William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

man made this needle where you can stick it straight into the vein, right wherever the pain’s worst. Fifteen years ago, or more. I can get you one of them needles.”
    “I’ve heard of them,” Hester said with a sudden lurch of excitement. “Can you teach me how to use it? And how much to give?”
    Agatha nodded. “Have to be careful, mind. You can kill someone easy, if you get it wrong. And worse than that, if you give it to them more than a few times, they get so they want it every day, can’t do without it.”
    Hester frowned, her heart beating faster. “How do you stop that from happening?” Her voice was a little hoarse.
    “You make it less, then you stop them getting it at all. They learn. Least, most do. Some don’t, an’ they go on taking it, one way or another for the rest o’ their lives. More an’ more. Makes them as sells it rich.” The look of fury on her face made Hester wince.
    “Is there another way to deal with pain?” Hester asked softly, knowing the answer.
    “No.” Agatha let the one word fall into the silence.
    “Is that what Dr. Lambourn was asking about?” Hester asked. “Needles?”
    “Not at first,” Agatha replied. “ ’E were mostly on about deaths of children ’cos women gave ’em medicines they don’t know what’s in. He didn’t get nothin’ out of it one way or the other.”
    “You talked with him?” Hester pressed.
    “Course I did. I told you, even if the government’d taken his report, it wouldn’t ’ave made no difference to me nor you. An’ they didn’t anyway, so what do you care?” Her eyes were sharp, clever, watching Hester’s face.
    “But he asked about addiction to smoking opium?” Hester pressed again.
    Agatha grimaced. “Not much, but I told ’im anyway. ’E listened.”
    “Do you think he killed himself?” Hester said bluntly.
    Agatha frowned. “He didn’t look to me like that kind of coward, but I s’pose yer never know. What difference does it make to you?”
    Hester wondered how much truth to tell. She looked at Agathamore carefully, and decided not to lie at all. The whole question of opium in medicines was complicated by the abuse of it. Where was the dividing line between supplying a need, and profiteering? And had any of it to do with Joel Lambourn’s death, or Zenia Gadney’s?
    “I think maybe he was murdered and it was made to look like suicide,” she said aloud to Agatha. “Some of it doesn’t make sense.”
    “Yeah? Like I said, why do you care?” Agatha repeated, looking at Hester narrowly.
    “Because if he was murdered, then that makes more sense of Zenia Gadney’s murder on Limehouse Pier,” Hester explained.
    Agatha shivered. “Since when did bloody lunatics make sense? What’s the matter wi’ you?”
    “Mrs. Lambourn’s on trial for the murder of Zenia Gadney because the doctor visited Zenia every month and paid her rent and all her other expenses,” Hester replied with some heat.
    “Stupid bitch,” Agatha said bitterly. “What the hell good did that do ’er?”
    “None at all.”
    “So why’d she do it then?” Agatha said, frowning, her eyes full of anger.
    “Maybe she didn’t. She says the doctor didn’t kill himself, either.”
    Agatha stared at her, a new comprehension in her face. “An’ you reckon as it was something to do with him asking about the opium?”
    “Don’t you? There’s a lot of money in opium,” Hester pointed out.
    “Bleedin’ right there is,” Agatha said with scathing savagery, as if some memory had returned to her with the thought. “Fortunes made in it, an’ reputations lost. Nobody wants to think o’ the Opium Wars now. Lot o’ secrets, most of ’em bloody an’ full o’ death an’ money.” She leaned forward a little. “You be careful,” she warned. “You’d be surprised what big families got rich on that an’ don’t say nothing about it now.”
    “Did Dr. Lambourn know that?”
    “Didn’t say, but he weren’t nobody’s fool—an’ neither am I. Don’t go messin’ around with opium sellers, lady, or you’ll maybe end up somewhere cut up in an alley, or floatin’ down the river, belly up. I’ll get yer what yer need. An’ I ain’t sayin’ that fer profit. Those bastards will ’ave yer for breakfast, but they won’t cross me.”
    “Did Zenia know about all this?” Hester said quickly.
    Agatha’s eyes widened. “How the ’ell do I know?”
    “I’d wager good money you know a great deal about anything that