William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

more surgical stuff. Dunno where, ’cos she had to look for it. Heard of some doctor what was selling old stuff.”
    “I’m not looking for Hester!” Monk said, almost choking in relief. “I want the young woman I brought here a week or so back. Where is she?”
    Squeaky looked Monk up and down, from his shiny leather boots to his elegant coat wet on the shoulders, and then he sighed. “Down in the laundry washing sheets like she should be. I ain’t bringing her up here, ’cos I’m told not to, so you’d better go down there and find her!” Thus dismissing Monk, he sat down to study his figures again.
    Monk thanked him, a trifle sarcastically, and went along the narrow passage and down a couple of flights of steps, through the kitchen, and into the laundry beyond. A lean, dark young woman with freckles was poking a wooden pole into the huge copper, moving the sheets around. The pot was belching steam, and the air was thick with it.
    “Where’s Hattie?” Monk asked.
    “Dunno,” the young woman replied without turning away from the task.
    Monk took a pace toward her and spoke more sharply. “That won’t do! If you want to stay here and be looked after, you’ll tell me where she is!”
    She stopped poking and let the long pole slip onto the floor. She turned and looked at him indignantly, her hair damp, streaked onto her face, her skin pink. “I dunno where she is, an’ yer can call me everything you want, an’ I still dunno. She were s’posed ter be ’ere, ’cos it were ’er turn ter ’elp, an’ she in’t! So you go an’ bleedin’ find ’er!”
    Monk turned on his heel and strode out of the room, taking the steps up again two at a time. Back in the scullery he found a young woman with a red face, peeling potatoes. He could smell the sharp astringency of onions, and there were strings of them hanging from the ceiling beams.
    “Have you seen Hattie Benson?” he demanded.
    She turned to look at him, startled by his voice. “No, I in’t seen ’er since—I dunno—yesterday. Yer tried the laundry? That’s where she is most times.”
    “Yes, I have. Where else?” He controlled his rising fear with difficulty. His heart was pounding, his breath ragged already. He wasbeing absurd; she was probably making beds, or rolling bandages, or any of a dozen other tasks.
    The woman shrugged. “I dunno.”
    Without bothering to press her, since she was clearly useless, he left the scullery and tried the medicine storage room, the linen closets, and then all the bedrooms one by one. He went from the far end of the three old houses joined together by a warren of passages and interlocking rooms, which had once been Squeaky Robinson’s brothel and was now the clinic. Nowhere did he find Hattie Benson, or anyone who had seen her in the last three hours, now three and a half, nearly four. The fear inside him was close to panic.
    Hester was not here, nor was Margaret. And he was not sure if he would have asked Margaret, even if she were. He did the next best thing after that and looked for Claudine.
    He found her in the medicine room. She was becoming quite proficient in nursing. Hester had said she was intelligent and, more important, deeply interested. Her long, unhappy marriage had eroded her self-belief to an almost crippling level. Curiously, it was her adventure where she had finally seen Arthur Ballinger outside the shops selling pornographic photographs, and from which Squeaky Robinson had eventually rescued her, that had liberated her from that.
    Now she stood carefully measuring what was left in the various jars and bottles, and writing it down in a notebook. She was standing straight, and there was a slight smile on her face. She turned as she heard Monk’s footsteps stop. It needed only a glance at his face for her to realize his distress.
    “What’s happened?” she asked immediately, putting down the bottle she was holding and closing the notebook. “What is it?”
    “Hattie Benson’s gone,” Monk replied. “I’ve been from one end of the building to the other, and asked everybody. No one has seen her since about nine this morning.”
    Claudine did not reply for several moments, but it was not because she was dumbfounded. She was clearly calculating what to do next.
    “We must think,” she said. “She knew not to go anywhere outside. She would not have run errands for anyone, even a few yards.She was quite clever enough to be frightened. There are no doors to the outside here