The Beekeeper's Apprentice (21 page)

“Russell?”

“Come in, Holmes, I’m nearly ready.”

He let himself in, and I saw that he too remained slightly brown, though the grey had reappeared around his ears. He sat down to wait as I pinned up my still-damp hair, and it occurred to me that he was probably the only person I knew who could simply sit nearby and watch me without one or the other of us needing to make conversa-tion. I finished and picked up my room key.

“Shall we go?”

The Simpsons, as might have been expected, were grateful and fragile. Mrs. Simpson kept touching her daughter gently as if to reas-sure herself of the child’s presence. Mr. Simpson looked rested and apologised for having to rush about—his words—instead of talking, as he was needed urgently in London. In the midst of it sat Jessica. She and I greeted each other solemnly. I noticed the faint shadow of a fad-ing bruise on her cheekbone that I hadn’t seen in the dark. I asked after her doll, and she replied seriously that she was quite well, thank you, and would I like to see her hotel room? I excused myself and fol-lowed Jessica down the hallway. (The Simpsons’ suite and hotel were considerably more upstage than ours.)

We sat on the bed and talked to the stuffed person, and I was in-troduced to a bear, two rabbits, and a jointed wooden puppet. She showed me a few books, and we spoke of literature.

“I can read them,” she informed me, with the barest trace of self-satisfaction.

“I can see that.”

“Miss Russell, could you read when you were six?” Oddly enough there was no overtone of pride here, just a request for information.

“Yes, I believe I could.”

“I thought so.” She nodded her head in prim satisfaction and smoothed the skirt of the rag doll.

“What is your doll’s name?”

I was surprised at her reaction to this simple question. Her hands went still, and she concentrated on the battered face in her lap, biting her lip. Her voice when she answered was quiet.

“Her name used to be Elizabeth.”

“Used to be? What is her name now?” I could see that this was im-portant but failed to grasp just how.

“Mary.” She spoke in a whisper, and after a few seconds her eyes came up to mine. Light dawned.

“Mary, is it? My name?”

“Yes, Miss Russell.”

It was my turn now to look down and study my hands. Hero wor-ship was not one of the topics Holmes had thought fit to tutor me in, and my voice was not quite steady when I spoke.

“Jessica, would you do something for me?”

“Yes, Miss Russell.” No hesitation. I could ask her to throw herself from the window for me, her voice said, and she would do it. Gladly.

“Would you call me Mary?”

“But Mama said—”

“I know, mothers like good manners in their children, and that is important. But just between the two of us, I should like it very much if you were to call me Mary. I never—” There was something block-ing my throat and I swallowed, hard. “I never had a sister, Jessica. I had a brother, but he died. My mother and father died, too, so I don’t have much of a family anymore. Would you like to be my sis-ter, Jessica?”

The amazed adoration in her eyes was too much. I pulled her to me so I did not have to look at it. Her hair smelt musky-sweet, like chamomile. I held her, and she began to cry, weeping oddly like a woman rather than a young child, while I rocked us both gently in si-lence. In a few minutes she drew a shuddering breath and stopped.

“Better?”

She nodded her head against my chest. I smoothed her hair.

“That’s what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate.”

As I suspected, that last word triggered a reaction. She drew back and looked at me, her eyes blazing.

“I do hate them. Mama says I don’t, but I do. I hate them. If I had a gun I’d kill them all.”

“Do you think you really would?”

She thought for a moment, and her shoulders slumped. “Maybe not. But I’d want to.”

“Yes. They are hateful men, who did something horrid to you and hurt your parents. I’m glad you wouldn’t shoot them, because I shouldn’t want you to go to gaol, but you go ahead and hate them. No one should ever do what they did. They stole you and hit you and tied you up like a dog. I hate them too.”

Her jaw dropped at so much raw emotion aired.

“Yes, I do, and you know what I hate them for most? I hate them for taking away your happiness. You don’t trust people now, do you? Not like you did a few weeks ago. A six-year-old girl oughtn’t to be frightened of people.” The child needed help, but I was quite certain that her parents would greet the suggestion of psychiatric treatment with the standard mixture of horror and embarrassment. She would, for the present, have to settle for me. Physician, heal thyself, I thought sourly.

“Mary?”

“Yes, Jessica?”

“You took me away from those men. You and Mr. Holmes.”

“We helped the police get you back, yes,” I said carefully and not entirely truthfully, and wondered what was on her mind. I did not wonder for long.

“Well, sometimes when I wake up, I think I’m still in that bed. It’s like...I can hear the chain rattle when I move. And even during the day, sometimes I think I’m dreaming, and that when I wake up I’ll be in bed, with one of those men sitting in the chair with his mask on. I mean, I know I’m back with Mama and Papa, but I feel like I’m not. Do you know what I’m talking about?” she asked without much hope.

The experiential reality of the residual effects of a traumatic expe-rience, I thought, in the precise Germanic tones of Dr. Leah Ginzberg, M.D., Ph.D., and then went on almost automatically as she would have, with a push for more truth.

“Oh yes, I do know that feeling, Jessica. I know it very, very well.

And it gets all tied up with lots of other feelings, doesn’t it? Like feel-ing maybe it was somehow your fault, that if you’d tried just a little harder you could have gotten away.” She gaped at me as if I were con-juring half-crowns from the air. “Like even being angry at your mother and father for not rescuing you sooner.” Both of those hit home, like charges at the base of a dam, and the pent-up waters came gushing out in an intense monotone.

“I almost got away, but I slipped and fell and he caught me, and then I thought maybe if I didn’t eat anything they’d have to let me go, but I was so hungry, even if it meant I had to—had to use the pot, and then I couldn’t get the chain off my leg, and then there was always someone there, and after all those days went by and nobody came, I thought maybe, maybe... well, that Mama’d gone away home to America and Papa wouldn’t want me back.” This last came out in a tiny whisper, and she picked at the hem of her skirt.

“Do you talk to your Mama about it?”

“I tried to yesterday, but it made her cry. I don’t like to see Mama cry.”

“No,” I agreed, and felt a flicker of anger at the woman’s lack of control. “She’s been upset, Jessie, but she’ll be much better in a few days. Try again then, or talk to your father.”

“I’ll try,” she said uncertainly. I put my hands on her shoulders and made her look at me.

“Do you trust me, Jessie?”

“Yes.”

“I mean really trust me? A lot of grown-ups say things that aren’t exactly true because they want to make you feel better, but will you be-lieve me when I say I won’t do that to you? Ever?”

“Yes.”

“Then listen to me, Jessica Simpson. I know you’ve heard this be-fore from other people, but now you’re hearing it from me, your sister, Mary, and it’s the truth. You did everything you possibly could, and you did it perfectly. You left your handkerchief and your hair ribbon for us to find—”

“Like Hansel and Gretel,” she inserted.

“Exactly, a trail through the woods. You tried to get away, even though they hurt you for it, and then when they had you in a place where you could do nothing, you waited, you kept strong, and you didn’t do anything that might make them want to hurt you. You waited for us. Even though it was boring and scary and very, very lonely, you waited. And when I came you acted like the intelligent person you are, and you kept quiet and let me carry you away over those skinny branches, and you were absolutely quiet, even when I squashed your arm coming down the tree.”

“It didn’t hurt much.”

“You were brave, you were intelligent, you were patient. And as you say, it isn’t really over yet, and you’re going to have to be brave and intelligent and patient for a while longer, and wait for the anger and the fear to settle down. They will.” (And the nightmares? my mind whispered.) “Not right away, and they’ll never go away com-pletely, but they’ll fade. Do you believe me?”

“Yes. But I’m still very angry.”

“Good. Be angry. It’s right to be angry when someone hurts you for no reason. But do you think you can try not to be too afraid?”

“To be angry and—happy?” The incongruity obviously appealed to her. She savoured it for a moment and jumped to her feet. “I’m going to be angry and happy.” She ran out of the room. I followed, carrying Mary doll, and entered the sitting room as she was declaring her new philosophy of life to her bewildered mother. I caught Holmes’ eye, and he rose. Mrs. Simpson made as if to stop him.

“Oh, can’t you stay for tea, Mr. Holmes? Miss Russell?”

“I am sorry, Madam, but we have to go to the police station and then catch the seven o’clock train. We must be gone.”

Jessica hugged me, hard. I dropped down to her level and gave her the doll.

“Can you write yet, Jessie?”

“A little.”

“Well, perhaps your mother might help you write me a letter some-times. I’d love to hear from you. And remember to stay happy with your anger. Good-bye, sister Jessie.”

“Good-bye, sister Mary.” She whispered it so her mother shouldn’t hear, and giggled.

e took our leave of an uncomfortable Chief Inspector Connor, who arranged a car to Bristol so we might catch an earlier train and be off his turf all the sooner. Again we had a com-partment to ourselves, though we were no longer more disreputable than our bags. Bristol turned to fields outside our window, and Holmes reached for his pipe and tobacco pouch. Normality tugged at me, be-coming more firm with each accelerating clack of the iron wheels, but there was something to be set aright between Holmes and myself be-fore we went further.

“Holmes, you did not wish to let me join you in this case,” I said. He grunted in agreement. “Do you now regret that you did so?” He knew immediately what I was talking about and did not pretend oth-erwise. However, he did not look at me, but took his pipe out of his mouth and examined the bowl closely, retrieved his little tool, and fussed with the tobacco for a moment before answering.

“I was indeed filled with a singular lack of enthusiasm at the prospect. I admit that. However, I hope you understand that this was not due to any doubts concerning your abilities. I work alone. I always have. Even when Watson was with me, he functioned purely as an-other pair of hands, not in anything resembling true partnership. You, however—I have seen for some time that you are not the type to be content to follow directions. My hesitation was not out of fear that you might put a foot disastrously wrong, but that I might cause you to do so by misdirection and my longstanding disinclination to work in harness with another. As it happened, by hesitating to give you even the responsibility for creating the necessary diversion, I paradoxically presented you with an opportunity for independently solving the case.”

“I’m sorry, Holmes, but as I was—”

“For God’s sake, Russell,” he interrupted impatiently, “don’t apolo-gise. I know the circumstances; you made the correct decision. You should have been quite wrong, in fact, had you let the opportunity slip through your fingers. I admit that I was severely taken aback when I saw you running down the road with the child on your back. It was something Watson could never have done, even discounting his bad leg. Watson’s great strength has always been his utter, dogged depend-ability. His attempts at independent action tend to blow up in my face, so I have never encouraged them, but I allowed you to come in with me on this case because the step had to be taken at some time, and it was best done while I was immediately to hand at every moment. Or so I thought, not knowing that the first time I let you out of my sight you would take it into your head to perform an appallingly dangerous stunt like—” He stopped and turned again to his pipe, which seemed to be giving him considerable difficulty. When it was finally belching smoke to his satisfaction, he looked at me, and in his eye was what I can only describe as a rueful twinkle. “It was, in fact, precisely what I myself might have done, given the circumstances.”