A Rip Through Time(28)

I look at that grimy window and try not to shudder. You’d need to pay me to drink anything served in there.

“All right, so I was spotted in that … establishment,” I say.

“Spotted leaving it,” he corrects. “The proprietor would not confirm you had been a patron.”

“But I presumably was. Then I came out and was pushed into this alley here, where I was hit on the head and strangled. Or I was strangled and struck my head in falling.”

I drift into memories again, trying to remember exactly what I’d heard and seen. A shadowed figure throttling Catriona. She’d been conscious, so she must have hit her head when she fell.

Stop that. Solving the attack on her isn’t my business. Getting home is my business. My only purpose in being at this spot.

I start to walk down the alley and halt. I don’t want to cross through time with Gray standing right there. I owe him better than that. I stop short and wave my hand. “Do you know precisely where I fell?”

He shakes his head. “You were not discovered for several hours. When you were, it was by a passing constable. He recognized you—having seen you once before with young Findlay.”

Constable Findlay? Detective McCreadie’s assistant?

I open my mouth to ask why I’d been with Findlay, but then I remember yesterday, when McCreadie had seemed to expect that Findlay might wish to speak to me. I’d thought it might be a romantic entanglement. They were of an age, and Findlay would be a good social match for Catriona.

Gray continues. “Recognizing you, this constable sent for me, and I attended you here before bringing you home.”

“No one had noticed me missing?”

“It was one of your half days off.”

So Catriona had a half day off, and that night, instead of being home in bed, she was here, in this pub, possibly meeting an old colleague, possibly continuing her “felonious” ways.

As a detective, I’d start there. Former—or not-so-former—thief gets attacked leaving a black-market dive bar. While it’s possible it was a random attack, it’s more likely connected to her criminal endeavors. She pissed someone off. Double-crossed someone. Or even just refused a gig, that classic “one more job.”

Of course, none of this matters to me. I’d love to solve the attack on Catriona, as an apology for borrowing her body. But even if the answer miraculously fell from the sky, I doubt her attacker would ever see justice. She’s only a maid, and this was only a physical assault in a neighborhood where it might happen to anyone alone at night.

I suppose Catriona figured she could take care of herself. Just like the detective who ran into this alley a hundred and fifty years from now, alone at night, following the cries of a woman in distress.

Seems we both aren’t as street-savvy as we thought.

I turn to Gray. “Thank you, sir, for bringing me here. I think I shall linger and see whether any memories return.”

“Leave you here?” He looks around in horror. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s daytime, sir. I will be fine.”

“In the very spot where you were brutally attacked and left for dead? No, look around all you wish. I shall wait.”



* * *



I don’t let Gray wait. Oh, I can’t convince him to leave. McCreadie grumbled about Gray’s sister being stubborn. Apparently, it’s a family trait, and when a man of Gray’s size decides to park himself somewhere, he stays parked. I won’t try to cross through time with him watching, so the only way for me to break the impasse is to pretend to skulk about with dramatic pauses for deep contemplation and deeper sighs before declaring I remember nothing.

“We will head back through the market,” he says. “I’ll leave you there to do your shopping.”

“Shopping?”

“Spending some of your quarterly wages.”

“And what would I spend it on?”

He throws up his hands. “Confits? Ribbons? A new bonnet. Whatever you like.”

Candies and pretty bows? Is that truly where he imagines a housemaid’s salary goes? In his defense, maybe he hopes it does. Catriona’s daily needs are covered—food, shelter, uniform, and such—and so he expects wages to be like pocket money.

If I were a maid, I know exactly what I’d do with my salary. I’d save it up in hopes that I wouldn’t be scrubbing chamber pots into my twilight years.

While I don’t actually have any wages to spend, I’ll let Gray escort me to the market. Once he leaves me to shop, I’ll sneak back to that alley.

This neighborhood is known as the Grassmarket because it used to be the main market for Edinburgh. It’s now more of a hodgepodge of shops and tenement housing, all of which have seen better days—hell, better centuries—but there’s also an open market space with stalls, and there’s where we go.

I expect Gray to deposit me at the edge, but he seems quite content to wander at my side. That is, he’s content to do so until a cart of antique books catches his eyes.

“Is that Paré’s plague treatise?” he murmurs to himself as he wanders off.

“Thank you, sir!” I call after him. “I shall see my own way home this eve!”

Unfortunately, the sound of my voice reminds him of my existence. Gaze still half on that book cart, he takes two long strides my way as he roots in his pocket. When he reaches me, he passes over a coin.