Razorhurst (24 page)

No one called the doctor anything but
Doctor
or
Doc
. Better no one knew his real name—that way they couldn’t look into why he’d been struck off. Most assumed it was the drinking what done it. Seemed unfair. What man didn’t drink too much?

Mostly, though, people didn’t want to know why he wasn’t a proper doctor anymore. Same way they didn’t want to know how someone as rough and ready as him became a doctor in the first place. All that mattered was how he’d kept plenty of Glory’s people alive who wouldn’t be otherwise. If he’d done anything worse than fancy a few too many drinks, he’d more than made up for it.

When the doc took care of girls who’d been careless, he left them alive and unbroken, which was a lot more than you could say for most of the back-alley practitioners of Razorhurst. He’d fixed Dymphna Campbell and made sure she healed whole and clean. He’d left her almost as if nothing had happened.

People were grateful.

The doctor was showered with gifts: freebies from Glory’s girls whenever he was up for it, a necklace of shark teeth, several beautiful gleaming razors, almost (but never quite) as much whisky and beer as he could drink, a diamond necklace, gold rings, silver rings, a parrot, several motor-cars, a top hat and tails (several sizes too big), and more cakes and biscuits and home-baked casseroles than any one man could eat.

As the doctor would rather drink than eat, the comestibles were redistributed among his many patients. The noncomestibles he parlayed into cash at the pawnshop. The cash turned into drink.

He saw whoever came to him. Glory’s people always had priority, but after them, it was first come first served. He’d dosed almost every kid in Darlinghurst with cod-liver oil at one time or another, patched up their cuts, splinted their broken bones.

He drew the line only at animals. Dogs and cats were a menace as far as he was concerned, and he wouldn’t allow them near him. They were only good for killing rats, the doc maintained, and from the state of things—more rats than people—they weren’t much chop at that.

DYMPHNA

Dymphna was grateful Bluey didn’t say a word as they left Glory’s. She’d seen to him before. At least this time he hadn’t hurt her. She didn’t trust Bluey to keep his word even to Glory.

He grunted, grabbed his crotch, and grimaced at her. Dymphna suspected that was his version of a smile. Kelpie was on Dymphna’s other side, carefully keeping herself out of Bluey’s range. Wise.

Had she made a mistake? Trusting that Glory didn’t know, trusting that sticking by Glory was her safest path through this mess, trusting that Bluey was her bodyguard and not a veiled threat? Or an unveiled one?

He could be both.

Glory could know and still not intend to kill her. Glory had said it herself: Dymphna was her best girl. What did it matter if she had plotted to take Glory’s empire from her? She’d failed and her co-conspirator was dead. There weren’t many men with Jimmy’s strength and brains. She glanced at Bluey, who had neither.

“What?” he grunted.

“Nothing.”

They walked two blocks before turning into the narrow lane behind Palmer Street. So narrow Dymphna could easily reach out to touch the houses on either side of her. She and Kelpie dropped behind Bluey.

The lane stank as always, but not as foully as it did in summer. There were no flies to swat away. The backs of houses were never as pretty as their fronts, but on this block half were collapsing, sinking in on themselves, no glass in the windows, doors gone, half the roofs gone too. None of these houses had yards. Many of the dunnies were on the verge of subsiding into the lane. The houses that were intact were small one-up, one-down cottages. All had seen better days.

Dymphna stepped over a pile of rusted tins with sharp, serrated edges.

“Doc’s a good man,” she told Kelpie, because it was true. She squeezed the girl’s hand.

She’d played nurse for the doctor on more than one occasion. She’d watched him pull a bullet out of one man and stitch up
several razorings, trying not to think about the damp rising up the walls or the cockroaches scuttling across the floor. Open wounds became infected. She knew that. She also knew he doused them all in disinfectant. Alcohol at the very least. He was a good doctor. Considering.

There was no harm in him checking Kelpie, making sure she was all right. It was another sign of how well Glory treated her people. Mr. Davidson did not employ his own doctor. If any of his people were broken, he discarded them.

She and Jimmy, they’d vowed to do the same as Glory: look after people, show their appreciation. Ironic that they had begun by plotting to take over from Gloriana Nelson. Dymphna doubted Glory would have felt appreciated if they had succeeded.

It was another reason she’d wanted Davidson dead but not Glory. Dymphna had been certain she could manage Glory. Though after today’s display, Dymphna was less sure of that than she had been.

Had Jimmy truly planned to kill Glory? Would she have been able to stop him? How much would Jimmy have listened to her if he’d succeeded in killing Mr. Davidson?

They hadn’t even discussed killing Glory. Jimmy had agreed that Glory wasn’t a threat. Her old man, Big Bill, was gone, and while he was a worthless human being, he had been Glory’s muscle.

But now Big Bill
and
Jimmy were out of the picture, which left, who, Bluey? Too stupid, too hard to control. Johnno Bailey? Didn’t have the heart for it. He cared more about cooking than keeping people in line.

Of Glory’s remaining men, if they were smart enough, they weren’t strong enough. And vice versa.

Dymphna imagined trying to rule Razorhurst with Neal Darcy by her side. She smiled.

There wasn’t anyone else. Not who worked for Glory.

Jimmy’s death left Mr. Davidson in a much more powerful position than before and Glory in a much more vulnerable one.

As soon as she could do it safely, Dymphna needed to scarper. Glory was only temporary shelter. She squeezed Kelpie’s hand. The girl looked up at her.

“It’ll be all right, love,” Dymphna said, though she feared that wasn’t true.

She should have told Glory that it was Mr. Davidson who’d had Jimmy killed. But she could hardly tell Glory that dead Jimmy
Palmer told her. Besides, Glory was already certain it was Davidson. Gloriana Nelson was wary. She was prepared.

Bluey waited outside the grog shop, arms crossed. It was the sturdiest building on either side of the lane. Bars at the window and a steel-reinforced door.

Dymphna knocked on the door.

Bluey looked back the way they’d come. “Reckon someone’s following us.”

Dymphna followed his gaze, worried that he’d spotted Snowy or Neal. “I don’t see anyone.”

Bluey grunted and pounded on the door.

A small boy opened it, saw Bluey, and scampered up the hall.

They followed him. The place was empty except for him and another small boy doing a haphazard job of mopping the floor and wiping down the walls. It was hours till the pubs closed and men desperate for more grog started piling into the illegal joints.

The two boys goggled at Dymphna as she smiled at them, then froze when Bluey strode in behind her.

“He won’t hurt you lads,” she told them. “Glory told him to be on his best behaviour.”

Bluey walked up to the smallest of the two, picked him up by his collar, and threw him against the wall. The boy slid to the floor, his eyes watering with pain, but he said nothing.

Dymphna turned on him. “What was that for?” She pulled Kelpie closer to her side.

“Said I wouldn’t hurt youse two,” Bluey said in his barely audible voice. “Didn’t say nothing about them.”

“Animal.”

“Whore.”

Dymphna thought about slapping him. He wasn’t worth it. Someone else would do for him soon enough. Sooner rather than later if Davidson decided to keep picking off Glory’s muscle.

She turned away and walked through to where the doctor worked out of the largest storeroom. Bluey pounded so hard on the doctor’s door it shook on its hinges.

“What?” said a voice from inside.

The door opened and Doc stood wiping his glasses. “You been stabbed again, Bluey?” He peered beyond him. “You messed up another girl?”

Bluey pointed at Dymphna and pushed Kelpie at the doctor.
Dymphna cut a look at Bluey, which she wished could hurt him, and walked through with her head high and her back straight. None of this was going to touch her. She put her hand on Kelpie’s shoulder. The girl was trembling.

“Glory said wait outside, Bluey.”

Bluey slammed the door then leaned against it, making it bow inward. Much as Neal Darcy had when he was hiding them. But this time there was nothing magical about it. Dymphna could hear Bluey breathing heavily, panting like a dog, blocking the only exit.

The room was messier than the last time she’d been there.

“You let your maid go, Doc?”

“Funny.”

One corner was piled to the ceiling with wooden boxes labelled
QUALITY WINE
and
DOUBLE DISTILLED SPIRITS
, but there were less than the last time she’d been there. Some must’ve been hauled over to Lansdowne Street for the party.

The rest of the room was a desk, two chairs, and a bookcase filled with battered medical books and the doctor’s supplies. There was bedding on the floor and two buckets under a leak that had grown considerably. It hadn’t rained in weeks, yet the mould on the walls had now reached the ceiling over his desk.

Jimmy reappeared next to the liquor. Dymphna did not groan. She didn’t even blink.

“I think Bluey can see me,” he told Kelpie, who was staring at the floor. “He was looking straight at me earlier.”

Dymphna knew for a fact that Bluey Denham did not see ghosts; he barely saw people. But his disconcertingly pale eyes made everyone think he could see more than he could.

“Why you here, Dymphna?” The doctor sank back into his chair and put his feet on his desk. “Neither of you appear to be bleeding. You clapped up?”

Dymphna shook her head and put her hands on Kelpie’s shoulders. “She’s feral. Glory wants to know if she’s got any diseases.”

The doctor yawned. “She’s a bit young for it, isn’t she?”

“She’s not going to work for Glory. She’s my niece. We want to see if she’s all right.” Dymphna decided it was best to start calling Kelpie her niece straight away. It would make explaining Kelpie being with her easier.

“Thought you said she was feral? How’d that happen to your niece?”

“Same way I started working for Glory. Things fell apart. I expect it was the same way for you.”

“You’re not wrong.”

The doctor took a swift swig of a bottle, then stood up, stretched, and became the doctor he used to be before the medical board took his licence away.

Boxing Ghost