She hesitated. Her father’s letter was still in her pocket, its blunt edge against her thigh. She should open it. But she couldn’t bear to. The longer she left it, the longer she could believe that maybe this time would be the time she said no. This time she would walk away from him as she’d promised Camille she had.
Until she opened it, there was hope.
‘After I left, the thing I couldn’t shake was the questions. Why had he done it? Why did he think it was okay? So I understand you wanting to know why people make the choices they make. After all, our choices are all we have.’
Olympe squeezed her hands into fists for a moment, a glimpse of grey skin peeking out between her gloves and her sleeve. ‘And is it better now? Being free? Making your own choices?’
Ada took a moment to reply.
‘Yes. I wouldn’t have stayed in the battalion if it wasn’t.’
Olympe pressed her fingers into her eyes, then straightened. ‘Okay. I’m okay. Let’s get on.’
Together they began to work through the scattered mess of papers, receipts from medical suppliers and spidery pencil drawings of blood vessels and letters stained with blood and candle wax.
Ada turned her back to Olympe, hiding her expression.
She wanted to believe she was telling the truth.
9
The Abbey Garden
They’d found the rest of the bodies.
Camille and Guil had only just begun their search of the rest of the abbey when they came across a large, deep pit among the remnants of a walled vegetable garden. The thick haze of black flies had led them to it, weaving in the air above the pit. Heaped inside were corpses, bloated, covered in dissection incisions, their faces rotted beyond recognition. An open grave, like the pits dug every time a bout of plague ravaged the city.
Camille covered her mouth with her sleeve and yanked Guil away.
‘We won’t learn anything here.’
Guil grimaced. ‘They deserve a proper burial.’
‘I know. But we can’t leave any sign that we were here.’
Reluctantly, he agreed and they returned to their methodical search of the abbey, room by room. In the old kitchens and storerooms and offices they’d found more medical supplies, oilcloths, crates holding fresh jars, stores of acid, sulphur, dyes and resins and other tools of the anatomist’s trade. And here and there, evidence of human life. Unwashed plates, half-read newspapers and discarded handkerchiefs. They traced the detritus from room to room, tracking their prey back to its den.
Camille found a chamber pot so freshly used that the tang of urine was pungent.
They weren’t alone.
‘One day I’d like to do a job that doesn’t end up involving sewage in some way.’ She spoke lightly to dispel the feeling of being watched.
‘So you’ll be looking for employment out of Paris, then?’
‘God, no. The countryside is wall-to-wall manure.’
The thought of the future had brought her conversation with Ada on the roof of the Au Petit Suisse abruptly back.
‘Would you?’ she asked, wrinkling her nose as she put the lid back on the pot.
‘Would I what?’
‘Look for a different job? I mean, when this is over and no one needs rescuing any more.’
‘Hmm. I think that somewhat depends.’
‘On what?’
