Chương 4: Chapter Four: The Art of Being Helpfully Useless

The mornings in this strange place were grey and wet with rain, which seemed to be the same for London of all times and dimensions. It was comforting. As was the noise of the city behind the surgery walls. There was no clock in the room, with which to track time but it must have been quite a few hours since dawn already. Whereas she had only been awake for forty minutes, which had been enough time to think on the next steps.

She had healed enough since her attempted murder, and Cora believed her cover story would hold. The key was internal consistency. She had a name, a lodging house address, and a profession, all provided by the doctor. She had a medical history to justify any confusion or inconsistencies. She had been attacked, she did not clearly remember her attacker, and she did not know how she had ended up in that alley, all of which was conveniently true. The gaps would hold.

The trick with amnesia, real or performed, was that people wanted to fill them for you. Cora just had to be present in the right way while they did. Hyde came in with tea, and set it on the small table by the bed before preparing two cups. She had gathered over the past few days that he was the kind of doctor who understood recovery was not only physiological, though he never crossed boundaries with his patients… well, one patient, as she was the only one she had seen him treat in all her time there.

Usually, he moved through the surgery with unhurried purposefulness, otherwise leaving her alone with novels and other books of leisure. Sometimes, he took notes. Other times, she had seen him prepare breakfast or quick lunches before leaving for wherever he went when not there. And when he'd check on her through the night he'd do it quietly, without waking her unless he had to. Which was surprising in itself. Cora was not a deep sleeper.

As always, he checked the wound without preamble while she stayed still and watched his expression rather than his hands. It told her more, usually. He had clean habits and careful hands, and she still found the fact that he had treated her wounds correctly more fantastical than anything else that had happened to her this week.

"It's healing well," he said.

"Faster than I would have expected, given the depth." She said nothing. He hadn't quite made it a question. He settled into the chair that was apparently his usual one. It was worn at the arms, angled toward the bed just slightly. And then set a cup in her hands. Right, she thought, reflecting on how quickly she had warmed up to him. She wasn't a particularly cold person. She had just… developed a distaste for doctors in the past few months. He's good at this.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Better," she said. She considered adding more and decided against it. Better was true. It left him room to ask the next question, which would tell her where he was going.

"Good enough for a few more questions about that night?" There it was. Cora made sure her face had the expression of someone trying hard to recall. It was not especially difficult. She had spent a significant portion of her adult career interviewing people who were trying to remember things, and she knew precisely what that effort looked like from the outside. A slight inward focus. A pause that ran a beat too long. Eyes not quite meeting his, as if waiting for something to surface on its own.

"I remember some things," she said.

"But nothing truly new."

"Would you mind sharing?" he asked, sipping from his own cup.

"I remember pain," she said, slowly.

"The alley. Being cold and afraid and then…" A pause, as if waiting.

"I think I managed to ask someone for help. Then I woke up here." Hyde nodded, writing. She had noted over three days that he kept two sets of notes, a standard column, and a second, shorter one in a different hand-angle, private annotations running alongside the official record. She didn't know yet what that meant for her, but she seen him do it often enough that it had stood out.

"You were found on Greybell Lane," he said.

"Not too far from here. Someone appears to have brought you partway." He looked up.

"Do you recall anyone else being present?" She made sure not to go still, furrowing her brow, before continuing.

"I thought I heard someone walking away. Just footsteps. But I'm not sure if I dreamed it." Which was true. Which was the whole problem. Sweet dreams, dear girl. She had been thinking about that voice for days, in the quiet hours when Hyde was elsewhere and the surgery was still. Someone had been in that alley with her, she was certain. Someone who had left before the constable arrived, unhurried enough to say something as they left, which meant they hadn't been afraid of being heard.

The most likely person to have killed the real Alice Darling. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. She was not about to share that with anyone.

"You didn't see them?" Hyde said.

"No." She let a small frown settle.

"I'm sorry. It's all… a mess up here." She tapped her temple. Hyde accepted this with a nod that was both professionally neutral and somehow warm. He was better at this than several doctors she could name from her own time. Three knocks on the door. The doctor looked at her for a moment, as if gauging her reaction, before saying, "You may come in." The man who entered wore plain middle-class clothes, and a good wool coat, well cut but not new..

He removed his hat on entry, tucked it under one arm, and looked once across the room before he did anything else: window, cabinet, Hyde, her. The full sweep took under two seconds. Paranoid much? He was mid-thirties at the youngest, carrying the bearing of someone considerably older. It sat in his posture and in his eyes, which were the exact shade of the sky outside, grey, and not particularly warm. Hyde set down his cup. A small motion, but deliberate.

"Miss Darling." The man greeted. Then, to Hyde, "Doctor. I won't take long." Hyde's expression remained even.

"Please continue," he said, tone polite, as if for the sake of being proper and nothing more. Did they know each other? Cora wondered. They seemed to have a relationship of some sort, though she did not know what kind yet. The man turned back fully toward her. A brief bow followed.

"Inspector Percival Rowe. I've been placed in charge of your case."

"Thank you for coming," she said. Alice Darling should appear grateful to the police.

"I want to help as much as I can."

"Of course." He produced a notebook from inside his coat. Everyone in this city seemed to carry a notebook.

"Can you tell me your full name?"

"Alice Darling." It came out easily. She'd been saying it to herself for three days.

"I live at number fourteen, Pell Street, at Mrs. Hatch's lodging house. I'm a flower seller, usually at Aldgate Row. But these are things I've been told. I don't really remember much of who I was before." He wrote. She watched his pen and noted that he had written her address before she finished saying it. He'd already confirmed it through another source. The police were reasonably certain who she was. Good. No possessed body here. Just a normal girl with retrograde amnesia.

"Can you tell me what you remember about the attack?" Cora had prepared this carefully.

"I see myself walking… or running. I'm not certain. It's dark and cold." An uncertain pause.

"And then pain. I think I hear someone leave afterward, but it's possible I dreamed that part." She shook her head.

"It happened very quickly. I called for help and then I don't remember the rest until I woke up here."

"Can you describe your attacker at all?"

"A man, I think." She let her brow furrow.

"The footsteps sounded heavy. But I didn't see his face. It was dark, and I was…" She stopped and let her hand move toward her side, just slightly. As if it were a reflexive movement for someone whose body remembered what their mind wouldn't. The inspector's pen paused. Good. She'd given him a physical response rather than a verbal one. Those read as genuine. Usually.

"That's all right," Rowe said.

"You've been very helpful, Miss Darling." She nearly said ' Have I now?' and stopped herself, because Alice Darling wouldn't know what helpful looked like in investigative terms, and the question would definitely read as wrong. Skills [Lie] and [Maintain Alias] have leveled up! Cora ignored it, she didn't have the time to be distracted. She looked at Hyde's bookshelf for a moment, as if deep in thought.

"Is it…" She kept her voice uncertain as she turned to the Inspector once again.

"Is it safe? For me to go out again?"

"Police are patrolling the district as we speak," he said, with the smooth intonation of a man reciting often-repeated institutional reassurance.

"We'll do our utmost to keep you safe." A brief pause. Then he looked at her, a direct, assessing look that lasted a half-second longer than politeness required.

"But excessive caution has never hurt anyone. Perhaps avoid late hours, for now." That sentence raised Cora's hackles immediately. Did he suspect something about her specifically, or was this reflexive period-typical paternalism about women being out at night?

"I'm sure you know best," she said, and looked at Hyde rather than Rowe, because she didn't think she could maintain scared but grateful in the Inspector's direction for much longer. Eyes toward the floor and voice soft, she asked, "You will find whoever did this, won't you?" A pause followed. Slightly too long.

"Yes," said Rowe.

"We will." The confidence had lost half a step of its timing, which in real terms meant: perhaps, or we sure hope so, or probably, after half a dozen more cases like it. God, cops were the same everywhere.

"Thank you," she said.

"I'm sorry I can't be more useful." And that was it. He said it was quite all right. He hoped she felt better soon. And as he reached the door, he reminded her that if she remembered anything else she should let the constabulary on Aldgate Row know. What a farce, she thought, as the door closed. Hyde poured out the cups without comment and prepared fresh tea. Cora wasn't particularly thirsty, but Alice Darling had just been through an ordeal, and accepting tea was what a person did in such circumstances.

She held the cup. It was quite good. She hadn't had tea since… well. Another country, another life entirely. She allowed herself to note that it was good without dwelling in it.

"You managed remarkably well," Hyde said. Cora looked at him over the cup.

"It was frightening," she said, which was true in ways he wouldn't expect.

"Of course," he agreed. He studied her for a moment.

"You should be ready to leave after one more day of observation. I'd like to see you again on Thursday. Not because the wound will require it, but I'd rather be thorough." A brief smile.

"But for now, how about breakfast?" She was starving. She had been having small portions and light foods that were supposedly good for her wounds for multiple days now in a body that was already malnourished, and it took a real effort not to say yes, immediately, please.

"I'd appreciate some," Cora said.