Read sample The Treacherous Dead

One

‘What did I do?’ Mr Sullivan demanded of the heavens, straightening his waistcoat to relieve its straining buttons. ‘It’s Monday morning, there’s orders coming outta my ears, I got idle machines, flat-foots all over, and the only tailor in the place is dead. How’s a man supposed to eat?’

Ignoring him, Margaret Demeray crouched by the body.

‘He was Abram Cohen,’ said Inspector Green. ‘Tailor.’

Apart from Mr Sullivan, two police constables and Inspector Green, the sweatshop in Ravel Street, Whitechapel, was crammed with twenty-five tables, each bearing a sewing machine and baskets of items to be sewn, facing the window by a larger cutting table.

Each seat, however, was empty. A strike starting with six thousand London garment workers the previous week had been joined by Mr Sullivan’s staff when Sabbath started on Friday evening, which begged the question as to why Abram Cohen was wedged between two tables, a tape measure loose over his shoulders.

Nearby stood a female mannequin dressed in part of an impractical yachting costume: a white blouse with eyelet lace, a white skirt trimmed in a wavy line of navy blue. A cartwheel hat festooned in ostrich feathers, which wouldn’t last five minutes on a yacht, had slipped sideways. A hatpin with an inch-long anchor-decorated cylinder for its head lay half-obscured by the mannequin’s skirt. Somehow, her blank face conveyed deep disapproval of the whole sorry situation.

The floor was lint-covered. Whoever was responsible for sweeping, then sieving the findings for stray pins at the end of each day hadn’t done much of a job.

Viewed from outside, the building appeared to lean forward. Inside, none of its corners were square. Plaster crumbled from moulded ceilings, faded panelling had split. It had probably been a fine old house once. This room might have held nothing but a loom where a silk weaver worked and grew wealthy, turning the colours of his lost French homeland into intricate designs. But it had long since lost its value, sold and sold again until it became a disintegrating container for East End sweatshops.

‘Are there many of my people idling outside?’ said Mr Sullivan, extracting a silver fob watch, contemplating it, then sighing.

’There’s a picket line,’ said Margaret, kneeling in the dust. ‘Two men and two women. They thought I was a seamstress from elsewhere you’d induced to break the strike. I said I was better at sewing wounds than clothes, then someone recognised me as a doctor and they let me through.’

She didn’t add that the whole exchange had taken place in Yiddish, which she barely knew and muddled with German. They’d laughed, but whether it was because of what she’d said or how she said it wasn’t entirely clear. She also didn’t add that, knowing nothing about Abram, they had debated whether to let a doctor in at all, until the unseen woman yelled, ‘She’s a doctor. What’s the worst she can do? Find Sullivan’s heart and make it work?’ Margaret had half-recognised the voice, but couldn’t make out who had called among the huddles of bystanders.

‘So you can sew,’ said Mr Sullivan. ‘Could you try with the seams? If this strike goes on I’ll be ruined. The paper says there’s more than thirty thousand out now. Can that be right? Thirty thousand?’

‘Don’t you think this man’s demise is more important than your orders, Mr Sullivan?’ said Inspector Green. ‘If not, I’ll start wondering why.’

‘Hey, I called you in! If I’d wanted to cover anything up, I’d have found someone to help dispose of him. They’re two a penny round here and you know it.’

The inspector turned to Margaret. ‘What do you reckon, doctor? We’ve photographed him every which way but it’s all a bit odd, which is why I asked for Dr Jordan from St Julia’s to look at him before we moved him, and—’

‘You Dr Jordan, then?’ said Mr Sullivan to Margaret, checking his watch again.

‘Dr Demeray. Dr Jordan has laryngitis.’

‘He can’t pass anything onto Abram’, snorted Mr Sullivan. ‘But Abram’s not important enough, I guess, so he sends a woman.’

‘Dr Jordan can barely talk,’ said Margaret. ‘He thought Mr Cohen important enough for the inspector to hear someone’s conclusions.’

‘Ignore him,’ said Inspector Green. ‘What do you think?’

Abram Cohen was almost face down but not quite. He had been in his middle twenties, small and thin. One arm was trapped under his body, the other near his face, the fingertips half-curled against his palm. It had been a warm night. Rigor mortis had set in hours before, then passed away. Margaret touched his head and face. There were no contusions, no lumps or hollows, no blood on the boards. His eyes were half open, a little bloodshot but otherwise normal. None of his bones appeared to be broken. It was as if he’d walked between the lines of tables and at the end, simply crumpled. Once her head was level with his, she could see where his thimble had skittered across the boards to hide under the mannequin’s skirts, beyond the hatpin.

‘At first sight there’s nothing to suggest foul play,’ she said. ‘Maybe once you’ve moved him we’ll see more. There might be something under the body, though if he was injured, it’s odd that there’s no blood. Nothing to suggest poison. His neck and throat seem intact.’

‘That’s what I thought too,’ said the inspector, motioning to his constables to lift the body from the gap. ‘Heart attack? Apoplexy?’

‘Some sort of bleed on the brain, I suspect. It’s hard to be certain without a post-mortem, but—’

‘Post-mortem?’ said Mr Sullivan. ‘Is that where you—’

‘Look inside,’ said Margaret. ‘Yes.’

He went a little green. ‘You’ll be lucky. His family’s very orthodox. Very orthodox indeed.’

‘What I want to know,’ said the inspector, ‘is what he was doing here. Any ideas, Mr Sullivan?’

Mr Sullivan rubbed his nose then resettled his bowler hat. ‘Well…’

‘Yes?’

‘Abram was a bit of a perfectionist. He was working on that costume and there was extra bunce in it for him. With the picket line starting today, maybe he decided to come in as soon as Sabbath was over to finish it before he had to join the other slackers… Then perhaps someone came in looking for my safe – which ain’t here – and did for him.’

The constables had placed the body on the narrow piece of floor by the mannequin. Over his left arm, Abram had been holding a white jacket with intricate twists of navy-blue trimming, now dusty and covered in lint. There wasn’t a mark on him.

‘Look at the state of that jacket!’ cried Mr Sullivan. ‘That’s a special order, that is!’ He waved his arms, knocking into the mannequin, whose hat slipped further askew. He cursed, looked down, picked the hatpin up and jammed it through the hat and into the mannequin’s head.

‘So he “decided” to work?’ said the inspector. ‘Do you mean he was “encouraged”, in exchange for a last wage before the strike? Has he got a wife and kids?’

‘Not my job to know anything about my workers,’ said Mr Sullivan. ‘It’s not like we’re chums.’

‘But you know he’s orthodox.’

Mr Sullivan shrugged. ‘His family is. It pays to know that sort of thing. I don’t follow any religion—’

‘Apart from money,’ muttered the inspector to Margaret.

If he’d heard, Mr Sullivan ignored him. ‘I don’t care what people think they can’t do, as long as what they can do includes fulfilling my orders. He said he might finish this and I let him have a spare key, but he said he’d be gone by dawn.’

‘By dawn?’ said Margaret. ‘So he might have been working for more than thirty hours without rest, or food, or—’

‘I didn’t make him. But if he had, that woulda been nearly eighteen shillings earned.’

‘Had he been complaining about illness?’

‘Bit of a headache maybe, a little nausea.’

Margaret turned to the inspector. ‘Possibly a cerebral haemorrhage. Overwork can do that. As to who “did” for him…’

‘I didn’t make him do nothing,’ said Mr Sullivan, folding his arms. ‘I told him to go home for Sunday supper whether he’d finished or not. This strike won’t last: they can’t afford to live without wages. I bet half the girls are popping their husband’s suits at the pawnbrokers as we speak.’

‘Don’t they have to do that most Mondays?’ said Margaret. ‘What wages do you pay?’

‘The same as everyone. Sevenpence an hour for journeymen tailors like Abram. Eighteen shillings a week for the women.’

‘Regardless of whether they work forty hours or a hundred?’

‘I bet that’s more than you pay your maid.’

‘She doesn’t have to pay for bed, board or uniform, or support a family,’ snapped Margaret. ‘And she gets at least a day and a half off per week and a week’s paid holiday and she’s employed all year, not laid off every summer—’

‘Anyway,’ said the inspector, ‘I’ll speak with Mr Cohen’s family and see if…’

The main door opened and a man stepped inside, barely visible in the darkness of the landing, brushing the sleeves of his jacket as if afraid of catching something from the building. ‘How is this strike going to affect our orders, Sullivan? We need—’ He halted, taking in the scene. ‘Wh-who’s that?’

‘One of the tailors,’ said Mr Sullivan, stepping forward. ‘An ’eart attack or something. Now then, sir, why don’t we talk in my office?’

The man looked past the huddle on the floor to a door on the far side of the room. As things were, he’d either have to step across Abram Cohen, or walk between the machinists’ tables and the cutting table, past a low cupboard with packing boxes on it and then squeeze past the policemen. ‘You’re evidently busy,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in an hour, but I expect some sort of answer then and I daresay the next chap will too.’ He spun on his heel.

‘Don’t tell the lot outside about the, er, incident,’ pleaded Mr Sullivan. ‘I’d rather break it to them gently myself.’

The man waved a hand and left. Inspector Green signalled to one of the constables to follow him.

‘Customer,’ said Mr Sullivan gloomily, answering an unspoken question. ‘He orders for the export trade: ready-made garments for the upwardly inclined colonial. He sends my stuff all over, with some other geezer’s name on the boxes. Still, money’s money.’

‘Is the “next chap” the same?’

‘I was only expecting Mr W today. The strike might have brought the others out. Oh – this bloke’s a bluebottle. You can tell a mile off.’

A different man had walked in, followed by the scowling constable, and removed his hat to reveal greying hair. He appeared to be in his forties, taller than average and thin but solid, his shrewd eyes the colour of cool steel. He strode forward as if he’d bought the building and everything in it and intended to knock it down and start again. ‘Inspector Green? I’m Inspector Silvermann of N division, Islington. Is that Abram Cohen?’

‘Yes.’ Inspector Green stood up and offered a hand. ’N Division? This is a W division job.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Inspector Silvermann. ‘Damn. Dead, is he?’

‘Very,’ said Margaret.

Inspector Silvermann scanned her grey working outfit from the small, plain hat to her dusty hems and sensible shoes. ‘Factory inspector? Wouldn’t it make more sense to inspect the place when it’s full?’

‘I’m Dr Demeray from St Julia’s,’ she said, rising to shake hands. ‘Inspector Green asked me to see the body in situ before it comes to us for post-mortem.’

Inspector Silvermann shook hands briefly with a firm, hard grasp then considered the body again. ‘Damn,’ he repeated.

‘Why is N division interested?’ said Inspector Green. He turned to his constable. ‘And why didn’t you go and ask that Mr W what he knows, if anything?’

‘Cos he said it wasn’t necessary.’ The constable jerked a thumb at Inspector Silvermann.

‘You report to me, not him. Now get back outside.’ Inspector Green folded his arms. ‘This is W division, Inspector Silvermann, and it’s a natural death. Just one of those horrible things.’

‘How do you know without a post-mortem?’

‘You’re not doing it in here!’ exclaimed Mr Sullivan. ‘Don’t even think it. A man’s got limits!’

‘I don’t know for certain,’ said Margaret, ‘but evidence so far suggests a cerebral haemorrhage. Maybe a stroke.’

Inspector Silvermann focussed on her again. ‘Caused by?’

‘Without an autopsy…’

‘Use your imagination. A blow?’

‘This is a matter for facts, not conjecture.’ Margaret narrowed her eyes. ‘There’s no evidence of a blow so far. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one, just that I haven’t found one.’ He wasn’t going to trap her into saying something she couldn’t support.

‘Shaken? Threatened? Frightened? Shock? Stressed to boiling point?’

‘The first will show in a post-mortem. The others—’

‘Either way,’ insisted Inspector Green, ‘it’s W division.’

‘Is it?’ said Inspector Silvermann. ‘Very late on Saturday night, someone saw Abram Cohen in the Angel Inn, Islington – which is my division – arguing with a salesman called Joseph Kavanagh, whom I want to question. Then Cohen left. Kavanagh followed and hasn’t been seen since.’

‘Joseph Kavanagh?’ said Mr Sullivan. ‘Travelling salesman? Haberdashery?’

‘That’s the man,’ said Inspector Silvermann. ‘Know him?’

‘He’s all right,’ Mr Sullivan replied. ‘A bit nosy, perhaps. Always laying on the patter until you forget what you’re saying. Didn’t think he’d have the energy to row. He’s not well. And what was Abram doing all the way over in Islington?’

‘It’s five miles,’ said Inspector Silvermann. ‘A man’s allowed to travel once the Sabbath’s over, and there were other journeymen tailors there talking about how they could earn money during the strike if it continued – co-operatives and so on. They knew Cohen. The witnesses aren’t much use in saying what the argument was about, except that this’ – he surveyed the room – ‘delightful establishment was mentioned by most of them.’

‘So what?’ said Inspector Green. ‘A haberdasher sells to sweatshops—’

‘Garment factories, if you please,’ snapped Mr Sullivan.

‘Men argue in pubs,’ continued Inspector Green. ‘It’s what happens after a few pints. Are you so short of work in N division that you’ve got to arrest people for a beery row?’

Inspector Silvermann’s face remained unreadable. ‘Like I said, Kavanagh’s wanted for questioning but he’s gone to ground. The last thing anyone saw him do is argue with Abram Cohen. And now Abram Cohen’s dead.’

Two

The mortuary wing at St Julia’s was quiet when Margaret returned at twelve.

Darnell, the clerk who’d taken over from Mr Holness after his retirement, looked up from his ledger in surprise. ‘I thought maybe you couldn’t come in today, Dr Demeray. I hadn’t seen you.’

‘You weren’t on the desk when I came in. Then Dr Jordan asked me to help the police in Whitechapel while he went home. He’s rather poorly.’

‘Ah,; said Darnell. ‘Yes, his laryngitis is worse. He can’t speak without coughing. A suspicious death?’

‘Possibly not very,’ said Margaret. ‘The body should be here some time early afternoon. Could you let the orderly in the cold room know?’

‘“Should” be here?’

‘The inspector in the case wasn’t entirely sure where he’d send it.’ Margaret removed her gloves. ‘In case anyone wants me, I’m expecting Dr Jordan to telephone. I’ll take my post to his office so you can put the call through there.’

‘Very well, doctor.’

Dr Jordan telephoned when Margaret was halfway through the correspondence, and hoarsely declared he’d return to assist with the post-mortem at two o’clock.

After lunch, she waited for news of Abram Cohen’s body and prepared the laboratory with her new assistant, Cyril Purefoy. A star pupil from the hospital’s training school, he had taken the place of Algie Hardisty.

After qualification, Algie’s father had insisted he take up general practice in Worcestershire, but Margaret suspected his days buried in a country town were numbered. If Algie’s letters were anything to go by, he’d offered his pathology skills to the Worcester Royal Infirmary and was already making a name for himself. Margaret missed him terribly.

Cyril was still an unknown quantity. She’d only known him a few weeks, since she’d recently returned to St Julia’s after giving birth in late October. She found him intelligent, earnest, serious and utterly exhausting. Margaret suspected he read surgical manuals for light reading until he fell asleep with his Latin dictionary as a pillow.

The day had grown hot, and Margaret was just hoping Dr Jordan’s return to work wasn’t a waste of time when word came that Abram Cohen’s body had arrived. Inspector Green entered the laboratory with it, hands nonchalantly in his pockets, but his face matching his name. ‘I told the family you’d treat his body with utter respect and that you were only doing it to confirm there was no foul play,’ he said. ‘The mother felt his ghost wouldn’t let her rest if it wasn’t done, and she persuaded the rabbi. So there’s reluctant agreement, provided they have it back today for the burial.’

‘We can do that,’ Dr Jordan wheezed. ‘Do you want to stay?’

‘I’ll, er… I’ll sit in the corner if that’s all right.’

‘What did his mother say about his general health?’ asked Margaret.

‘Recently he’s had severe headaches, eyestrain, a struggle to focus and increasing nausea. Apart from the last, aren’t those occupational hazards for a tailor?’

‘Possibly.’

‘She also said he’d got in with a dubious crowd. I took her to mean going to pubs with gentiles, but she could mean that he’d joined a strike committee – or given where he lived, anarchists. That seemed to be what that Inspector Silvermann was hinting at. But I dunno… His mother was mostly worried about things not being kosher.’

Margaret and Dr Jordan, with Cyril taking notes, worked as swiftly as they could. They could find no wounds on his body. No cuts or unusual bruises, no lumps or broken bones. Abram Cohen, they concluded, was in relatively good physical condition despite being undernourished, and showing slight evidence of cotton lung. What had killed him was a bleed on the brain which appeared to have been sudden and fatal.

‘He’d have been dead before he hit the ground,’ said Margaret.

‘Did anything external cause that?’ asked the inspector. ‘A blow? Being shaken?’

‘There’s evidence of previous small bleeds,’ wheezed Dr Jordan. ‘If he was experiencing all the symptoms you describe, it was just waiting to happen. It’s impossible to say whether anything specific triggered it.’

‘So not deliberate.’

‘There’s no evidence of murder,’ said Margaret. ‘But this is exactly what has killed other people working consistent long hours under extreme stress.’

‘Can’t pin it on Sullivan. He’ll argue, quite rightly, that Abram Cohen chose to work those hours and worked for more than one employer. Not that I care about Inspector Silvermann, but I presume you can’t pin it on a row in the Angel?’

‘You can’t arrest a man for arguing,’ said Dr Jordan.

‘Good,’ said Inspector Green. ‘I’m glad to get N division’s sticky fingers off my patch. And I’m glad I can tell Abram’s mother no one murdered him. Just bad luck, poor chap. Sullivan will be pleased too. Well, a little.’

‘Because you can’t arrest him?’

‘Because a ghost who dies of natural causes is less likely to haunt him. Right, I’ll leave you to finish up. I’m going for a smoke.’

They were meticulous in stitching the wounds back together, smoothing Abram’s hair over the incision line on his forehead. Margaret wondered if Abram’s mother was a seamstress and might touch the wounds with professional knowledge as well as loving grief – check the neatness of the stitches, and judge them by it. Perhaps she’d wish she could have done that last service for him herself. Or perhaps she’d never look.

Margaret always tried to work as if the body belonged to someone she loved. She hoped she’d never have to check that someone had done the same for Fox because his luck had run out.

It hadn’t so far. He was due home sometime after seven that evening. She glanced at the clock as she packed up and saw she was half an hour later than she’d intended. It wasn’t so bad. She would be home in time to play with the children before getting ready for him.

Saying goodbye to Darnell, Margaret ran down the steps of the building and stood in the busy street, letting the evening sunshine warm her face. Rushing commuters swerved round her while she debated whether to take the bus instead of the tube and have a better view, her heart light at the thought of seeing Fox after three weeks’ absence.

She went to the front of the hospital where the flower-seller was, bought a small bunch of carnations, then made her way to the bus stop.

‘Hallo, doctor.’ The young woman’s voice was both familiar and strange, and for a moment, Margaret couldn’t work out where it came from.

Then by the wall of the nearest building, she saw a small, thin woman in her early twenties, wearing a simple but well-fitting suit with a white, collarless, pin-tucked blouse beneath. Sleek, thick, dark hair was bundled under a boater adorned with a plain blue ribbon, matching the trim on her suit. Her sapphire eyes watched Margaret with the expression of a wary cat. It was a warmer expression than she’d worn the first time they’d met, but only warmer in the sense that putting a matchstick on top of Big Ben made it taller.

Anna.

‘Miss Balodis!’ said Margaret, dodging commuters to join her. ‘I thought you were in America! I hoped you’d write. I’m glad to see you looking so well.’ The latter wasn’t entirely true. Anna looked better fed, but that was about it.

‘How’s tricks?’ said Anna.

‘I’ve had twins. A boy and a girl. They’re seven months old.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Anna’s face lightened with a smile. ‘Got the impression you never do nothing by halves. What they called?’

‘Alexander and Edith. Well, Alec and Edie.’

‘Fancy. But you’re working again.’

‘Two days in St Julia’s, two days’ research at home, and I give health talks to women…’ Margaret stopped before she mentioned the book she’d been asked to help write, or that she had two maids now and Dinah still came three days a week to help with the cleaning. ‘I keep busy. What brought you back?’

Anna stepped away from the wall. ‘Know what’s different about New York?’

‘I’ve only ever seen it in moving pictures,’ said Margaret. ‘What’s it like?’

Anna surveyed the sooty walls and traffic. ‘Taller. Organised. Whoever set out the roads there had a plan and a ruler. London’s like someone put paint on a rabid dog’s paws, fed it beer, smacked it on the arse to make it run, then built a road wherever the dog left its paw prints. New York roads are like a checkerboard – I mean a draughts board.’ She crossed her hands at right angles to show what she meant. ‘Avenues one way, streets the other. Organised.’ It wasn’t clear if she approved or not. ‘Some teacher told us that a bit of London was a Roman town once and the Romans liked straight lines. Whereabouts? Do you know?’

‘We’re standing pretty much in the middle of it, I think,’ said Margaret, ‘or at least above it. I’m not certain.’

‘Gawd. Goes to show how easy it is to bury things.’

‘I don’t think it was intentional,’ said Margaret. ‘It’s better now than it was a hundred years ago.’

‘If you say so. My English nan said they cleared out the rookeries without caring where the people would go, then complained when they shacked up in Whitechapel.’

Margaret watched Anna as she peered around her, trying to work out what had changed since the last time they’d met. She seemed a little pinker and better off. However, the tense mistrust and anger of the previous year was still there, overlaid with something else: a pain that was more than physical, a weariness that sat wrong on such a young person. Margaret wondered whether Anna’s brother Andris had stayed in America.

She took a glance at her watch.

‘Would you like some tea?’ she said. ‘I’m not sure anywhere’s open, but—’

‘I’d rather a glass of porter,’ said Anna, raising her eyebrows. ‘But I bet you won’t go in a pub. Anyway, I don’t want anything much, just to chat. Which way you going? West obviously, but tube or bus or cab?’

‘Bus, but I have time. It really is nice to see you. I never thought you’d come back after going for a new life.’

‘Yeah, well,’ said Anna, moving forward. ‘There’s new and new. Andris got a job with The Call newspaper: his limp didn’t matter. Me, I tried the fancy dressmakers, but it was no good. No references, see. But you know what’s the same about New York? The sweatshops. Before I knew it, there I was working in a building higher than Nelson’s Column waiting for it to burn down like the Triangle one did, wondering why I’d travelled all that way to be just as miserable as I was in Whitechapel. They said I could get on if I just put the effort in. But what does getting on mean? Running a sweatshop myself?’

Margaret frowned. ‘You’d never do that. Couldn’t Andris find you a job on the – The Call, was it?’

‘Andris died.’ Anna looked into the distance for a second, then back. ‘Another cut got infected. They couldn’t save him this time.’

‘Oh Anna, I’m so sorry. And you came back so you could be with friends and relations here?’ It seemed unlikely. With their parents dead, Andris and Anna had left for America the previous August, sending Margaret a short goodbye letter which read like a dismissal.

‘Sorta.’ Anna’s mouth wobbled a little. ‘Andris died January. I came back after and got a job. Although now…’

‘I imagine you’re striking.’

‘Yeah, and I’m a sorta go-between. Anyway, none of that is why I’m here, but I thought it’d save time to tell you given how nosey you are.’

‘Thanks.’

‘My pleasure. What I want is for you to tell your bloke something.’

‘Fox? What?’ Margaret was puzzled. The bus was nearing the stop. She’d have to miss it. Anna had been involved with anarchists before, and it sounded unlikely that her views on sweatshops had changed. ‘Go-between’ presumably meant a liaison between her employer and striking employees, so perhaps she was on a strike committee? She’d never inform on anyone, so what could she mean?

‘That copper called Silvermann, the one who went to Sullivan’s this morning after you—’

‘It was you who told them to let me through!’

‘Yeah. He’s barking up the wrong tree. Kavanagh never hurt Abram.’

‘You know them? I’m so sorry about—’

Anna dismissed Margaret’s pity with a wave of her hand. ‘I grew up with Abram and we both know Kavanagh through work. Abram shoulda been resting. If he had, and he’d left rooting round at Sullivan’s to someone else, maybe he’d be all right.’

‘Maybe,’ said Margaret. Anna’s expression had barely changed, so it was hard to gauge how she felt on a personal level about Abram’s death – and harder still to know how she knew an argument in Islington had been blamed for it. ‘I doubt Fox would get involved. Abram’s death was tragic but not suspicious.’

‘Silvermann will make it sound suspicious.’

‘You said you know Kavanagh. Is he—’

‘He’s all right. He’s not done nothing against the law. Silvermann’s a fool. Tell Fox what I said, will yer? Here’s yer bus.’ A tiny wry smile appeared. ‘Just a bit of advice…’

‘Yes?’

‘If you ever want to sail the Atlantic, don’t do it in February. I never been so sick in all my life.’ Anna mimicked vomiting and grinned at a revolted person in the queue.

‘After what happened to the Titanic, I’m not sure I want to sail the Atlantic at all,’ said Margaret.

Anna’s face closed again as the bus pulled up. ‘Just tell your bloke, OK? Get him to rein Silvermann in. See yer round, doctor. Or maybe not.’