She fell back on the truths she knew from long familiarity. “You need to eat,” she told him. “I imagine you still have…Tibor, did you say?…You still have him at Crow’s clinic?”

  “Yes. I’m going back tomorrow morning. Fitz is staying there to help tonight.”

  “Of course. I’d have been surprised if you’d told me he left.”

  “You liked him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I liked a lot of people. In times and places like that, you find the best in people…and sometimes the worst, though not often. Even if you aren’t hungry, you should eat. If you don’t, you’ll only wake up in the night and want something then.”

  He smiled. He had known that was exactly what she would say. And the vegetables did smell very good. If she put sausages with that—and he knew they would be in the oven still hot—it would be really good.

  “Yes,” he agreed. He tried to make it sound like a concession to her, but the look on her face said she did not believe it for a moment.

  —

  IT WAS NOT LONG afterward that Monk came home, also too tired to do anything but eat and then sit back in silence. He asked how Scuff’s day had been, but was willing to accept a simple answer.

  After Scuff had gone to bed, Monk woke up a little.

  “Anything further on the Hungarian murder?” Hester asked him. She did not need to elaborate. They had discussed the murder in Shadwell either obliquely or directly every day. The newspapers were speaking of it less now than they had five days ago, but the demands for answers from the police became more shrill with each new edition.

  “No,” he replied. “We’ve got endless documentation of where everyone was at the time it must have happened. But people lie for all sorts of reasons, and plenty of accounts are simply errors about the time. People defend the ones they love. Because they don’t know they’re innocent, they just can’t believe they could be guilty, so they think they know. I might do the same. They’re just decent people like anyone else, only a little more afraid because they’re strangers here, even those who’ve been in London for years.”

  She knew he was thinking of himself as well. He very seldom spoke of it anymore, but he had no memory and therefore very little idea where he had spent most of his life. He had deduced it from what other people said. He understood the sense of having lost roots more than perhaps any other policeman in London could.

  But she also knew he would not want to discuss it.

  “You said the murder was very savage…” she began.

  “Yes. It wasn’t a robbery. Nothing was taken. And the violence used was far beyond what was necessary to kill him. And other things: the broken fingers, the candles dipped in blood, the torn letter—all done after he was dead.”

  She shivered. “Is that part of some ritual? Something Hungarians would know but we don’t? Something from their history, maybe, that would give it meaning?”

  “Not that anyone will tell me.”

  She watched him as he stood up and walked over to the window. It was dark, and time to draw the curtains. There was a tiredness in him she had not seen for some time. She should have been looking more closely. The failure after several days to find a good lead was depressing at any time, but it seemed—not from what he said but from what he had not said—that these people, torn up from their roots and trying to build new lives with so little to start from, mirrored the feeling he had had himself not so very long ago.

  She watched him draw the curtain across, shutting out the night, and she longed to comfort him. But she knew the fact that she had seen his vulnerability would hurt him all the more.

  “Is this Dobokai any use?” she asked as casually as she could.

  “Yes,” he answered after he had turned around to face her and begun returning to his seat. “But I can’t afford to trust him. I’m double-checking everything. If I read him correctly, he thinks the answer could lie with an Englishman called Haldane, who’s married to a Hungarian. A rather handsome woman.”

  “Does Fodor’s murder have anything to do with him being Hungarian?”

  “I really don’t know. They’re different in culture and in beliefs. And there’s the assumption that they favor their own.”

  “Don’t they? If I were settling in a new country, with almost nothing, I’d favor my own too,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed,” he said with only an edge of sarcasm.

  Then she saw he was smiling.

  “Well, they aren’t exactly my own at the clinic…” she started. “Except that they are other women…”

  He laughed. It had a raw edge, but it was still laughter.

  She did not say anything more. She would leave it a little while, and then talk of something else. She longed to be able to go over and put her arms around him, but that would seem too much like pity just then. Even Scuff would have resented it. You give that kind of comfort to children and animals. Not to men, however much they actually want it. She would eventually, but she would choose the time.

  “Scuff did very well today,” she said in a little while. “He assisted with an amputation.”

  “Really?” Monk sat more upright.

  “Yes. An arm. Gangrene. He’s learning such a lot. I was afraid at first that Crow was taking him on out of kindness, but not now.”

  “How did a man come to get gangrene bad enough to lose an arm?” Monk asked.

  “I don’t know. He is Hungarian, and Scuff can’t tell us. At least not yet. But if he knows anything, he’ll come and tell you. As long as it’s not a confidence from his patient. If—”

  “I know,” he said across her. “You’re proud of him, aren’t you.”

  It was not a question, it was an observation, but she answered anyway. “Yes, I am. Enormously.”

  “But that’s not why you told me. Another Hungarian…What sort of accident was it?”

  “I don’t know.” Now she understood what he meant. “But I’ll ask Scuff to find out. The thing is, Scuff told me that an old friend of mine, a colleague at the hospital in Scutari, a man I thought was dead, is helping Crow…” Hester leaned forward in her chair, eager to explain all about Fitz and to share the extraordinary news that he was now living in Shadwell.

  —

  IN THE MORNING SHE offered to go to see Crow, and particularly to take him fresh supplies of some of the things she knew he would need. She had seen enough amputations to know how closely they needed care in the first few days. Crow would have little time for going out at all. And she had never asked him whether any of his patients had ever been able to pay him. She was quite aware that not many would have been, and it never made a difference to the care he gave. She would give him at least half of the supplies without telling him the price.

  She put off thinking what she would do if Fitz was still at the clinic—if indeed it really was he. It sounded so like him—and the name was so distinctive—it was hard to imagine how it could be anyone else.

  The war had ended fourteen years ago. Had he really been wandering around somewhere in Europe for much of that time? Her life had changed so dramatically in the same years. She had returned from Sebastopol determined to revolutionize nursing in England. She had learned so much. She knew all Miss Nightingale’s principles of fresh air and cleanliness. Like her, Hester had little patience with regulations whose misguidedness cost lives, and untold pain that was too often completely unnecessary.

  And, also like Florence Nightingale, much of her effort had been ignored or contradicted. Finally she had made herself unemployable because she argued, and at times lost her temper.

  Her personal grief perhaps had something to do with it. She had arrived back in England and gone straight to her family home. She knew her eldest brother, James, had been killed in the Crimea; that he had died bravely and unnecessarily, like so many. What she had not known until she returned was that her father had invested money in one of the most vile confidence tricks imaginable. When he had lost it all, and the friends he had counseled had lost their money too, he felt that there was no honorable course open to him but to take his own life.

  Charles, the younger brother, had been unable to prevent it, or to save their mother from dying of distress.

  Hester had not been there to help. In his own agony, Charles had blamed her for being absent when she was so desperately needed. Her strength of will might have saved them all.

  She had not spoken to Charles for years now. She could think of nothing useful to say. How could she explain her experience in the Crimea to him, the dedication to nursing, the call to go and do whatever she could, rather than stay at home and marry suitably? They had never seen the world in the same light. And all the grief or regret would change nothing. She did not want to quarrel with him. He had been there through all the pain, and done what he could. It helped nothing to go over it again.

  She hoped he was happy. Hester could not recall if she had ever tried to tell him how happy she herself was. He would hardly approve of Monk. Another quarrel she did not want. Probably Charles would deplore her more-or-less adoption of a mudlark off the Thames banks.

  If this really was Fitz, how could she tell him she had truly believed him among the dead in that wretched battle that had killed so many? It was nearly sixteen years ago, but she could remember snatches of it quite vividly. The noise of gunfire, the shouting, the screaming of men and animals terribly wounded. Three times she had stopped searching for men, in order to put a horse out of its agony. She hated doing it. Even now the memory made her feel sick.

  Fitz had been doing the same while the last few shots of the battle went on, rescuing whomever he could. This was no time to wait for the last retreat. She could see his face in her mind’s eye, haggard from weariness and the endless, pointless destruction. People with whom you had shared a biscuit or a can of coffee for breakfast now lay mangled on the ground. Sometimes they were still alive. She could not always tell the scarlet of blood from the scarlet of a tunic. Which was the reason for the color, of course, just as with the red gun decks on the warships of Nelson’s day.

  Her memories were rambling, avoiding recalling the moment when she had found him—his body. But what did the past matter now…if Fitz was actually alive?

  She reached Crow’s clinic and went in. There was a woman cleaning the floors, her long-handled mop in her hands and a large bucket of water on the floor. It smelled like carbolic. Perhaps she was paying her debt to Crow in the only way she could.

  “Good morning,” Hester said with a smile.

  The woman smiled back but did not speak, just quietly resumed her work.

  Hester found Crow in the main room, and standing beside him was a man a little less tall, fair-haired and clean-shaven. His face was very pale, and his eyes were tired; only his smile was exactly as she had remembered it.

  “Hello, Hester,” he said. His voice was instantly familiar, as if the last time they had spoken had been only days ago.

  “Hello, Fitz,” she answered, her mouth dry. “Scuff told me you had been here helping.”

  “Ah, Scuff. Fine boy. He’s going to be a good doctor one day. He knows how to learn.”

  Hester put the basket down and looked at Crow. “I’ve brought you a few extra supplies. I thought there would be things you might run short of.”

  Crow’s expression was touched with humor. “Of course. You’ve seen more amputations than I ever will. Thank you.”

  “How is he this morning?” she asked.

  “Good manners, or professional opinion?” Crow’s eyebrows rose.

  “You want my professional opinion?” She did not want to intrude. Fitz was well experienced, although perhaps not in caring for men with all the time in the world, and a good chance they might live. At least the patient would not be infected with cholera or dysentery here. Those, and starvation rations, or the cold, had been responsible for more deaths than enemy gunfire.

  She looked at Crow, meeting his eyes. Was he waiting to show off his success? Or was he concerned that not all was well? A moment’s consideration convinced her it was the latter.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  She followed him into the room where the patient sat slightly propped up on the pillows of a wooden bed. Scuff was by his side and he looked up the moment he heard them come in. He was clearly relieved to see Hester.

  “He’s a bit feverish,” he said to Crow. “Came on just ten minutes ago.” He knew enough to be exact.

  Crow strode over and looked earnestly at Tibor for several seconds, then touched his brow. He turned to Fitz.

  Fitz joined him, regarded Tibor carefully, then also touched his face.

  “I think we need to look at the wound again. Something is not well.”

  “Can I help?” Hester offered.

  “Yes, please.” Both men spoke together.

  Hester went to the sink, washed her hands and told Scuff to make sure the camphorated wine was hot but not simmering. He had done it before, and did not need further instructions.

  The patient was now distinctly feverish, beginning to toss and turn a little in his bed. It was necessary to restrain him to prevent unnecessary pain or further injury when they removed the bandages. This Fitz did.

  Crow unwound the bandages. As soon as they were off, it was obvious that the wound was bleeding again—fresh, bright red blood. Instinctively, he looked at Hester. He had not dealt with a gangrenous limb amputation before. He knew she had. He would assume Fitz had too, but he had only just met him. Hester was the one who had long stood by him and finally had persuaded him that, in spite of his past troubles and sometime failures, he was a good doctor and could get his formal qualifications.

  Hester looked at the wound. She too knew what Fitz had done in the past, but not what had happened in the intervening years. He was an intensely familiar stranger. They had been as close as two people can be who have faced death and fought it side by side, and dealt with both victory and defeat. But that was years ago. She had no idea what had happened to him since then, except that the mark of it was imprinted deeply in the pain of his face, the uncertainty in his eyes.

  “We must clean out the wound,” she said calmly. “And find which vessel is still bleeding, and stitch it. He seems to be recovering, but he is very weak.” She looked up at Crow. “Are his organs working?”

  “Yes,” Crow replied without hesitation. “I gave him an enema of cinchona, camphorated. He evacuated several stools overnight. And he had no pain or difficulty in passing urine. He seemed to be doing well.”

  “He is,” Hester assured him. “But we must find the source of this bleeding. There is a vessel that has broken its ligature somewhere.” She looked across at Fitz.

  He was smiling at her, but there was pain in whatever memory it was that stirred in his mind.

  “Do you wish me to tell Tibor?” he asked. “Or are you asking me if I agree? Didn’t Scuff tell you? I haven’t dealt with this sort of thing for years.”

  “The wounds are the same,” she answered. “And the bodies. If medicine has changed, it isn’t much. The American Civil War has taught us a bit, so I have read. But for most of us, in war or not, it’s much the same as it has been since the Napoleonic Wars. That’s longer than I’ve been alive—just!”

  “But you’re—” Fitz began, then stopped himself abruptly. “Yes—that’s longer ago than I wish to think of.”

  She wished to know what had happened to him. Perhaps she wanted to explain that she had thought he was dead.

  Or maybe she did not want to tell him after all. What was there to say? Friends in war were not always friends in peacetime afterward.

  She turned instead to Scuff, who was standing a little behind her, waiting.

  “I’m going to look for the vein and see if I can tie it, but I must be quick. He will not survive a long painful ordeal. Mix me colophonia”—she watched his eyes to be certain he understood—“with powder of bark. And when I have it, prepare the draft of stomachic you gave him yesterday evening. Bring me also a small amount of good wine and, separately, in a spoon, a gram and a half of opium. Be absolutely exact.”

  Scuff nodded and went to obey.

  “Now we must find the bleed and tie it,” she said, looking first at Crow, then at Fitz.

  Fitz hesitated.

  Crow offered him the forceps.

  Fitz waited another moment, then stretched out his hand.

  Perhaps Crow did not notice it, but Hester did. There was a very slight tremor, even before he touched the metal. He hesitated, then withdrew his hand.

  Hester knew she had not imagined it.

  “I’ll do it,” she said quietly. “You’ve been up all night.” That was irrelevant, and she knew it. In the Crimea many of them worked all day and all night, and all the next day, with only catnaps now and then. There was so much to ask him, and to explain. But there was no time yet, and she did not want it to sound like excuses. Memories were muddled, exhaustion blurred times and events and left only emotion—grief—and now guilt as well. She should have had them take him anyway, even across someone’s back, not leave him there with all the other dead.

  “It would be good if you could talk to him,” she said. “I don’t know that he can hear. Let him know what we are doing, and that he is recovering and it will be all right. I can’t do that—not in Hungarian anyway.”

  Fitz was not looking at her. “I will,” he agreed, and immediately began speaking to Tibor in a soft voice. She had no idea what he was saying, but she saw Tibor turn his head slightly toward him.

  She opened the flap of skin covering the wound and very delicately began to explore to see where the blood was coming from.

  It did not take her long to find the bleed. It was in a small vessel, thank heaven, not a minor artery. She told Scuff to get her the needle, already threaded. One more swab to see clearly, and then she tied it off.

  She left it for Crow to swab the wound again, then close the skin over it. With Scuff’s help, he rebandaged it with some lint soaked in colophonia and bark.