Corridors of the Night (21 page)

‘My mother died shortly after that,’ Rand went on. ‘My father walked around like a ghost. Time went by. Hamilton did superbly well at school. He was going to go on to university and become a doctor. It was what he dreamed of.’

Monk could imagine it easily: a boy steeping himself in the study of medicine to lose his sense of grief, and perhaps to learn the one skill whose practitioners had failed his family.

‘I wanted the same,’ Rand went on. ‘But I was a long way behind Hamilton – in years, of course, but neither had I the brilliance of intellect he had. Then our father died, and there was no money. Hamilton gave up his studies and found a job. It wasn’t one that he liked, but he earned sufficient to keep us both, and eventually to pay for my place at university. I became the doctor he had always wanted to be.’

In spite of himself, Monk felt a deep pity for them both. It was easy to imagine the brothers, the loyalty and sacrifice between them, the duty to live a life for both of them, and perhaps even for Edward as well.

He looked at Rand, waiting for him to continue.

Rand sighed. ‘At last I was earning enough to support us both. Hamilton could give up the job he had come to hate, and take up his studies again. He felt it was too late, and too expensive for him to qualify in medicine. But he was brilliant in many directions. It was not hard for him to qualify in chemistry, at which he excelled.’

‘What did Edward die of?’ Monk asked, almost certain what the answer would be.

‘White blood disease,’ Rand said softly. ‘Did you not realise that?’

‘I supposed,’ Monk answered. ‘And yes, Hamilton paid a very high and selfless price for his medical skill. But he chose to. These children did not choose to die for it, and they might well do. Which I think you know.’

Rand looked tired, his thick hair tousled.

‘I have already told you, Mr Monk, I do not know where they have gone. I imagine Hamilton did not tell me precisely because he knew you would come asking.’

Monk raised his eyebrows. ‘And he didn’t trust you not to tell me?’

‘Of course he did!’ Rand was hurt. ‘He knows my loyalty. He is protecting me so I cannot be to blame.’ He looked angry, belligerent.

‘To blame for what?’ Monk asked, keeping his voice soft. ‘For the deaths of the children? Or my wife?’

Rand’s skin blanched. ‘What are you talking about? He’s not taking your wife’s blood. Don’t you understand anything? It’s only the children’s blood that is any good. It works on anyone, everyone! We just don’t know why yet. Without knowing why, we can’t tell who else’s blood will work. It’s only a fortunate experiment, not a system. For God’s sake, man, think what it would mean!’ He leaned forward across the desk. ‘Think of the lives it would save! We have to know—’

‘I know you’re not taking her blood,’ Monk cut across him. ‘But if this doesn’t work, if Radnor dies, then you won’t need her any more. Do you imagine he will let her walk away?’

Rand looked haggard. ‘She helped! She can’t say anything. In exchange for the children’s lives . . . he’ll . . .’

Monk looked at him witheringly. ‘Reality, Dr Rand. That is a chance he won’t take. Once she is gone, with the children safe, why would he trust her to remain silent? Or the children either, for that matter?’

‘You’re speaking as if he’s a monster!’ Rand almost choked on his own words. ‘He’s not! He’s a brilliant man, brave enough to take the risks one has to, to discover new cures, new procedures to save uncountable lives in the future. Can’t you see that? It’s like . . . it’s like setting sail alone across the ocean and finding a new continent.’ The wonder in his eyes was momentarily like that of the child he must have been when Edward died, and Hamilton gave up his dreams to care for his family.

Monk put his hand in his pocket again and pulled out Squeaky’s mock newspaper article.

‘I don’t think they’ll see him as the discoverer of a new continent,’ he said gravely, looking at Rand. ‘I think it will be more like this.’ He put the paper down on the desk and smoothed it out.

Rand saw it and frowned. ‘What the devil is this?’ he demanded.

‘How I think the future will see your brother,’ Monk replied. ‘Read it.’

Rand read it slowly, and every vestige of blood drained from his face. For seconds he was too stunned to speak, too appalled.

‘It’s time to face reality,’ Monk said more gently. ‘Hamilton cannot afford to let them go. Whether Radnor lives or dies, he will be exposed if they live. As soon as he doesn’t need Hester, he’ll kill her. The children he may save for longer, or if not them, at least their blood. He’ll keep them imprisoned as long as they survive. It’s likely none of them will attempt to escape because they’d have to leave the smallest one behind. He’s only four. He wouldn’t make it.’

Rand started to shake his head, to deny it all, but his whole body was trembling.

‘And that alone will hang your brother,’ Monk continued. He loathed what he was doing but Hester’s life depended on it, as well as those of the three children, and the happiness, perhaps even the sanity of their mother.

‘Is that his legacy to the future, Dr Rand? A man who bleeds children to death for his experiments, and murders the nurse who tries to save them? Tried and hanged, by common consent of the public . . .’

Rand jerked to his feet. ‘Stop it!’ he shouted furiously, his voice blurred with pain. ‘That’s not who he is. You’re wrong – terribly wrong. He’s a great man.’

‘Then you have no need to conceal him,’ Monk replied, standing up as well. ‘Where is he? Please God it is not already too late.’

‘I’ve told you, I don’t know! He didn’t tell me!’ Rand was close to losing all control of his emotions. He was ash-pale and swaying on his feet.

‘Sit down and think,’ Monk commanded him. ‘You’ve known him all your life. Where would he go? Where have you gone in the past? Does he know anyone with property he could use?’

Rand put his hands over his face.

‘Stop it! I can’t think . . .’

‘Yes you can,’ Monk insisted. ‘You have the intelligence and the self-command. You don’t faint at the sight of blood. You don’t panic when people are injured and need you. Now use your mind, your memory. Have you friends with a house in the country? We’ve looked and can find nothing under your name. But that means little. Where do you have relatives? Take holidays? Where does your family come from?’

Rand stared at Monk as if he had risen out of the ground in a stench of sulphur.

‘My aunt Betty had a cottage on the Estuary. She left it to us—’

‘Where exactly? Kent side, or Essex?’

‘Kent. Little village called Redditch. It’s outside the centre. It used to be a farm.’

‘Name of the farm?’

‘Long Meadow,’ Rand replied so softly it was almost inaudible. ‘Don’t hurt him . . .’

Monk took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. ‘Not willingly,’ he answered, hoping it was a promise he could keep. If Hamilton Rand had hurt Hester, he would kill him.

‘WE NEED to get a cart of some kind that doesn’t look like we come from the city,’ Scuff said thoughtfully. ‘One o’ them they take stuff in to the market.’

They were in the sitting room in Paradise Row: Monk, Scuff, and Hooper, who was still aching from his recent injury. As the summer faded it was getting dark earlier every day. Monk looked at Scuff with surprise that he should imagine he was coming on this mission.

‘It could be rough,’ he told him quietly. ‘I don’t know how many people Rand will have there, and they may be armed.’

Scuff stared straight back at him without flinching. ‘Yer tellin’ me yer could get shot? Killed, even?’

‘Anybody could,’ Monk answered honestly. To lie about it would help nothing, and only make Scuff feel even more excluded.

Scuff’s gaze did not waver. ‘Then yer no different from me,’ he pointed out. ‘I can do things.’

Monk was momentarily at a loss for an answer. He wanted to protect Scuff, make sure that in this tragedy at least he was unhurt. Hester would never stop grieving if Scuff came to harm in rescuing her.

‘I’m coming.’ Scuff did not wait for him. ‘We’re going for Hester, and kids that were just like I was. I’ll be useful. An’ Mr ’Ooper’s still hurt. Yer need me. We got ter do this.’

‘Yes, I do,’ Monk agreed. ‘But you have to do as you’re told!’

‘I will,’ Scuff promised, nodding his head.

Monk did not believe him, but it was not the time to argue.

‘He’s right,’ Hooper observed. ‘We need a farm cart of some sort. Something that won’t draw attention on a country road. We’ve no chance of taking them if we don’t get them by surprise. I’ll see if anyone knows of someone who has a dray we can use.’

‘Squeaky would,’ Scuff said eagerly. ‘He can get anything if ’e wants it bad enough.’ He did not add that for Hester he would, but Monk knew it was in his mind. ‘I can go tell him.’

Monk glanced at Hooper, then back at Scuff. ‘Good. Go and ask him. We need it before sunrise tomorrow morning. We’ve no time to lose. I’d go now, except we have to wait for light. We can’t do it in strange lanes at night.’

‘I gotter tell him what for,’ Scuff pointed out.

‘Of course,’ Monk agreed reluctantly. ‘There’s no help for that. Tell him as much as you need to so he understands, and that it can’t wait. Tell him I’ll pay whatever I need to.’

Scuff gave a brief smile, and then picked his jacket off the coat stand where it hung beside Monk’s, and a moment later he was outside and they heard the door close.

Monk and Hooper bent to study the maps they had of the area where Magnus Rand had said the cottage was. They could see the main roads, but there would be many lanes and by-roads unmarked. There was much planning needed, with variations to cover the unforeseen that might happen.

Scuff set out at a run on his errand to Squeaky Robinson. The light was hazy across the water already and the colour deepening in the west. He caught the first ferry he could, jammed on the seat next to a fat man with a bowler hat that was too large for him and resting on his ears. Scuff paid his fare before they pulled out into the current, and he leaped ashore as soon as they touched against the stone steps on the further side.

Normally he would wait for an omnibus, and change as many times as necessary to get at least as far as Gray’s Inn Road. Now he ran out into the traffic and hailed a hansom. He was surprised that the driver did not question his ability to pay. Perhaps at least he looked like a young man, not the boy he felt inside.

‘As fast as yer can,’ he asked. ‘I want ter go to the clinic in Portpool Lane, opposite the brewery.’

‘You sick?’ the cabby looked at him dubiously.

Scuff stretched the truth a little, or perhaps rather a lot.

‘No. My mother’s the doctor there. Please ’urry.’

The cabby looked dubious, but when Scuff put two shillings in his hand, he stopped discussing the matter and urged his horse forward.

Scuff knew he had given the cabby ample to cover the journey, so as soon as the cab swung in towards the kerb in Portpool Lane he leaped out and ran across the narrow pavement and in through the door.

The woman sitting at the desk looked up immediately, expecting an emergency. Then she recognised Scuff and it ceased to be medical and became personal. She rose from her seat and hurried towards him, her freckled face both eager and frightened.

‘Hello, Ruby,’ he said hastily. ‘I need ter see Mr Robinson, very quick. Is ’e in ’is office?’

‘I expect,’ she replied. ‘D’yer want me ter—’

‘No, thanks.’ He brushed past her, ran along the narrow corridor and swung round at Squeaky’s door. He knocked, then opened it and went in anyway, closing it hard behind him.

Squeaky opened his mouth to give him a piece of his mind about such manners. Then he saw Scuff’s face and for once held his tongue.

‘We know where she is.’ Scuff leaned forward over the desk scattered with the usual papers, letters and scraps of calculation. ‘We got ter go, tomorrow, and rescue ’er. We’ve got ter creep up on ’em, like, so they don’t know it’s us. There could be guns. It’s in the country. Yer’ve got to ’elp, please!’

Squeaky stared at him, his over-long hair wild, his gaunt face filled with outrage. ‘You suggesting as maybe I wouldn’t? Watch your tongue, boy! I’ll box your ears for you, after we done this. Where is she? What does Monk say? He sent you, or you come on your own? Guns, eh?’

Scuff took a deep breath and steadied himself. ‘It’s a farm cottage we got ter get to as early as we can, but it’s all lanes and tracks, so we can’t do it in the dark. They can’t know ’oo we are . . . even think it!’

‘Slow down! Slow down!’ Squeaky said, gesturing with his hands. ‘Who’s “we”?’

‘Monk and Mr ’Ooper an’ me,’ Scuff replied. He changed his weight from one foot to the other in his impatience. ‘Yer can find a cart fer us, if yer want to! Yer can find anything at all, if yer want to enough.’

Squeaky stood up. ‘Of course I can,’ he agreed. ‘How many people has this cart got to carry? That’s what I need to know.’

Scuff swallowed. ‘Us three, and Hester and the three children ’e took fer their blood.’

‘God Almighty! Took for their blood! What d’yer mean, boy?’

‘’E’s making experiments . . .’

‘How d’you know that?’ Squeaky narrowed his eyes. ‘You listening in to wot you shouldn’t, eh?’

‘Only a bit! Are yer goin’ ter get us a cart or not?’

‘’Course I am!’

‘I’ll come with yer. I . . . I s’pose I got ter drive it.’ That was a frightening thought. He knew the river, but horses were a completely different matter. However, he couldn’t afford to let anyone see that he was afraid.

Squeaky looked him up and down and there was something in his eyes that could have been respect.

‘Come on, then,’ he said abruptly, as if Scuff had kept him waiting. ‘We’ll go and find a horse and cart.’

Scuff straightened up instantly. ‘Yes, sir!’ he said, before realising he had actually called Squeaky ‘sir’, and it was too late to take it back.

The errand took longer than expected. There seemed too often to be reason or an excuse. The cart was too large, too small, one wheel was broken, the horse was lame, or the price was ridiculous. The last Scuff would have given in to, and paid whatever was asked, but Squeaky hushed him sharply, and walked away. The lamps were lit and it was completely dark by the time they had found a very good cart and bought a load of hay to go along with it for authenticity.