CHAPTER 21
While Rathbone was in court questioning Runcorn, and Monk was endeavoring to learn more about Barclay Herne and Sinden Bawtry, Hester quietly returned to see Dr. Winfarthing.
As always, Winfarthing was pleased to see her, but after he had greeted her with his usual warmth, he sat back in his chair and the heaviness of apprehension was too clear for her to miss.
“I assume you are here about that poor woman Dinah Lambourn,” he said bleakly.
“Yes. We haven’t long before they’ll bring in a verdict,” she replied. “You knew Joel Lambourn-you worked with him.”
He grunted. “So what do you want of me, girl? If I had any proof he didn’t kill himself, don’t you think I’d have said so at the time?”
“Of course. But things are different now. What do you know about opium and syringes?”
His eyes opened very wide and he let his breath out slowly.
“Is that what you’re thinking about? That he stumbled onto someone selling needles, and opium pure enough to put directly into the blood? Can kill people with that, if you don’t get it exactly right. At best, you’re likely to get them addicted unless you keep it to just a few days.”
“I know,” she agreed. “Some of the doctors in the American Civil War have used morphine to help the badly injured. Thought it wouldn’t be so addictive. They were wrong. But they were doing it for the best of reasons. What if someone was doing it for money, and worse, for power?”
Winfarthing nodded very slowly. “God Almighty, girl! Are you sure? What a monstrous evil. Have you ever seen what opium addiction does to a man? Have you seen the withdrawal, if he doesn’t get his supply?” His face was pinched with misery at the memory of it in his mind.
“No, I haven’t.”
“There’s pain,” he told her. “And nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, panic, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, muscle twitching, cramps, chills, tremors, headaches, gooseflesh, lack of appetite-and other things as well, if you’re really unlucky.”
She felt her body clenching, as if she were threatened herself. “For how long?” she asked huskily.
“Depends,” he said, watching her with his face squashed up in pity. “As little as two days-as long as two months.”
She rubbed her hand over her face. “And it isn’t even illegal, what this person is doing! Getting people addicted. Taking away their free will.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he said wearily. “There’s a big profit in it for the seller. Once you’re on the opium you’ll pay anything you have or do anything you’re told to in order to keep on getting your supply. It’s the doing anything that’s the bigger problem. If you’re right, and that’s what Lambourn found, then you’re dealing with a very wicked man.”
She frowned. “But why did they kill Lambourn?” she asked. “What could he do to them?”
Winfarthing sat totally still, staring at her as if seeing her more clearly than ever before.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Did he see anyone in withdrawal?” he demanded.
“I don’t know …” Then she saw what he was thinking. “You mean that was what was in his report? A description of addiction to opium through the syringe, and then the severity of the withdrawal process-and the request that that be dealt with in the bill? Made illegal?”
“Exactly! It has to be possible to draft a bill to allow the use of a restricted and labeled amount in medicines to be swallowed, as it is now,” he agreed. “But against the law to give it or take it by needle, except when given by a doctor, and even then carefully watched. That would make our mystery man a criminal of the worst kind. Changes everything.”
“Then how can we get that into court to clear Dinah Lambourn?” she said urgently. “We have only days! Will you testify?”
“Of course I will, but we’ll need more than me, girl. We’ll need the man your nurse Agatha spoke of. Who is he? Do you know?”
“No … although I have a guess. But I don’t know how to make him come to court. He might … if …” She stopped, too uncertain to make it sound like a real hope.
“Do it,” he insisted. “I’ll come with you. God in heaven, I’ll do any damn thing I can to stop this. If you’d seen a man in withdrawal, heard him scream and retch as the cramps all but tore him apart, so would you.”
“To see Dinah hanged for a crime she didn’t commit is enough for me,” Hester answered. “But nobody believes that. We must make sense of it … and this will. I’ll see that Oliver Rathbone calls you to testify. Now I must go and see Agatha Nisbet.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” he offered anxiously.
She considered for a moment. It would be safer, more comfortable if he did, and yet she knew that it would also make Agatha far less likely to agree.
“No, thank you. But I’m grateful.”
He scowled at her. “You’re a fool. I should insist.”
“No, you shouldn’t. You know as well as I do that this must be done, and she’ll refuse if you go.”
Winfarthing grimaced and eased his weight back into his chair. “Be careful,” he warned. “If she agrees, give me your word that you’ll take her with you? Otherwise I’m coming, regardless.”
“I give you my word,” she promised.
He gave her a sudden, beaming smile. “I’ll see you in court!”
Two hours later Hester stood in Agony Nisbet’s cramped office.
“No,” Agatha said flatly. “I’ll not do that to him.”
Hester stared at her, ignoring the fury in her eyes. “What gives you the right to make that decision for him? You said he was a good man once, and it was the opium seller with the syringe that changed him. Give him the chance to be that good man again. If he won’t take it, then there’s nothing we can do. Lambourn will go down as a suicide, Dinah will hang, and nobody will stop the opium sellers, or even punish the ones we catch.”
Agatha did not answer.
Hester waited.
“I won’t try to make ’im,” Agatha said at last. “You ’aven’t seen what the withdrawal’s like, or you wouldn’t ask. You wouldn’t put anyone through it, let alone someone you cared about … a friend.”
“Maybe not,” Hester conceded, “but I wouldn’t make the decision for them, either.”
“It’d be the man who gives ’im the opium ’e needs,” Agatha pointed out. “Without it ’e’ll be in withdrawal for months-maybe on an’ off forever.”
“Can’t you get it for him?”
“I’ve ’ardly got enough for the injured. You want me to give ’im yours? D’yer know ’ow much it takes ter keep an addict going?”
“No. Does it make any difference?”
“You’re a hard bitch!” Agatha said between her teeth.
“I’m a nurse,” Hester corrected her. “That means I’m a realist … like you.”
Agatha snorted, was silent for a few moments, then straightened her huge shoulders. “Well, come on then! By the sound of it, you ’aven’t got time ter waste!”
Hester relaxed and smiled at last, then turned for the door.
Alvar Doulting knew as soon as he saw Agatha what they had come for. He shook his head, backing into the room as if there were a form of escape in the stacks of shelves behind him.
Agatha stopped and her raw-boned hand clasped Hester so hard it bruised the flesh of her arm. She had to bite her lip not to cry out.
“You don’t ’ave ter do it,” Agatha said to Doulting.
