THIRTY-EIGHT
I leave Gray in the kitchen, where he’s puttering about, probably looking for more cake. I slip upstairs and out the back door. The biggest risk here is Simon, in his rooms over the stable, but his light is off, as if he’s out for the evening himself. I still take my time and hide in the shadows long enough to be sure he didn’t hear me and come out to see what I’m up to. Then I hurry to the mews and zip down the lane.
I feel bad about leaving Gray behind. I feel even more bad about leaving Isla, especially after she’s the one who got us the address. I need to deal with that. Discuss options and find a compromise that doesn’t endanger her or swaddle her in cotton. Of course, if I’m right about Findlay, we won’t need to worry about that. McCreadie will take over, and Catriona’s killer will be caught, and—fingers and toes crossed—I will have fulfilled my cosmic assignment and be sent hurtling through the universe to my own time.
I haven’t thought much about that lately. There’s the case, of course, consuming my thoughts. And I’ve been finding my footing in this world. Settling in and feeling it settle around me, glittering with possibilities. There are things I’ll miss, but this is not where I belong. My family, my job, my friends—and hopefully my nan—wait on the other side, and I will get back to them, with this past week tucked into memory, a grand adventure for the ages.
I yank my thoughts back as I hurry along. The streetlights are still on,people making their way home after social visits, dawdling on a pleasant Saturday evening as the clock ticks toward midnight.
Findlay lives here in the New Town. That shouldn’t be so shocking. This case just keeps taking us into the Old Town, as if that’s where everyone who isn’t wealthy lives. Not true. The New Town isn’t like Point Grey in Vancouver, where you can’t buy a house for under two million. It’s more like a suburb where you can easily spend two million, but you can also get a condo for a quarter of that, or rent someone’s nice basement apartment for less than you’d pay in Vancouver proper.
The last is what Findlay is renting. A basement apartment a half mile from Gray and Isla’s place. From what I’ve seen, the Gray family town house lands just above the midway point for New Town home value. The one where Findlay rents the basement would land on the other side of that midway point. It’s half the width of the Robert Street town house, with a very subtleROOM TO LETsign in the front window.
Faint lights glow in the main level, second level, and attic level, with the third dark. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say the owners live on a couple of floors—maybe the first and second—and rent out the rest. A young man on a constable’s salary could afford the basement if he scrimped and really wanted to live in the New Town.
The problem with a basement apartment is that I can’t tell whether Findlay is at home. From the front, the lower level is completely black, with no obvious windows. I round the street to the mews, where I count town houses to find the right one.
These being less affluent homes, they don’t get individual stables. There seems to be a communal one for horses and then a small garden courtyard behind each house. That makes sneaking up tricky. I’m glad I chose to wear former assistant James’s coat, the dark gray color and length blending me into the shadows. I also brought a hat from Catriona’s meager wardrobe. In the daylight, it’s a jaunty navy blue and quite stylish, which makes me suspect it’s a gift she’d tucked away to pawn at the first opportunity. Either way, it does the job, hiding my light hair, with the brim shadowing my face.
There’s an exterior basement door, with steps up to the garden. Beside it, a dark square might be a window. A clock inside one of the town houses strikes midnight, and as if on cue, several of the brighter lights go out, including the one on the main level of Findlay’s building.
I wait a few minutes, giving whoever is inside time to get to bed. Then I creep forward, sticking to shrubs and a low fence, until I’m close enough to see that, yes, that is definitely a window.
I hunker down and shield the sides of my bonnet, blocking the moonlight. The window stays dark, with no hint of light inside the apartment. I find my knife and clutch it in one hand as I continue on until I’m at the window. Then I bend and peer in. Total darkness. If Findlay is home, he’s gone to bed.
Do I dare break in while he’s sleeping? Yep. I’m going to take that chance, because I’ve already accepted that the worst thing that can happen isn’t that bad after all.
Worst case, Findlay is home and hears me and confronts me. If he is not the killer, then as Catriona—the former sweetheart who double-crossed him—I can pretend I came to beg forgiveness, slipping in during the night to offer more than a mere apology.
And if Findlayisthe imposter-killer? Well, that imposter knows I’m also one, and if he catches me in his house, he’s going to take full advantage of the opportunity to kill me. While that isn’t ideal, I’m not too worried that he’ll succeed. I’ve planned for the possibility of entering the house while he’s there, and I have a couple of crude trigger alert systems in my bag. He’s never getting the jump on me again. The “not ideal” part comes if we fight and I take him captive for McCreadie. How the hell will I explain that? Pitting Findlay’s reputation against Catriona’s, I’m sure to lose.
No, if Findlay is the killer and he catches me, I will fight, and then I will flee, and I’ll tell Gray the truth. Let Gray and McCreadie take it from there.
All contingencies worked out, my next step is getting into the apartment, which is laughably easy. When my parents bought me all those “junior detective” kits, I’d soon discovered that my lock-picking skills didn’t work on anything but the simplest locks, like the bathroom or the old locks at Nan’s house. No children’s toy is going to teach you how to open a modern dead bolt. But ithadopened those doors at Nan’s.
What does that mean? That ten-year-old Mallory Atkinson, honing her lock-picking skills on her grandmother’s doors, had inadvertently been preparing to become a nineteenth-century detective. I open this basement door with no problem.
Once inside, I peer around for the glow of lights. The interior is cold and dark. The next thing is to listen for signs of life. Just the ticking of a clock. Then I bend to check what the floors are made of. I’m wearing my soft-soled indoor boots, but they still make some noise on hard floors. While I could remove them, I’d rather not have to flee in stocking feet. “Time-traveling cop flees killer only to be done in by slippery Victorian stockings” is not the epitaph I care to leave in this world.
From what I can see, the floors are like the basement at the town house—painted wood with lots of throw rugs. I test my tread on the wood. If I’m careless, it’ll make a swishing sound, but I don’t plan to be careless.
I shut the door without closing it completely, in case I need to make a run for it. Then I take out a box of wooden matches I swiped from the kitchen. It’s pitch-black in the hall, and I need that match light. I hold it up to see a corridor with multiple closed doors. Again, not ideal, but if he’s sleeping, I’d rather his door is shut.
I make my way down the hall. At each door, I pause, listen, and then crack it open. Room one is a tiny kitchen. Room two is a sitting area. Room three has a sign readingLANDLORD STORAGE. I open it anyway to confirm that, yes, it’s storage. The next room is the same. Okay, so this is a really tiny apartment, half the space used by the owners.
There’s only one more room, at the front of the house. No water closet, apparently. That’s Victorian basement living for you. I take extra time with this last door, which must be the bedroom. When I finally have it open enough to see inside, I send up a whispered “Thank you” into the cosmos. The room is empty. Findlay isn’t home.
Back to the external door, which is the only exit. If there’d once been an interior staircase, access has been removed. I close the external door and set up my alert system.
Now that I’m definitely alone, I can light the candle I brought. I even absconded with a tiny candleholder, the sort one might see in an old gothic, the timid maiden making her way through the dark house, candlelight wavering.
My first stop is the kitchen. That’s where the window is, so I need to get through this quickly, in case Findlay returns and sees the soft light. This being the kitchen, that’s easy. There’s nothing here. Almost literallynothing. Findlay might not go out drinking with his mates, but he isn’t cooking at home either. There are some basic foodstuffs and nothing more.
I shut the kitchen door as I leave, to be sure no light can be seen through the window. I hesitate at the storage rooms. If I wanted to hide something, would that be a good or lousy place to do it? Depends on how often my landlords took stuff out. If Findlay is the imposter, he won’t know that, so I’m going to deduce he wouldn’t take a chance.
What exactlydoI hope to find? I’ve been wondering that since I first considered searching Simon’s apartment over the stables. What could I find to prove the resident is actually a twenty-first-century time traveler? That should be easy. Just turn the spotlight on myself. How would someone searching Catriona’s rooms realize she was from the future? Short answer: they wouldn’t. I brought nothing with me. Neither did he. And neither of us is going to be comfortable enough in this world to keep a diary.
Based on my room, there is no way anyone could tell that I’m from the future. So flip the question. How would someone know I wasn’t Catriona? Again, the short answer is that they wouldn’t, because I need tobeCatriona. I’m not at the stage of storing away her belongings or buying ones better suited to my tastes. There is only one thing in my room to suggest I’m not Catriona: the French book on poisons. Even that is hardly proof. Hell, Catrionamightread that, if she was looking to kill someone.