Chapter 24

24

Caroline

Present day, Wednesday

At the back of the coffee shop, Gaynor and I leaned close together, the two articles about the apothecary spread on the table in front of us. They’d been published in a paper called The Thursday Bulletin, which, Gaynor explained, was not a widely circulated periodical and ran only between 1778 and 1792. According to her brief research that morning, the paper eventually shut down due to lack of funding, and the library’s archive carried only a fraction of the published issues, none of which had been digitized.

“Then how did you find these?” I asked her, taking a sip from my coffee.

Gaynor grinned. “Our dates were all wrong. If the hospital note was indeed a deathbed confession, the author was probably referencing something that had happened earlier in her life. So, I searched the manuscripts and expanded my search to the late 1700s. I also added the keyword poison, which seemed logical for an apothecary who helped kill people. The search returned this article, and of course I spotted the image of the bear immediately.”

Gaynor lifted the earlier bulletin, dated February 10, 1791. The headline read “Bailiff Searching for Lord Clarence’s Murderer.”

Since Gaynor had already read it, she went to the counter to order a latte while I picked up the article and skimmed it quickly. By the time she returned, I’d moved to the edge of my seat, mouth agape. “This is scandalous!” I told her. “Lord Clarence, Lady Clarence, a maid serving the dessert liqueur at a dinner party... Are you sure this is real?”

“More than sure,” Gaynor said. “I checked the parish records on Lord Clarence. Sure enough, his date of death is recorded as February 9, 1791.”

I pointed to the image in the article again. “So the maid made a wax impression of the bear on the jar, and...” I ran my fingers over the printed image. “And it’s the same as the bear on my vial.”

“One and the same,” Gaynor confirmed. “It makes sense, the more I think about it. If the apothecary really did dispense poisons to multiple women, maybe the bear was her logo, her mark that she put on all her vials. In which case, your finding one in the river is still incredible, but not as coincidental as we originally thought.”

Gaynor lifted the article and reread a portion of it. “And here’s where things get a bit unfortunate for our dear apothecary. The wax impression didn’t just have the image of the bear. It had a few letters, too.” She pointed to the section indicating that the police were looking to decipher the letters B ley.

“Police suspected this was part of an address. Obviously, we know from the hospital note that this meant Bear Alley. But at the time of this printing, police didn’t know it.” Gaynor lifted the lid from her cup to let her latte cool, and I held my breath, envisioning the door I’d gone through last night. I suspected B ley didn’t mean Bear Alley at all. It probably meant Back Alley, the walkway leading to the apothecary’s concealed room.

“It seems wild that she would put her address on any of her vials, doesn’t it?” Gaynor shrugged. “Who knows what she was thinking. Maybe a careless mistake.” She reached for the second article. “Anyway, I also brought the other bulletin with me, and it’s this one that identifies the woman as an apothecary. And more than that, an apothecary killer. I suspect that soon after the first article was printed...” Gaynor trailed off. “Well, let’s just say it was the beginning of the end for her.”

I frowned. “The beginning of the end?”

Gaynor flipped to the second article, dated February 12, 1791. But I didn’t have the chance to read it because my phone, sitting on the table in case James called, began to ring. I checked the screen, my heart lurching when I saw that it was him. “Hi—are you okay?”

I heard his haggard breathing first, a slow intake of a breath followed by a shaky, wheezy exhale. “Caroline,” he said, his voice so quiet that I could hardly hear him. “I need to go to the hospital.” I pressed my hand to my mouth, sure that my heart had stopped. “I tried dialing 911, but it’s not going through.”

I closed my eyes, vaguely recalling a pamphlet at the hotel check-in desk with the emergency number for the United Kingdom. But in my moment of disoriented terror, I couldn’t remember the number.

The sensation of vertigo hit as panic rose inside of me; the coffee shop, buzzing with chatter and the hiss of an espresso machine, shifted on its axis. “I’ll be right there,” I choked out, sliding out of the chair and grabbing my things.

“I have to go,” I told Gaynor, my hands shaking fiercely. “I’m sorry, it’s my husband, he’s sick—” At once, my eyes welled with tears. Despite what I’d felt toward James in recent days, I was now so terrified that my mouth had gone dry; I couldn’t even swallow. On the phone, James had sounded like he was struggling to breathe.

Gaynor looked at me, confusion and concern on her face. “Your husband?Oh, God, yes, okay, go. But—” She picked up the two articles and handed them to me. “Take these. The copies are for you.”

I thanked her, folded the pages in half and shoved them into my bag. Then, offering her a final apology, I rushed out the door and started running tothe hotel, hot tears finally breaking through and rolling down my cheeks for the first time since I’d arrived in London.

I tossed my bag onto the floor, ignoring the water bottle and notebook that fell out, and rushed into the bathroom. I found James on his side in a fetal position, knees tucked up against his chest, white as a sheet and trembling terribly. He must have removed his shirt at some point because it lay rumpled near the door, soaked through with sweat. This morning I couldn’t bear the sight of him without a shirt, but now I dropped to my knees alongside him and placed my hand on his bare stomach.

He looked at me with sunken eyes, and a scream rose into my throat. There was blood on his mouth.

“James,” I cried. “Oh, God—”

It was then that I looked inside the toilet. More than just vomit, it looked as though someone had splashed it with crimson watercolor paint. Unsteady on my feet, I ran to the hotel phone and asked for the front desk’s help calling an ambulance. I hung up and rushed back into the bathroom. This wasn’t food poisoning from Italian food, that much was clear. But I had zero medical knowledge of any kind; how was it that James had only a mild cough this morning, and now he was vomiting blood to within an inch of his life? Something didn’t make sense.

“Did you eat anything after you went out this morning?” I asked him.

From where he lay on the floor, he shook his head weakly. “I’ve had nothing. I haven’t eaten anything.”

“No water, no nothing?” Perhaps he drank something he shouldn’t have, or—

“Just the oil you gave me, which I’m sure came up a long time ago.”

I frowned. “There’s nothing to come up. You just rub it on your throat, like you’ve done before.”

James shook his head again. “I asked if you had DayQuil and you said no, you had yucca oil or something.”

The color drained from my face. “Eucalyptus?”

“Yeah, that one,” he groaned, wiping his mouth with his hand. “I took it like I would take DayQuil.”

The bottle sat next to the sink, and the label affixed to it was clear: the toxic oil was meant for topical application only. Not to be ingested. And if the danger wasn’t obvious enough, the label also stated that ingestion may cause seizures or death in kids.

“You drank this?” I asked incredulously, and James nodded. “How much?” But before he could answer, I lifted the vial up to the light. Thank God, it wasn’t empty—not even half empty. But still, he drank a mouthful of it? “James, this is fucking toxic!”

He responded by hugging his knees closer into his chest. “I didn’t know,” he mumbled in a soft voice. It was so pathetic, I wanted to crawl on the floor next to him and apologize, even though I’d done nothing wrong.

There came an abrupt knock at the door and a shout from the other side. “Medics,” said a deep male voice.

The next few minutes passed in a blur as I was told to stand aside while the paramedics evaluated James. Including a pair of hotel managers who’d just appeared, there must have been ten people in the room, a merry-go-round of spinning, concerned faces.

A young woman in a well-kept, navy blue uniform stood near me—La Grande was embroidered on her shirt—and she offered me tea, a biscuit, even a sandwichtray. I declined them all, instead trying to listen to the thick British accents flying around as everyone made an effort to treat my husband. They asked him question after question, only some of which I could understand.

The medics pulled equipment from a heavy canvas bag: an oxygen mask, blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. The hotel bathroom soon resembled a trauma room, and the sight of the equipment was like a slap in the face as I wondered, for the very first time, if this might be a matter of life and death for James. No, I shook my head, don’t even go there. It won’t happen. They won’t let it happen.

When I left for London without James on our “anniversary” trip, I expected emotional turmoil, but not of this kind. Now, with my own wounds still so raw, I found myself hoping desperately that James didn’t die on the bathroom floor in front of me, even if I’d had such fleeting, dark notions about killing someone in the hours after learning of his affair.

Soon, James told the medics about the eucalyptus oil, and one of them lifted the bottle to look at it, just as I’d done. “The bottle is forty mil, but it’s still half-full,” the medic said in an authoritative voice. “How much of this did you have?”

“Just a swallow,” James muttered as someone shone a small light into his eyes.

One of the paramedics repeated this into the cell phone he held at his ear. “Hypotension, yes. Significant vomiting. Blood, yes. No alcohol, other medicines.” They all paused a moment, and I assumed that someone on the other end of the line was plugging things into a database, perhaps to determine urgent treatment methods.

“How long ago was it ingested?” the paramedic asked James, holding an oxygen mask to his face. He shrugged, but I saw in his eyes that he was terrified, confused and struggling even now to breathe.

“Two and a half, three hours ago,” I offered.

Everyone turned to look at me, like it was the first time they’d noticed my presence.

“Were you with him when he drank it?”

I nodded.

“And does the oil belong to you?”

Again, I nodded.

“Right, then.” The paramedic turned back to James. “You’ll be coming with us.”

“T-to the hospital?” James muttered, lifting his head slightly from the floor. Knowing James, he wanted to fight this, to magically make himself well, to insist that he’d be fine if only they’d give him a few minutes.

“Yes, to the hospital,” the paramedic confirmed. “While the risk of seizure has likely passed at this point, central nervous depression is common for several hours after ingestion, and the delayed onset of more serious symptoms is not atypical.” The medic turned to me. “Very unsafe, this one,” he said, holding up the vial. “If you’ve got kids, I suggest you toss it altogether. Isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with accidental ingestion of this stuff.”

As if I didn’t feel guilty and childless enough.

“Mr. Parcewell.” In the bathroom, one of the paramedics took hold of James’s shoulder. “Mr. Parcewell, sir, stay with me,” the medic said again, his voice urgent.

I rushed into the bathroom and saw that James’s head had lolled to one side and his eyes had rolled back. He was unconscious. I lurched forward, reaching for him, but a pair of hands held me back.

At once there was a flurry of activity: unintelligible messages relayed on radios, the shriek of steel as a gurney was brought in from the hallway. Several men lifted my husband from the floor, his arms drooping on either side of him. I began to sob, and the hotel staff stepped into the hallway to clear the space; even they looked fearful, and the woman in the navy blue suit trembled slightly as she nervously adjusted her uniform. A quiet soberness fell over the room as the paramedics, well trained, made quick work of getting James onto the gurney and out of the bathroom.

They rushed James into the hall and toward the elevators. In a matter of seconds, the space had emptied, leaving just me and a single medic. A moment ago, he’d been on a phone call at the edge of the room, near the window. Now, he kneeled on the floor near the table and unzipped the front pocket of a large canvas bag.

“I can go with him, in the ambulance?” I asked through tears, already making my way to the door.

“You can ride along with us, yes, ma’am.” This gave me a measure of comfort, though something in his cool tone concerned me, and he appeared hesitant to look me in the eye. Then, my breath caught. Next to the medic’s bag, I saw my notebook, which had fallen open to a page of my notes from earlier that morning. “I’ll be bringing this along,” he said, lifting my notebook from the floor. “We have two officers waiting at the hospital. They’d like to discuss a few things with you.”

“O-officers?” I stammered. “I don’t understand—”

The medic looked hard at me. Then, with a steady motion of his hand, he pointed to my handwriting at the top of the notebook page:

Quantities of non-poisons needed to kill.