A Study in Murder, page 11
No, sometime, somehow, the chance to escape would present itself and she would be ready.
The banging on the door made her jump and she quickly pushed the makeshift weapon under her thigh.
‘Wardress Gray!’ She recognized the gruff voice as belonging to Jefferys, the big-nosed senior warden of this wing. The door was unlocked, but he would not enter a room where there might be naked ladies, much as she suspected he might enjoy that. One thing that had been a pleasant surprise, none of the male staff had ever tried to molest her. Perhaps they had heard what happened to Gray’s predecessor, who liked to help the prisoners clean all their most intimate places. Slipped on the soap and cracked her skull, the report said.
Wardress Gray came through and opened the door a notch. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Tell Pillbody to hurry along.’
Pillbody. She had thought it best not to use her true German name. It would be a constant reminder to both guards and inmates of why she was in prison.
‘I have only just got in,’ she protested from the tub.
‘Yes, Missy, but you have a visitor.’
A visitor? She thought. Nobody ever visited Miss Pillbody. Her curiosity got the better of her. She moved the crude knife towards her buttocks, lifted one cheek, wedged it in the crack and clenched hard. She would find a way to return it to the hiding place or locate a new one when the opportunity arose. She carefully levered herself up.
‘Can I have a towel, ma’am?’ she asked, excited, despite herself, at the prospect.
A visitor!
‘Who is it, Mr Jefferys?’ she asked. ‘Did you get a name?’
‘There’s a Mrs Gregson to see you.’
Miss Pillbody almost fell back into the water in shock. Of all the Fotzen to come out of the woodwork, it had to be that one.
TWENTY-ONE
It had taken two days of careful negotiation to get what he wanted from his warders. Watson had scratched his offer in the surface of the metal tray, but it was hard to read. So he had cut himself with the edge of the brick shard and rubbed blood into the grooves. The message was small enough to be hidden by the bowl, but at least it was legible. Ten marks for a notebook and pencil, it offered. Ten more for a lamp.
The orderly had replied with scraps of paper, also hidden under the bowl. Fifteen for a notebook. Fifteen for a lamp. Five for matches.
Eventually the man had settled for thirty marks all in, to be paid on Watson’s release. The German had insisted on a furtive handshake. Someone else who believed that an Englishman’s word was his bond, thought Watson. And so it was, at least in this case. Despite being an astronomical sum of money – it was to be paid in real, not camp, marks – Watson would honour the debt. Even when, at the last moment, the orderly wheedled five more marks by offering Watson a clean, empty bucket. That, he decided, was the real bargain in the deal.
And so, with a lamp that seemed to be burning oil hardly worthy of the name, producing more black smoke than an ocean liner, and a hazy light that reminded him of the sun shining through a peasouper, he settled down with the notebook – even more extortionately priced than his other one – to follow Holmes’s suggestion of keeping his brain active. He continued the tale of the man in The Girl and the Gold Watches, picking up from when the Manchester Express pulled into Rugby five minutes late, and a most remarkable state of affairs was discovered.
Holmes leaned forward now, fingers still pyramided together and eyes blazing. ‘Pray proceed, Mr Henderson,’ he said.
In a very different kind of prison some 350 miles away, two burly male warders led Miss Pillbody in manacles into one of Holloway’s stark, green-painted visitors’ rooms. They planted her in the metal chair, which was bolted to the floor, and transferred her hands to the ‘bracelets’ on top of the scratched metal table, which was also affixed to the concrete floor.
She looked thinner, thought Mrs Gregson, more feral and – if this was possible – even more dangerous. On the face of it she was very docile as they transferred her from one set of metal cuffs to another, her face expressionless. But those eyes, they darted around the room, from Mrs Gregson to the door, as if calculating the distance, from her hands to the guards, and back, estimating the odds of success were she to break free. She had clearly decided those odds were against her because as the iron cuffs were snapped shut on her wrists and ankles, she seemed to relax a little, as if she were conserving energy for a time when circumstances favoured action.
Mrs Gregson, in turn, examined the prisoner. Her cheekbones were more prominent than she recalled, the eyes a little sunken, the hair wiry, and the skin coarse. It was hard to imagine that she’d ever successfully passed herself off as a demure schoolteacher.
Mrs Gregson looked up at the warders. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. If you’ll leave us for a few minutes now, I’d be most grateful.’
The senior of the two let his moustache quiver. ‘Can’t do that. Not with this one.’
‘If you check with the Governor . . .’ Mrs Gregson reached into her bag and brought out a document. ‘I have here authorization to interrogate the prisoner alone on a matter of national security covered by the Defence of the Realm Act.’
This was not untrue. She had convinced Robert Nathan that she needed to try to elicit as much information about Von Bork as possible. He had argued that the Sie Wölfe Special Naval Unit, the group Miss Pillbody belonged to, was run by Admiral Hersch, and that Miss Pillbody would therefore have little information about Von Bork. But Mrs Gregson had been most insistent on the need to quiz Pillbody.
‘That’s as may be, ma’am,’ said the warder. ‘But I have a duty to protect you.’
‘If you are privy to what we say, you may end up in one of your own cells, as a risk to national security. How can you protect me then?’ She reached into the bag again and drew out a police whistle. ‘You can wait outside the door. If I feel in any way threatened I shall blow on this. And don’t worry,’ she flashed the warder a smile, ‘I know Miss Pillbody of old. I fully appreciate she cannot be trusted even one of her German centimetres.’
With much huffing the guards left, slamming the door behind them. A hatch slid back on the other side, framing a pair of eyes. They really didn’t trust this prisoner.
‘You took your time,’ said Miss Pillbody. ‘I expected you at the Tower.’
‘I didn’t need to see you at the Tower.’ Mrs Gregson reached into her bag and took out a bar of Fry’s Chocolate Cream, which she pushed across the table, leaving it just within reach. Miss Pillbody examined it suspiciously.
‘It’s not poisoned,’ Mrs Gregson said.
The spy scrabbled at it with her fingertips and pulled the confectionery towards her, closing a fist over it. ‘I’ll save it.’
‘It’ll melt if you hold it too tight.’
‘People in here don’t care whether it’s been melted or not.’
Of course, thought Mrs Gregson. She wouldn’t eat it. She could doubtless pull in some useful favours for a Fry’s Chocolate Cream.
‘So, you couldn’t resist.’
‘Couldn’t resist what?’
‘Coming to gloat.’
Mrs Gregson took out a pack of cigarettes and passed that over. ‘I haven’t come to gloat. I’ve come to help you.’
The eyes narrowed alarmingly and, despite herself, Mrs Gregson found she was glancing at the manacles to check that they were quite secure. ‘Help me with what?’
‘Miss Pillbody,’ Mrs Gregson met her gaze and then dropped her voice so the words barely made it across the space between them, ‘I’ve come to help you escape.’
Across the Channel and over the border in Germany, escape, for the moment, was the last thing on Watson’s mind. He had allowed himself to pass beyond the walls of the vermin-infested basement cell and into the golden years at Baker Street, with the century not quite over and dear Victoria not yet dead. There were pipes and scones, hansom cabs and wild dashes across London. And there was Holmes. The whole confection was as nourishing as beef tea and it was with great reluctance he wrote what would have to be his last sentence for now.
‘Pass the Bradshaw’s, will you?’
Those final words of the new section of the gold watch story he was writing echoed around Watson’s skull as he let the pencil drop from his fingers onto the blanket of his prison cot. When he closed his tired eyes they were there, written on the inside of his lids, like the incandescent bulbs of the Bovril sign in Piccadilly Circus.
The phrase made his heart beat faster even now. Passing the Bradshaw’s was so often the prologue to an adventure, a fast drive to the countryside or perhaps a crosschecking of a client’s account of his movements with the timetable of trains coming to and from London. With The Rugby Mystery, it had been both – verification of the details and a dash for the Manchester Express. He could smell the cinder and smoke that greeted them at Euston, recall exactly the gleam in his friend’s eye as they boarded the train, ‘Feeling alive once again!’ as he had put it.
Oh, Holmes, that it should come to this.
Careful, old friend.
Watson let his body slump down onto the bed. He heard the notebook slap onto the floor. There came the brittle scratching of claws on concrete as, alarmed by the sudden noise, one of his fellow inhabitants scuttled away.
His throat felt tight and he laid a hand on his forehead. The skin was warm at the very least, although without a thermometer it was impossible to judge if it had tipped over into fever. Another coughing spasm came, leaving his ribs hurting, and Watson was forced to spit the contents of his mouth on the floor. Creatures were moving about his hairline, tickling him, and he brushed them away, his fingers touching the cluster of scabs at the base of the follicles from earlier bites. He moved his hand to his jaw, inspecting the tender swellings in his neck. A groan of despair and disgust escaped his lips.
Even if he hadn’t been a physician he could have diagnosed himself. Fever. Congested lungs. Swollen gums. Exhaustion. Muscle ache. He couldn’t give it an exact name, but he knew some malady had him in its grip and it wasn’t about to let go.
He should write a note or two, before it was too late. Holmes. Mrs Gregson. His bank, of course. And a fresh will. There were some modifications he wished to make there. But the very thought of sitting up and the effort of writing made his head spin. He rode out another hacking fit, pushing the accumulated spittle out with his tongue and letting it drain from the corner of his mouth. A tear squeezed from the corner of one eye. Thank goodness Holmes couldn’t see him now. And thank the Lord the voice in his head had the good grace to keep quiet. He rolled over onto his side, slowly pulled his knees towards his chest into a vaguely foetal position and surrendered to the impending delirium.
TWENTY-TWO
The attack, when it came, was no real surprise to Miss Pillbody. Why the other inmates of Holloway had waited so long was the genuine puzzle, given how she had bested them at every turn. Perhaps it was the visit by the Gregson woman that triggered it. The prison’s rumour mill would have ascribed all sorts of motives for that. Including the gossip that had finally been whispered along her own landing – that the German whore-of-a-spy was going to be pardoned and repatriated. That would incense those who had been biding their time to repay the many slights and slaps she had dealt out since her arrival.
It began with an unexpected summons to the bathhouse, the usual change into the chemise and a visit to the medical office for weighing. When she returned, the bath was drawn, not to the usual four or six inches, but close to the brim.
‘Ma’am?’ she asked, knocking on the door of the linen room. There was no reply. The soap and square of towel had, however, been left on a stool for her.
Miss Pillbody lowered herself into the water, enjoying the feel of submerging all but her head and the tips of her breasts.
She shuddered with pleasure. What a luxury. Had the Gregson woman engineered this? Special treatment for her pet prisoner? Two bathing sessions in five days?
She was an enigma, that Mrs Gregson. Miss Pillbody could see that she despised her – perhaps even feared her. But she had suppressed all that to create a scheme that even Miss Pillbody, trained in secret missions by the Sie Wölfe, considered what the British called hare-brained. Verrückt for certain.
Initially the Englishwoman had wanted to talk about Von Bork, but even had she wished to, Miss Pillbody could offer her little. She had seen him but once, when Admiral Hersch had brought him for a tour of the Sie Wölfe training facility outside Mainz. Then Gregson had asked about the admiral and his loyalty to his little She-Wolves. It was only at that point that Miss Pillbody grasped exactly what role Mrs Gregson envisaged for her.
But the woman had let slip the weakness in her plan. The look in her eyes told Miss Pillbody that Mrs Gregson was acting out of sentiment. Miss Pillbody knew the feeling of old. She herself had enrolled in the Sie Wölfe because of a mixture of love for her dead husband and the desire to avenge him. That had been expunged during the training. There had been no sentiment left; even when she began an affair with Hersch it had been a pragmatic choice, a way of getting the best assignments. Oddly, it was Hersch who had shown worrying signs of emotion when it came to her deployment abroad. He had even offered her an administrative post in Berlin instead, as if that would have satisfied her after all those months of training. The putty at the core of even so-called Iron Men never failed to amaze and sicken her.
But Mrs Gregson was also pliant and malleable at heart, for she was proposing something even a She-Wolf would consider insane or suicidal or both. Still, Miss Pillbody thought, if she could turn the tables, use this deranged woman for her own purposes . . .
Lost in her thoughts, Miss Pillbody heard the rustle of feet on coconut matting just a moment too late to react. A splayed-out hand pressed down on her head, the pressure irresistible, and she was quickly under the water, fighting for breath, her limbs thrashing, fingers scrabbling for a grip on the sides of the bath. She could feel other hands on her, holding her ankles and wrists. She opened her eyes, and through the distorting lens of the broiling surface, she could just make out three figures, each with swollen, dark heads. Golliwogs were drowning her, she thought, as her airways filled with the bath’s contents.
One of the trio took a fistful of her hair and she was yanked clear into the air. She expelled the lungful of water with a series of barking coughs. Before she could recover her composure, an open palm stung her face and the flannelette rag was forced into her mouth. Miss Pillbody could see now that the three attackers had pulled thick prison-issue black stockings over their heads to disguise their features; all that she could see were the eyes, burning with hatred through hastily ripped holes. She gagged against the rag in her mouth, sure she must suffocate. A sense of panic rose in her, and a silent scream filled her head.
One of the three held a pottery bottle and she cracked it against the rim of the bath until it shattered, causing a series of razor-edged shards to drop onto the tiled floor. The woman picked up one of them, a long, tapering triangle, and leaned over Miss Pillbody, who tried to twist, to kick and scream, but it was useless. She was held fast. All she could do was close her eyes once more as the tip of the improvised dagger approached her skin.
So they weren’t out to kill her. Just disfigure her, as she had the Dryden woman.
A woman or man without clothes is exquisitely vulnerable. Any training is forgotten in an attempt to protect their modesty and their private parts. It was why Hersch had insisted the Sie Wölfe at his camp wrestle, run and fight naked for a good proportion of the time. Hence Miss Pillbody had few inhibitions, not once her training kicked in. And the moment it did so, the scream in her skull stopped dead.
She pulled one hand free, oblivious to the friction burns on her wrist as she twisted it from the grip. The blade hidden between her buttocks needed a few more sessions before it was a perfect prison weapon. But needs must.
The point sliced through the wrist of the attacker who was twisting her hair. As the grip loosened, Miss Pillbody yanked away, ignoring the splinters of pain rippling across her scalp as a fistful of hair came away. The eyes staring from the stockings made perfect targets and she jabbed at the woman’s left one. She fell back with a squeal. Eyes had always been a Pillbody speciality.
Now for the one with the pottery shard. Miss Pillbody grabbed the wrist, pulled the woman close, felt her slap against her breasts, and stabbed up and under the ribs, before pushing her back towards the third woman. Blood was pooling and streaking the water now. She reared up from the bath, crouched slightly, ready to parry the next thrust. Miss Pillbody pulled the rag from her mouth and took in several deep lungfuls of air. The cry she let out, the howl of the She-Wolf they had practised, was amplified into something unworldly by the room’s tiled surfaces.
Then, as quickly as it had started, the assault was over. The pack of imbecilic would-be assassins and mutilators were stumbling out of the door. No matter, she would be able to find at least two of them later from the wounds. And she would deal with them then.
She looked down at her glistening body. Some of that blood swirling in the bath was hers. She had a gash running from the side of her left breast almost to her navel that she didn’t recall receiving. It was only now beginning to sting. She replayed the frenzied moments of the attack in her mind, but could not isolate the moment she received the cut or who inflicted it. She would have lost marks for that at the academy.
Miss Pillbody stepped from the bath, careful not to pick up any splinters in the soles of her feet from the shattered pottery, and used the linen square to dab at the bleeding. Red globules continued to well from along the break, as if someone was blowing tiny bubbles from beneath her skin. It would need a dressing.
