A Rip Through Time(59)

My attacker drowns me out, backing into the shadows, hands raised as he bellows, “She tried to rob me. Promised a bit o’ fun and then stabbed me.”

Two men stride down the alley, their gazes fixed on me.

I try again to speak, only to have my attacker drown me out once more, ranting about how he’d been attacked by this “wench,” how I tricked him, stabbed him, look, see his arm?

One of the men grabs for me. I backpedal, and hit the wall. He snatches my bodice and pins me, leaning in, breath reeking of beer. He’s big and brawny, built like a damn blacksmith.

My attacker babbles some more. Then he scoops something from the ground.

“Knife!” I shout. “He’s got a knife!”

“I’ve got your knife, girl,” the blacksmith’s friend says, waving the switchblade. “A wicked little piece, covered in that poor man’s blood.”

I open my mouth. The blacksmith slams me against the wall, my head snapping back into stone. I black out for what only seems like a moment, but the next thing I know, there’s a constable there and my attacker is long gone.

“Wh-what’s happening?” I manage, my head throbbing. “Where is he? He’s the killer. The raven killer.”

“Raven killer?”

Peals of laughter.

“There’s a feather,” I say. “A peacock feather. There on the ground. Look.”

The constable does look. So do I. There’s no feather. That’s what the killer had been grabbing—not the knife but the feather. He also scooped up the paper with Catriona’s name on it.

The blacksmith lifts me off the ground, forearm at my throat, making me choke and sputter.

“You stabbed a man,” he says. “Lured him into this lane and stabbed him. Do you know what happens to girls who think they can bat their lashes and then murder a man for a few bob? It’s the gallows for you.” He leers down at me. “Unless you’d like to give us a reason to let you go.”

“Now, now,” the constable says. He’s around forty, broad-shouldered and whiskered. “There’ll be none of that. She will pay for her crime in the proper way.” He strides to the blacksmith. “Help me escort her to the police office.”

The man hesitates as his gaze drops to my neckline. The constable pulls out a wooden baton, keeping it at his side, a subtle threat.

“Let her go, Bill,” says the blacksmith’s friend. “We don’t want trouble.”

Bill turns his head and spits. Then he backs up, letting me crumple to the ground.

“You want her, take her,” Bill says, strolling away, waving for his friend to follow. “But you’ll need to get the little she-devil to the police office yourself.”

The constable watches them go. Then he turns to me. He doesn’t say a word, just lifts the billy club in warning. I resist the urge to argue my case. I don’t consider fleeing. I wouldn’t get far, and it would only make this worse.

I rise and lift my hands. “Just tell me where you want me to go.”

He points his club down the lane, and I start walking.





TWENTY-ONE


I’m soon glad I didn’t try to escape. We don’t even make it to the end of the alley before a young constable comes running to help. I’m tempted to ask how they manage that without radios, but professional curiosity will have to wait. Once the second constable joins, I plead my case again. I don’t stop walking. Don’t resist arrest. I just try to explain.

I leave out the part about my attacker being the raven killer. The reaction last time makes me regret saying that. Without the feather, I have no proof. I’ll save that part for McCreadie and Gray.

Instead, I say that I heard what sounded like a child’s cries, and went into the lane to find a pile of rags. I was attacked by a masked man with a rope. I had a knife to defend myself, and I stabbed him with it. That’s when the two men came.

“I saw no mask,” says the older constable.

“Did you see his face?” I ask.

The younger constable jabs me hard in the back with his baton. “Watch your tongue. You’re in enough trouble already. You admitted to stabbing a man.”

“Because he attacked me. He tried to strangle me.”

“We don’t know that. We only know you admitted to stabbing him.”

I close my mouth against argument. Save it for someone with seniority. Failing that, save it for McCreadie.

I have no idea what to expect from cops in this era. Hell, while I’d never admit it aloud, half the time I don’t know what to expect from cops in my own era.

Here, I’m a pretty nineteen-year-old girl being led down dark and empty streets by two police officers. I’m lucky the older one didn’t take that blacksmith brute up on his suggestion.

“I am Dr. Duncan Gray’s housemaid,” I say.

“Bully for you,” the younger constable says. “Perhaps you should have stayed in the New Town. Your master finds out where you were, I’ll wager you’ll be out on your arse.”

“I’m asking that he be contacted, please, sir. Either Dr. Gray or Detective McCreadie, who is a good friend of his and who knows me.”

The younger constable growls and pokes me again. “What’s that supposed to mean? It sounded like a threat.”