The Fall (28 page)

— day 142 —
 

J
ames had changed during the past few days. Tense, hurried, and impatient, he gradually changed back to the man who had abducted me. I could see the madness twitching behind his controlled facade. Soon it would pounce. When he was around, I spoke little. It was a matter of self-preservation. His mood was changing so rapidly that I was unable to foresee outbreaks of violence.

Late at night, when his expression softened and his hands relaxed, I let my guard down a little, trying to find rest before the storm hit us both.

He stroked my abdomen, drawing circles around my navel. ‘Is your diagnosis still the same?’ he asked quietly. My heart hiccuped. By now, I was almost certain my diagnosis had been wrong.

‘There hasn’t been much time to think about it. But I fear your physician might have been correct after all.’ Fear wasn’t the right word. Terror would have described it better. There was nothing lovely or innocent about the thing possibly growing inside of me. I felt as though I were to produce a perfect copy of James Moriarty. A copy that invaded my insides while its father tried to control the rest.

‘I thought so,’ he said, his fingers still stroking my stomach. ‘Would you be my wife?’

I coughed. ‘What? Why?’ stumbled out of my mouth. His expression darkened. ‘My apologies,’ I mumbled.

‘You don’t want my child,’ he stated and I wished I could have grabbed him by his shoulders and screamed
Precisely!
 

‘I never wanted to be a wife and I never wanted to have children,’ I said truthfully.

He nodded, head lowered, gaze attached to my stomach. It was still flat, but for how much longer?

‘Your life changed and mine did, too. Have I not shown you often enough that I love you?’

He must have seen the shock I felt. Why would he say this? How could I not have seen this coming?
 

‘I have always thought it was merely… physical.’ My voice thinned, my mind working frantically on possibilities for extracting myself from this trap. ‘I don’t want to be a mother. Once the anthrax test trial is over and you can do without your bacteriologist for a few days, I will see a surgeon.’

‘You are planning to murder my child!’ he cried.

Certainly, I thought, gazing up at him. His posture was upright, shoulders squared, eyes wild.

‘What about your other progeny?’

‘Other progeny? You think I ever allowed that to happen?’ His voice did not soften.

‘I don’t know what to think.’ Again an entire sentence spoken without a single lie. Apparently he failed to notice the difference.

‘Nothing ever happened. They all used a sponge, they douched, none of them ever had a child.’

I nodded weakly.

‘You will not murder my child,’ he snarled. ‘And I will not allow you to put the mark of illegitimacy on my son or daughter. We will get married.’

‘And what then?’ I shot at him. ‘I’m to stay here in your house, the house of the man who abducted me and my father. Marry the man who kept my father in a hole for two months?’

‘It was necessary then.’

‘It was never necessary, James! Do you plan to lock me into my room again? So as to have full control? Am I to be strapped to the bed or filled up with opium?’

‘Of course not!’ he said, running his hand over his face.

‘The last thing I wanted for myself was to be a wife, serve only my husband, and have one child after the other. Plop plop plop.’
 

His palm made sharp contact with my cheek. He jumped up, dressed hurriedly, barked, ‘It is about time you grew up,’ and left the room.

With my cheek stinging, I rose and began to dress. Finding a skilled abortionist wasn’t easy. The chance of surviving such a procedure was, at best, eighty percent. If I were unlucky and a quack were to extract the child, I would most likely bleed to death. Doing it myself was out of the question. At least not with surgical instruments. A poison, perhaps? I had a flask with arsenide and belladonna and could use some of it. But the remains would not be enough to use against James, if I had to.

The feeling of being pressed into a very small cage cut all air off. I longed to flee, leave everything behind, and find my old life with all the freedom it had provided. I paced the room. Perhaps, a great amount of alcohol could induce early labour and bleeding? I wasn’t certain. Besides, James would notice. I needed something that made me ill, as though I had an infection and not a poisoning. I stared out into the garden. A yew tree. Very toxic and it might kill me before it would affect James’s brood. Shocked by my own coldness, I stopped but then failed to imagine the alternative. I couldn’t be mother to James’s child.

A juniper bush. What was its old German name?
Kindsmord
— child murder. I had no clue what dose would be the correct one. I would begin with a teaspoon full of fresh juniper tops.

When I walked through the entrance hall I heard James call. I turned and met him in the study. He sat in his chair, head in his hands.

‘Close the door, please,’ he said and I did so. ‘Sit.’ His hand indicated the armchair.

‘I have been married before,’ he began. ‘My wife and our son died within hours after his birth.’

‘I am very sorry,’ I said softly and even meant it. Whenever he showed his vulnerable side, he hurt me more than any of his cruelties ever did.

‘I beg you not to kill our child, Anna.’

Words were stuck in my throat, impossible to swallow, impossible to speak. I was torturing the beast before I attempted to kill it.

‘Look at me,’ he commanded and I obeyed. ‘I know you cannot imagine being a wife and a mother. But who says that you have to stay at home all day, have one child after the other, and not be able to work as a bacteriologist? You can have a nursemaid and another maid for yourself. You can get back to your research whenever you wish.’

It felt as though he had inserted a knife into my guts.

‘Why are you weeping?’ He rose and walked up to me, kneeled at my side and wiped my tears away. ‘Marry me, Anna,’ he pressed. So much pain and want in that voice. I would feel better if he simply punched my face instead.

‘My father would never allow it,’ I squeezed out, hoping that this one straw to cling to, the only socially acceptable objection I could have, would count at all.

‘He cannot want you to have an illegitimate child!’

‘I beg you, James, do not even think of asking my father.’
 

His heart would break, or rather, he would try to save his daughter by running a crowbar through James’s heart.
 

‘Very well, I will not ask him if that is your wish.’ He looked expectant and a little smug.

‘You want me to lie to him? That I’m not married? That he has no grandchild?’

‘It is none of my concern whether you lie to your father or tell him the truth.’

If not for Holmes, my father, and all these men knowing too many details about our germ warfare project, I would have closed my hands around James’s throat and not let go until one of us was dead.

‘Give me time, please.’ I said, taking his hand and pressing it against my forehead.

‘Of course,’ he answered.

— day 151 —
 

M
y days were marked with anxiety. I slept little and had excruciating nightmares about James and his child. Becoming a mother had never occurred to me before. I was convinced I was unable to bear children. The rape was so long ago. I had been nineteen and just defended my thesis as three of my fellow students wanted to check the size of my cock. How shocked they were, and how swiftly that shock had changed into a pleasant surprise. They knew I wouldn’t tell on them. After all, I would throw away my newly won career as a male medical doctor and bacteriologist. They had hurt me badly, and I had stopped menstruating for two years. After that, I bled only once or twice a year. How much bad luck must one have, to then be impregnated by James Moriarty? At times, I caught myself wishing it was Garret’s, only to admit to myself that what I truly wished was for it to be Sherlock’s.

For a week now I had been contemplating what toxin I would use and which dose might be best. I finally settled on my first choice — juniper, a toxic plant that caused symptoms a sloppy physician might confuse with severe influenza. It seemed so easy. I sent Holmes a message that I had the flu and might not be able to write for a week or two if a physician were to watch over me constantly. Then I told James I wasn’t feeling well, retreated to my room, and asked Cecile to bring me tea. After she had left, I placed the juniper tops on the saucer and mushed them with a spoon. I scraped them into the cup and poured tea over the remains to wash them off. I kept stirring until the tea had cooled, then drank it all and picked the few remaining twigs out and ate them, taking care not to leave any traces of what I had done.

Already half an hour later, I felt sick. Nausea hit quite ferociously and soon I expelled my stomach contents into the chamber pot, then examined them for any juniper twigs, collected them and threw them out the window. My muscles hurt and began to twitch. I pulled the bell rope.

Cecile entered and rushed to my bed. I hadn’t heard her knock. She had brought coals, too. It was around nine o’clock then and she probably was on her usual round through the house.

‘Are you poorly, Miss?’ she squeaked.

‘Yes, a little.’ What an understatement. She put her cold hand to my forehead and said she would get the master.

Another hand touched my forehead. It was James’s. Time must be flying.

‘James, don’t touch me.’ I cautioned. ‘I don’t know what this is and I…’ I coughed although I didn’t need to. ‘…and I don’t trust my own diagnosis too much. Might be influenza, after all. But…’ I coughed again. ‘Make sure you and Cecile wash hands. Thoroughly. Just to be certain. You know what I mean.’

‘Impossible,’ he said so low that I had to look up at him to ascertain he had spoken. Did I see mistrust or only concern? He turned away and left.

I couldn’t recall how often Cecile changed my chamber pot. The juniper poison urged itself through my pores, mouth, and anus. I was still anxiously waiting for blood. So far, my uterus only cramped, together with most other muscles. Trying not to moan too loudly, I shut my eyes and rolled up into a ball.

Footfalls woke me from my stupor. The first thing I saw of Dr Blincoe was his black bag. Then his hands, wandering all over my body, prodding my abdomen, opening my mouth, and feeling my pulse.

‘Disinfect yourself,’ I managed to say just before he stuffed two or three carbon tablets into my mouth and made me swallow them with water.

Whenever I woke up, I saw Blincoe sitting in an armchair across from me. All he did was watch, occasionally feel my pulse, and urge me to drink. I tried to recall how often he had given me activated carbon, but my mind was too slow and my body ached too much. I drifted off again.

Juniper (18)