Antidote To Murder (2 page)

Chapter Two

WEDNESDAY 9 AUGUST

D
ody drew a sharp line beneath the notes of her last Clinic patient, put them aside for filing, and picked up a clean sheet of paper. About to ring the bell on her desk to inform the nurse that she was ready for the next, she stopped her hand midair. It was all too easy to rush from one patient to the next. She needed a moment or two for herself.

Nearly six weeks had passed since Pike’s disappearance from the hospital, and Dody had heard nothing from him; it was as if he had vanished with the river mists. It was fortunate, she told herself, that her work left her little time to brood. When the opportunity did present itself, as it did now, her thoughts were accompanied by a mix of frustration, helplessness . . . and something for which she had no ready word—was it loss? Yes, she was missing him. But it was not an unalloyed missing. She was angry with him, too: angry that he had not trusted her professional judgement; angry that he had left her looking like a fool in front of the surgeon and his colleagues.

Where had he gone? What was he doing and why had he not contacted her? Embarrassment, she supposed. He’d said that after the operation he was planning on visiting his daughter while he recuperated. Violet would be spending the school holidays with her grandparents—the parents of his late wife—perhaps he was there now. He’d also proposed an outing with Dody upon his return to London—a day-trip to the seaside if she could find a free day.

At least he had not taken it for granted that she would have free time. As the days went by, her thoughts were increasingly dominated by a single, strangely comforting question: even if he had made contact, apologised, and explained his behaviour, did she really have the time and inclination to take courtship with this complex man a step further?

A few weeks previously she had celebrated her thirtieth birthday with her family. Dody was now considered to be past marriageable age. Even her mother, Louise, had gently probed for her views on the subject, realising perhaps that the prospect of grandchildren from either of her daughters was becoming ever more remote. Louise managed a brave face when Dody explained that Spilsbury—the Home Office pathologist under whom she worked—had implied that more avenues might be open to her if she remained unmarried. Never could she aspire to Spilsbury’s lofty heights, of course, but employment as a senior pathologist might one day be realistically attainable. A spinster’s life could, in fact, be very liberating, she told Louise, and embracing it was the only way a woman could pursue a challenging career.

These reflections made her feel better and helped strengthen her erstwhile faltering resolve.
No
was the answer to her earlier question. She had no time left for Pike, not after all this. She had spent enough hours wondering and worrying about him. Thank God they had not given more to one another, for giving more meant more to lose. Better their attachment come to an end now, before irrevocable decisions were made.

She picked up the hand bell from her desk and gave it a vigorous shake.

* * *

D
ody knew what the girl wanted the moment she sat down. There was something about the way she twisted her hands, the way her eyes hunted around the shabby surgery.

“I’m not regular, Doctor,” she said. “My monthlies, I mean. I need you to give me something.” Her eyes rested on the corner medicine cabinet.

Dody felt the warning press of a headache and brushed a palm across her brow. The surgery was stuffy; the windows were closed against the odours of the street. A furious bluebottle buzzed, trapped between the lowered blind and the windowpane.

She took note of the girl’s distressed state, the way she smelled. She had an odour about her that had nothing to do with dirty clothes or the heat wave. It was the scent of fear.

“When did you have your courses last, Miss Craddock?” she asked gently.

“Umm, two, three months ago. Maybe.”

“Might you be with child?”

Esther Craddock shook her head so vigorously a papier-mâché grape dropped from her straw hat and rolled beneath the desk. “I’m not pregnant, no, and I don’t want to be, neither. You got to give me something so’s I’m not.”

Dody sighed. This inability to differentiate between contraception and abortion was common amongst girls such as Esther Craddock. Herbs, gin, gunpowder, washing soda—anything that caused vomiting, cramps, and contractions—had been experimented with over the years by women desperate to get rid of their unborn children. Dody had even heard of women drinking the water of boiled copper coins. Sometimes these remedies worked and sometimes the mother died also. More often than not, nothing happened at all.

“Do you use preventatives?” Dody asked.

“What?”

“French letters, sheaths?”

“You got to be joking—’ave you seen the price of ’em? Three shillings a dozen!”

“They can be washed out and reused,” Dody said, fearing her advice was already too late.

“No. Don’t need ’em.” The girl folded her arms, turned her head towards the closed blind, and stared at it.

Dody wondered how much the girl knew about conception. Unlike the majority of her medical companions, Dody did her best to inform her young women patients about the dangers of intimacy with men. Only the previous week a fifteen-year-old had come to the Clinic fearing she had “caught a baby” through the passionate kisses of a boy. At least she had been able to reassure that misguided child, but what of all the others? Surely there would be less risk of unwanted pregnancy if they understood clearly the consequences of what they did. There really needed to be an education program.

Dody leaned down to pick up the dropped grape. The keys to the medicine cabinet on her belt tinkled and the pressure in her head rose.

Esther took the grape by its pin and rammed it back into the fruit salad arrangement of her hat. She met Dody’s gaze with her own. Her face was flour white, her eyes bright and shining. “Just give me something,” the girl said, balling her fists. “If you don’t give me something, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . kill meself!”

Dody took a deep breath and tightened the light reflector around her head. “Before I can help, I have to examine you.”

Ignoring the girl’s sulky protests, Dody took a wooden spatula from a tray of instruments on her desk and examined her mouth, making note of a blue line on the gums near the junction of the teeth. Next, she pulled down Esther’s lower eyelids and aimed her light at mucous membranes the colour of old meat. “Stomachache?”

“Touch o’ colic.”

Probably more than a touch,
Dody thought, writing down her observations. She screwed the lid back onto her fountain pen and slowly laid it on the top of her patient’s notes. “You are showing signs of plumbism, Miss Craddock—lead poisoning. Have you been exposed to lead in any form? Are you aware that lead poisoning can cause miscarriage?”

The fruit salad shuddered. “No, miss, no.”

Dody proceeded cautiously. “Some women take lead deliberately to poison their unborn babies.”

Over previous years lead had become an increasingly popular abortifacient, with slightly better results than the other remedies. Knowledge of its efficacy originated from the large numbers of female workers in the Midlands paint factories who found themselves suffering early miscarriage and likely passed by word of mouth from friend to friend, mother to daughter.

The girl’s voice rose. “I wouldn’t do nothin’ like that. You shouldn’t ought to be saying such terrible things!”

Dody raised her palms. “Hush now. Take off your outdoor things and climb onto the examination table. I can’t be certain of anything just yet.”

Esther reluctantly unpinned her hat and laid it carefully on the desk. With shaking fingers, she undid the buttons of her light summer coat and levered off her boots. As she flung her coat onto the chair, a twisted knot of fabric fell to the ground.

Esther hadn’t noticed it. She lay on the examination table with her eyes screwed shut, her fingers, bare of rings, digging into the table’s padding.

Dody picked the small bundle up, thinking it must be the girl’s handkerchief, but discovered it was a patch of frayed muslin wrapped around some small, hard objects. She peeked beneath the fabric’s folds and found they concealed a small collection of tablets.

Esther’s eyes remained clamped shut. Dody slipped the bundle back into the girl’s coat pocket. It would help her to treat Esther if she knew what the tablets were, but the last thing she needed now was a confrontation that might destroy the girl’s tenuous trust.

Dody palpated the girl’s abdomen and then her swollen breasts. There was no mistaking the diagnosis. She helped Esther rearrange her clothing and tried to encourage her back to the chair, but the girl refused to sit.

Concerned that the news might bring about a fainting fit, Dody edged closer. “You are carrying a child of approximately three months’ gestation, although I suspect you already knew that.” Esther’s hand flew to her mouth. It was one thing to suspect the worst, another to hear the words as truth from a stranger’s lips. Dody gave her a moment to absorb the news. “Who is the father?” she asked softly. “Is he likely to support you?”

Esther lowered her head. “I’ll lose me job.”

“Where do you work?”

“In Bedford Square.”

“You are in service?”

“Scullery maid.”

Dody busied herself for a moment, giving the girl time to think. She removed the light reflector and glanced at her image in the metal disc, then tried and failed to straighten her untidy pile of mahogany hair. “Are you in love with this man?” she finally asked. “Have you plans to marry?”

“Love? What would you know about love?” Dody shot her head up to catch a sneer curling the girl’s lip. “A dried-up old maid like you wouldn’t even know what it’s like to lay with a man, not to mention love him—though your sort are always quick to preach to those of us what does!”

It was an impulsive tirade brought about by rage and desperation, but it stung Dody nevertheless. She tried to compose herself and placed the reflector slowly back on the desk.

“I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean that,” Esther said, meek as a lamb again. Perhaps she realised that aggression would not help her cause.

“Are you still seeing this young man?” Dody knew the answer before she had asked the question. With only one afternoon off a week, courting was almost impossible for a girl of Esther’s station. The father was most likely the master or son of the house or an opportunistic delivery boy in the kitchen yard. Or it might be the case of creeping out of her window at night and supplementing her meagre wage with services provided on the street.

Esther said nothing. Dody put a hand gently on her arm. “If you are unable to obtain assistance from the man or your family, there are organisations I can put you in touch with. The Salvation Army often helps young women in your predicament, then there are the nuns at St. Luke’s.”
Or the workhouse.
Dody kept that thought to herself, knowing how unwelcome it would be.

Esther knocked away Dody’s hand and screamed into her face, “I don’t want no nuns, nor do-gooders neither. Don’t you understand? You got to ’elp me!”

Dody held her ground and slapped away the hands that grasped for the keys on her belt. The girl was tall and sturdy, her work-reddened hands quick and strong. She lunged again. Dody grabbed the thick wrists and struggled to hold her back.

“’Elp me!” Esther was hysterical now, using her weight to push Dody towards the wall, desperately grasping for the keys at her waist. Dody could feel her grip on the powerful wrists failing. There was only one thing for it. She jerked her leg up and brought it down hard, slamming the heel of her boot onto the sensitive arch of the girl’s foot.

The girl yelped and jumped back.

Dody took a breath. “I’m sorry, Miss Craddock,” she said through gritted teeth, “but I can’t do anything for you until you sit down and calm down.”

The girl stared for a moment. Her pale face blossomed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she whispered as she slumped into the chair. “I don’t know what come over me.”

“I do. It’s called blind desperation.”

Dody adjusted her belt, smoothed her blouse, and willed her heartbeat to steady itself. She had two options. She could call out and have Nurse Hamilton escort the girl from the Clinic, after which Esther would doubtless continue her search for an obliging doctor. Or she could follow the recommended procedure, which was to telephone the police and have the girl arrested for attempting to procure an abortion. Either the girl would put herself at dreadful risk in the hands of an unprincipled physician or the wretched child would be born into circumstances even more reduced than they were now. To Dody, neither of these options was acceptable.

“Have you taken any other medicines for your condition?” Dody asked.

“Pills. Got ’em from the apothecary,” Esther whispered. “Zimmerman’s.”

“What kind of pills?”

“Widow Welch’s.”

Widow Welch’s female pills, prompt and reliable for ladies.
On the back of the box in tiny writing it was written,
On no account to be taken by females desirous of becoming mothers
, a disclaimer included by the manufacturers to avoid prosecution and an irresistible lure to those desperate to abort. Laboratory analysis had shown the pills to be mostly composed of sugar, and Dody knew they would not have caused Esther’s symptoms. Surely it wasn’t Widow Welch’s she’d seen tied in the muslin bundle?

“You took lead as well. In what form? Where did you get it from? Zimmerman’s, too?” Dody asked.

Esther folded her arms and looked away.

What might this girl try next? How many girls like Esther had Dody seen on the mortuary slab, fished from the Thames as a result of suicide or bungled criminal abortion? Dody shuddered. Countless. There had to be a better way.

Dody took the keys from the belt at her waist, moved to the medicine cabinet, and took a small brown bottle from the top shelf. “I can give you something that will help with your nerves. Take the dosage as instructed and then come and see me next week when you are more clear-headed and we can discuss your options. On no account are you to take anything else, especially lead. Is that clear?”