Christmas Wish (38 page)

He was still staring and feeling numb and confused after his father went out of the vicarage leaving only empty space.

The landlord of the Angel shouted at the man rattling the doors to go away.

‘We’re not open, pal.’

‘I need a drink.’

‘Well, you ain’t gettin’ one ’ere. Anyways, looks as though the vicar wants a word.’

The upstairs window he’d been leaning out of fell shut.

‘Mr Brodie.’

Joe Brodie turned round to face the man to whom he’d given his son all those years ago.

The Reverend Darby had a high forehead and forlorn features. Nature had bestowed him his sad expression. Even when
he was happy he looked sad, but today his sadness was real and intense.

‘Mr Brodie. You promised you would never approach us. We paid you not to. For the love of God …’

‘For the love of my son,’ replied Joe Brodie. He shook his head vehemently. ‘I did wrong. A terrible wrong. I shirked my responsibilities and went off to live the life I’ve always lived. May God forgive me …’

The two men stood alone and apart, yet both knew there were turbulent feelings here. Aubrey Darby loved his adopted son. Joe felt that though he’d given him away, there was a strange tugging somewhere deep inside.

‘If God would grant me one wish, I would wish for the clock to be turned back and my family to be back together.’ He hung his head, shaking it just as forlornly as he had before. ‘I realise now that it’s too late. The boy didn’t know me. What’s more, he doesn’t want to know me.’

Aubrey Darby knew from the words alone that he’d won the battle. Michael was his, but he still felt for the boy’s natural father.

‘We all have regrets. Nobody can live a life without having some regrets. Please, just be assured that Michael has a good life and is loved.’

Joe Brodie nodded, his dark hair now turning grey at the temples, falling forward over his face. He raised one hand and swept it back.

‘I suppose that’s the best any of us can hope for.’

Feeling awkward now, Aubrey asked where Joe would go now.

‘To visit my eldest daughter and pray that she’ll forgive me.’

In a flurry of lavender water and natural concern, Michael’s mother came in from the drawing room.

‘Has your father gone out? I thought I heard the door slam.’

Michael looked at the trim figure with her short blonde hair, tweedy clothes and single-strand pearl necklace. She looked every inch the vicar’s wife, as indeed she was. Daughter of a missionary couple who’d done good works in China and then amongst the poor in the East End of London, she was suited to the life.

A suspicious thought entered Michael’s lively mind. His mother was wholesome and blonde, her eyes as blue as the sky. Not at all like his own dark brooding eyes and the lush hair, black as night and flopping over his eyes.

When people remarked to his parents how unlike them he was, they always referred back to a Spanish grandfather on his father’s side, though haltingly, as if they didn’t want to admit to foreign blood at all.

‘Michael. I’m speaking to you. Tell me what the slammed door was about and where your father’s got to.’

The adolescent she regarded as her son snapped out of worrying thoughts and turned to face her. As he did so, he caught the smell of the talcum powder she’d used after taking a bath. It would only ever be something as innocuous as talcum powder, not perfume.

Pushing aside unfamiliar feelings of apprehension, he forced himself to sound unconcerned, even slightly offhand.

‘He’s gone after a man who came begging at the door. I think he must know him.’

‘Really?’ Eleanor Darby’s silky fair eyebrows arched in surprise. The fingers of one hand played with the rope of small, perfectly shaped pearls at her throat. ‘Did the man give a name?’

Michael nodded. Determined for reasons he could not quite understand, he kept his eyes fixed on her face.

‘Yes. He did. He said his name was Joseph Brodie. He also said he was my father.’

The smell of dirt, sweat and the sea entered the crisp cleanliness of Queen Mary’s Hospital along with three men, two of them holding the third man between them.

‘Got buried in the hold of a vessel carrying grain. He needs a doctor. Please! He needs a doctor.’

‘Bring him in here,’ ordered Magda.

The men did as ordered, sliding the injured man onto an examination couch in a curtained cubicle.

After taking off his cap, one of the men eyed her suspiciously as he addressed her.

‘Excuse me, sister, but I reckon this man will need a doctor.’

Magda exchanged a knowing look with Indira. This was not the first time they’d been mistaken for nurses.

‘Although this is our first year on the wards, we are able to help.’

‘Are you doctors?’

‘Almost. We are in training and under supervision.’

Indira was inspecting the leg wound.

‘This needs suturing,’ she said brusquely.

‘Cleaning first,’ said Magda.

Since Winnie’s death she had thrown herself into her work, accepting extra hours without protest and hardly speaking to anyone unless she had to.

Even Winnie’s belongings had been left untouched. She’d told Daniel that it was too early to go through them. Anyway, Henry Cottemore still had to probate the Will, though so far it looked pretty straightforward; everything was left to Magda including the cottage.

She’d tried to explain her inaction to him. ‘I can’t touch anything until I know it’s mine. It’s like waiting for Winnie to give me permission.’

She thought she knew what Daniel was getting at; there could be something amongst her papers incriminating Reuben Fitts and his son for their various crimes over the years.

‘Henry Cottemore will confirm things shortly,’ Magda had told him. Becoming a doctor seemed even more important since Winnie’s death, her determination intensified by her feeling of helplessness as Winnie had slipped away.

Daniel had initially been irritated by her stubbornness, and then relented – just as she knew he would. She would have her own way. She was independent now and reliant on no one. She’d even turned down his offer of marriage.

‘Not yet. Not until I’m sure I can survive by myself.’

The comment must have hurt him. She hadn’t seen him for a few days, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to change her mind.

In the meantime, she threw herself into her work.

She worked quickly, clearing the man’s throat so he could breathe; calling for his wound to be cleansed before suturing could begin.

‘He’s lucky to be alive,’ Magda told the men who had
brought him in. ‘Just the dust from the grain could have killed him.’

‘A very lucky man,’ said Indira.

The two women worked well together, each instinctively supporting the other.

A student nurse slid through the opening in the curtain surrounding the patient.

‘Excuse me, doctor, but there’s a policeman outside who says the man was fighting and was pushed into the hold of the ship. He wants to question the patient to find out if it’s true.’

Magda looked round. The two men who had brought the patient in had disappeared.

‘He can’t do that just yet. Not until we’re finished.’

‘He said he would appreciate knowing when the patient will be available.’

‘Tell him …’

The nurse cut across her reply. ‘I did tell him, doctor, but he said it had to be from the doctor who was treating him.’

No nurse would purposely interrupt an instruction from a senior doctor, but medical students, doctors in name that had not yet passed their finals, were shown less respect – even by student nurses.

Magda’s eyes met those of Indira’s. ‘You or me?’

Indira bowed her head and lowered her eyes back to the neat row of stitching. ‘I’m in the middle of some embroidery work. You might put me off my daisy chain if I stop now.’

She threw Magda a sideways slide of her eyes and a bewitching smile.

Magda glanced at her watch noting that she had less than an hour to go before her shift was over. Not that it was really ever over; it all depended on how busy they were.

The greyish-blue eyes settled on her and a ready smile tripped the corners of his mouth.

‘Daniel!’ Magda declared.

‘This incident gave me an excuse to mix business with pleasure. The man in there.’ He pointed at the closed curtain with a pencil he pulled from his pocket. ‘His name’s John Smith – or so I’m told. He wasn’t saying much before he was brought here, and I doubt he’ll say much now. But I can try. I always have to try.’

Magda frowned. ‘Has he done something wrong?’

Daniel sighed. ‘I’m not sure. When can I speak to him?’

‘He’ll be better by the morning. We’ve cleared out his lungs and a colleague is sewing up the leg wound. There’s no reason you can’t speak to him in an hour or two.’

Daniel nodded his thanks.

Magda glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I have to go now.’

‘In case you’re wondering – which being a woman – and a very attractive one, you most definitely are, I hear you helped bring the seventh child into the world for one Mrs Gilda Payne.’

‘Well! News certainly gets around,’ exclaimed Magda, feeling somehow special that this man had taken note of the regard in which she was held.

Daniel’s expression turned to one of concern. ‘Payne works for Fitts. So did that man in there – until he did something to upset our friend Mr Fitts. That’s why he got pushed into the ship’s hold. I don’t suppose I need to tell you that there’s a lot of crime attached to valuable cargoes. As you may have noticed he’s a big, muscled man. The word is that when he’s not working on the docks, he’s doing a bit of heavy work for Mr Fitts.’

Magda had lived with Winnie long enough to know what Daniel was talking about.

‘He roughs people up?’

Daniel nodded. ‘Pretty badly. But John Smith is also a drinker. He’s been bragging about what he’s done for Fitts. Our Mr Fitts doesn’t like that. When people start blabbing
after they’ve had more than a few pints of bitter, then that’s one step too many. Fitts gets rid of them – though in John Smith’s case it didn’t work out. He’s a big man. Not easy to knock a big man down. You didn’t happen to notice the two men who brought him in?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

Of late she’d found it easy to forget Bradley Fitts, mostly because she was far too busy studying and working the wards to give him any mind. By the law of averages though, she was bound to bump into Bradley Fitts at some point.

‘Has he been hanging round again?’

The question and the fact that Daniel seemed tuned in with her own thoughts surprised her.

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘You can add the words, thank goodness, if you wish.’

‘Thank goodness,’ she said with a smile and he smiled back.

His smile died just before his gaze left her face. He was looking towards the double doors and the people passing in and out of the hospital.

‘Well, well. It seems our Mr Fitts is getting downright brazen.’

Alarmed, Magda looked over her shoulder. Her blood froze. There he was, Bradley Fitts waltzing in as though he owned the place. And, as Daniel had remarked, downright brazen.

His eyes checked her and for a moment it seemed that he held his breath. Not for long.

‘Mr Rossi,’ he said. ‘How nice of you to visit. I presume you’re visiting my friend Mr Smith.’

His smile was as oily as a spilt pot of Brylcreem. By the looks of it he used the same embrocation to slick his hair back tight to his head and away from those snake-like eyes.

‘He’s still alive, Fitts, if that’s what you’ve come to check up on.’

Daniel’s base baritone wasn’t loud, and yet Magda perceived it as strong, something dependable that would never fade, never become an insignificant croak.

Fitts seemed to think so too or at least he gave no audible reply, just a sharp nod of his head. His attention turned to Magda. His eyes raked her up and down, taking in the white coat, the stethoscope dangling around her neck.

Despite Daniel standing next to her, Fitts’s presence still scared her. He had a way of looking at a woman that was entirely different to the look he gave a man.

He said nothing to her, but then he didn’t need to. His look said it all. There would come a day when they would meet and Daniel Rossi would not be around. The thought of it scared her.

Fitts nodded a farewell to Rossi. ‘No doubt I’ll catch up with my dear friend John again.’

‘No doubt you will,’ said Daniel. ‘Though not until I’ve had a word with him.’

Fitts touched the brim of his hat then pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his neck and departed.

He hadn’t been obvious about looking at her, yet all the same Magda knew he had taken in every detail.

Daniel’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘That clinic where you work. The Bethnal Green Clinic. It’s in his territory.’

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘But I can’t let that fact stand in my way. There are too many people depending on me being there.’

‘It would be wise. Surely you could arrange it for just a short time – enough time for me to build up evidence and get him locked up?’

She shook her head. ‘Daniel, I have a job to do. I will not stop doing it because of him. The clinic is short staffed as it is. I have to attend. It’s part of my training.’

‘I won’t always be there to protect you.’

Her eyes met his. ‘I know that, Daniel. If the worst happens I have to deal with it myself.’

She couldn’t help sounding angry even though she knew he was talking sense.

‘Excuse me,’ she said curtly. ‘I have patients to attend to.’

When she left the hospital that evening, her eyelids were heavy as pennies and even when the fresh air hit her, she still had to stifle a yawn.

Due to her tiredness, she didn’t at first notice the man standing to one side of the archway, not until he called her name.

‘Magdalena?’

She turned. At first she didn’t recognise the scruffy individual in dark clothes, a cap pulled low over his face, and then suddenly she knew. He was one of the men who had brought in the injured John Smith. But how had he known her name? She presumed he’d checked with somebody on the way out, wanting to know how the patient was doing. Unless … another more dangerous thought came to her. Perhaps he worked for Bradley Fitts. Perhaps he was here on Fitts’s behalf.