This was her home, her cosy parlour where she and Ma lived. The kettle still swung on the chain over the fire from tea and the sewing box was still where Ellen had left it three hours before, on the window sill. Even Waisy still sat propped up in the corner of Gran’s old chair, but surrounding the familiar items lay their few sticks of furniture in splinters on the floor, with the pages of Ma’s books scattered around. Their shattered crockery spread across the rug and into the fire grate, just one solitary cup still hung on its peg untouched by the devastation in the room.
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Danny wasn’t real and her mother couldn’t be lying like a bundle of bloody rags on the floor.
Josie blinked and her gaze rested back on Ellen.
She lay curled on her side with dark blood oozing from her nose. There was a dull red weal across her forehead and her shoulder rested at an odd angle. Despite her wounds, Ellen’s averted face was calm, almost peaceful, like Gran’s had been when she passed over.
Suddenly, everything in her vision burst over her. Eyes fixed to her mother.
‘Ma!’ she whispered, as fear and emptiness engulfed her. Her ma, dead!
Please, please, please God, let Ma be all right, Josie prayed. I promise I’ll be good, I won’t give her a lot of lip like I have, just, please God, let Ma live.
Nausea surged up within her. She swallowed it down, hatred and anger surging up in her as she pointed at Danny. ‘Murderer!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Danny swung around and glared at her.
Josie sucked in a breath then let out another ear-splitting scream that hurt her throat, then dashed back into the street. People had already come out of their houses to see what the yelling was about.
‘Murder!’ she screamed again, as she heard Danny lumbering after her. ‘Murder. Me ma’s been murdered. Call the police.’
Others took up the cry. A rough hand took hold of Josie’s hair.
‘Come here, you little who—’
Danny’s gruff voice stopped abruptly, as did the painful tension on her hair. The sound of the poker hitting the cobbled street rang out.
Turning around, Josie gazed down at the unconscious body of Danny Donovan lying on the wet street. Behind him stood Patrick, a broken wheel spoke in his hand.
Nineteen
Robert dashed down the polished oak floor corridors, scattering all before him. Taking the stairs two at a time he found his heart beating wildly - and not from exertion. It thundered at double speed because it was being ripped in two with every passing second.
Shoving open the half-glazed door to the women’s ward, he strode in. He spotted Sister Adams at the far end behind the nurse’s desk. She squeezed herself from behind it and glided towards him.
‘I believe Mrs O’Casey has just been admitted to your care, Sister,’ Robert said in a low voice, his eyes darting around the dimly lit ward.
Sister Adams nodded sharply. ‘Mrs O’Casey’s daughter said you would want to know.’
‘Where is Josie?’
‘She is having some tea in the ward kitchen with May, the night orderly. If you’ll follow me, Doctor Munroe.’
She led Robert down the middle of the quiet ward. ‘Nurse Watson is with Mrs O’Casey. She stopped outside the door of a side room. ‘I am afraid Mrs O’Casey is very badly injured,’ she told him, her hand hovering on the brass plate of the door.
‘How badly?’
‘It’s a miracle she’s still alive,’ Sister Adams told him flatly.
Nurse Watson stood up when they entered the room. Robert didn’t glance her way as his eyes fixed on the small form lying motionless in the centre of the bed.
The whole room receded from Robert’s consciousness as he focused only on Ellen. Bile caught at the back of his throat and an iron hand gripped his chest leaving him gasping for breath. He tried to draw breath but it was as if he had suddenly stopped living, frozen between two beats of the wall clock as he stared down at her bloody and battered body.
Ellen was almost unrecognisable. Her face was black and swollen and one eye was completely closed. Blood all around her left ear had seeped into her hair, giving it an unnaturally red tinge. There was blood on her mouth and a gash through her bottom lip where her teeth had punctured it.
Rage, guilt and fear rose up in Robert. Rage because he knew that if they stood before him now, he would kill whoever had done this to Ellen with his own hands. Guilt because he had promised to keep her safe and he had not, and fear because there was a real possibility that at any moment Ellen would sigh out her last breath and he would lose her forever.
Utter desolation swept over him. A life without Ellen was no life at all and he wouldn’t live it.
From what seemed like a great distance away he heard Nurse Watson speak.
‘The poor woman looks as if she has been attacked by a wild animal, not a human being,’ she said, her voice echoing around Robert’s head.
He knew he should respond in some way but one word crowded out all others.
Danny.
Animal was right. Danny Donovan was nothing more than a dangerous, savage animal that should be put down. As Robert, distraught, gazed dawn at Ellen, his own voice in his head tormented him.
It’s all my fault. I’ve known for week the sort of lengths Donovan would go to in order to stop me from exposing his criminal activities, so how could I have left Ellen so unprotected?
The iron hand started to close around his chest again but this time Robert forced his mind to take charge. If Ellen was to survive this murderous attack she needed him to care for her, and that was what he was determined to do.
Taking a firm hold of his emotions, he glanced at Ellen’s arms, resting above the blankets. Along with the criss-cross of cuts and scratches there was one huge bruise on her forearm where, he guessed, she had raised it to stop a blow to her head.
Robert summoned up all his professionalism to save him losing all control. ‘I’ll have to examine her to find out the full extent of her injuries,’ he said, noting the cracked tone in his voice.
‘Of course, Doctor.’ Sister Adams beckoned to Nurse Watson, who jumped forward.
Sitting down on the narrow bed next to his beloved, Robert looked at her more closely. She was breathing evenly and with no obvious noise or effort. Both legs were the same length and lying as they should, so they had not been broken in the attack. But what about Ellen’s insides? A broken leg would mend, but certain internal injuries could prove to be fatal.
‘Give me the lamp, nurse,’ Robert said, holding his hand out.
He raised it to one side of Ellen and opened one of her eyes, looking closely at the pupil. It reduced sharply as the beam from the lamp fell on it. Robert did the same with the other eye, noting the same reaction. He let out a breath. Thank God. He glanced up at the two nurses behind him.
‘Both are brisk to light,’ he said, giving a brief smile.
Handing the lamp back to Nurse Watson, Robert moved Ellen’s hair out of the way and let his fingers gently feel around her skull. Images of Ellen in his arms washed through his mind as his fingers traced their path across the curvature of her head. He sighed. All seemed intact, with no soft or broken areas.
With equal gentleness Robert made his way around the back of her neck. The same soft, slender neck he had kissed up and down until she had shuddered in his arms with passion. He moved the joints slightly and felt no resistance. Thankfully, he noted that the blood on her ears came from external injury and not from within.
He traced professional fingers down her neck and over her shoulders and felt a movement under his right hand.
‘The left clavicle is broken,’ he said to the nurse. ‘That will have to be strapped.’
His eyes fell on Ellen’s chest, rising and falling steadily as she breathed. There was a rapidly blackening bruise across her left breast where the heavy instrument that had broken her collarbone had been halted in its path.
Horror swept over Robert. Where else was Ellen’s beautiful body damaged?
‘I am pretty sure that Mrs O’Casey has several broken ribs, but I will have to have her bodice and shift removed so I can be sure.’
‘Of course, Doctor,’ Sister Adams said.
As the nurse fussed, making her patient ready for his further examinations, Ellen moaned and shifted in the bed. She was responding to being touched. That was a good sign.
Taking the edge of the sheet Robert lifted it up and looked down at Ellen. As his eyes ran over her body, he slowly took in the full magnitude of what she had suffered at Donovan’s hands.
With his emotions almost at breaking point Robert folded the sheet back, uncovering her to the waist. With the nurses watching, he ran his hands over Ellen’s ribs. A badly bruised area on her right side gave way under the smallest amount of pressure from Robert’s fingers.
‘There are at least four broken ribs on this side,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even. ‘Probably a blow from a boot, judging by the shape of the bruise above them.’
He could hear his calm professional voice informing and teaching while inwardly his heart was breaking.
Ellen could have been killed. He could have lost her forever to Danny Donovan’s rage. Robert forced this unhelpful train of thought away.
He held his breath and rolled Ellen slightly at her shoulders. She moaned again, almost under her breath, but her spine moved with ease as he manipulated it. He then put his hands on her stomach and probed across and around it. Though there was a great weal diagonally across her flesh, feeling no underlying swelling, Robert concluded this wound was superficial. A quick check of both hips told him they too were sound. To his utter relief, battered though she was, Ellen seemed to be a lot less seriously injured now that he had examined her thoroughly than she had appeared to be at first sight.
Robert’s heart grew lighter and his racing pulse started to slow. Then his eyes drifted down to the area just below her navel, still just hidden by the sheet.
It was in this precious area of her body that he had hoped she would one day nurture his children. What damage had Danny done there?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that Ellen should live.
Although not being able to have children of his own would be bitterly disappointing, Robert knew that he could accept it as long as he had Ellen.
Slowly he reached towards the folded edge of the sheet. As his fingers took hold of the starched linen they were shaking.
‘For decency’s sake, would you like me to examine Mrs O’Casey’s private area, Doctor?’ Sister Adams asked, clearing her throat.
‘If you would, Sister,’ Robert replied, thankful for the offer. He didn’t think he would be able to control himself if Ellen had been wounded by Danny’s brutality in her most private parts.
‘If I think there is anything you should see, Doctor, I’ll—’
‘Yes, of course.’
Silently, Sister Adams raised the sheet from Ellen’s feet and Nurse Watson moved Ellen’s legs apart.
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, Robert repeated to himself. Just let Ellen live. Please God, just let her live.
A picture of Danny Donovan striking Ellen came into Robert’s mind. Punching Ellen. Kicking Ellen. Then finally an image almost too terrible to contemplate flashed into Robert’s head.
If that brute beast has forced himself on her, I’ll kill the bastard with my own hands. So help me.
The violence of Robert’s pounding emotions caught him by surprise as he pictured himself squeezing the life out of Donovan. How quickly the educated doctor with a position in society fell away and the primitive man took over. At last Sister Adams spoke.
‘There is a large bruise and a small superficial gash on Mrs O’Casey’s right hip bone. She also has several marks on both legs but, as far as I can see, there are no wounds or ...’ she glanced up at Robert swiftly. ‘Or carnal deposits around—’
‘Thank you, Sister,’ he said briskly, as the nurse repositioned the sheet.
He straightened up, and the tension in his shoulders begun to evaporate. He had treated many women who had been raped, and he knew that long after the physical scars had healed the emotional scars remained. At least Ellen wouldn’t have to live with that memory.
‘Um, if you have finished, Doctor Munroe, we will wash Mrs O’Casey and put a nightgown on her,’ Nurse Watson said, looking nervously at Sister Adams, who said, ‘I understand Mrs O’Casey is a particular friend of yours, so I’m sure that you’ll want her nursed in the side room, Doctor Munroe,’ she said, looking down the length of her stubby nose at him.
Nurse Watson lowered her gaze to the floor.
He drew his brows together. ‘I want Mrs O’Casey nursed in this side room because her condition dictates it,’ he said in a hard tone.
‘Yes... yes of course, Doctor.’
Robert stood up abruptly ‘I am going to see Mrs O’Casey’s daughter. Call me immediately if there are any changes.’
St Mary’s clock was sounding out two o’clock as Robert re-entered the small side room. Ellen was still lying peacefully in the centre of the bed while Josie sat beside her red-eyed and white-faced with tiredness. She gave him a weary smile as he crept into the room. He beckoned her over.
‘Josie, my dear. I want you to go with Bulmer to Mr Cooper’s house. I have sent him word and he is expecting you,’ He lowered his voice and regarded Josie seriously. ‘You’ll be safe there.’
Josie shivered as she understood his meaning. ‘I have sent word to Inspector Jackson that you are the only witness to your mother’s assault and that you and your mother, when she awakes, are under my protection.’
Josie gave her mother a sorrowful look.
‘Don’t worry,’ Robert said, following the young woman’s eyes. ‘I intend to stay by her side until she wakes.’ He heard the crack of raw emotion in his voice. He placed his hand on the young woman’s shoulder. ‘Now off you go. Mr Cooper has a couple of young daughters about your age, so I think you’ll feel right at home there,’ he added encouragingly. ‘I’ll be along later to fetch you back to your mother.’