Hawkwood swallowed bile. He turned. “You really believe you can perform miracles, Colonel?”
Hyde held up his blood-stained hands. “With these, yes.”
“You’re not God, Colonel.”
“No, I’m a surgeon.”
“And that gives you the right to commit murder? I thought physicians took some kind of oath.”
“She’s my daughter. She was taken from me. I have the power to restore her. I can make her whole again. I can turn back time.”
“Daughter? She’s not your daughter, Colonel. She never will be. I’m not even sure you could even call that thing a she. That’s what the sack-’em-up men call them, by the way: things. All that thing is now is skin and bone and whatever fluid she’s embalmed in. You think she’s beautiful? God help you. Molly Finn was beautiful, before you butchered her. What in God’s name were you after, Hyde? What had this poor girl ever done to you? Good Christ, you’ve killed three people – and for what? A bag of bones in a bathtub? You really are insane.”
Hawkwood turned his gaze on Hyde’s companion. “I wonder what that makes you, Surgeon Carslow?”
“You don’t understand,” Carslow said.
“Don’t I? Well, maybe you could enlighten me. I knew someone had to be helping him. It had to be someone with the money; and you, Carslow, you’ve got more money than God. And this is how you choose to spend it?”
Hawkwood turned back to Hyde. “Your friend here told me he never visited Bethlem, but that didn’t stop the two of you corresponding, did it? What did you do, Colonel? Write out a shopping list? What did you send him first, I wonder? The drawing you got from James Matthews? All this equipment doesn’t come cheap. You’d need to have had it specially made. And he’d have told you about this place being empty, of course: your old school. You must have jumped at the chance. It’s even got its own operating room. How’s that for convenience? I did wonder how you knew who I was, too, but then I realized it had to have been Carslow here who gave you my name and description. It must have been damned cold, hanging around Bow Street, waiting for me to turn up. Oh, and it was Sawney who gave you up, Colonel, in case you were wondering how we got here. He’s dead, by the way. They all are. It’s been a busy night.”
Hawkwood smiled. “Still, look on the bright side: we saved Jack Ketch a job. That way, he can concentrate on the two of you.” Hawkwood turned to Eden Carslow. “What? You think keeping silent won’t incriminate you? It’s too bloody late for that.”
Carslow blanched, recovered quickly, and drew himself up. “You know nothing. You think science stands still? Tell that to Leonardo and Galileo, and John Hunter. It’s surgeons like John Hunter and Titus Hyde, men who are prepared to take that first step beyond the frontiers of knowledge, who light the way for others. You’ve been in the wars, Hawkwood, you’ve seen men like Colonel Hyde work, you’ve seen the miracles they can perform. I suspect you’ve even had occasion to thank men like Titus Hyde for sewing you back together after some bloody encounter. How do you think he acquired that sort of skill? It was because the men before him dared to explore beyond their boundaries.”
“You can save the lecture, Carslow. I’m not one of your damned students. I’m not impressed. You’ll go down as his accomplice. Hell of an end to an illustrious career, don’t you think? Swinging from a gibbet. I wonder what your students will think of that? You never know, you being a condemned murderer, they could end up with your body to dissect. Now that would impress me.”
Carslow went pale.
You don’t look so hale and hearty now, Hawkwood thought. Do you?
Hyde’s thin lips split for the first time. “My dear Captain, you don’t seriously think that’s what’s going to happen? You can’t be that naïve. They don’t hang surgeons, Hawkwood. We’re at war. Who do you think is going to put all those wounded warriors back together again?”
Hawkwood said nothing. He could see that the look on Jago’s face was murderous.
Hyde gave a contemptuous snort. “Who was it you spoke with? McGrigor? That sanctimonious Scot! Calls himself the Surgeon-General? He might have succeeded him, but he’s not fit to clean John Hunter’s shoes. The man’s more concerned about offending God than serving the cause of science. What did he tell you? That they refused to hand me over because we don’t take orders from the French? You think that was the sole reason? You’ve been a soldier, Captain. You’ve seen inside the tents. You know what it’s like: the hopelessness, the futility. Think of the potential, if we can learn to harvest the dead to heal the living. If we can accomplish that, the possibilities are endless. Good God, man, you think I’d have been removed from duty if the Frogs hadn’t found that damned cellar? The reason they didn’t hand me over was because they need surgeons like me to heal British soldiers.
“You said it yourself: the worst they’ll do is put me back in Bedlam. The war won’t last for ever. When it’s over and the Frogs are back in their pond, I’ll be supping brandy in the officers’ mess. In the meantime, I’ll be able to renew my acquaintance with Dr Locke. As I said, not the brightest of fellows, but in a place like Bethlem one has to be grateful for what one can get. I’ll be needing a new chess opponent, though. Still, mustn’t grumble. The parson served his purpose. Interesting, the two of us meeting again. Strange coincidence, him visiting the hospital, don’t you think?
“You did know Tombs was an army chaplain? That we were colleagues back in Spain? Ah, perhaps not, from the look on your face. Why, he was a regular visitor to the hospital tents. The scars on his face – he got those courtesy of a French mortar round. I was the one who stitched him back together afterwards. Ironic, don’t you think? He was most grateful, mind you. Even offered to deliver letters for me when I was in hospital. You were right when you accused Eden of corresponding with me. The Reverend Tombs was our winged messenger, our Hermes.”
Hyde feigned forgetfulness. “But I digress. Where was I …? Ah, yes, I remember. No, they won’t hang us, Captain Hawkwood. We’re too damned valuable.”
“Not to me,” Hawkwood said.
Hyde’s eyes widened as, in a move almost too fast to follow, Hawkwood raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger.
He heard Carslow gasp. There was a flash, but that was all. In that instant Hawkwood knew the pistol had misfired. Although the flint had struck the frizzen and ignited the powder in the pan, the flash had failed to penetrate the hole in the side of the barrel. The only thing the pistol had discharged was smoke.
And Hyde was gone.
The man was fast. Hawkwood had forgotten how fast. One minute Hyde was there, the next he wasn’t.
“Door!” Jago threw his pistol up, brought it to bear. Hawkwood had a glimpse of a darting figure entering a patch of shadow beyond the arc of the candle glow and then it vanished.
“No!” Hawkwood pointed back at Carslow, who was standing open-mouthed, struck dumb by the escalation of events. “Mind him! Hyde’s mine!”
Hawkwood ran.
It was immediately apparent as he plunged through the doorway, that he’d entered a different world. There were no dingy passages here, no dark stairways, no bare boards. What he found instead was a long, portrait-lined corridor, with an open door at the far end. Not stopping to wonder at the contrast, he raced down the darkened corridor. Passing through the door, he found himself in what looked to be a large reception room, devoid of furniture. Neither was there artificial illumination, but the shutters on the tall windows were open, allowing the cold moonlight to pour in. He pulled up. Where was Hyde?