The Devil’s Heart

“Hurry up, Annora, before Mum calls.” Ten year-old Tevin Roundhay impatiently toed a well-worn football and watched as his little sister fussed about the goal post.

“I am,” she called back, and added something else, but her words were drowned by the roar and clatter of a Thameslink shuttle as it raced past not twenty-five yards away. The train flashed red and blue beyond the bare branches of a narrow strip of leylandii and buckthorn, what the town council was pleased to call a greenbelt. The children were quite used to the noise, however, as only the thin line of scrubby trees and the railroad’s chain link fencing separated the back garden of their row house from the tracks.

Their makeshift goal was nothing like as large as a real football standard. Made out of scrap wood found around the neighbourhood and discarded sheets secured by plastic tie wraps that served for netting, it had been cobbled together by Tevin with some assistance from his little sister. Annora had found the construction of the goal to be largely beyond her skill level, but, not to be outdone by her brother, her elder by two years, she insisted on doing her part to keep it in trim. At the moment that involved replacing three of the tie wraps where the sheet corners had frayed and come loose. The whole arrangement stood at the back of the narrow lot between the Roundhays’ house and the last home in the row of a dozen other residences.

The children considered themselves fortunate to live in one of the very few houses in the row with such a gap between it and its neighbour. Their home’s front and back gardens were far too small and confined to make satisfactory football grounds, and on cold, misty, early spring days like this, with the ground sodden and inclined to turn into a muddy mess with the least foot traffic, they were forbidden to stray off the walkways in any case. Their mother was adamant that modest means and squalor need not be inextricably linked, and she insisted on a clean house. That made the concrete pad between their home and the next an incomparable blessing.

“Come on!” Tevin called when the train had passed. “Before Mum has lunch on.”

Annora gave a last tug on the final tie wrap, sprinted back to her brother, and looked expectantly up at him.

“’Bout time,” he growled, feigning annoyance. “Now look. You’re already pretty fair at dribbling and passing and you’ll kick those other girls’ arses on conditioning.”

Annora giggled at the word ‘arses,’ and said, “I’m telling Mum.”

“Shut up. You need more power and accuracy on scoring,” Tevin said. He scooped up the ball, tossed it in his hand, then tucked it under his arm. “Three steps,” he said, holding up a corresponding number of fingers by way of illustration.

Annora never took her eyes from him.

“The higher you bring your kicking leg up behind you, the better. You get more power. Keep your ankle locked when you kick. Like this,” he said, “not this,” and demonstrated the difference between a stiff and floppy ankle. Annora copied him, frowning with concentration.

“Keep your other knee bent a little,” Tevin said. “The way you point the foot you’re standing on is the way the ball will probably go. Get it?”

She nodded.

“Right, then,” he said, and set the ball on the ground. “Watch.” He demonstrated, sending the ball sailing into the center of the net, where it billowed the sheet and rattled the fence behind, then bounced out again. Annora ran forward and collected the ball, dribbling it back to her brother with admirable skill for her age.

“Lean forward,” Tevin said, as she positioned herself for her own try. “If you lean forward you get more power. If you lean back you get more height. Right now you want power.”

Annora bit her lower lip, attacked the ball, and managed to implement two of her brother’s tips. Her strike had power and follow-through but lacked any sort of accuracy, flying not toward the goal but at the neighbour’s screened side door. Toward it and through the glass.

Both children stared at the devastation and finally Tevin broke the shocked silence. “Jesus Christ, Nora,” he said, “the goal post’s down there.”

“Don’t call me Nora,” she shot back, and punched him in the arm. Being ticked off at her brother was better than crying, which she was trying very hard not to do just then.

“You’ll make starter for sure if you can kick the ball around a corner like that. Mum’s gonna be pissed now.”

“Shut up, Tevin,” she snapped.

“Well, go get the ball,” Tevin said.

“No way!”

“You kicked it into the house.”

Annora bit her lower lip again, this time to keep from crying.

Tevin sighed theatrically. “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

Annora hung back, wavering between relief and shame, as he started toward the neighbours’ front door. Their neighbours, middle-aged twin brothers who never left the house except to put out the bins, were widely believed by the neighbourhood’s pre-teen population to eat children. Yet Annora knew that she was responsible for the broken glass. Both her mum and Grandpa Peabody were adamant that anyone could make a mistake, but that decent, honorable people freely admitted their errors and did what they could to repair them, whereas what her grandfather called ’deviants’ did not. Annora craved her grandfather’s approval, so she didn’t struggle long with the decision.

She hurried after Tevin. “I’ll do it,” she insisted, pushing past him and hopping determinedly up the four crumbling concrete steps to the front door. No one answered the bell. She tried again. Still nothing. Knocked, then knocked a bit louder. “Maybe they’re not home,” she said hopefully.

“You git,” Tevin said. “They’re always home. Mum says they haven’t left the house for years. Come on.”

He led the way back to the side door and peered through the gap left by the broken glass. The hallway was dark, as was the main room beyond, although he thought he could make out the flickering of a television. He heard voices but decided that those came from the telly as well. He tapped on the aluminium door frame. “Mr. Tregennis? It’s Tevin Roundhay. From next door? We’re really sorry, but my sister broke the glass on your door.” He paused, listening, but there was no movement from inside the house. “Mr. Tregennis?” Nothing. Many times the children had heard the brothers fighting—they had loud, frequent rows—but now only the faint sound of the television came from within.

“Now what?” asked Annora.

“Stay here,” Tevin said.

“What, you’re not going in there?” Annora was aghast.

“How else do you expect to get the ball back, stupid?” Tevin asked scornfully. “Stay here and shut up.”

Annora knew that it was her job to get the ball, but ringing the bell and copping to the window was one thing; trespassing inside the scary neighbours’ house was something else entirely. Besides, taking care of his little sister was Tevin’s job. Mum and Grandpa and even Tevin himself were quite firm on that point. Still. There were those rumours… “What if it’s true that they eat—”

“Shut up,” Tevin hissed. He tried the door handle, but it was locked, so he carefully reached inside around the broken glass and after a bit of fiddling found the latch. Inside a sharp, unpleasant, vaguely chemical smell filled his nose. Tevin felt instinctively that it was unsafe, but he was only going to be there for a second. Just long enough to get the ball. The brothers habitually kept their blinds drawn and the drapes shut, so although it was a gloomy day it took a bit of blinking in the dark before his eyes adjusted enough and he spotted the ball where it had rolled to the end of the side entry hall. Tevin took a determined breath, felt a tingling sensation in his nose and mouth, his heart banged frantically in his chest, and then everything went black.

* * * * *

John used his elbows to shut off the taps in the exam room sink and reached for the paper towels. He’d just tossed them when the nurse tapped the open door and stuck her head in.

“Mrs. Roundhay and the kids are here,” she said.

“Great,” John said with a pleased smile. “Thanks. Send them right in.”

The Royal Free Hospital’s walk-in clinic was a first-come, first-served affair, but when the staff brought word to Doctor Watson that the Roundhays had ‘a bit of an emergency,’ as Mrs. Roundhay had put it, he’d left instructions that she was to be shown in immediately upon arrival.

Superhero schedule permitting, John tried to volunteer at the free clinic at least one Saturday each month. While the work was generally light and almost without exception routine, it kept him in practice and got him out of the flat to pursue his own affairs. Not for the world would he trade his life with Sherlock Holmes, but all the same his well-developed sense of independence required these occasional respites from Sherlock’s dominant personality and all-consuming focus on their cases, compelling though they were.

His work at the Free Clinic also put him into irregular contact with Major Arthur Peabody, a Korean War veteran and one of John’s favorite patients. One of his favorite people, if it came to that. The Major’s daughter, Sarah Roundhay, a divorced bookkeeper for a City bakery, also took advantage of the hospital’s free clinic for her kids’ sake. A somewhat harassed but conscientious single mum, she took great care of her kids’ physical well-being, but what John approved of even more were her high standards for their education. The Roundhay children were well-mannered and bright, the sort of kids he could talk to almost as though they were adults. He envied them, in a way: They were fond of each other, and the boy was protective of his little sister, the way John believed firmly that a big brother should be. The way he’d tried to be for Harry.

Mrs. Roundhay stepped into the room, just managing to keep the children in check, but the instant they spied John they skipped past her.

“Doctor John!” Annora cried, running up and throwing her arms around him.

Tevin was more circumspect—blokes didn’t hug each other—but he was just as pleased to see their friend the Doctor and extended his hand like a gentleman. “Hello, Doctor John,” he said politely.

Tevin appreciated the way Doctor John treated him and Annora like grown-ups, never talking down to them and always making a point of asking after their grandfather. He was great friends with Grandpa, although nothing like as old. They’d both been soldiers, but Tevin wasn’t quite clear on which war they’d been in or even whether they were in the same war. He was very urgent to know whether Grandpa had killed people when he was a soldier, but Mum said it would be unforgivably rude to ask, and Tevin knew that the same rule applied even more forcefully to Doctor John. Besides, he thought it unlikely that someone as gentle and kind as Doctor John could ever hurt someone, even in a war.

For her part, Annora idolized Doctor John. She wanted very much to be a veterinarian when she grew up, and he encouraged her without reserve—and Tevin, too, for that matter—to study hard in school and to concentrate on math and science. She liked to have his blessing on that count because some of her friends thought it was silly and gross to study bugs and dirt and read all the time, and she could always reply loftily to them, “Doctor John says science is a good thing.”

Hugs and handshakes dispensed with, John closed the door and said, “Come in. Sit down. Sit down. How’s your grandpa?”

“Dad’s doing great,” Mrs. Roundhay said.

“He’s taking us to dinner at Red Lobster tomorrow night,” Annora announced happily.

“You tell him I said hello,” John said to her with a smile, then turned to her mum. “Now. What’s all this about an emergency?”

Tevin looked at the floor and Annora elbowed him. “Tevin fainted,” she said.

“Shut up,” Tevin whispered fiercely, and elbowed her back.

“Fainted?” John said with a frown. He looked at Mrs. Roundhay. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Around lunchtime,” she said. “About half twelve.”

John glanced at his watch: It was just after three now.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Annora kicked the football through the neighbours’ side door and broke it,” Tevin said, glancing accusingly at Annora.

“Through the door,” John repeated. “Through the glass?”

“Yes,” said Annora, “but it was an accident.”

“Impressive,” John said, and Annora looked pleased.

“We tried to ring the doorbell, but no one answered,” Tevin said, “so I told her to wait and went inside. It smelled all ooky, but I could see where the ball was, so I started to go get it and then I woke up and I was laying on the floor.”

“Ooky,” John said. “What do you mean by ‘ooky’?”

Tevin shrugged. He didn’t really have a good explanation for the smell and it was hours ago. “It was kind of…It was like…It was ooky,” he finished lamely.

“Did you smell it?” John asked Annora.

“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding.

“Don’t be rude, Annora,” Mrs. Roundhay put in. “Say ‘yes’ or ’no,’ not ‘uh-huh.’”

“Yes,” Annora said. “It was kind of tangy and made my mouth buzz.”

“But it didn’t make you faint, or make you dizzy?” John asked.

“No,” said Annora. “I held my breath. And I put my shirt over my nose. Then I helped Tevin get out of the house.”

“Clever girl,” John said.

“At first I didn’t realize how serious it was,” Mrs. Roundhay said, “and I went to the neighbours to apologize about the door, but when I got back he said he had a headache and felt a little dizzy. That’s when they finally told me about the fainting.” She frowned at them. “If I’d known that of course I wouldn’t have worried about apologizing. We’d have come straight away.”

“Of course,” John said. “Well, let’s look under the hood. Hop up here, Tevin” he said, and patted the exam table. “Sounds perfectly normal,” he decided when he’d listened carefully to the boy’s heart. “How’s your headache now?”

“Fine,” Tevin said.

“What do you think it was?” Mrs. Roundhay asked worriedly. “Carbon monoxide?”

John shook his head. “Probably not,” he said. “It’s odourless and it’s heavier than air. If Tevin started to recover when he was lying on the floor it’s likely that whatever he was breathing was less concentrated there, so I’d rule out carbon monoxide.” He considered. “That’s assuming that the source of the smell caused the fainting. What about the people who live there? How are they?”

Mrs. Roundhay shook her head almost imperceptibly and gave him a meaningful look.

John took the hint. “Tell you what,” he said to the kids. “Why don’t I take a look at you guys now, and then your mum and I will talk, okay?”

Mrs. Roundhay nodded an assent.

John added checks of his blood pressure, respiration, eyes, and ears to Tevin’s exam, then repeated the inspection with Annora, finishing with a check of her blood pressure. “Do you know what this is called?” he asked her as he held up the cuff, tubing, and bulb.

“Huh-uh,” she said. “I mean, ‘no.’ But it’s to do blood pressure. Right?”

“Exactly,” John said. “It’s got a long name. It’s a sphygmomanometer.”

She giggled. “No way.”

“Way. This is the cuff,” he said, showing her. “This is the bulb, and this is the dial where we read your blood pressure.” He wrapped the cuff on her arm.

She tried to repeat the word. “Sphyg…”

He repeated it more slowly: “Sphyg…mom…anometer.”

“Sphygmom…”

“…anometer.”

“Sphygmomanometer.”

“That’s it,” John said with a smile. “I know doctors who can’t say it right. They just call it ’the blood pressure cuff.’”

Annora grinned proudly. “Sphygmomanometer.” She repeated it to herself several times to cement the word in her brain. She was delighted with this information, which she would repeat to impress her grandfather and the stupid girls at school.

With the exams concluded Mrs. Roundhay issued strict orders to Tevin to keep an eye on his sister, and both kids departed for the lobby to wait for her. Annora skipped out holding her brother’s hand and repeating “sphygmomanometer” to herself as they went.

“Okay,” John said when they’d gone. “What happened next door?”

“Well, I went over to apologize and to offer to pay for the glass, but no one answered. I could hear the telly on and—”

“Who lives there?”

“Two brothers. George and Owen Tregennis.” She hesitated, still twisting the straps of her purse. “I should have thought they’d have heard all the commotion by then, but they never answered, so I went inside. They were dead, Doctor Watson.”

* * * * *
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