Beloved Poison (Jem Flockhart) Read online

  Beloved Poison

  Beloved Poison

  E. S. Thomson

  CONSTABLE • LONDON

  CONSTABLE

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Constable

  Copyright © E. S. Thomson, 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-47212-228-5

  Constable

  is an imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  For Guy and Carlo

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note:

  Chapter One

  I stood on the threshold of my room, my hand on the door knob. A man was inside. He leaped to his feet, the long roll of paper he was holding open on the bed springing closed and tumbling to the floor. It was not my bed he was using – that remained where it was against the wall. The situation was far worse than that: the truckle bed that lay beneath it had been pulled out, and set up opposite. A mattress had been dragged up from one of the store rooms, and the bed neatly made. A stove-pipe hat, new, obviously, and precious, sat on the pillow.

  The man who owned the hat was in his mid-twenties, with curly brown hair cut close to his head. I noted the ink on the fingers of the hand he held out to me, and on the cuffs of his shirt. I saw the sheen on his waistcoat from habitually leaning against a desk, or drawing board. His boots were beside the door, the clay-coloured mud of the infirmary’s main courtyard drying on the soles. At five feet and eight inches in height he was no taller than I.

  He had settled himself in nicely. An open carpet bag at the foot of his bed showed a clean shirt, collar and cuffs. Against the wall, beside the fireplace, leaned the neatly folded legs of a tripod, a small wooden instrument case tucked between them.

  ‘Mr Flockhart?’ he said, stepping forward. ‘Mr Jem Flockhart?’

  I nodded, my expression grim. I did not ask his name. There was no need, for I knew exactly who he was. I would have told him so but I was so surprised to see him in my room that, for once, I was unable to say anything.

  He stepped neatly into the silence. ‘Mr Flockhart,’ he repeated, still holding out a hand. ‘I am—’

  ‘William Quartermain, junior architect for Shaw and Prentice.’

  ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘No,’ I said. His voice had a pleasant West Country burr to it. Wiltshire, perhaps, or Somerset? London was growing at a prodigious rate and there were opportunities for incomers with ambition. A glance at the shiny brass plaque on his new theodolite case confirmed my thoughts: ‘J. King and Son, 2 Clare Street, Bristol.’ And yet he lacked any degree of urban sophistication – his outlandish stove-pipe hat suggested as much – and I was sure he was not a native of that city. He must be from some fearful yokel-infested backwater – Bath, perhaps, or Devizes – come to London to seek his fortune. I wondered how long he had been in town. His skin had the sickly pallor of all who had breathed in the city air for longer than a fortnight, though his cheeks still bore the traces of a provincial journeyman’s tan. He smiled at me, his gaze trusting, as if he anticipated the start of a marvellous friendship. London would eat him alive if he was not careful.

  I shook his hand, aware of the roll of thick paper that lay between us on the floor. It was a plan of the hospital – my hospital – that much I had glimpsed. How much did it show of the place? The cellars that had once belonged to the medieval monastery? The dark, sluggish watercourse that flowed beneath out-patients or the underground passage that led from the dissecting rooms to the churchyard? There was more to St Saviour’s than any neophyte architect might see. But there was a more urgent matter to attend to, and I was obliged to put aside my curiosity.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘This is where I sleep.’

  His smile faded. ‘But the apothecary said—’

  ‘I am the apothecary.’

  ‘What about that tall thin man downstairs? Isn’t he also the apothecary?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘And senior to you?’

  ‘I suppose—’

  ‘Well he said—’

  ‘Whatever he said, I doubt he meant that you should sleep here.’ I had meant to sound calm but authoritative. Somehow, I had ended up sounding like an idiot, and an unreasonable one at that.

  ‘The apprentice brought up the mattress on your father’s bidding. The governors thought it best if I live within St Saviour’s, to be close to my work, and there’s nowhere else to stay.’

  Nowhere else? Was there not space in the porter’s lodge? Could the man not sleep beneath the deal table in the apothecary? I closed my eyes. My father was sick, that much was clear to anyone. Had his tiredness so befuddled his senses that he no longer knew the difference between appearance and reality? Had he forgotten who I was? All at once I felt naked, exposed, the clues to my secret identity shouting from every corner of the room. I had bought a screen from the auction house on Priory Street, and over this I had draped a pair of fine Paisley shawls. A small bottle of Valeriana officinalis tincture, which is good for menstrual cramps, stood on the shelf above my bed. Before the fire the rags from my monthly bleeds dried in a line of dismal greyish pennants. Oh, yes, I was unique among women. There had been an apothecary named Flockhart at St Saviour’s Infirmary for over one hundred years and I was set to inherit my father’s kingdom amongst the potions. But it took a man to run that apothecary, and so a man I must be.

  I swept forward to gather up the rags from the fireplace. ‘Dusters,’ I muttered. I snatched at the Paisley shawls too – such feminine details would never do – and bundled them away. On the desk, a large hyacinth rose from its bulb in a defiant pink fist. William Quartermain regarded it, and then me, in silence.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Quartermain,’ I said. ‘But there must have been a mistake.’

  Downstairs in the apothecary Gabriel Locke, our apprentice, was crouched goblin-like over the work bench, rolling out sulphur pills. A smudge of chalk on his nose gleamed white in the candlelight. ‘I tried to tell you, Mr Jem,’ he said, before I could speak. ‘But you didn’t listen. It was your father’s idea.’ Gabriel pointed.

  My father was slumped in the wing-backed chair before the fire, his eyes closed. He was sitting so quiet and still that I had bounded up th
e stairs without even noticing him. I chided myself inwardly for my selfishness. He was sleeping badly, I knew, and yet I had not even paused to look for him and ask how he fared. At my father’s elbow, a stack of prescription ledgers teetered on a small table. Each ward in the infirmary sent its ledger down to us for midday, and we spent the afternoon making up the necessary prescriptions. There was much to do, even when my father was helping. Now, with him asleep, it was just Gabriel and I. And there was also the matter of the man upstairs.

  But the man upstairs was now the man downstairs, as all at once I noticed that he had followed me in his stockinged feet, and was standing at the back of the apothecary, his face pale and earnest in the shadows. ‘The Company sent me, Mr Flockhart. I believe I was expected,’ he said. ‘It was arranged with the governors, but I apologise personally for any inconvenience. I realise there are not many who welcome me at St Saviour’s.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ My father opened his dark-ringed eyes, looking from me to Mr Quartermain. ‘Commerce will always come before health. We cannot obstruct progress – so called – or we will be crushed. There were a few who said as much at the meeting.’

  ‘Dr Bain, yes, I heard him myself, sir. But there were many who wished to refuse the Company’s offer. Dr Magorian was particularly vocal. And Dr Graves, well—’ Mr Quartermain cleared his throat, and then added in an undertone, ‘I thought he and Dr Bain were going to come to blows.’

  ‘Not on this particular occasion, Mr Quartermain,’ said my father. ‘We must be grateful for that at least.’

  ‘Your Company, sir, has offered less than half what the hospital and its lands are worth,’ I said. ‘St Saviour’s has been here since 1135 and you expect us to go away just because your employers wish to build a railway into the centre of the city? Can they not build somewhere else?’

  ‘It seems not,’ he replied. ‘But I’m merely the junior architect. I’m not one of the hospital governors, who agreed to the proposal, nor one of the railway company officials, who made the offer. The decisions to pull down the hospital, and to build the railway bridge in its place, were none of my doing. I’m simply tasked with organising the emptying of St Saviour’s graveyard, as the Company cannot knowingly build on the bones of the dead. I’m also instructed to look over the rest of the place, and report my preliminary impressions.’

  ‘Mr Quartermain is to stay with us while he . . . while he does what’s required,’ said my father. ‘You are to assist him in any way he sees fit.’

  ‘I? But I have work to do. Especially as you’re so . . . so tired.’ I chose my words carefully. To suggest that he was sick, too weak and ill to perform the duties he had attended to all his life, would be a mistake. And yet I had watched his recent deterioration with alarm. How might I raise the matter without provoking his anger? I had no idea. Perhaps I should speak with Dr Hawkins. The two of them seemed uncommonly friendly all of a sudden. ‘And the physic garden requires my attention,’ I added. ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Yes, you can. Besides, no one else will look after the man. As Mr Quartermain says, he has few friends at St Saviour’s.’ He eyed the architect critically. ‘Few friends in London, too, I should think – eh, Mr Quartermain? And none at all at the Company, or at your firm of architects, for why else would they give you such a job as this?’

  ‘But where will he stay?’ I asked. ‘We don’t have room for him here.’ I glared at William Quartermain. No one ever saw beyond my birthmark. A port-wine stain that covered my eyes and nose like a highwayman’s mask, it was as though I was born for disguise. I felt safe – watchful, protected, anonymous – behind it. Mr Quartermain stared back at me. His eyes were blue and clear, his expression sharp, and curious.

  ‘He’ll stay in your room, Jem,’ said my father. ‘You’re usually so observant. Hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘But Father!’ I heard my voice rising in shrill alarm. ‘Where am I to go? And where am I to . . . to put all my books?’

  ‘The room is easily big enough for both of you.’ My father closed his eyes and sank back into his chair. ‘As well as your books, and anything else you care to mention. Stop making a fuss. What’s the worst that may come of it?’

  I stood with Will Quartermain in the courtyard. I had left my exhausted father and his apprentice alone in the apothecary. The statue of Edward VI that stood in the centre of the courtyard looked down at me accusingly.

  ‘I have work to do,’ I muttered. I glanced over my shoulder at the open door. Gabriel was changing the water in one of the leech jars. He would never manage it on his own. I turned away, expecting to hear the sound of breaking glass and the shouted curses of my father as Gabriel bungled the job, but there was nothing. ‘You can hardly be looking forward to your task, Mr Quartermain?’ I said.

  ‘I’m not looking forward to it at all, truth be told,’ he said. ‘But it has to be done. As I’m only recently qualified my sensibilities are considered by my employer to be less important than anyone else’s. And so the job fell to me.’

  I nodded. I knew what awaited him. How did I know? Because I had seen it. One midsummer, shortly after my tenth birthday, the rain had poured down for two weeks without stopping. Beyond the west wall of the infirmary, where the gardens of St Saviour’s priory had once been cultivated, long-buried watercourses materialised once again. In the graveyard of St Saviour’s parish church, which lay adjacent to the infirmary, the waters boiling up from the earth met those pouring down from the heavens. The floodwaters passed through the western fringe of the burial ground, scouring away the thin layer of soil that covered the most recent incumbents, packed beneath, one on top of the other, like kippers in a smokehouse. Bodies were churned into view: skulls, limbs, ribs and vertebrae sieved against the gates of the graveyard as the waters rose . . . and receded.

  Of course, it was impossible to get them all back into the space they had vacated. The sight, and the smell made it a matter of public health. That and the fact that a gang of ragged boys from the rookeries of Prior’s Rents was seen using a human skull as a football in one of the filthy courts that lay not far from the infirmary. Dr Magorian, our most distinguished surgeon, had been quite insistent: as soon as possible the skeletons were to be taken away and buried somewhere else.

  I had gone to have a look. Was one of them my mother? She was buried against the wall of the church in a patch of ground warmed by the morning sun. Perhaps I might look upon her face at last . . . How foolish I had been to expect anything but the most appalling sight – yawning skulls, gaping, muddy eye sockets, bony hands reaching out at me through the gates. I ran back to the apothecary. Alone in my room I wept, wept for the mother I had never known, for my father grown so cold and sad, and for myself, alone and without comfort in the world.

  A few months later, when the ground had been cleared, I visited the graveyard again. Apart from a muddy scar across the centre of the greensward, the place looked no different to usual. I found my mother’s headstone untouched by the waters. I had never forgotten the sight of that filthy mass of bones and rags being carted away. And now the same job on a far greater scale had landed in the lap of this raw, rosy-cheeked country boy. ‘Perhaps you should take a look around the infirmary first, Mr Quartermain,’ I said, taking pity on him. ‘The graveyard can wait. It’s not as if the residents are going anywhere, is it?’

  William Quartermain peeped at me from beneath the brim of his ridiculous hat. ‘I’d be honoured to have your company. If you could show me St Saviour’s – your knowledge would be invaluable. But could you call me Will instead of Mr Quartermain – so much easier. We’re similar in age and rank. And height.’ He grinned. ‘Like brothers, almost. What d’you say?’

  I hesitated, disarmed a little by his familiarity. St Saviour’s was a deeply formal place; respect for tradition and the veneration of reputation were everything. Even my good friend Dr Bain did not allow me to call him anything but ‘Dr Bain’. But it was not just convention that made me pause. I had lived in this p
lace all my life. Did I really wish to share its secrets with a stranger? And yet, the destruction of the hospital was inevitable; it would be taken down, brick by brick, whether I wanted it to happen or not. And I was flattered too, by his gratitude and enthusiasm. All at once I was glad that Will Quartermain had come. Perhaps my final weeks at the hospital would not be as lonely as the great many that had preceded them.

  ‘Tell me all you can,’ he said, as we walked across the infirmary’s principal courtyard.

  ‘What do you wish to know?’

  ‘Everything.’

  Where might I begin? St Saviour’s was one of the city’s smaller hospitals, crammed into an acre and a half of land to the north of the river. The southern edge of the place, which looked out onto St Saviour’s Street, was lined with tall flat-fronted town houses, built in King George’s reign. These houses contained the lodgings of the wealthier medical students and of the less vainglorious medical men: Dr Bain and Dr Hawkins, men without the pretention to live in great mansions further to the west, among them. Dr Magorian kept a house here, too, though he lived at the farthest end of the street, so that the stink of the infirmary did not blow in at his windows. On the other three sides, we were surrounded by the buildings of the Empire – the railway station and its accompanying hotel, a tea warehouse, the offices of a shipping clerk – and the houses of the poor. They crowded close to our eastern wall like mushrooms beside a decaying tree, the smells of industry – from the tanning yards and the leather market – mingling with the reek of putrescence and privies breathed from the open windows of our wards.