Page 29 of The Shadow Key

No tumour. No tumour at all.

Linette Tresilian’s voice brings him back.

‘When Julian is away we serve only one course,’ she tells him as the servants leave the room once more. ‘I don’t see the need for three or four as I’ve heard city folk take. Far too much ceremony and a complete waste of food. I trust you don’t object?’

‘Not at all,’ Henry says faintly, disturbed at his unwanted memory. ‘I’d be at a loss if you were to offer such a spread.’

Indeed, his own meals used to consist of cold food parcels delivered to Guy’s by his landlady, quick tavern fare, or a late-night penny pie from a street seller en route to his lodgings after his shift at the hospital was done.

‘And while we are at it,’ she continues, brusque again, ‘please call me Linette. We’re to be together far too much to keep up the pretence of formality.’

Gratefully, he raises his eyes from his plate.

‘Thank you. I confess, I’m wholly sick of not knowing how to address you.’

‘I may call you Henry, then?’

‘I prefer you do.’

‘Good.’ She takes a sip of claret. ‘Henry, you did not answer my question.’

That brief flicker of gratitude is replaced immediately by a familiar feeling of dread.

‘Why did you ask it?’

Linette lifts one shoulder, begins to slice into her potatoes.

‘Well, no doctor I’ve encountered has been as methodical as you clearly are. Not even Dr Evans seemed quite so in tune, shall we say, with his patients the way you were with Tomas. He evidently did not possess the same level of learning as you.’

While she was speaking, Merlin rested his long chin on the table. Linette cuts a small chunk from the liver on her plate, offers it to the dog who snaffles it loudly between his teeth.

‘That is not uncommon, considering I imagine he trained as only a country doctor.’

‘Oh?’

He repeats what he told Mrs Evans.

‘I ended up taking a leading position at the hospital which I held for five years,’ he adds. ‘I gave lectures on the nervous system, bone structure, anatomy and dissection. I had apprentices of my own. Patients were often referred to me on recommendation.’ He hesitates. ‘Sometimes I consulted on Bow Street cases.’

Linette’s brow furrows. ‘Bow Street?’

‘Home of the Runners. They are London’s law enforcement. My contact there would often ask me to examine a body or a prisoner, advise on either cause of death or best treatment.’

‘Indeed? You must have been very busy, then. I’ve heard crime is as common as rats in the city.’

‘Francis only called on me for the more obscure cases. Cases that required more investigation.’

Linette blinks.

‘Murder?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘Ah.’ She sits back in her seat, raises an eyebrow. ‘Is that why you’re so suspicious?’

Observation. Contemplation. Interrogation. But this is a new and unfamiliar playing field, one that Henry must consider carefully before making any further move, and so he simply answers, ‘That has something to do with it, yes.’

At the end of the table Lady Gwen – who has until now simply sat with her hands in her lap – picks up her knife and fork. Her daughter slowly scratches Merlin’s chin, watches Henry carefully.

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