Kronberg Crimes 01 - The Devils Grin

with an excuse, either.
    ‘Will fix it myself. Jus’ let me sleep.’
    My bones and my head felt so heavy, I started wondering why the bed frame would not give in. Was there even a bed frame? Garret kept talking to me, but I did not hear much of it. But then an idea crept into my brain. ‘Watson! Dr John Watson, Garret, get John Watson, Baker Street, 221B.’
    Garret nodded and disappeared from view.
    Deep sleep carried me away.

    ~~~

    Someone touched the raw spot on the back of my head and I woke up to the pain that followed suit. It felt as though part of my brain was being extracted.
    ‘You have a serious concussion and at least two broken ribs. I’m not sure about further internal damage, but your head wound needs several stitches.’
    That sounded like Watson. I forced my eyes open and saw three men peering down at me: Garret, Watson and Holmes.
    ‘Go away,’ I mumbled. Great tiredness was tugging on my eyelids and all I wanted was peace.
    Someone turned me onto my side again and started fingering my head. I desperately hoped that Watson knew what he was doing. A hand holding a cup filled with a milky white liquid appeared in front of my face — opium.
    ‘No!’ I squeezed out of my dry mouth and pushed it away. Only few things could scare me as much as losing control over a chemical substance. I noticed the bristly hair on his fingers as Watson hesitated. Someone muttered unintelligible words and the hand disappeared.
    After a moment, I heard the snip-snip of scissors – my hair was being cut off around the wound. Then the clucking sound of liquid pouring out of a small bottle followed by a sharp pain told me that Watson was disinfecting the back of my head.
    Then it felt as though he had pulled my scalp off my head as he joined the loose flaps of skin and stitched me up again. Desperate not to cry out, I grabbed the hand that was the closest, squeezed it with as much force as I could muster and pushed it hard against my forehead.
    After an endless time of sewing, Watson wrapped my head in bandages.
    ‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ he told me.
    ‘Hmm…’ I answered, noticing a slender hand slipping out of mine.

    ~~~

    Two days later I stood in front of the small glass that hung on the wall of Garret’s room. It had taken me the best part of yesterday to remember that I had been here many times before. I was utterly shaken and worried about possible brain injuries and after-effects.
    I held a glass shard in my hand to examine the back of my head. The bald patch there was as ugly as a scorched forest. The black thread Watson had sewn into my scalp stuck out of the bruised skin. It looked like a barbed wire fence in a battle field.
    I got a pair of scissors and started cutting the dishevelled fringes, but soon noticed that this alone wouldn’t do. So I snipped all my black curls off and was left with something that resembled more the haircut of a lice-infested child than that of a somewhat orderly adult. Feeling tired, extremely ugly and unwomanly, I dropped my tools into the washbasin.
    Heavy footsteps announced Garret’s return just before he knocked on the door.
    ‘For Christ’s sake, Garret, will you come in? This is your room.’
    He rumbled through the door, slammed it shut, and almost slithered to a halt, his mouth hanging open.
    ‘I know,’ I said, and turned away.
    He stepped closer and wrapped his big arms around my chest.
    ‘Anna,’ he whispered with an intensity that made my skin go bumpy. I just stood there with my arms hanging limply down my sides, trying to swallow that dry clump of despair that wouldn’t go down. Garret turned me around and pressed his face into the stubble on my head and told me that I was beautiful. Wrapped up in that bear of a man, who had always been honest with me — but whom I had never told who I really was – I started hating myself with all my might. For a long moment he held me tight, then pushed himself away a little to caress my face with his rough hands and fit his mouth on my beaten-up lips.

Chapter Thirteen

    I went back to my own quarters the same day. The moment I closed the door behind me, the realisation hit that I had jeopardised my own future.
    For three days I had been sick in bed — Garret’s bed, to be precise. Colleagues may have wanted to contact me, to wish me a quick recovery, or to enquire about my return to Guy’s. To make matters worse, I was a celebrity now, or close to. I had made a grave mistake by giving 24 Bow