there, he’d been escorted through the main gallery, past cell doors that had opened on to scenes more suited to a travelling freak show than a hospital wing. The sight of distressed patients – male and female – chained to walls, many squatting in their own filth, and the pitiful looks they’d given him as he’d gone past, had stayed in the mind for a long time afterwards, as had their cries of distress at spying a stranger in their midst. He was considerably relieved, therefore, when, this time, the unsmiling, blue-coated attendant avoided the central staircase and led him down a dank and draughty ground-floor corridor towards the rear of the building, the uneven floorboards creaking beneath their combined tread.

While the route might have altered, the smells had not. The combination of rotting timbers, damp straw, stale cabbage and human sewage were as bad as he remembered and easily equalled the odours at the bottom of the grave-pit and the stench in Quill’s dead house. It was further indication – as if the exterior signs had not been proof enough – that Bethlem Hospital had reached its final stage of decomposition.

This time, there was no brass plate beside the door. There was only the word Apothecary scrawled on a piece of torn card looped over the doorknob. The attendant knocked and Hawkwood was announced. Hearing a small grunt of surprise, Hawkwood pushed past the attendant and very nearly went sprawling arse over elbow due to a metal pail that had been placed on the floor two feet inside the door. As entrances went, it wasn’t the most dignified he’d ever made.

Recovering his footing, he saw that the pail was one of several mis-matched receptacles that had been placed around the room in order to catch the rainwater that was dripping from the ceiling. An assortment of buckets, basins, pots and jugs had been pressed into service. Even as he took in the sight, there came the sound of a droplet hitting the surface of the water in one of the makeshift reservoirs, more than half of which were ready for emptying. A quick glance above his head at the spots of mould high in the corners of the walls and the dark, damp patches radiating out from the ceiling rose told their own depressing story.

“Officer Hawkwood?”

The bespectacled, studious-looking man who rose from behind his desk could have been mistaken for a bank clerk or a schoolteacher rather than an apothecary in a madhouse, though it was plain that, like the building in which he worked, Robert Locke looked as though he had seen better days. He appeared thinner than Hawkwood remembered and older, too, for there were lines on his face that had not been there before.

“Doctor,” Hawkwood said, as the apothecary advanced towards him, looking both flustered and, Hawkwood thought, more than a tad apprehensive.

Removing his spectacles – an affectation which Hawkwood had come to know well from their previous encounters – Locke wiped them on a handkerchief, slid them back on to his nose and turned to the hovering attendant. “Thank you, Mr O’Brien; that will be all.”

Dismissed, the attendant left the room. Locke, despite his obvious concern as to why Hawkwood might have returned, extended his hand. The apothecary’s grip was firm, though cold to the touch. Hawkwood wondered if it was a sign that Locke’s health was failing or a reflection of the state of the building which was disintegrating brick by brick around him.

“Come in, sir, come in,” Locke said. “Please forgive the accommodation. As you can see, there’s been little improvement since your last visit.” The apothecary offered an apologetic smile. “That is to say, there has been no improvement whatsoever.”

“You’ve changed offices,” Hawkwood pointed out.

“Well, yes, but that was a matter of necessity – the ceiling fell in upstairs.” Locke indicated the state of the decor above his head and the crockery at his feet. “I fear it’s only a matter of time before the same thing happens again. Mind where you step.”

“I thought you were moving to new premises,” Hawkwood said.

Locke sighed wearily. “Oh, indeed we were; or rather, we will be: St George’s Fields. The first stone was laid back in April, though God knows when it will be finished. In the meantime, you find us thus. Still sinking, but making do as best we can. Come, stand by the fire. It’s one of the few comforts I have left, though that might alter when we run out of wood, unless I start burning the furniture.”

Rubbing his hands together, Locke crossed to the fireplace and picked up a poker. Crouching down, the apothecary took two small logs from a stack at the side of the hearth and added them to the embers, allowing Hawkwood a bird’s-eye view of his frayed collar and the specks of dandruff adhering to it.

Stoking life into the flames, he laid the poker down and stood up. “So,” he said, turning. “What brings you back to our door? It seems only five minutes, but it must be … what? – a year or thereabouts since the affair with Colonel Hyde?” He threw Hawkwood a worried look. “I’m assuming this has nothing to do with those appalling events?”

“No,” Hawkwood said.

Strange, he thought, how previous cases came back to haunt you. It had been Hyde, a former army surgeon, whose escape from Bedlam and demand for bodies upon which to practise his skills had led to the confrontation with the murderous resurrection gang, an encounter from which no one had emerged untarnished.

Clearly relieved, Locke nodded. “I followed it all in the news sheets, of course; a foul business. When his crimes were finally brought to light, I did ask myself if there was anything I could have done differently that might have deterred him from his actions.”

“There was nothing anyone could have done,” Hawkwood said. “He was insane and he was clever. And now he’s dead and the world’s the better for it.”

“According to the newspapers, he died while resisting arrest.”

“Yes,” Hawkwood said.

After I ran the bastard through.

He found that Locke was regarding him closely. When he’d first called upon the apothecary, Hawkwood had thought Locke to be nothing more than a lickspittle, a petty official harbouring resentment towards his superiors for having left him in sole charge of a shambles of a hospital and a largely incompetent and uncaring workforce. Subsequent events had altered Hawkwood’s perception of the man, for it had been Locke’s knowledge of his former patient’s mental condition that had enabled Hawkwood to eventually track down the lunatic Colonel Hyde, and dispatch him to a place where he was no longer a threat to humanity: to wit, the fires of hell and damnation. A rapier thrust had been the method of execution, though that was just one of many details that had been omitted from the official report.

“So,” the apothecary prompted as his gaze fell away. “How may I be of service?”

“I’m looking for someone,” Hawkwood said, “and I need your advice in narrowing my search.”

Locke frowned. “Really? How so?”

“I’m investigating a murder.”

Taken aback, Locke’s eyes widened.

“A woman’s been killed. At the moment, she’s nameless.”

Locke blinked. “And what? You think she may have a connection with the hospital; a former patient, perhaps?”

“I don’t believe so.”