Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(55)

“No. I don’t think she had time to make the note.”

“Or is it possible that his visit was of a different nature than her other callers?”

“Might have been,” the inspector allowed.

“What steps did you take to verify Sergeant Keats’ alibi?”

“I went to Whitechapel and interviewed some of the locals. I found a woman who had seen him earlier in the evening, before the murder. Crickland was her name.”

“What else did you do?”

“I went to find someone who had seen the prisoner or spoken with him in Ingatestone, where he claimed to be on the seventeenth of this month.”

“Did you have any luck?”

“No.”

“No one at all?”



“No,” Hulme repeated, his eyes downcast.

You’re lying.

“What about the sergeant’s boots?” his lordship pressed. “According to his statement, he pawned them in Ingatestone to gain money to return to London.”

“I talked to the pawnbroker. He said he never saw the prisoner.” Hulme was still avoiding Wescomb’s gaze.

“Did you talk to any of the other pawnbrokers?”

“I was told there weren’t any. Ingatestone isn’t a big town, like London.”

“Yet, just yesterday Inspector Ramsey did find the sergeant’s boots at the exact shop where he said he pawned them.”

“Yes,” Hulme mumbled.

“While in Ingatestone, did you go into the woods to try to locate the coffin in which Sergeant Keats was spirited away from London?”

“No. It’s very dense in that area. It would be a worthless hunt.”

“As a man’s life is on the line, I would argue it would be a hunt worth pursuing,” Wescomb chastised. “Did you at least attempt to verify if any coffins had gone missing the night of Miss Hallcox’s murder?”

“None had.”

“You spoke with the all coffin makers in Whitechapel?”

Hulme’s face tightened. “Most of them.”

“But not all?”

“No.”

“That will be all, Inspector.”

Keats let out a measured sigh. That had been brilliant. Wescomb had proved Hulme wasn’t as thorough as one would expect. Though in principle he disliked such a tactic, undermining the jury’s belief in the competence of the investigating officer was vital in this case.

Arnett rose. “I would like to ask a few follow-up questions, your lordship.”

A nod from Hawkins.

“Inspector, why did you not bother to verify all aspects of the prisoner’s alibi?”



“I know a good story when I see one,” Hulme responded with a smirk. “When the Crickland woman couldn’t remember when she saw him in Whitechapel, and no one else had spied him wandering around the streets, I decided it would be wasted effort to go into the middle of the forest hunting some phantom coffin.”

“So, in essence, you applied your years of experience as a police officer and decided where best to utilize your energies in this investigation.”

Hulme looked relieved at the barrister’s explanation. “That’s right.”

“Is it usual for Scotland Yard to intervene in an active investigation?”

“Doesn’t happen too often.”

“So perhaps the Yard’s involvement in this case had some other motive?”

Wescomb sprung to his feet. “I must protest! The motive is good police work, your lordship.”

“Do you have a genuine question, Mr. Arnett?” Hawkins asked.

“No, your lordship. I no longer need to examine this witness.”

Hulme dragged himself out of the witness box as if he were wearing Keats’ chains. He looked up and their eyes met.

Why are you trying to kill me?





Chapter 18




2057 A.D.

TEM Enterprises

The one called Morrisey didn’t mind if she sat in the wooden building for hours at a time. In fact, he encouraged it. He’d brought her strange food: raw fish and rice and hot, fragrant teas. Some of it she had to eat with sticks and the cups didn’t have handles. She decided she liked that.

Sometimes he would join her, but mostly he left her alone. To her delight, she’d discovered a pond behind the building. Fish lived there, pretty gold and white ones. He’d told her they were called koi. She’d watched them swim in lazy circles, going nowhere. They didn’t seem to mind. She tried touching one, but it skidded away, splashing her.

When she grew bored with the fish, she’d watch the flat expanse of white sand in front of the pagoda. It still wasn’t right. She’d called out to it a couple of times, asking it what was wrong. It didn’t answer. When she’d asked the one called Ralph about that, he said he didn’t understand. She decided not to mention it again.

Morrisey talked to her of healing. She listened, but it made little sense. It seemed to help him, though, so she let him talk. His voice was calming, unlike the other one.

Morrisey told her that Ralph was an old friend, though he didn’t look very old to her. One time when Ralph was talking to her, she remembered a silver box that moved on wheels. She asked him about it. He said that was Sigmund, his DomoBot. She asked if this Sigmund could visit her instead. That had made the one called Ralph angry.