Sir Edward gave him a long, sad look. “Don’t… Inspector Day, I have already made my report. In it, I state that you were instrumental in stopping the murderer Cinderhouse, who invaded your home and killed poor Constable Winthrop. You found and apprehended both Napper and Griffin. You’re a hero. There’s only one convict still out there, and the public believes, largely because of what they’ve read about you in the tabloids, that we will capture the Harvest Man any day now. What do you think it would do to London, to the people in this city, if you told them that Saucy Jack was still out there among them?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hammersmith said. Day and Sir Edward both turned to the sergeant, who had not spoken to this point. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. There’s a madman about and he will kill more people unless we stop him.”
“Ah, Sergeant, your attitude is what I’ve actually come here to discuss,” Sir Edward said.
“Sir?” Hammersmith’s expression was grim, and Day wondered how much pain he was experiencing. His own wounds hurt much more than they had two days earlier in the underground cell. In some ways the healing process was worse than the injury.
“Sergeant, you almost died,” Sir Edward said.
“I’ll be right as rain by tomorrow,” Hammersmith said.
“No, you won’t. But knowing you, you’ll attempt to come back to work anyway.”
“Sir, I—”
“Let me say it, Sergeant. Since I’ve known you, you’ve been beaten, poisoned at least twice, nearly frozen to death, and now you’ve been stabbed, cut open, and sewn back together. You rarely seem to eat or sleep. You regularly push yourself past the limits of your body.”
“I try to do my job, sir.”
“But I believe your job is killing you, Mr Hammersmith.”
“Sir, I respectfully—”
“I can’t let you do this anymore. For your own good—”
“Sir,” Day said. “You can’t.”
“I think I have to.”
“If you dismiss him, I’ll go, too.”
“You have two new babies, Inspector. Think about what you’re saying.”
“I stand by Nevil. We need him on the Murder Squad.”
“Well,” Sir Edward said, “I need him to live. And I firmly believe he will die if he continues at this pace. I am dismissing him from his duties. And you as well, Mr Day, if that is what you choose. In fact, that makes things a bit easier for me. It has crossed my mind that you might be mad.” He looked away from them toward the small window in the far wall. “I mean no ill will toward either of you, but I have given this a great deal of thought and I believe it’s the only responsible decision I can make.”
He went to the door and stopped there, but did not turn back around, didn’t look at them. “I wish you both a speedy recovery and a very long life,” he said.
And he left them there.
68
Claire pushed the pram away from the hospital. The sun was warm on her face, but she stopped on the path and tucked the coverlet in around her daughters. She ran her fingers along its seams, where her ancestors’ names were embroidered. There was a faint pink stain left there in the shape of a hand. She tried not to think about what it was. One of the babies, the quiet one who always seemed to be deep in thought, opened her eyes and smiled. Claire didn’t know whether it was a genuine smile or the effect of gas, but she smiled back.
“Would you like to hear a rhyme, Baby Day?”
She wiped a bit of moisture from the baby’s cheek and smoothed its fine dark hair and stood back up. A stranger tipped his hat to her and she nodded back at him, went around to the other side of the pram, and pushed it across the path to a bench. She sat where she could see her children’s faces and she leaned forward and very softly recited the poem she had written that morning:
The thoughtful baby rocked and cooed and woke up her sleeping sister. Both girls stared up at her expectantly, and so she began to tell them another verse, something she had read in a book once. She had only written two or three rhymes of her own so far, but she liked thinking them up and she liked telling them to the babies. Perhaps one day she might even write them all down somewhere in one place so that the girls could keep them and tell them to their own children when they grew up.
She sat on the bench and talked to her babies and was in no hurry to return home, where she felt certain that blood had soaked between the cracks in the floor and deep into the wood. She did not think she would ever feel safe in that house again, but the sun was warm on her face and her babies were smiling and her husband was healing.
69