The Fall (31 page)

I walked out of the bathroom, the Moroccan perfume trailing in my wake. The clacking of my heels sounded in the corridor and I knew he was listening for it, awaiting my arrival at his bedroom door. I knocked and heard his approach on the other side. He opened and smiled at me. I smiled back, feeling a surge of excitement over the imminent murder by intimacy. He saw my slight trembling, curled his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close. His kiss was demanding. I surrendered to him and our final battle.

‘You are different tonight,’ he noted, his breath brushing against my neck.

‘Yes,’ I whispered, bending my head to the side and offering more of the sensitive skin.

‘Why is that?’

‘Tonight, I wish to surrender.’

His hands stopped in their tracks, his expression darkening in mistrust.

‘I never gave myself to you completely. I never could, or never thought of it. I am a headstrong woman. You know that.’

‘Why the change of heart?’

‘I thought about it while bathing. How it would feel to not be in control of myself for a few moments.’ I took a step back from him, feigning disappointment. ‘My brain is always analysing and it distracts me from being with you. Thinking of surrender aroused me. But we don’t have to—’ His lips came down on mine, his tongue spreading the taste of opium in my mouth.

We fell onto the bed. He pushed my dress up. I struggled to get it off and he helped me then, found the corset and whispered, ‘Lovely.’ Slowly, he untied the arrangement of hooks and strings, silk and whale bone; whispering, crackling, rustling intermingled with staccato breath and the sound of kisses.

His hand wandered from my breasts down to my stomach, coming to a halt just before my clitoris. Impatiently, I grabbed his wrist and pushed his fingers closer and deeper. With a growl he dove down, greedily kissing my toxic vulva. I did love him then. All of him, who trusted me now and did not know that this would be his end. I loved him for what he was, and what he had done. Because tonight I was the one murdering, and he the victim. Sending him off without anyone loving him felt wrong.

Spent, he lay next to me and soon his face began to flush. As he opened his eyes I noticed the dilated pupils, eyeballs slightly bloodshot. I could see the realisation sink in and the shock it brought.

‘I’d always suspected… the wine,’ he said with effort. His feet started twitching and his eyelids fluttered.

‘You took precautions?’

‘Hrmm…’ he said, his jaw not following his orders.

‘Carbon?’ I asked. He did not reply, but his eyes betrayed him. If he had taken his last dose of activated carbon before or after dinner, there must only be very little left in his stomach. Too little to save him now.

His hand moved up, his index finger trying to enter his throat to help expel his stomach’s toxic contents. I held on to his wrist and pulled his arm away. He feebly shoved at me, his eyes rimmed with water, his body gradually relenting to the belladonna’s debilitating effect. He blinked and tears squeezed onto his cheeks. I wiped them away and said softly, ‘I cannot let you bring suffering upon thousands of people and I will certainly not let you kill Holmes. But we both lost this battle, my husband. I let you break me.’ He showed no reaction.

I rose and dressed, then opened the strongbox and took his revolver, munition, and all money and papers from it. I cocked the gun, took my shoes and walked back to James.

Froth seeped from the corners of his mouth. His abdomen appeared to be cramping. I turned him onto his side — drowning in vomit would be a cruel death.
 

I kissed his brow and tiptoed to my room. There, I put a wad of bills, probably a hundred pounds, into an envelope and marked it “Cecile.” With cape and purse on my arm, I walked down to the first floor and pushed the envelope through the door of her room, hoping she would forgive me for killing her employer. Then, I went down into the study and collected the papers from his desk’s top drawer.

With my back to the entrance door and observing the stairwell for any movement, I laced my boots and snuck outside. The dogs came running and greeted me with wagging tails. I walked quickly to the gate and tried it. It was locked, so I climbed over it. The hem of my dress tore as I jumped down.

I stuck my finger deep into my throat and black vomit splashed onto the pavement — the carbon that held the toxin captive needn’t go through my digestive system. Then, I walked down Kensington Palace Gardens and with every new step I took the turmoil inside of me worsened.

Running, I turned into Bayswater Road and slowed to a casual walk, wondering where Holmes’s street urchins were. Soon, I heard a cab approach. The hairs on my neck prickled, but I willed myself not to turn around. The hansom passed me and stopped after a hundred yards. The cabbie climbed down and checked his horse’s front hooves, swore, spat, and climbed back up again. I decided to go for it.

‘Cabbie!’ I cried and walked up to him. ‘I need you to take a message to Mr Sherlock Holmes, 221 B Baker Street,’ I said, hastily writing a small note and extracting a gold sovereign from my purse — the smallest coins I had found in James’s strongbox. ‘Be quick and Mr Holmes will give you another.’ I held the money and the message out to him. The cabbie’s eyes bulged. He appeared close to a heart failure, but pulled himself together soon enough and snatched the money as though in fear I would change my mind.

‘Yes ma’am,’ he said, flicked his horse hard, and raced away.
 

I walked for about ten minutes before another cab came into view. I hailed it, gave the driver an address, and climbed in. He appeared rather taken aback about my choice of destination.

I handed the man a sovereign, thinking that the news of a mad woman paying outrageous fares would spread like fire. I watched the hansom drive off, then turned around to unlock the warehouse.

The metal door fell into its frame with a loud crack. Heavy odours of swine blood, beef extract, and mule manure saturated the air. My trembling fingers searched for the lantern on the floor. I found it, opened its hatch and lit the wick. The small bubble of light did not reach far. I walked all around the room, lighting oil lamps and checking the positions of the large flasks filled with grain alcohol. I took a scalpel and cut my petticoat into slices; twisted them into wicks. The end of each wick went into each of the flasks, sucking up the liquid and releasing its vapour into the air, biting my nostrils. The other ends were laid out on the floor, unified in the centre, one large white spiderweb with globules at each tendril’s end. I dumped all my notes and James’s papers — the sum of our work on germ warfare — next to one alcohol bottle, then walked over to the dozing mules, bracing myself for my next task.

Two days ago, we had poured anthrax germs into their fodder. By now, half of the animals stood on shaky legs, hindquarters soiled with diarrhoea. I dressed in the India rubber apron, gloves and mask to protect myself from contaminated splatter, then took up the stud gun and drove the bolt into each mule’s forehead. It was a quiet death — a click, the sound of a blunt impact, the crack of a circular piece of skull bone being punched into the brain, and the collapse of the animal onto the straw. The other mules watched, but no panic broke out. After twenty-four clicks, they lay dead or unconscious before me.

I took off the protective garments and walked back to the laboratory, struck a match and threw it into the spiderweb’s centre.

The flames shot up the tendrils and I darted towards the exit to escape the explosion. Before I could even touch the handle, the door flew open. Moran’s face and his approaching fist were the last things I saw before darkness fell.
 

What a curious sensation! Flickering light. Flickering memories. Reality slipping into dream and back again. My lungs burned. I opened my eyes and faced a wall of fire. Thick smoke floated inches above my head. The only cool place was the ground on which I lay. My breath was barely a whisper, elaborated, heavy, painful. My left eye hurt, my head throbbed, my throat clenched. So much effort to push myself forward, little by little. Why wouldn’t my hand let go of the bulky purse? The walls were on fire, the ceiling invisible, the metal door probably too hot to touch or too heavy for me to move now. I thought of crying then, but why should I? Dying wasn’t too horrible a thought. I wouldn’t even feel the flames lick my skin. The smoke would make me unconscious in but a moment. I rested my cheek on the cold floor, forcing myself not to think of fire eating flesh and slowly drifted off.

Something rumbled.
Clack clack clack
. Smoke. Smoke! My eyes opened. Or rather, one eye — the other was swollen shut — and looked up at Holmes.

‘Anna!’

‘Something is burning.’ I managed a croaky whisper.

‘You are safe. It is the smoke on your clothes and hair you smell.’

I closed my eye again. For the first time in my life, my brain refused to think, and I was too tired to coax it into analysis mode.

He carried me up the flight of stairs and lay me down on his bed, then disappeared.

‘Drink,’ he said upon his return, holding a glass of water in one hand, lifting my head with the other. My mouth and throat felt like sandpaper. I tried to ask what had happened, but only a rasp came out. He bent closer, and I repeated my question.

Slowly, he placed the glass on the nightstand. He looked worried.

‘It was my fault,’ he said. ‘I should have foreseen that he would instruct the cabbies working the area to keep their eyes open for any woman fitting your description. And for a substantial reward, they would certainly make for a good surveillance army. It’s what I would have done.’

I touched his hand and whispered, ‘Contacting me was too high a risk.’

He harrumphed, wiping my argument away.

‘But you found me.’

‘Yes. Wiggins clung to the hansom, took a ride to the warehouse and back to Kensington Park. Then he came to me, asking whether I had got your message. Of course it never arrived here, it was delivered to Moran! He must have run to Moriarty first, otherwise he would have been at the warehouse even before it went up in flames.’

I coughed and he gave me more water. ‘Thank you,’ I squeezed out. ‘All his notes and our germs are burned, James is dead, Moran will be caught soon.’

He placed his hand on mine. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

I heard a door open and close, a rustle, and footfall.

‘Watson, finally!’ Holmes exclaimed. His friend gazed down on me, eyes wide.

‘By Jove!’ Watson’s hands went over my face, chest, arms, and hands. He pulled out his stethoscope, leaned over me to press it between my chest and his ear. Humming and huffing, he probed my heart and lungs.

‘Any signs of a pulmonary oedema?’ I rasped.

‘No, nothing as yet. But it needs to be observed. I am more concerned about your eye, to be honest.’ He reached for it. I held his hand back.

‘Let me,’ I said, gently pushing around the swollen left eye. ‘I cannot feel any bones shifting.’ I winced.

‘Good. Are you hurting anywhere else?’ he asked, while checking the reaction of my right pupil.

‘No. My head hurts, but given the circumstances—’

‘Indeed!’ interrupted Watson, straightening up. ‘Holmes, she needs fresh air, lots to drink to compensate for the loss of fluids, and Mrs Hudson should help her wash. That soot has to come off. She needs to breathe.’

Holmes nodded. ‘Thank you, my friend. You are, as always, most reliable. Please forgive the harsh welcome.’

‘Never mind. Never mind,’ muttered Watson, a little miffed suddenly, as though he had just noticed Holmes’s roughness.

‘Thank you, Dr Watson,’ I said quietly. ‘You always rush to my aid when I get myself beaten up.’ He squeezed my hand and said he would be back tomorrow morning to examine my lungs once more.

‘Holmes?’ I asked, after Watson had left.

‘Yes?’

‘Have you seen Moran?’

‘Yes, I saw him leave the warehouse.’

‘What is it?’ I sensed that he withheld information.

‘I could swear he looked triumphant.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No. I saw his face for but a moment, illuminated by the fire. I might be mistaken…’ He did not sound doubtful, though.