‘I was thinking about myself,’ she said.
‘You?’
Sarah straightened her back and lifted her chin.
‘Yes, me. Why not?’
Mr Duncan gave her an apologetic look.
‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘our assistants must inspire confidence in our customers. For that, only a man will do.’
TEN
His fear was all the more unsettling for being an unfamiliar sensation in entirely familiar surroundings. These streets had been his home for almost seven years: he well knew their dangers but that was not the same as being afraid. He had never felt scared here before.
Raven had first come here at the age of thirteen, when he was enrolled in George Heriot’s, a school ‘for poor fatherless boys’. It was an educational opportunity that would previously have been far beyond his means, an unforeseen consolation accruing from the tragedy that had otherwise so reduced his family’s circumstances. The significance was not lost on Raven that dying was the most substantial contribution his father ever made towards providing him with a future.
He recalled how tentative his early ventures out to the surrounding neighbourhood had been, haunted by the stories the older boys told to frighten their juniors. But Raven had always been drawn to explore that which he feared, not to mention that which might seem forbidden. By the time he was a student at the university (the requisite fees extracted with difficulty from and following prolonged negotiation with his parsimonious uncle) he felt like a native of the Old Town, if not entirely at home there.
Up ahead, the sanctuary of the university’s courtyard beckoned him in the murk. He felt he would be safe within its walls, particularly as it was daylight; or daytime, at least. The whole city remained shrouded in a choking fog that refused to lift though it was already after noon.
From the moment he crossed the North Bridge, he had been looking over his shoulder for the Weasel and Gargantua, though together with Peg, these were the only associates of Flint that he even knew to be on the lookout for. Gargantua at least he should be able to see coming, perhaps the most conspicuous creature in Edinburgh. What gruesome disorder had blighted the fellow? Given the nature of their only encounter, Raven was disinclined to be sympathetic towards the monster’s plight, but as a medical man he recognised that the man was surely afflicted. He wasn’t merely large: parts of him had kept growing when they ought to have stopped, and that didn’t augur well for his prospects. Unfortunately he was unlikely to die soon enough to save Raven, and even then Flint would not be short of a replacement.
He had tried to steady himself by considering his situation rationally. It had only been a matter of days since the Weasel braced him: surely they wouldn’t expect his financial situation to have sufficiently improved as to be able to redeem the debt? But then he realised that making rational assumptions was a dangerous mistake. He had to stop thinking of them as reasonable people. They were demanding he got them their money by any means necessary, under the threat of mutilation. It wouldn’t stop with an eye, either.
Meanwhile, the longer he went without seeing them, the more they would expect him to pay when they caught up to him again.
The archway to the courtyard was mere yards away, and Raven’s stride grew apace the closer he got. His view was fixed upon it, eyes dead ahead, when he heard someone call his name.
A shudder ran through him. More than a shudder, for a shudder passes quickly. It was a tremor, accompanied by the threat of tears and a sharp twinge in his cheek as though he could feel the slice of Weasel’s blade again. It happened every time he was startled, whether by a sudden noise or a phantom in the dark as he waited for sleep. It had even happened at dinner two nights ago, when Simpson raised a carving knife and the gleam of the blade caught his eye.
He came close to breaking into a sprint, before the voice resumed and he was able to recognise it.
‘Slow down, man. You’re walking like the wolves are at your back.’
It was Henry, jogging to catch up, and Raven was able to disguise his relief as pleasure.
‘We New Town residents walk as quickly as we can through the poorer districts, don’t you know.’
‘I don’t doubt it. How are you finding the estimable Professor Simpson and his household?’
‘I’m not sure what I expected, but I can say that it wasn’t what I found. It’s a menagerie, Henry. Dogs, children, chaotic clinics. I may need some time to adjust.’
‘And what of colleagues?’
‘There is a Dr George Keith, who lives nearby. He is a decent sort. And there is a James Duncan, who if he was made of chocolate would surely eat himself, were his appetites not so abstemious.’
‘James Duncan? I think I may have encountered him. Studied here, and at Aberdeen before that? A prodigiously young graduate?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yes. Gifted of mind but an altogether odd creature. Set upon an ostensibly humanitarian undertaking and yet giving off as much warmth as a dying penguin’s last fart.’
‘Sadly not unique among our peers. Impeccable in his conduct but a singularly joyless soul.’
‘Never trust a man who has no apparent vices. The concealed ones are apt to be disgusting. And what of the staff at Queen Street? Any pretty housemaids to delight your eye?’
The image of Sarah leapt unbidden into his head, but whether she delighted his eye was moot, because he could not picture her without reliving the incident at his first clinic. The very thought of her made Raven feel awkward and embarrassed. For all his years of diligent study, a mere girl had been able to make him feel like he had learned nothing of practical worth. That she was worldly and he a schoolboy.
‘Unfortunately not,’ he said, hoping that Henry read nothing in his expression that encouraged him to press the subject.
Henry’s scrutinising eye was upon him, but fortunately focused on something more superficial.
‘Your swelling is going down nicely,’ he remarked, words that put Sarah right back into Raven’s mind. He had to get off the subject.
‘Evidence of a deft hand,’ he said. ‘So what business occupies those deft hands today?’
Henry’s gaze returned to the courtyard widening before them, students traversing the flagstones in all directions, flitting in and out of vision like ghosts in this stubborn fog.
‘I am in search of a butcher,’ he replied.
‘Then I may be able to assist, now that I am widening my circle of acquaintance. Mrs Lyndsay, the Simpsons’ cook, buys her meat from Hardie’s, on Cockburn Street. He would have to be a fine butcher, as her standards are exacting.’
‘I am not looking for a fine butcher. I am looking for an unconscionable one.’
Henry had a singularity about his expression, his thoughts finely focused.
‘You recall that death from peritonitis that was so vexing Professor Syme? When we carried out the post-mortem we discovered that her uterus had been perforated, as had a loop of small intestine.’
‘A butcher indeed,’ Raven said.
‘She