The Furies Read online

  Running across the oval lawn in front of the building, Gabriel saw the dark green convertible parked at the bottom of the short flight of steps that led up to the Konak entrance. As he neared the vehicle he could see it was empty, all doors ajar, the engine still running. He stopped for a moment and saw a bullet hole in the rear passenger door, green feathers scattered on the rear leather seat, and bloody footprints on the silver running board outside the car. Someone had definitely been wounded: was it Colonel Harrach, who had been standing on the running board when the shots were fired? Gabriel heard a shout and turned to see the chief jogging across the lawn towards him, the older man puffing heavily as he tried to keep pace.

  ‘There’s blood in the car,’ Gabriel shouted back before striding up the white marble steps that led to the Konak entrance. And now he saw that there was more blood on the steps; fat clots of it, like some strange species of purple slug, which glistened against the brilliant white of the stone.

  He ran to the heavy oak door, which was ajar, and hurried inside the building. The white tiled surface of the Konak’s lobby was streaked with blood and a single ladies’ dress shoe lay forlornly in the middle of the floor. A staircase at the back of the lobby was also splashed with blood and Gabriel followed the trail, taking the steps three at a time.

  He was breathing hard by now, and on the landing at the top of the steps he took a moment to catch his breath. But then he heard voices coming from an open door nearby, and he hurried through to find himself inside a bedroom. From the oil portrait that hung on the wall Gabriel guessed it was General Potiorek’s bedroom. But it was the bed that grasped his attention; for lying on top of the bedspread, in a heavily blood-stained white silk dress, was the wife of the Archduke.

  Two aides were attending her: the first, an older woman with a tear-streaked face, was leaning on her abdomen, pressing down in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. The other aide, a younger man, was hunched over the duchess’s face, his ear close to her mouth.

  ‘I’m a surgeon,’ Gabriel said as he approached the bed.

  The aide lifted his head to look at Gabriel. ‘Thank God you’re here…I can’t hear any breathing,’ he said, his voice filled with panic as Gabriel reached past him to feel for the carotid artery in the duchess’s neck. Gabriel tried his fingers in several different positions, but he couldn’t find a pulse and when he lifted her closed eyelids he saw the already-glazed, dilated pupils. Gabriel felt strangely calm now; the shock of finding blood in the car had already passed and his surgical instincts had taken over.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s dead,’ Gabriel quietly said to the young man. The woman pressing on the duchess’s abdomen sat back on the bed and let out a low moan, then began to sob uncontrollably. Another aide – Gabriel hadn’t noticed her at first – was kneeling on the far side of the bed and she now began to pray and weep at the same time.

  The young man pointed at an archway across the room. ‘The Archduke’s through there,’ he said. ‘You must try to save him.’

  Gabriel hurried through the archway and found that it led into a separate annexe, a small dressing area off the main bedroom. In the middle of the annexe was an ornately embroidered red-and-gold Ottoman couch. And lying on his back on the couch, with his eyes closed as if asleep, his hands resting on his lap, his gold-buttoned blue tunic heavily stained with blood, was the Archduke.

  Standing above him was General Potiorek, his face a mask of disbelief as he looked down at the wounded man. Kneeling on the floor beside the couch was Colonel Harrach, his clean-shaven cheeks splashed with blood. Standing next to Potiorek was another of the Archduke’s aides, a frantic look in the man’s eyes as he waved a small pocket-knife in the air.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gabriel heard the aide say to Potiorek, ‘but the buttons are only for decoration: the Archduke always insists on being sewn into his tunic.’

  Potiorek and Harrach both looked up at Gabriel as he entered the annexe. ‘Captain Bayer – thank God you’re here,’ Harrach said as Gabriel knelt beside him.

  ‘Please, good doctor, can you save him?’ Potiorek said, the pitch of his voice raised in desperation as Gabriel took hold of the Archduke’s wrist. ‘He must not die…’

  Gabriel could feel a fast, slender pulse at the wrist bone. ‘He’s still alive…just,’ he said, looking up at Potiorek, ‘but he’s lost a lot of blood.’ He turned to Harrach. ‘Where’s he been shot?’ he asked.

  ‘In the chest, I think,’ said Harrach, just as the chief appeared in the archway behind, breathing heavily.

  ‘Good God!’ the chief exclaimed.

  Gabriel looked up at him. ‘He’s still alive but bleeding badly.’

  The chief knelt beside Gabriel as they tried to find the bullet entry hole. Gabriel could see a large gash had been made across the left side of the Archduke’s tunic; unsuccessful attempts by the aide to cut the jacket open, he presumed. But the right side of the tunic was more blood-stained and there was a small hole in the right side of the collar…

  ‘There,’ Gabriel said, pointing to the rent in the collar.

  The chief reached across and lifted the collar: and immediately a small fountain of blood gushed from a hole at the base of the Archduke’s neck; Potiorek gasped at the sight. The chief quickly pushed the collar back into place: at the pressure of his hand the Archduke’s eyes flickered open, then closed again.

  Gabriel looked up at the aide. ‘Give me the knife, quick,’ he ordered. As he took the penknife he turned to Harrach. ‘Get him on his side. I’ll cut the jacket open at the back.’

  While the chief kept his fingers on the neck wound, Harrach and the aide rolled the Archduke onto his side. A stream of blood trickled from the wounded man’s mouth: his eyes opened again and his lips began to move. ‘Sophie…don’t die…please…for the children…’ He began to cough and splutter.

  ‘Keep him on his side,’ Gabriel said, concerned the Archduke might choke on his own blood. He slit the back of the jacket from the hem to the collar, then watched Harrach and the aide pull the tunic off from the front. More blood spurted from the wound when the tunic was removed, only stemmed when the chief applied more pressure with his fingers.

  With the Archduke positioned on his side, Gabriel leant over the body to examine the wound. He couldn’t see an exit hole – only the entrance wound just above the right clavicle – but when the pressure of the chief’s hand was eased, the flow of blood coming through the hole was heavy and suggested a major vessel was involved. Could it be the subclavian vein, which lies close to the lung? It would explain why the wounded man was coughing up blood: for a moment Gabriel’s hopes rose; the Archduke might survive a subclavian vein wound. But when the chief removed his hand and Gabriel slipped his little finger into the gushing hole, he felt the track pass away from the lung and up towards the base of the skull. The Archduke must have been leaning backwards when the shot was fired, as the bullet had travelled upwards once it entered the neck. And that meant that either the jugular vein or carotid artery had been injured.

  In a battlefield situation a wound like this would normally be considered fatal, and any attempt at surgery would almost always result in death. Gabriel knew the situation was beyond serious, almost certainly hopeless, and he looked across at the chief. He could tell by the expression on his mentor’s face that he thought the same.

  In any case, what more could he do? He had no surgical kit, no bandages, no instruments – apart from a penknife. The aide had cut a piece of linen shirt into strips, and in desperation Gabriel used the blunt end of the penknife to stuff a piece of this ad-hoc dressing into the wound to try and reduce the blood loss. But the wound track was long – longer than the four-inch hilt of the penknife – and Gabriel suspected that the bullet was embedded deep at the back of the neck. Within a few seconds, blood was again seeping through the exit hole. More ominously, Gabriel heard the Archduke’s breathing change to shorter gasps with longer pauses between each breath.

  ‘Can’t you do somet
hing more?’

  Gabriel looked up to see Potiorek staring down at him, the look on the General’s face one of utter desperation.

  ‘Can’t you operate, stop the bleeding?’ Potiorek persisted.

  Gabriel’s eyes flicked towards the chief and they exchanged glances. The chief looked up at Potiorek.

  ‘General, I’m afraid this is a fatal, untreatable wound.’

  Even though the chief’s words only confirmed what Gabriel knew to be the truth, hearing them filled him with dismay. It was always horrible when – in spite of your best efforts – a patient died under your care. But this, Gabriel thought, was different. The second most important man in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was going to perish right in front of him and there was nothing more he could do. He tried to suppress his rising anger. Why were they here at the Konak? Why hadn’t they driven to the hospital? He heard the Archduke mumble a few indistinct words, and then there was one final, drawn-out, sighing exhalation – almost a farewell: then silence.

  The chief felt for the carotid pulse on the other side of the neck, then looked across at Gabriel and shook his head. Gabriel knew it was over and sat back on his haunches, the desolate feeling of losing a patient already beginning to well up inside of him.

  And now – just as he was about to sit forward and stand up – a hand grasped the collar of Gabriel’s smock and he felt himself being pulled backwards. He turned his head and found he was now eye-to-eye with General Potiorek who was staring down at him, flecks of spittle at the corners of his mouth, lines of tension radiating across his cheeks as he gripped the back of Gabriel’s jacket. ‘For God’s sake,’ Potiorek said, ‘there must be something more you can do?’

  Gabriel was at first stunned, then angry at being manhandled. But before he could react, he heard the chief’s reprimanding tone – ‘Herr General!’ – and saw Potiorek turn towards him. ‘There is nothing that God or any man can do,’ the chief continued.

  Potiorek seemed to come to his senses and released his grip. Gabriel pulled away, shrugging his jacket back into place as he stood up and stepped away from the couch; Colonel Harrach – standing beside him – looked embarrassed at Potiorek’s outburst.

  ‘The Archduke is dead, Herr General,’ the chief reiterated. ‘It’s over.’

  For several seconds Potiorek stood motionless. Then his head dropped onto his chest, his shoulders slumped, and for a moment Gabriel thought he was about to collapse as he swayed slightly. But then he reached out to grasp the side of the chaise longue, steadied himself, and slowly sat down on the edge of the couch, by the dead man’s feet.

  The room was completely silent, broken only by the sound of sobbing coming through the archway. Gabriel walked back through into the bedroom, where the body of the duchess still lay on the bed, her aides weeping as they knelt beside her. He felt numb as he stood mindlessly watching this pitiful tableau. Then another hand touched his collar – softer this time – and when he turned, the chief was standing beside him.

  ‘You did your best, Gabriel,’ the chief said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief.

  The words of kindness should have consoled him, but strangely Gabriel had felt better being angry. He watched the chief walk back into the annexe to speak to Harrach, Potiorek still sitting on the end of the blood-stained chaise longue, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. Gabriel turned to look at the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window and for a moment felt lightheaded. Then he remembered he hadn’t eaten anything, hadn’t had his breakfast yet. He walked forwards and leant on the windowsill. Through the glass he saw an army ambulance speed through the entrance gate to the Konak and pull up beside the Archduke’s convertible. The top of Flieger’s head appeared as he jumped out from the driver’s cab and, accompanied by Major Arnstein, he began to run up the steps to the Konak’s entrance. Too late, thought Gabriel as he lifted his gaze and looked at the cypress trees at the edge of the compound. A sapphire-blue sky heralded the prospect of a beautiful summer day, and a flight of swallows swooped into view, darting and diving between the trees. Gabriel looked down at his blood-soaked jacket and slipped a hand inside the pocket to remove his pocket-watch. He flipped open the lid with his thumb: it was only eleven-fifteen in the morning.

  3. London, Sunday 28 June 1914. Afternoon

  Summer had finally arrived in London and Elspeth had the warmth of the sun on her back as she walked beside the Serpentine in Hyde Park. She was due to meet the rest of her arson squad later that afternoon, but as Sylvia was on duty in the hospital that morning, Elspeth had decided first to take a stroll in the park on her own.

  The previous Sunday a group of suffragettes had held a meeting near the Serpentine. Elspeth and Sylvia had gone to watch the event, which the suffragettes had called a ‘Water Carnival’ as they were banned from holding demonstrations in the park. In fancy dress as dominoes, the women had paraded around the lake, each wearing a letter on her chest that spelt out the word ‘suffragettes’. The parks’ office of works had expected this protest and had lashed the boats together in mid-water to prevent their use. But the women had flung off their wraps to reveal bathing costumes and then swum out to the craft to cut them free. Elspeth and Sylvia had gleefully watched all of this unfold from a distance – a sensible precaution, it turned out, because the police soon arrived to arrest the women and take them, dripping wet, to Paddington Green police station.

  On this Sunday afternoon, however, there were no suffragette activities taking place, and after a stroll round the Serpentine and an ice cream in the park café, Elspeth decided to return to her lodgings. Sylvia would have finished her shift by now, and Vera and Anya – who had spent the weekend at Vera’s parents’ farm in Oxfordshire – should be arriving back at Paddington station shortly.

  As she walked home, Elspeth thought about the past two weeks. The day after the Abbey bombing, she and Sylvia had gone back to St Mary’s Hospital and carried on with their work as if nothing had happened. Sylvia was euphoric over their success, but Elspeth had mixed feelings: a sense of pride she had struck a blow for women’s emancipation, but also unease about the violence of their method, the distress it had caused the older couple, and the consequences if they had been caught. Because it had been a close-run thing: if she had not been successful in diverting the cab driver’s attention from his rear-view mirror…Well it was just too awful to contemplate.

  The day following the event The Times and the Morning Post had articles about the ‘suffragette bombing outrage’ stating that a feather boa and guidebook had been found at the scene and that although the Coronation Chair had been badly damaged, it was repairable. Other newspapers specified that two women had been questioned leaving the Abbey, but no suspects had yet been identified. She knew she should feel pleased, but Elspeth could not shake off a nagging sense that they had been fortunate to get away with it.

  Then, two days ago, Sylvia had taken Elspeth into the ward sister’s office. ‘Vera wants to meet to discuss further attacks,’ she whispered. ‘And Anya has some interesting ideas as targets. Can we meet on Sunday afternoon? Vera is taking Anya up to her parents’ farm for the weekend, but they’ll be back by mid-afternoon. And guess what: Vera says that the Pankhursts have sent personal congratulations to us. Isn’t it fabulous, Ellie – we’re famous!’

  Although reluctant to discuss another attack, Elspeth had agreed to the meeting. But walking back from the park she found herself dreading it. She had always supported the suffrage cause, and it was her frustration with the lack of progress of the suffragists that had pushed her to join the arson campaign. But was it worth the risk to the most important thing in her life – something she had wanted as long as she could remember – her vocation as a doctor? She had worked hard at her career, harder than the men around her; for as a woman, it was not easy to get the best training and experience. And Elspeth had chosen surgery, one of the more demanding branches of medicine. However, the years of hard work had paid off and she was making good progress in h
er chosen profession, honing her surgical skills in a prestigious London teaching hospital. Now she was jeopardising all of it with the arson strategy. Surely there must be some other, less destructive way to advance the suffrage cause?

  As she turned into the quiet side street and walked towards her lodgings, Elspeth was surprised to see Mrs Evans on her knees, scrubbing the doorstep with a two-handled brush, a bucket next to her filled with milky-looking water. Elspeth’s landlady was a plump, kind-faced woman with small eyes that vanished into the folds of her face whenever she smiled.

  ‘Cleaning the doorstep on a Sunday, Mrs Evans?’ Elspeth asked. ‘You dear woman, don’t you ever have a day off?’

  Mrs Evans stopped her scrubbing and sat back on her haunches; then she wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow with the back of a forearm. It had always been obvious to Elspeth that Mrs Evans loved having her as a lodger, probably because she was the first female doctor to ever board with her. She smiled up at Elspeth.

  ‘I dropped a bottle of milk on the step just after you went out, Dr Stewart, and if I don’t clean it up now it’ll be stinking to high heaven by this evening.’

  ‘Och well, just be careful. Don’t overdo it in this heat.’

  ‘I’m almost finished. By the way, you have a couple of visitors: Sister Calthorpe and one other lady I don’t rightly know.’

  One other lady? That was odd, thought Elspeth: Vera and Anya should have arrived together.

  ‘I let them both up to your rooms,’ Mrs Evans continued. ‘Sister Calthorpe said you wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Elspeth glanced up at her open bedroom window and caught a glimpse of a rosy-cheeked face surrounded by curly brown hair. ‘And that’ll be Vera, Mrs Evans. She a friend of Sister Calthorpe’s and mine. There’ll probably be another lady joining us shortly.’