Page 66 of A Sunless Sea (William Monk 17)

In spite of herself, Hester was interested. She sat in the seat that Agatha offered her, and a few moments later accepted the cup of steaming, fragrant pale yellow tea, without milk. It had a sharp, clean fragrance she was unused to. She glanced around the walls and saw on one shelf at least thirty books in various stages of disrepair. Clearly they had been very well read indeed. On the opposite wall were glass jars with all manner of dried leaves, herbs, roots, and powders in them.

She forced her attention back to the huge woman now sitting opposite her, watching and waiting.

Hester sipped the tea again. It was quite different from any she was familiar with, but she thought she could learn to like it. “Thank you,” she said aloud.

Agatha shrugged and raised her own cup.

“How did you find out about this tea?” Hester asked, sipping it again.

“Plenty o’ Chinese in London,” Agatha replied. “They know a lot about medicine, poor devils. Showed me some.” She looked up quickly at Hester, sharp-eyed. It was a warning that her secrets were precious. She had won them hard and was not going to share them without a price.

Hester had a degree of respect for that. Her own skills had been learned on the battlefield. “I wish we’d had enough opium in the Crimea,” she said quietly. “Would have helped a bit, especially when we had to amputate.”

Agatha looked at her carefully, eyes narrowed. “Do that a lot, did yer?”

“Enough,” Hester replied; memory brought it back to her, as if she were crouching in the mud and desolation of the battlefield, trying to block the cries out of her mind and concentrate only on the silent, ashen face in front of her, the eyes sunken in shock and pain.

Agatha nodded slowly. “Don’t do to go over it,” she said. “Drive yerself mad. Do yer get ’em now, people with the worst pain, torn-open guts, smashed bones an’ the like?”

“Not often.” Hester took the chance she had been hoping for. “Sometimes. Stones that won’t pass, or torn open after a bad birth. Terrible beatings. That’s why I need good opium.”

Agatha hesitated as if making a difficult decision.

Hester waited. Seconds ticked by.

Agatha took a deep breath. “I can get yer the best opium,” she said, her eyes fixed on Hester’s. “Good price. But I can do better than that. Eatin’ it’s better than nothin’, not as good as smokin’ it. But there’s better still. Scottish man made this needle where you can stick it straight into the vein, right wherever the pain’s worst. Fifteen years ago, or more. I can get you one of them needles.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Hester said with a sudden lurch of excitement. “Can you teach me how to use it? And how much to give?”

Agatha nodded. “Have to be careful, mind. You can kill someone easy, if you get it wrong. And worse than that, if you give it to them more than a few times, they get so they want it every day, can’t do without it.”

Hester frowned, her heart beating faster. “How do you stop that from happening?” Her voice was a little hoarse.

“You make it less, then you stop them getting it at all. They learn. Least, most do. Some don’t, an’ they go on taking it, one way or another for the rest o’ their lives. More an’ more. Makes them as sells it rich.” The look of fury on her face made Hester wince.

“Is there another way to deal with pain?” Hester asked softly, knowing the answer.

“No.” Agatha let the one word fall into the silence.

“Is that what Dr. Lambourn was asking about?” Hester asked. “Needles?”

“Not at first,” Agatha replied. “ ’E were mostly on about deaths of children ’cos women gave ’em medicines they don’t know what’s in. He didn’t get nothin’ out of it one way or the other.”

“You talked with him?” Hester pressed.

“Course I did. I told you, even if the government’d taken his report, it wouldn’t ’ave made no difference to me nor you. An’ they didn’t anyway, so what do you care?” Her eyes were sharp, clever, watching Hester’s face.

“But he asked about addiction to smoking opium?” Hester pressed again.

Agatha grimaced. “Not much, but I told ’im anyway. ’E listened.”

“Do you think he killed himself?” Hester said bluntly.

Agatha frowned. “He didn’t look to me like that kind of coward, but I s’pose yer never know. What difference does it make to you?”

Hester wondered how much truth to tell. She looked at Agatha more carefully, and decided not to lie at all. The whole question of opium in medicines was complicated by the abuse of it. Where was the dividing line between supplying a need, and profiteering? And had any of it to do with Joel Lambourn’s death, or Zenia Gadney’s?

“I think maybe he was murdered and it was made to look like suicide,” she said aloud to Agatha. “Some of it doesn’t make sense.”