A Rip Through Time(110)

Wait. No. There is something else that would betray me, and I only realize it now. My case notes. I’ve been hiding them under that floorboard. Yes, Alice knows where it is, but if she found the notes, she’d think nothing of them—after all, I have been helping Gray and McCreadie with the case. But if the killer came into my room, wanting to prove to himself that I was not Catriona, those notes would do it.

Here I’m looking for a similar telltale sign. What I find is something altogether different.

I’ve done enough searches as a cop to scan a room and know where to look first. In the living room, it’s the settee—an old and ratty thing, the Victorian equivalent of a Goodwill find.

I check the back, looking for holes. I check the cushions. Then I flip it over to find a tear that’s been enlarged. Reach in. Root around. Pull out a small notebook.

I open to the first pages and see handwriting that looks like that on the back of Evans’s note—the information about Catriona. I take the note from my pocket to check. Yep, same script.

The book is Findlay’s case notes. The keen young constable eager to improve his craft, laboriously detailing every aspect of a case, particularly when McCreadie made a connection or uncovered a clue. A personal how-to manual for becoming a detective, and looking at it, I see myself reflected in these pages. I’d been this kind of constable. After helping on a case, I’d write up these notes on my computer and research anything I didn’t understand. Teaching myself how to be a detective.

I flip through the pages. Three-quarters of the way through, the handwriting changes. Oh, it’s not a marked change. It could pass for the other writing, if the author was in a hurry or writing on an awkward surface. Yet I don’t see that. I see someone trying to emulate the original handwriting, with all the stops and starts of practice before the script smooths out.

In these pages, the writer is no longer detailing his job; he’s detailing his life. My grandfather—on my dad’s side—had Alzheimer’s, and he kept a journal just like this. Reminders to himself that became increasingly heartbreaking as the disease sank its claws into him. At first, it was just regular notes like I might jot in my planner. Dentist appointment—ask about left top molar. Recycling is now the first and third weeks of the month. New parking spot is 18A. But then it became more. The names of people my grandfather knew. Reminders to do daily tasks, like showering. And finally, reminders of himself, of who he was.

That is what I see here. Those later stages. Copious notes on who Findlay was, everything about him and his job and who he might encounter on a daily basis. There are blank spaces where the imposter can come back and fill things in. There’s an entire page on McCreadie, starting with his name and appearance and a few personal details, some of which I know, most I don’t—lives alone, never married, engaged once, workaholic, ambitious, estranged from wealthy family. More has been added later, everything from McCreadie’s home address to how he takes his tea to his relationships with others.

I stare down at the page and my breathing catches enough that I need to take a moment to calm my racing heart. This is what I was looking for. More than I dared hope for. It’s like finding the imposter actually did write a diary of his time-travel adventures.

The first part of the book is Constable Colin Findlay’s notes for becoming a detective. The second part is the imposter’s notes for becoming Constable Colin Findlay.





THIRTY-NINE


With this journal, I am not only certain that the twenty-first-century killer inhabits Findlay, I’m also certain that I was right about why he tortured Evans. In the early notes, I see the sort of specific data plus random facts I might expect Evans to know if he’d been friendly with Findlay. Also the sort of information he couldn’t expect Evans to give him over a pint at the local pub.

What do I know about your boss? What kind of question is that, mate?

This data dump required more. It required a poor guy, terrorized and in pain, racking his brain for more to give.

Wait! You mentioned once that your boss didn’t get on with his family. That he came from money and something happened. You didn’t say what—it was an offhand comment.

That’s what I see in these pages. Tell me everything I’ve said about Detective McCreadie. About my sergeant. About my coworkers and my friends and my landlords. Every tidbit, no matter how small.

There’s more, too. The same things my grandfather would have noted about his daily life and routines. What was going through Evans’s mind when Findlay asked these questions? The most banal and obvious aspects of ordinary life, everything from clothing to customs to the value of currency. All the same questions I’ve been struggling with myself. The questions of a stranger in a strange land. A time traveler in a new time.

If there was any—any—possible way I could read these pages and come up with another explanation, like early memory loss, it’s erased by the terminology itself, with words like “workaholic.” This was written by someone from my world. By the asshole who tried to kill me and then ended up in Findlay’s body.

My twenty-first-century attacker is in the body of Constable Colin Findlay. Does that mean Findlay is in his body? Maybe so, but it doesn’t mean anything for this case. It’s just idle speculation.

Earlier, when I considered Findlay as a possibility, I’d wondered at everything he seemed to know—his comments on McCreadie, his job, Gray, all of which made him seem to be the real Findlay. It’s all in here. There’s nothing he mentioned, even in passing, that I don’t see in these pages.