A sudden, fearful death by Anne Perry Page B

cleared her throat.
    They all turned and looked at her.
    "Dr. Beck, sir."
    "Yes?"
    "Lally, she's one of the
skivvies what does in the operating theater and like. She's only thirteen and
she's made like a nine-penny rabbit. She could slide down there easy, and
there's laundry baskets at the bottom, so she wouldn't hurt herself."
    Kristian hesitated only a moment.
    "Good idea. Fetch her, will
you?" He turned to Callandra. "We should go down to the laundry room
to make sure there's a soft landing for her."
    "Yes sir, I'll go for
her," the younger nurse said, and she went quickly, breaking into a run as
she turned the corner.
    Callandra, Kristian, and the other
nurse went the opposite way, to the stairs and down to the basement and the
dark, gas-lit passages to the laundry room where the huge coppers belched
steam and the pipes clanked and rattled and poured out boiling water. Women
with rolled-up sleeves heaved wet linen on the end of wooden poles, muscles
straining, faces flushed, hair dripping. One or two looked around at the
unusual intrusion of a man, then immediately returned to their labor.
    Kristian went over to the base of
the laundry chute and peered up, then backed out again and glanced at
Callandra. He shook his head.
    She pushed one of the large wicker
baskets closer under the bottom of the chute and picked up a couple of bundles
of dirty sheets to soften the fall.
    "It shouldn't have got
stuck," Kristian said, frowning. "Sheets are soft enough to slide,
even if too many are poked down at once. Maybe someone has been putting rubbish
in as well."
    "We'll soon know," she
replied, standing beside him and looking up expectantly.
    They had not long to wait. There
was a muffled call from above, faint and completely indistinguishable, then a
moment's silence, a shriek, a curious shuffling noise, another shriek. A woman
landed in the laundry basket, her skirts awry, arms and legs awkward. Straight
after came the small, thin form of the skivvy, who shrieked again and scrambled
to her feet, clambering like a monkey to escape the basket and falling onto the
floor, wailing loudly.
    Kristian bent forward to help the
other woman up, then his face darkened and he moved his hand to hold Callandra
back. But it was too late. She had already looked down and knew as soon as she
saw her that the woman was dead. There was no mistaking the ashen quality of
her skin, the bluish lips, and above all, the terrible bruises on her throat.
    "It's Nurse Barrymore,"
Kristian said huskily, his voice catching in his throat. He did not add that
she was dead; he saw in Callandra's eyes that she knew not only that, but also
that it had been no illness or accident which had caused it. Instinctively he
stretched out his hand as if to touch her, almost as if some compassion could
still reach her.
    "No," Callandra said
softly. "Don't ..."
    He opened his mouth as though to
remonstrate, then realized its uselessness. He stared down at the dead woman's
body, his eyes rilled with sadness. "Why would anyone want to do this to
her?" he said helplessly. Without thinking, Callandra put her hand on his
arm, gripping it gently.
    "We can't know yet. But we
must call the police. It seems to be murder."
    One of the laundry women turned
around, perhaps her attention caught by the skivvy, who was beginning to
shriek again, and she saw the arm of the dead woman above the edge of the
laundry basket. She came over and gaped at the corpse, then screamed.
    "Murder!" She drew in her
breath and screamed again, piercingly, her voice high and shrill even above the
hiss of steam and clatter of pipes. "Murder! Help! Murder!"
    All the other women stopped their
work and crowded around, some wailing, some shrieking, one slithering to the
floor in a faint. No one took any notice of the skivvy.
    "Stop it!" Kristian
ordered sharply. "Stop this minute and go back to your work!"
    Some power in him, some tone or
manner, caught their innate