FORTY-SEVEN

s always in Leith, Raven felt surrounded by bustling movement in every direction; even above, where seagulls wheeled amidst rising clouds sent up by a departing packet steamer. He could barely see the water for sails, and upon the shore there was the liveliest throng and babble, everywhere teeming with activity and busy purpose. Raven heard half a dozen languages spoken in the space of a few minutes, noticed a boundless variety of features, skin colours and clothing upon men toting crates, bales and trunks.

Smells of coffee and spices hung upon the air. Raven breathed them in gratefully, aware the shore was not always so blessed. Simpson had told him about an altogether less fragrant cargo that landed here once, both of them taking pleasure in a tale that reflected poorly upon Professor Syme. In the days before the Anatomy Act, when bodies for dissection were in short supply, Syme had acquired cadavers from Dublin and London, transporting them to Edinburgh via the docks at Leith. During the summer of 1826, the stench coming from a shipment resulted in Syme’s crates being opened and their unauthorised contents discovered, generating much outrage and scandal. ‘Syme’s cargo was marked “perishable goods”,’ Simpson told him, wheezing with laughter.

Raven thought he had chosen his position well. It was a spot where he would remain largely invisible should the landlord happen to look out of the window, but affording a clear view north and south along the shore, for he didn’t know from which direction Madame Anchou would approach. As he had explained to Sarah, his concern was that, should Spiers see him, he might suspect something was afoot and take steps to warn off the midwife. The unspoken further implication was that the landlord might simply move against Raven directly, or God forbid even Sarah.

In order to reduce her exposure to danger, Sarah was under instruction only to conduct her conversation in the tavern and not to agree to a consultation upstairs in the midwife’s rooms. She was to discuss the services the Frenchwoman might offer, but then admit she did not have the money yet. This would give Raven the opportunity to follow Madame Anchou and confront her on neutral ground, or even to find out where she lived so that he could choose his moment judiciously.

What he hadn’t anticipated was that she would see him first.

He was hopping from foot to foot as he waited, in an effort to fend off shivers. It was a cold day, an unforgiving wind blowing in off the water. Sarah was right: he urgently needed to get a heavier coat.

He ceased his hopping and stood rigid when he saw his quarry moving through the crowd, striding down the incline from Tolbooth Wynd. The moment he saw that hood, he had no question that this was the woman he had heard described. The black cloth was swaying back and forth with each step so that he could only glimpse fragments of her face, never the entirety. The view was further obscured by people moving in and out of her path, sometimes causing her to disappear from view altogether. He thought she might have looked at him, but with her eyes in shadow beneath the hood, it was impossible to be sure. She was getting steadily nearer, though, so he would get a close-up view soon enough.

Again she vanished from view behind a shore porter pushing a cart, and when next he spied her, she had turned and was running. Raven watched her part the crowd, hurrying back in the direction from which she had just come.

She knew something was wrong.

He took off, signalling through the window for Sarah to follow. There was going to be no meeting. They had to catch her now, or they might never track her down.

Weaving between the people milling along the dockside, Raven quickly began to gain ground. He had always been swift on his feet, and it was easier to run in gentleman’s clothing. For that reason, he knew that he would be leaving Sarah far behind, but the important thing was that the midwife did not get away.

She was easier to keep in sight now that she was moving faster, as he could see the movement ahead of her as people stepped out of her way. However, when she reached the first side street, she took a hard turn and was gone from view. Raven stepped up his pace, and to his relief she was back in his sight when he reached the corner, both of them now hurrying along a narrower but altogether quieter thoroughfare.

Anchou glanced back upon hearing his footfalls, then diverted to speak briefly to three stevedores who had just emerged from a doorway. Raven was out of earshot, but as he watched her point towards him, it was not difficult to deduce the crux of their conversation.

She resumed her flight as the three stevedores began marching on Raven, one hefting a heavy stick. He reckoned he could possibly take one of these men on his own, or at least be swift enough to evade him, but not all three at once. He had to back away for his own safety, and in his retreat he did not see where the midwife went. In order to resume his pursuit, he would have to double back and loop around, by which time she would be long away, or at least have plenty of time to hide.

As he turned the corner back onto the dockside, he saw Sarah hurrying towards him.

‘She got away,’ he confessed. ‘She set some dockers to block my path. Must have told them I meant her harm.’

‘Why did she run, though?’ Sarah asked.

‘It is my assumption that she recognised me, enough to know what I was about.’

‘And therefore she feared you would recognise her also. But from where?’

‘I can’t imagine. I don’t know any Frenchwomen.’

‘Then perhaps she is not French,’ Sarah suggested, ‘but rather a woman pretending to be something she is not.’

Raven suddenly saw how Madame Anchou’s exoticness was part of her attraction to prospective patients. It might be as false as the medicines she was hawking.

Raven waited until he saw the three stevedores pass, then slipped along the side street again. He and Sarah reached a thoroughfare that ran parallel to the dockside, but there was no sign of her. He knew it was hopeless.

‘She could have gone anywhere,’ he admitted.

‘At some point she will have to go back to the King’s Wark, surely,’ Sarah reminded him.

They had no notion when that might be, nor the option to keep vigil for its happening. However, there was reason enough for them to visit the place.

‘We have some questions we ought to ask Mr Spiers,’ he said.

‘And what if he has a strong will not to answer them? A violent will, even?’

Raven had considered this, but he had his leverage now. ‘He has seen you too. I will tell him that you wait for me, and should I fail to return or come to any harm, you will be going straight to McLevy to tell him everything we know.’

‘We don’t know much.’

‘Nonetheless, it is what he fears we know that will restrain him.’

They made their way back towards the King’s Wark, approaching from the rear having come around in a circle.

Raven’s plan to keep Sarah out of the landlord’s sight was immediately dashed as they saw Spiers emerge into a courtyard at the back of the tavern. He pitched forward as though about to sprint towards them, but as Raven altered his stance and put out an arm to warn off Sarah, it became clear that the landlord was in fact staggering. He fell against a stack of beer barrels, gripping one to prop himself upright. As he turned, Raven was able to see a patch of dark red staining his grubby shirt around his middle.

Spiers noticed them and reached out an imploring hand before dropping to his knees.

They hurried into the courtyard.

‘She stuck me,’ he said, clutching his hand to his side. ‘The French bitch. So quick. I didn’t even see a blade.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t stop to explain.’

Raven helped Spiers take his rest against a barrel. The patch of red was widening by the second. He and Sarah shared a look. Spiers was bleeding badly and they both knew he had little time left.

‘What was your arrangement with this woman?’

‘I will not condemn myself with my own testimony,’ he replied, grimacing against the pain.

‘Your wound is grave, sir. Without help you will die within the hour. I am a doctor. I can keep you alive long enough for us to get you to Professor Syme, the best surgeon in the city. But only if you answer our questions.’

‘Do not take me for a fool, son. There’s not a surgeon in the world who can mend this. She has done for me.’

‘Then you owe her no loyalty. Speak, man.’

‘She is a French midwife who rents rooms. That is all I know.’

‘You must know more than that. She carries out abortions on your premises and she pays you a percentage. Who is she really? What more do you know about her?’

‘Nothing. She told me if I didn’t ask questions, it would protect us both.’

‘Well your silence has not served you well today, has it? What more do you know?’

Spiers considered it, a bitter look on his face, from which colour was visibly draining.

‘She has a partner,’ he said, swallowing.

‘Who?’

‘I never knew his name and I saw him but once. I tried to enter her room when I thought her not home and found him there.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘I saw him but for a few seconds, and even then only from the back. I had barely opened the door when he pushed me out and slammed it shut. He was standing by a table with instruments and potions ranged upon it. A medical man, like yourself. Older, though.’

‘And what of Rose Campbell?’ Sarah asked.

‘Who?’

‘She was a housemaid. The one who was pulled from the water.’

‘I know nothing about that.’

‘You followed me after I asked about her,’ Raven reminded him. ‘Come on, would you not make your confession that you may face death without fear?’

Spiers winced, the blood oozing between his fingers where he clutched them to the soaking cloth. He looked afraid now.

‘She came here, paid the money. The procedure was successful but she was ill afterwards. They often were . . . and we turned them out, though they were barely fit to walk. We let them stay a couple of days, and if it appeared they would not recover, we put them out because we did not want any bodies to dispose of or deaths to explain. God forgive me,’ he said, his voice faltering.

Sarah had found a wooden tankard upon a bench and pulled out the stop from a barrel to fill it. She offered it to Spiers, who sipped it gratefully.

‘Your one, Rose . . . she was recovering. She was here a few days, but she was on the mend. I brought her water, meals. Then I was woken by her screaming in the night. When I went to her room, she was in her final throes. She died all twisted and agonised.’

Sarah offered another sip, though he barely had the strength to take it in. Most of it dribbled down his chin, and when he spoke again, his voice was dry and faint.

‘I was sore afraid. I feared it would bring all hell crashing down upon me if it was found out what was being done here. I had to get rid of her, so I took her to the water and dropped her in. But I didn’t kill her. God as my witness, I didn’t . . . kill her . . .’

With these words, his voice became a pitiable whisper and his head rolled forward onto his chest.

‘He is gone,’ Raven said.

Sarah looked ashen, but it was not merely the sight of a dead man that was troubling her.

‘What do we do now?’

‘Leave. Quickly.’

‘Just abandon him here? Shouldn’t we alert the police?’

‘Only if you feel confident about explaining your role in all of this to McLevy.’

This silenced any moral qualms Sarah might have about his suggested course of action. They looked left and right out of the back court to ensure nobody had seen them, then slipped quietly down the same narrow lane by which they had approached.

‘Why would Anchou kill him?’ Sarah asked as they walked briskly but not in a conspicuous hurry back towards the anonymity of the busy dockside.

‘I know not, but I fear it was our actions that brought her knife down upon him. She knew we were investigating her, and there was something she feared Spiers might tell us.’

‘Then why didn’t he? He gave us nothing of any great import.’

‘Perhaps there was something she merely feared he knew, and could not take the risk.’

Sarah suddenly pushed Raven against a wall, her hands upon his chest. He could feel his heart thump against her fingers, his whole body still trembling from what he had just witnessed.

‘What is—?’ he began.

‘I cannot be seen,’ she said urgently. ‘I am supposed to be in the town on errands. I could be dismissed.’

‘Seen by whom?’

‘Do not look,’ she insisted. ‘Keep your head down.’

But by that time he had already spotted the problem. Walking south along Leith Shore was the man who was these days affecting to call himself James Matthews Duncan.

‘What is he doing down here?’ Raven wondered aloud.

‘I don’t know. Just take care he doesn’t see you.’

As though to ensure this, she pulled his head down nearer to hers. She was close enough that he could smell that familiar aroma, like fresh linen. His thoughts returned to their encounter the night he had run home in the rain. Many times since, he had revisited the memory of her hands against him as she helped take off his shirt.

They stayed like that a while. Raven saw Duncan pass from view, but was long in saying so, for he did not wish the moment to end so soon. In time, it had to though.

They broke apart, an awkwardness between them as though they did not know how to acknowledge what had just happened. Fortunately, there was plenty to talk about.

‘You were vindicated in your thinking about Rose,’ he said. ‘What Spiers told us would explain why the police surgeon found her not to be pregnant.’

‘Yet clearly, she died in the same way as Kitty and your Evie. If she had successfully rid herself of the baby, why would she take the same pills?’

Raven had been asking himself this question too.

‘Perhaps she did not take them voluntarily,’ he suggested. ‘It might be that she had discovered something about Madame Anchou that the midwife wished to keep hidden.’

‘Or about her partner. Could it be that he is the one who actually carries out the procedures, while she brings in the business with the allure of having trained in Paris and worked for the French aristocracy?’

This was an astute supposition, in keeping with the mystique that allowed her to charge exorbitantly.

‘Not to mention of being a woman and therefore earning their trust,’ Raven added. ‘Such an arrangement would allow a doctor to practise this dark art without the risk that would attend advertising such services.’

They strode south in the direction of the city, the crowd thinning as they moved further from the water. Raven could not help but search ahead in case he spied that black hood, while he suspected Sarah’s eyes were still concerned with the whereabouts of Dr Duncan.

‘In recent months there have been several cases of young women dying following abortions,’ Raven said.

‘So they might all have been the work of Madame Anchou and her partner?’

‘Spiers admitted they turned out the sick ones so that they did not die at the tavern. And if Rose was deliberately poisoned, it could have been either of them who killed her. We came here seeking one anonymous malefactor and depart in search of two: Madam Anchou, who may or may not be the Frenchwoman she pretends, and a doctor of little conscience or humanity.’