A Rip Through Time(91)

Is that my link?

“Do you know a young man named Archie Evans?” I ask.

Simon stops midbite to look at me. “Uh, yes. The fellow that raven killer murdered. You helped Dr. Gray with the body, did you not? Alice said so.” He peers at me. “Are your new memories affected as well?”

“I meant did you know him before he was murdered?”

His eyes narrow. “What are you implying, Cat?”

“I am wondering whether I had a connection to him. He seemed familiar.”

Simon relaxes and shrugs. “He wrote for the Evening Courant. I’ve read the paper to you many a time, and I may have mentioned him as the writer.”

“Did I ever mention him?”

“Not that I recall.”

“He lived with a group of radicalized students. Anti-immigration, anti–anyone who does not look and act like them.”

“Are you suggesting you might have hobnobbed with the likes of them?”

“I hope not, but I don’t remember.”

He shakes his head firmly. “You have many faults, Cat, but if bigotry were one of them, we could hardly be friends. It is not.”

Well, score one for Catriona. But I also must wonder how well Simon really knew Catriona. He seems like a sweet kid, and when he mentioned Alice, he seemed fond of her. Did he know Catriona abused her? I doubt it, which makes me wonder whether Evans’s group really could be the key, and Catriona just knew enough to keep her bigotry from Simon. She was, after all, a master at showing people what they wanted to see.

With that, I hit a brick wall. Simon has nothing for me, and I chat a little longer—not wanting him to feel interrogated and dismissed—before I yawn and declare it past time for bed.



* * *



I see the glimmer of a lead in the cord connecting Archie Evans to his killer and possibly to Catriona. That realization has me up just before the clock downstairs strikes five. I leap from bed with the morning light, dress, tear into the hall, and promptly collide with poor Alice coming to wake me. A quick apology, and then I’m racing down the stairs to begin my day by taking Gray his breakfast tray. He’s already up, according to Mrs. Wallace, and I skip my morning bread and tea to take his tray to his room.

“Wouldn’t want the master’s coffee getting cold,” I say when Mrs. Wallace grumbles at me for yanking it from her hands.

I take the stairs as fast as I can without toppling the coffeepot. At Gray’s door, I pause and inhale. Then I tap and await the invitation before entering.

Gray is hard at work, and seeing that, I have to smile. It’s not just the “hard at work before 6:00 A.M.” part, which is normal for him. It’s the fact that he appears to have done little more than roll from his bed to his desk chair, with the coverlet still draped around his shoulders.

“Might I hope you are in an appropriate state of dress under that, sir?” I ask.

He only grunts, which means it could go either way. I set down the tray and start the fire. I’m so much better at this now, my inner Girl Guide beaming with pride. It helps to make sure the fire is prepped before he retires to bed. It also helps if he doesn’t decide to light it at night and work into the wee hours.

I have it going quickly, and by then, he’s let the coverlet fall to show, yes, he’s decent, with his shirt mostly buttoned. He shrugged off the coverlet without stopping his writing, and I pick it up and begin folding. He gives a grunt that seems to mean he’ll do that, but I keep going, neatly folding it and then picking up his socks and laying them out for him. That morning, I am maid-of-the-month material, for the same reason I came racing up with his breakfast.

When I decide I’ve been solicitous enough to lower his defenses, I say, “Might we discuss the case, sir?”

He keeps writing, and my mood drops a notch. I’m about to try again, maybe ask if there’s a time we can discuss it, when he taps his pen into the holder and swivels in his chair.

“You have thoughts?” he says.

I perk up. “I do, sir. I would like to return to the first victim, Archie Evans.”

He frowns. “Evans?”

“We have not yet ascertained the purpose of the torture. What information was the killer trying to extract? It suggests Evans knew his killer.”

The frown deepens. “It does?”

“Yes.” Here I stumble, because I can’t tell Gray what I think the killer wanted and how that proves a personal connection. “I believe we should consider the very strong possibility that they knew one another.”

His gaze slips back to his notebook, and I feel the ground under my feet eroding.

“I suppose that is a possibility,” he says slowly. “Why don’t you think more on it, Catriona, and present your theory to Detective McCreadie at tea this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?”

“Yes.” Gray is already turning back to his work. “As much as I would like to pursue the case sooner, I have a paper due, and I have fallen behind. I hope to have time for an investigative update at tea. Tell my sister, please, in case she would care to join us.”

With that, he turns back to his work, and I am dismissed.



* * *



I start my dusting in the library, so I can pen a note to Isla, imploring her to allow me a half day off to pursue a lead. I also request a half hour of her time, so I can get advice on how to proceed. I know what I want to do. I’m less certain how to do it in this era.