A Rip Through Time(103)
Flip that note from Evans’s room then. For the moment, forget the threat against Catriona and return to the list of addresses. If the killer was Simon, I could see no obvious connection to the addresses of immigrants, so I’d brushed off the note as circumstantial. Simon just happened to write on the back of those addresses, which Evans had been sharing with a third party. But if the killer is not Simon, is it still coincidental?
Evans was sharing or selling information about his housemates. Why addresses? Were they targets? That makes sense. His asshole roommates are compiling addresses to target the residents with hate crimes or other persecution.
The first two had been crossed off. Removed from the list of possibilities? Or already “dealt with.” There had been a date beside the toy shop. Was that when they intended to act?
Who would Evans share that with? And why? Another group wanting to beat them to the punch? A rival proto-Nazi frat? Like a sick pledge challenge—see who can torch the most immigrant homes and businesses?
Unlikely. It’s not as if there are only five immigrant homes and businesses in the city. This might not be Vancouver, but if you include the Irish fleeing the potato famines, I’m going to put immigrants at five percent of the population. That means one in every twenty households fits their definition of outsiders. You can damn well find some yourself without buying a list from some reporter.
So what value is the list?
I remember the date beside the toy shop. We’re past that date, and there was no sign of damage to the shop. That gives me an idea, and if I’m right, another clue, floating in the ether, seemingly meaningless, will clunk into place.
I need to confirm my suspicion. Can I get to the toy shop and back before tea? I check the clock. I’m cutting it close—very close—but the store will be closed afterward, and every wasted day is another chance for the killer to take his next Jack the Ripper–style victim.
I hurry into the library and pen a quick note for Isla. I don’t try to find her—she’d want to join me and then I really would be late for tea. I grab a few coins from Catriona’s stash, and I’m off.
THIRTY-SIX
The toy shop truly is a wonderland of a place. From the outside, it looks like a high-end store in the modern world, where the toys are really meant for adults to display as whimsical accents or to place high on nursery shelves where grubby hands can’t actually reach them. When I step inside, though, I find actual children milling about under the watchful but kindly eye of a shop clerk.
The clerk is a woman around thirty. Dark-haired and dark-eyed and full-figured. She’s smiling at a trio of girls ogling a fully articulated wooden doll.
“You may touch her if you like,” she says. “Go on. Pick her up. See how her arms and legs move.”
I walk to the counter, and she smiles my way, but it’s an absent smile, her attention on the children, enjoying the sight of their wonder. I pause to enjoy it, too, and I feel the weight of the coins in my pocket.
I take out the coins, push them forward, and whisper “Would this be enough?” as I nod toward the girls. The woman glances at the coins and her face lights, only to shutter as she eyes me warily.
“I truly would like to,” I say. “If it is enough.”
She nods and moves from behind the counter, skirts swishing as she bends beside the girls and whispers to them. They look at me, their eyes widening. She directs their attention to three smaller dolls, not quite as fancy. The girls nod and point. They will take one small doll apiece instead of the one large one to share.
The shopkeeper wraps each doll in blank newsprint as carefully as the New Town shopkeeper wrapped that hand cream in tissue. Then she presents one to each girl. She bends before them and says, “You are to tell your parents that there was a kind woman at the toy shop who bought these for you, and if they have any questions, they may speak to me.”
The girls haven’t looked at me since first glancing my way, and now all three murmur awkward thanks before running to the door, doll packages cradled in their arms. Before they leave, one blurts back at me, “You are very pretty, miss,” and another says, “I like your dress,” while the third only giggles and waves. Then they are gone, scampering off down the street.
“That was very kind,” the shopkeeper says as she returns behind the counter to count out my change.
When she hands me back coins, I pause. “Was that enough?”
She smiles. “It was. We do not make fancy toys here. Simple and sturdy toys for those who might spare a pence or two for their bairns. Which is not many, even in this neighborhood.”
Her dialect and accent are pure Scots, and so I speak carefully when I say, “Are you one of the Kaplan family?”
She tenses, and a sliver of annoyance edges into her voice as she says, “Do I not sound as you expected?”
“No, I am only making sure, because I have a message for the Kaplan family and I did not wish to misdeliver it.”
Now her body goes rigid, gaze darting to a door, which I presume leads to a workshop. Through it comes the muffled tap-tapping of a craftsman at work.
“Not that sort of message,” I say quickly. “I found this shop on a list of addresses that I fear may indicate danger. Addresses of immigrants, written by those who may mean them harm.”
She relaxes. “Ah, all right then. Well, I thank you very much for the warning, but the police have already been informed and thwarted whatever those ruffians had in mind.”