Sunday 11 January 1880
‘Ann, I do believe the last forty-eight hours have been the most wonderful in my entire life.’ Archibald shifted his body onto one elbow and pulled the blanket round his shoulder. He gazed down at the woman who had just made love to him for the third night in a row. She lay there, languid, eyes shut and a hint of a smile on her lips. He leant down to kiss her eyelids and she looked up at him, her hair loose around her beautiful white neck.
‘Oh, I am sure you have had other happy times, Archibald,’ said Ann, fondling the nape of his neck and smiling up at him. She lifted her other arm and drew her hair onto the top of her head then let it tumble loose once more.
‘Never, Ann, not like this,’ he said, gazing at the curls cascading round her shoulders. ‘I feel guilt at what I have done and yet I cannot possibly regret any of it, indeed I feel no shame, for ours was love waiting to happen. Do you not feel that, Ann?’
She threw back the blanket and stood, naked, in front of him. He had never seen a woman without clothes on. Certainly not Margaret, who undressed and dressed in her own room. He could hardly bear to imagine what her body looked like. His female patients never undressed fully in front of him. He was in a state of delirium. Ann was Venus, Aphrodite.
She began to reach for her clothes. ‘It has been wonderful, I agree, Archibald.’ She pulled on her stockings, then her skirt and sat, her blouse in her hand. ‘I wonder if I might ask you something.’
‘Anything,’ he said, reaching out to her breast. She turned away and slipped her silk blouse over her shoulders and began to button it up, slowly.
‘When you are working with Dr Anderson and a body comes in to the mortuary, how do you decide which one of you will do the examination?’
Archibald frowned. ‘What do you mean, my darling?’
‘Say, for example, that Robert’s body was brought in, would you be able to be the one to examine him?’
‘Well…’ He coughed. ‘Professionally, I should perhaps leave that to Dr Anderson since Robert is – was – a friend.’
She reached out and began to massage the back of his neck. ‘But could you do a favour just for me, Archibald?’
‘Anything, anything at all.’
‘If you can attend to his body yourself, please, should it arrive at the morgue. For what if, for example, it was obvious that he had not been in the water for two weeks but was, in fact, more recently deceased. Would you be able to…’ She paused and drew her face nearer, ‘arrange things?’
‘But I don’t understand, Ann. Robert’s body must be in the water and we are simply awaiting the time when it surfaces, if it ever does at all.’
‘But, I am hypothesising, my darling,’ she said, running the tips of her fingers across his lips. ‘What if a body were to be found that had only been in the water a day or two? And it was Robert? You could perhaps write down on those very important documents you must write for each person, that he had indeed been in the depths for two weeks, that his fate was that of the other passengers on that most awful of nights.’ She gazed into his puzzled eyes. ‘You would do this for me.’ She was so near him now, her heady perfume lingered round him like a mantle.
He gazed at her as she kissed his forehead lightly. ‘I am not sure, I…’
She began to stroke his cheek.
‘Of course I would do this for you, my darling. If you ask me, I will do it.’
She kissed him on the lips then turned and fastened her buttons up to her neck and slipped on her redingote.
‘I must return to the house now.’ She drew her hair up with her hands and clamped it in at either side with two clasps. Loose locks tumbled down.
‘Even with your hair undone, you look more beautiful than ever.’
She smiled at him and kept him in her gaze as she slid on her slippers. ‘I must go now, please shut the door when you leave.’
‘Shall we meet tomorrow again, my darling?’
Ann kissed the top of his head. ‘I shall send a note if Margaret continues to be away.’
‘Oh, she will, my darling, we have another few days,’ he said, as Ann swept out of the door into the dark night air.
* * *
Half an hour later, Ann peered inside her children’s bedroom. All she could hear was the gentle rise and fall of contented breathing. She drew the door to and tiptoed down the stairs towards the front door. She pushed it open very slowly, so the hinges did not creak. Mrs Baxter had said to her at breakfast that morning that she thought she heard a noise in the night and had nearly sent her husband to scour the house.
How was that possible, Ann thought, from their cottage at the back – but she knew her housekeeper was a notoriously bad sleeper. Ann had reassured her by saying that their presence nearby made her feel calm at all times during the night and that she mustn’t worry about a thing. Any noise must have been one of the children tossing around in bed. Mrs Baxter was becoming a busybody, Ann thought, she must be watched.
The chill night air enveloped her as she pulled the door gently closed. She tiptoed onto the grass, avoiding the noisy gravel, then headed for Riverside Drive.
Patting the large pockets of her voluminous cloak, she disappeared into the dark night. It was ten minutes before midnight – the timing was perfect.
She sat on a bench on the promenade by the riverbank and thought of all the times she had been there before, with her husband, her children, her neighbours. It was the ideal place to see the river, the sun sparkling on the water during summer. The children would run the length of the promenade with their hoops and watch the boats bob on the water. Now, though, the water was black and still and there were no other people to be seen. Ann looked to her left and saw a figure approaching in the light from the lamppost. He wore a top hat and walked briskly, his tall walking cane tapping in rhythm. It was Robert and he was shivering; he always felt the cold, having been brought up in large houses with roaring fires and swaddled in warm clothes. She continued to sit on the dark bench as he drew nearer.
He tipped his hat and sat down. ‘As ever, you do not even shiver, sitting here in the freezing cold.’
‘I am not cold, Robert.’ She turned to look at him and smiled.
‘How are the children?’
‘They are well, as ever. How blessed we are.’
She delved into her pocket and brought out a little flask with a small tumbler on top. ‘I have brought you a little drink, Robert. I had anticipated you might be cold and brought you a warming dram.’ She poured some dark liquid from the flask into the tumbler and handed it to him. He tipped it all down in one then shook his head. ‘My, that was strong. Where in God’s name did Baxter buy that whisky from?’
‘I believe it was a New Year’s gift, Robert.’ She took the tumbler from him and put it on the bench, then peeled off her gloves and took her husband’s cold hands in her own warm ones.
‘Tell me your plans, my dear. How was your journey?’ She attempted affection, though all she felt was rage.
‘First of all I must tell you the truth, unpalatable though it is. I do feel I owe that to you before what I am soon to do.’
She bit her lip.
‘There was someone I was to take to Australia with me. A woman I planned to spend the rest of my life with.’ He swallowed. ‘It was Janet Clark, that poor girl Aunt Euphemia had to identify.’
Ann gasped out loud; she must feign shock. ‘How could you do this to me?’
He cleared his throat and continued, speaking quietly. ‘We were perfect together, Ann. Not like us, a marriage of convenience for you, and for me a foolish youthful error, out of which the only good things to come were our two children.’
Ann began fumbling in her pocket, but said nothing.
‘On Friday, I did not go to Glasgow. I travelled instead to Tayport, where Janet lived. I arrived at the cottage on the shore and was greeted at the door by a girl. I realised she was Janet’s sister, poor soul, she is rather simple. Though I’d met her once before, she did not want to speak to me at first, for it was obvious she had something to hide. Eventually I got it out of her that her father, a mussel fisherman, had been at home on that fated Sunday when Janet had returned to pack. He is a violent man and so she had tried to avoid an encounter with him. She thought he would be at church, but he was at home, nursing a hangover. That Sunday was the day we were to meet at Leuchars station to take the train for Edinburgh and thence to Liverpool for the ship to Tasmania.’
Robert stopped speaking and turned abruptly to his wife. ‘There is something else, Ann, something important. She was with child.’
‘Oh, dear God.’
‘Yes, she was expecting our child. It was all to be so good, a new life down in Australia, but then…’ His shoulders slumped and he yawned widely.
Good, thought Ann, the tincture is taking effect.
‘According to the sister, who was hiding, unseen, her father noticed her condition; how could he not, though she was some four months from delivery, she was slender as a willow. So she told him the father of her child was a great man, of reputable family, wealthy, a man who would make a lady of her and…’
‘What, like he made of his wife? His wife, Robert, not some maid with loose morals!’ Her voice rose to a crescendo. ‘Who beds you without a thought for his family at home.’
They both looked around, but there was no one to hear.
Robert shook his head. ‘You see, my dear, you have still never quite lost the cadence of the mill worker you are deep inside.’
‘And you, Robert, have lost none of the priggish arrogance of your privileged background.’ She wanted to slap him but clenched her hands together; she must wait.
‘Mr Clark was so angry with Janet, he swung his fist at her and she fell and hit her head on the stone floor. She…’ He stopped and snivelled. ‘She died at once.’ Robert was wringing his hands.
‘So why did no one know anything of this? Surely it should have been reported?’
‘No, nothing was done, according to the sister.’
‘But, forgive me, Robert, I fail to understand how the body ended up in the Tay Bridge Station mortuary?’
‘He threw the body from the back of the house into the Tay in a panic, that afternoon of the fated train crossing. The sister watched, terrified, from the window. And so what were identified as injuries inflicted by the rocks on the riverbank were in fact the head injuries poor Janet sustained on her own scullery floor. The sister is the only one who saw what happened and she was in a terrible state upon telling me. I had to promise her on my children’s lives I would not say anything to the authorities.’
‘Robert, that is horrible.’ She looked at his face, trying to see his expression in the darkness. ‘But why are you telling me all this?’
Robert gave a wide yawn and slumped down a little on the bench. ‘I speak the truth to you now because I shall explain what is going to happen. I shall go to Tasmania in three days’ time. The ship is booked, I have a berth for myself and my two children.’
‘How in God’s name do you think you can do that?’
‘By law they are my children, not yours.’
‘You expect me to say nothing at all? Allow you to take my children off to the other side of the world and simply say farewell?’
‘Ann, if you do not, the consequences would not be terribly pleasant for you, I fear. The little cottage in Glenisla might no longer suit your ladylike constitution – perhaps one of the tenement flats in Lochee might be more appropriate. Indeed, you could ply your wares on the streets at night.’
She slapped him hard. ‘How dare you, how dare you.’
He put his hand to his cheek then grasped her hands and drew closer. ‘I do not imagine your wealthy friends would like to know that you are no more a lady than the whores down at the docks. I am drawing up contracts tomorrow regarding the mill and also your finances. I had thought to change ownership of the mill but I decided last night to keep things as they are, with Johnston in charge, he’s a good man. I will be providing you with a generous allowance and leaving you the house and servants. Provided you say nothing malicious, you can invent some tale about being sent for at a future date, as you wish.’
He put his hand up to his mouth to stifle another yawn and she pulled her hands away and reached into her pocket.
She put her other hand onto his coat and started to unbutton it. ‘Robert, you are my husband, have you no heart?’ She slipped her hand onto his thin silk waistcoat and rubbed his chest where his heart was. ‘I cannot believe you would deprive me of my children. I love you and…’
‘Love me, ha! You have never loved me, you used me,’ he slurred, slumping further down the bench. His eyes were closing.
‘You are so right, Robert Craig, I never have.’
She pulled out Mattie’s gift. Now was the time. She removed the long, heavy, sharpened darning needle from its cloth and thrust it once, twice, three times into his heart.