Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(110)

Usually they caved in after about an hour. After two hours of trudging Morrisey all over Whitechapel and Spitalfields, showing him the most infamous pubs, most of the Ripper murder sites, Alastair’s former clinic, and Annabelle’s Boarding House, he was just beginning to flag.

What is it with this guy?

By the third hour of hoofing it around, she was about to call it off, fearing she’d met her match. Finally he caught her arm, pulled her out of the flow of pedestrian traffic and said in an exhausted voice, “I know what you’re doing. I’ve read all your run reports. This is the ‘orientation tour’ gambit, isn’t it?”



Oops.

“Okay, you got me, boss. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I wanted to see all these places. That’s why I asked you to show them to me.”

“You just wanted to make sure my brain was working right.”

He nodded contritely. “Well, at least now I know the East End fairly well.” He yawned, trying to hide it with his palm.

She put his hand on his shoulder, leaning closer. “Here’s the deal: I work alone. I don’t need a babysitter.” Especially someone who’s not a Rover.

“I know your history, Miss Lassiter, but right now you have a choice of me riding shotgun or wandering around on my own. I ask you, would you turn an apprentice traveler loose on these streets?”

Bull’s-eye. He knew her too well—she would do anything to keep a new Rover safe, even one who wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Throw him a bone and maybe he’ll back off,” Mr. Spider suggested.

Good idea.

“You need sleep, and I need to do some work without you around. Let’s split the difference. I’ll take you to the hotel. We’ll go out together this evening.”

“What are you going to be doing in the meantime?” Morrisey asked, his suspicions clearly aroused.

“Going to an inquest,” she said.

“Oh, that sounds rather benign,” he replied, chagrined. “In that case, I suppose I could use a bit of a rest.”

“Good. Tonight, we go hunting for Fiona. We owe an anarchist his daughter.”

Morrisey nodded, barely stifling another yawn. “Fine. Now get me to a bed before I collapse.”

Works every time.





Chapter 7




Ramsey hammered on the door to Hulme’s rooms in Cheapside. He got a gruff reply granting him entrance. To his surprise, the door was unlocked. That was sloppy. Good coppers made enemies.

Inspector Hulme sat at a small desk in a dark, unventilated room. A half empty bottle of scotch sat in front of him, and a revolver next to that. Perhaps he had more enemies than even Ramsey could imagine.

“What do you want, Inspector?” Hulme asked. He wasn’t slurring his speech, so maybe he’d not been at the liquor that long.

“I want to know why you buggered the Keats investigation.”

Hulme didn’t look up as he topped off the glass. “So what did I do wrong?”

Ramsey listed off the mistakes, raising one thick finger at a time. By the time he hit ten, he quit. “I asked around about you. You’re a good copper. What happened?”

“I did my best,” the man replied in a gruff growl.

“The hell you did,” Ramsey barked. “You ignored evidence a green constable would have found. Why?”

“Makes no difference,” Hulme said, not meeting his eyes.

“It’s a man’s life at stake!”

“Yeah, it is,” Hulme grumbled. “Mine. I had no choice. They told me if I did my job proper, I was in for it.”

“Who?” Ramsey demanded.

“Our betters,” Hulme replied caustically.

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you. That’d only make it worse.”

“Were their names on those cards?”

A nod. “They said they knew everything about me. Everything. So I didn’t do my job, figuring it’d never get to trial. I thought someone would pull strings and get the sergeant off. I never thought—”

“That they’d hang him? Where were you this morning when they were putting the noose around his neck? Tucked in your bed, all safe and sound as a—”



“Goddammit, you don’t understand!” Hulme roared, surging to his feet. “They’ll destroy my career!”

“They don’t have to.” Ramsey snorted. “You did it yourself.”

He saw the truth hit home. Hulme sank down into the chair. Woodenly, he pulled open a drawer in the desk. A black notebook dropped just in front of the revolver.

“It’s Keats’,” Hulme said in a thick voice. “I found it in the alley in Whitechapel.”

“When?”

“The day after Fisher received the sergeant’s alibi. Tell Keats I’m sorry.”

Ramsey collected the item and rifled through it. Inside was the pawn ticket for the sergeant’s boots, the one that had gone “missing.”

“You intentionally hid evidence that might have cleared a fellow officer,” Ramsey seethed. “How can you live with yourself?”

Hulme drifted toward the small window, pushing back the heavy curtain, his braces hanging free. “I can’t. Not anymore. They’ll keep pushing me, using me. I’m done for.”