A Rip Through Time(87)

“You are blocking our path,” he says.

She leans around him to look at me. “Do I even want to ask what you’re doing?”

“Science,” I say.

“I see. And more specifically?”

“The killer moved Rose’s body after he strangled her,” I say. “Before he inflicted the other wounds. She’s roughly my weight, and the killer I saw is smaller than Dr. Gray, so this will provide some idea of how far he could have carried her.”

“Up a flight of stairs?”

“I am accounting for the elevation progression within the city,” Gray says. “Also whether it would have proved overly difficult to carry her down stairs. First, I must get her up them.”

“Uh-huh. Well, do not let Mrs. Wallace see you carrying Catriona over your shoulder. I shudder to imagine what she’d think.”

“I shall explain.”

“No, please don’t. Finish your experiment and join me in the library for tea.”

“Is that an order?” Gray says.

“It is. I invited Hugh to join us, so we may hear his update and share yours.”

“We are very busy, Isla. I am not certain we have time for tea.”

“I picked up cream pastries this morning. Also, coffee, for Catriona, so she may no longer need to sip piteously at your dregs.”

“He hadn’t touched the coffee I drank,” I say. “Which isn’t to say his dregs aren’t tempting.”

“Are they now?”

Her eyes glitter, and I’m glad I’m slung over Gray’s shoulder, so I can make a face at her and roll my eyes.

She laughs and pats my shoulder. “Coffee and tea, cream pastries and lemon cake. Five o’clock in the library. Do not be late.”





THIRTY


When we talk to McCreadie, I’m glad I made the choice to stay with Gray. McCreadie’s interview brought him nothing, even with the additional questions we brainstormed.

“I know Duncan has theorized that Evans was tortured,” McCreadie says as he sips his tea. “Which implies a connection between the two men, but if there is such a connection with Rose Wright, I have no idea what it might be. Her sister is a respectable lady. A laundress. Rose helped when she … Well, when she was able. She liked her drink and was often in no shape to assist her sister in the mornings, if you take my meaning.”

He means Rose was an alcoholic whose heavy drinking meant she could rarely rouse herself from bed before noon. It’s tempting to look at someone like Rose and compare her with her industrious and “respectable” sister, but it’s rarely that easy, and I give McCreadie full credit for digging deeper.

Rose was ten years older than her sister. She’d been married, happily enough it seems, and worked in a factory. Five children. The only two who survived infancy both died in the cholera epidemic of 1856, along with her husband. The doctor prescribed laudanum to help with her “nerves”—shockingly, the death of her entire family within a week had sent her into a depression.

From laudanum, Rose moved to alcohol, eventually losing her job and her home, and then going to live with her younger sister, where she helped with the laundry and the children. She went out in the evenings a few times each week, sweeping floors for local shops and then having a drink with friends.

Rose didn’t really clean shops in the evening. McCreadie confirmed that easily enough. She was doing sex work. She’d earn enough for the night’s drinking and bring home a shilling or two, always apologizing that it wasn’t more. I can imagine her planning for it to be more, to bring all those coins to her sister after just one drink.

One drink to take the edge off, banish the ghosts, and boost her self-esteem. One turned into two, which turned into five, and it is a testament to her willpower—or her love for her sister—that she came home with any money at all.

A sad life with a tragic end.

Was there a connection to the killer? My gut says that he needs that. But in this case, he also needed a woman who’d match Polly Nichols close enough to mimic the Ripper. Maybe that was enough. If there was more, it might have only been a passing encounter, like the one we had in the coffee shop.

I’m digging too deep. I know that. Fixating on a connection with the victim. Fixating on the Jack the Ripper connection. Those are distractions. I need to strip them away and focus on the true connection. The one that matters.

Our killer inhabits the body of whoever tried to strangle Catriona a week ago. Forget who’s inside that body. Forget his motives. Find Catriona’s would-be killer, and I can stop him before another Rose dies.



* * *



Our killer is my attempted killer … in the body of Catriona’s attempted killer. Who would want to murder Catriona? I think “who wouldn’t” might be the easier question to answer. She stole from those who tried to help her, like Isla and Gray. Fought with those who trusted her, like Simon. Betrayed those who wooed her, like Findlay. Bullied Alice. Gave Mrs. Wallace endless grief. Double-crossed her allies, like Davina. And those are just the people in her life that I know.

Are any of those betrayals motives for murder? As a cop, I learned that’s a far less useful question than one might think. I’ve known people who killed a partner to escape horrible abuse, and some still insisted that wasn’t a valid motive for murder. I’ve also known a guy who killed his neighbor for having loud dinner parties and a woman who tried to kill a job rival. In neither case would I remotely see motive for murder, but they still tried to convince a jury of it.